Bildungsromans; Blind -- Fiction; Parent and child -- Fiction; Young men -- Fiction
Then we went to the station and got a cab, and with B. G. on the box
and Seymour and I behind we set off, B. G. with posters stuck through
his umbrella, and dead white from excitement. We went by the byways
shouting and screaming till we came to the top of the High Street. We
then turned down this; by this time all of us were worked up and quite
mad, and eventually came to the Cross again, where we passed the
Socialists who were collected in a meeting. They cheered and hooted,
and we went round the same way only shorter, and after going down the
High Street, turned down towards Noat, where we soon picked up six or
so Noatians. With them we returned, some running, with a rattle making
a deafening din. We passed the Labour and Socialist meeting on the
“Out” road of the railway station, and went over the railway bridge,
where we paid off the cab. We then returned in a body past the meeting,
which broke up and followed across the cross-roads, pelting us with
rolled-up rags, etc. Then at the corner of the road to Noat we formed a
meeting. I was terrified at moments, and wildly exhilarated the rest.
The meeting lasted twenty minutes, questions being asked the whole
time. B. G. did most of the speaking; Seymour and I did a little too.
Woodville harangued the women; he was very good with them. They had
their spokesman, an old labourer, very tub-thumpy, and the whole of
this part of the entertainment is a blur. Looking round in the middle
of it I saw that all the Conservative men and women were formed up
behind us, which was touching. All this time messages were coming from
the fellows on the outside that the people there were talking lovingly
of murder (on us), and matters did look very nasty at one time, but it
worked off. The police came at the end with an inspector and marched us
off, I shaking every man’s hand that I could see. So we returned
shouting madly. It was too wonderful; never to be forgotten.
16 November.
I now understand why men were brave in the war; it was because they
were afraid of being cowards, that fear overcoming that of death. The
crowd in Strand and having to go back into it again and have things
thrown at one--it was terrifying at first for so great a coward as
myself, but great fun when one got hotted up. The women were by far the
worst. One old beldame screamed: “You dirty tykes, you dirty tykes!”
continuously.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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