In making the through the Cock Yard to reach Saint Luke’s Square again at the top of it, the only members of the Orgreave whom they encountered were Jimmie and Johnnie, who, on hearing of the of their father and Janet, merely out that their father and Janet were notoriously always getting themselves lost, owing to gross carelessness about whatever they happened to be doing. The youths then departed, saying that the Bursley show was nothing, and that they were going to Hanbridge; they conveyed the idea that Hanbridge was the only place in the world for self-respecting men of fashion. But before leaving they informed Edwin that a fellow at the corner of the Square was letting out rather useful barrels on lease. This fellow proved to be an odd-jobman who had been discharged from the Duke of Wellington in the market-place for consistently language, but whose tongue was such that he had persuaded the landlord on this occasion to let him borrow a dozen empty barrels, and the police to let him dispose them on the pavement. Every barrel was occupied, and, perceiving this, Edwin at once became bold with the barrel-man. He did not comfortably fancy himself perched prominent on a barrel with Hilda Lessways by his side, but he could enjoy talking about it, and he wished to show Hilda that he could be as dashing as those young sparks, Jimmie and Johnnie.  
“Now, mester!” shouted the barrel-man thickly, in response to Edwin’s airy remark, “these ’ere two chaps’ll shunt off for th’ price of a quart!” He indicated a couple of barrel- of his own tribe, who instantly jumped down, their soiled caps. They were part of the barrel-man’s for increasing profits. Edwin could not withdraw. His very forced him to be audacious. By the time he had satisfied the clawing greed of three dirty hands, the two barrels had cost him a shilling. Hilda’s only observation was, as Edwin helped her to the plateau of the barrel: “I do wish they wouldn’t spit on their money.” All barrels being now let to bona fide tenants and paid for, the three men sidled hastily away in order to drink luck to Sunday schools in the Duke of Wellington’s Entire. And Edwin, mounting the barrel next to Hilda’s, was thinking: “I’ve been done over that job. I ought to have got them for sixpence.” He saw how expensive it was, going about with delicately women. Never would he have offered a barrel to Maggie, and even had he done so Maggie would assuredly have said that she could make shift well enough without one.
 
“It’s simply perfect for seeing,” exclaimed Hilda, as he achieved her altitude. Her tone was almost cordial. He felt surprisingly at ease.
 
Two.
The whole Square was now suddenly revealed as a mass of heads, out of which rose banners and pennons that were cruder in even than the frocks and hats of the little girls and the dresses and of their teachers; the men, too, by their neckties, scarves, and rosettes, added colour to colour. All the windows were with the of bright costumes, and from many windows and from every roof that had a flagstaff flags waved heavily against the gorgeous sky. At the bottom of the Square the lorries with infants had been arranged, and each looked like a bank of flowers. The principal bands—that is to say, all the bands that could be trusted—were collected round the red baize platform at the top of the Square, and the vast sun-reflecting euphoniums, , and comets made a glittering circle about the officials and ministers and their wives and women. All , for one day only, fraternised together on that platform; for princes of the royal house, and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of London had urged that it should be so. The Methodists’ parson discovered himself next but one to Father Milton, who on any other day would have been a Popish priest, and whose wooden substitute for a wife was the queen on a chessboard. And on all these the sun blazed torridly.
 
And almost in the middle of the Square an immense purple banner in the dusty breeze, saying in large gold letters, “The Blood of the Lamb,” together with the name of some Sunday school, which Edwin from his barrel could not decipher.
 
Then a white-tied notability on the platform raised his might arm very high, and a called, and a voice that had filled fields in exciting times of religious floated in thunder across the enclosed Square, easily dominating it—
 
“Let us sing.”
 
And the conductor of the eager massed bands set them free with a gesture, and after they had played a stave, a small at the back of the platform broke , and in a moment the entire multitude, at first , but soon in good , was singing—
 
Rock of Ages, for me,
 
    Let me hide myself in Thee;
 
Let the water and the blood,
 
    From Thy riven side which flowed,
 
Be of sin the double cure:
 
    from and make me pure.
 
The volume of sound was overwhelming. Its crashing force was enough to sweep people from barrels. Edwin could feel moisture in his eyes, and he dared not look at Hilda. “Why the deuce do I want to cry?” he asked himself angrily, and was ashamed. And at the beginning of the second verse, when the glittering instruments blared forth anew, and the innumerable voices, high and loud, infantile and , flooded swiftly over their brassy notes, them, the effect on Edwin was the same again: a of the throat, and a squeezing down of the . Why was it? Through a mist he read the words “The Blood of the Lamb,” and he could picture the riven trunk of a man dying, and a of blood flowing therefrom, and people like his Auntie Clara and his brother-in-law Albert ecstatically into the liquid in order to be white. The picture came again in the third verse,—the red fountains and the bathers.
 
Then the notability raised his arm once more, and took off his hat, and all the males on the platform took off their hats, and presently every boy and man in the Square had uncovered his head to the strong sunshine; and at last Edwin had to do the same, and only the policeme............