The evening light was over the market-place; the sun, peering through a pillar of cloudless blue, cut sharply between the straight walls of the Town Hall and a neighbouring chimney, flung itself full upon the tower.
It caught the stones and shot them with myriad lights; it played with the fruit on the stall at the tower’s foot until the apples were red as rubies and the oranges shone like gold. It bathed it, caressed it, enfolded it, and showed the modern things on every side that old friends were, after all, the best, and that fine feathers did not always make the finest birds.
The rest of the market-place was in shadow, purple in the corners and crevices, the faintest blue in the higher air, a haze of golden-grey in the central square. It was full of people standing, for the most part, discussing the events of the day; in the corner by the tower there was a Punch and Judy show, and Maradick could hear the shrill cries of Mr. Punch rising above the general chatter. Over everything there was a delicious scent of all the best things in the world—ripe orchards, flowering lanes, and the sharp pungent breath of the sea; in the golden haze of the evening everything seemed to be waiting, breathlessly, in spite of the noise of voices, for some great moment.
Maradick had never felt so perfectly in tune with the world.
He passed across to the Punch and Judy show, and stood in a corner by the fruit stall under the tower and watched Mr. Punch. That gentleman was in a very bad temper to-night, and he banged with his stick at everything that he could see; poor Judy was in for a bad time, and sank repeatedly beneath the blows which should have slain an ox. Toby looked on very indifferently until it was his turn, when he bit furiously at Mr. Punch’s trousers and showed his teeth, and choked in his frill and behaved like a most ferocious animal. Then there came the policeman, and Mr. Punch was carried, swearing and cursing, off to prison, but in a moment he was back again, as perky as before, and committing murders at the rate of two a minute.
There was a fat baby, held aloft in its mother’s arms, who watched the proceedings with the closest attention; it was intensely serious, its thumb in its mouth, its double chin wrinkling with excitement. Then a smile crept out of its ears and across its cheeks; its mouth opened, and suddenly there came a gurgle of laughter. It crowed with delight, its head fell back on its nurse’s shoulder and its eyes closed with ecstasy; then, with the coming of Jack Ketch and his horrible gallows, it was solemn once more, and it watched the villain’s miserable end with stern approval. There were other babies in the crowd, and bottles had to be swiftly produced in order to stay the cries that came from so sudden an ending. The dying sun danced on Punch’s execution; he dangled frantically in mid-air, Toby barked furiously, and down came the curtain.
The old lady at the fruit stall had watched the performance with great excitement. She was remarkable to look at, and had been in the same place behind the same stall for so many years that people had grown to take her as part of the tower. She wore a red peaked hat, a red skirt, a man’s coat of black velvet, and black mittens; her enormous chin pointed towards her nose, which was hooked like an eagle; nose and chin so nearly met that it was a miracle how she ever opened her mouth at all. She nodded at Maradick and smiled, whilst her hands clicked her needles together, and a bit of grey stocking grew visibly before his eyes.
“It’s a fine show,” she said, “a fine show, and very true to human nature.” Then suddenly looking past him, she screamed in a voice like the whistle of a train: “A-pples and O-ranges—fine ripe grapes!”
Her voice was so close to his ear that it startled him, but he answered her.
“It is good for the children,” he said, shadowing his eyes with his hand, for the sun was beating in his face.