And now again I was busy looking about me, for we were quite clear of
Piccadilly Market, and were in a region of elegantly-built much
ornamented houses, which I should have called villas if they had been
ugly and pretentious, which was very far from being the case. Each house
stood in a garden carefully cultivated, and running over with flowers. The blackbirds were singing their best amidst the garden-trees, which, except for a bay here and there, and occasional groups of limes, seemed to be all fruit-trees: there were a great many cherry-trees, now all laden with fruit; and several times as we passed by a garden we were offered baskets of fine fruit by children and young girls. Amidst all these gardens and houses it was of course impossible to trace the sites of the old streets: but it seemed to me that the main roadways were the same as of old.
We came presently into a large open space, sloping somewhat toward the
south, the sunny site of which had been taken advantage of for planting
an orchard, mainly, as I could see, of apricot-trees, in the midst of
which was a pretty gay little structure of wood, painted and gilded, that
looked like a refreshment-stall. From the southern side of the said
orchard ran a long road, chequered over with the shadow of tall old pear
trees, at the end of which showed the high tower of the Parliament House, or Dung Market.
A strange sensation came over me; I shut my eyes to keep out the sight of
the sun glittering on this fair abode of gardens, and for a moment there
passed before them a phantasmagoria of another day. A great space
surrounded by tall ugly houses, with an ugly church at the corner and a
nondescript ugly cupolaed building at my back; the roadway thronged with
a sweltering and excited crowd, dominated by omnibuses crowded with
spectators. In the midst a paved be-fountained square, populated only by
a few men dressed in blue, and a good many singularly ugly bronze images
(one on the top of a tall column). The said square guarded up to the
edge of the roadway by a four-fold line of big men clad in blue, and
across the southern roadway the helmets of a band of horse-soldiers, dead
white in the greyness of the chilly November afternoon—I opened my eyes
to the sunlight again and looked round me, and cried out among the
whispering trees and odorous blossoms, "Trafalgar Square!"
"Yes," said Dick, who had drawn rein again, "so it is. I don't wonder at
your finding the name ridiculous: but after all, it was nobody's business
to alter it, since the name of a dead folly doesn't bite. Yet sometimes
I think we might have given it a name which would have commemorated the
great battle which was fought on the spot itself in 1952,—that was
important enough, if the historians don't lie."
"Which they generally do, or at least did," said the old man. "For
instance, what can you make of this, neighbours? I have read a muddled
account in a book—O a stupid book—called James' Social Democratic
History, of a fight which took place here in or about the year 1887 (I am
bad at dates). Some people, says this story, were going to hold a ward-mote here, or some such thing, and the Government of London, or the Council, or the Commission, or what not other barbarous half-hatched body of fools, fell upon these citizens (as they were then called) with the armed hand. That seems too ridiculous to be true; but according to this version of the story, nothing much came of it, which certainly is too ridiculous to be true."
"Well," quoth I, "but after all your Mr. James is right so far, and it
is true; except that there was no fighting, merely unarmed and
peaceable people attacked by ruffians armed with bludgeons."
"And they put up with that?" said Dick, with the first unpleasant
expression I had seen on his good-tempered face.
Said I, reddening: "We had to put up with it; we couldn't help it."
The old man looked at me keenly, and said: "You seem to know a great deal
about it, neighbour! And is it really true that nothing came of it?"
"This came of it," said I, "that a good many people were sent to prison
because of it."
"What, of the bludgeoners?" said the old man. "Poor devils!"
"No, no," said I, "of the bludgeoned."
Said the old man rather severely: "Friend, I expect that you have been
reading some rotten collection of lies, and have been taken in by it too
easily."