m
it save the chimneys and kilns of earthenware manufactories, the
scaffoldings of pitheads, the ample dome of the rate-collector's
offices, the railway, minarets of non-conformity, sundry undulating
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,