Helen with the High Hand | Page 2

square
miles of monotonous house-roofs, the long scarves of black smoke
which add such interest to the sky of the Five Towns--and, of course,
the gold angel. But I tell you that before the days of the park lovers had

no place to walk in but the cemetery; not the ancient churchyard of St.
Luke's (the rector would like to catch them at it!)--the borough
cemetery! One generation was forced to make love over the tombs of
another--and such tombs!--before the days of the park. That is the
sufficient answer to any criticism of the park.
The highest terrace of the park is a splendid expanse of gravel,
ornamented with flower-beds. At one end is the north bowling-green; at
the other is the south bowling-green; in the middle is a terra-cotta and
glass shelter; and at intervals, against the terra-cotta balustrade, are
arranged rustic seats from which the aged, the enamoured, and the
sedentary can enjoy the gold angel.
Between the southernmost seat and the south bowling-green, on that
Saturday afternoon, stood Mr. James Ollerenshaw. He was watching a
man who earned four-and-sixpence a day by gently toying from time to
time with a roller on the polished surface of the green. Mr. James
Ollerenshaw's age was sixty; but he looked as if he did not care. His
appearance was shabby; but he did not seem to mind. He carried his
hands in the peculiar horizontal pockets of his trousers, and stuck out
his figure, in a way to indicate that he gave permission to all to think of
him exactly what they pleased. Those pockets were characteristic of the
whole costume; their very name is unfamiliar to the twentieth century.
They divide the garment by a fissure whose sides are kept together by
many buttons, and a defection on the part of even a few buttons is apt
to be inconvenient. James Ollerenshaw was one of the last persons in
Bursley to defy fashion in the matter of pockets. His suit was of a
strange hot colour--like a brick which, having become very dirty, has
been imperfectly cleaned and then powdered with sand--made in a hard,
eternal, resistless cloth, after a pattern which has not survived the
apprenticeship of Five Towns' tailors in London. Scarcely anywhere
save on the person of James Ollerenshaw would you see nowadays that
cloth, that tint, those very short coat-tails, that curved opening of the
waistcoat, or those trouser-pockets. The paper turned-down collar, and
the black necktie (of which only one square inch was ever visible), and
the paper cuffs, which finished the tailor-made portion of Mr.
Ollerenshaw, still linger in sporadic profusion. His low, flat-topped hat

was faintly green, as though a delicate fungoid growth were just
budding on its black. His small feet were cloistered in small, thick
boots of glittering brilliance. The colour of his face matched that of his
suit. He had no moustache and no whiskers, but a small, stiff grey
beard was rooted somewhere under his chin. He had kept a good deal
of his hair. He was an undersized man, with short arms and legs, and all
his features--mouth, nose, ears, blue eyes--were small and sharp; his
head, as an entirety, was small. His thin mouth was always tightly shut,
except when he spoke. The general expression of his face was one of
suppressed, sarcastic amusement.
He was always referred to as Jimmy Ollerenshaw, and he may strike
you as what is known as a "character," an oddity. His sudden
appearance at a Royal Levée would assuredly have excited remark, and
even in Bursley he diverged from the ordinary; nevertheless, I must
expressly warn you against imagining Mr. Ollerenshaw as an oddity. It
is the most difficult thing in the world for a man named James not to be
referred to as Jimmy. The temptation to the public is almost irresistible.
Let him have but a wart on his nose, and they will regard it as sufficient
excuse for yielding. I do not think that Mr. Ollerenshaw was
consciously set down as an oddity in his native town. Certainly he did
not so set down himself. Certainly he was incapable of freakishness. By
the town he was respected. His views on cottage property, the state of
trade, and the finances of the borough were listened to with a respectful
absence of comment. He was one of the few who had made cottage
property pay. It was said he owned a mile of cottages in Bursley and
Turnhill. It was said that, after Ephraim Tellwright, he was the richest
man in Bursley. There was a slight resemblance of type between
Ollerenshaw and Tellwright. But Tellwright had buried two wives,
whereas Ollerenshaw had never got within arm's length of a woman.
The town much preferred Ollerenshaw.
After having duly surveyed the