his shoulders was an
insult to the flame. And yet the flame burned with serene and terrible
pureness.

It was surprising that no one saw it passing along the mean, black,
smoke-palled streets that huddle about Saint Luke's Church. Sundry
experienced and fat old women were standing or sitting at their cottage
doors, one or two smoking cutties. But even they, who in child-bed and
at gravesides had been at the very core of life for long years, they,
who saw more than most, could only see a fresh lad passing along, with
fair hair and a clear complexion, and gawky knees and elbows, a fierce,
rapt expression on his straightforward, good-natured face. Some knew
that it was "Clayhanger's lad," a nice-behaved young gentleman, and the
spitten image of his poor mother. They all knew what a lad is--the feel
of his young skin under his "duds," the capricious freedom of his
movements, his sudden madnesses and shoutings and tendernesses, and the
exceeding power of his unconscious wistful charm. They could divine all
that in a glance. But they could not see the mysterious and holy flame
of the desire for self-perfection blazing within that tousled head. And
if Edwin had suspected that anybody could indeed perceive it, he would
have whipped it out for shame, though the repudiation had meant
everlasting death. Such is youth in the Five Towns, if not elsewhere.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THREE.

ENTRY INTO THE WORLD.

Edwin came steeply out of the cinder-strewn back streets by Woodisun
Bank [hill] into Duck Square, nearly at the junction of Trafalgar Road
and Wedgwood Street. A few yards down Woodisun Bank, cocks and hens
were scurrying, with necks horizontal, from all quarters, and were even
flying, to the call of a little old woman who threw grain from the top
step of her porch. On the level of the narrow pavement stood an immense
constable, clad in white trousers, with a gun under his arm for the
killing of mad dogs; he was talking to the woman, and their two heads
were exactly at the same height. On a pair of small double gates near
the old woman's cottage were painted the words, "Steam Printing Works.
No admittance except on business." And from as far as Duck Square could
be heard the puff-puff which proved the use of steam in this works to
which idlers and mere pleasure-seekers were forbidden access.

Duck Square was one of the oldest, if the least imposing, of all the
public places in Bursley. It had no traffic acr