The Mayor was now asked to make a speech into the phonograph. He was a nervous man and he was much embarrassed as he climbed on to the platform and, in sight of everyone, was confronted with the mouthpiece of this most tell-tale instrument. It made him more nervous than ever, and between each word he spoke, there came an agonized—‘Er … er … er.’ The audience listened entranced, knowing that this was about to be reproduced for their entertainment. In a few moments the poor Mayor’s speech was repeated in a thin Punch-and-Judy voice, with little squeaks to represent those stutterings. The audience feared to lose the faintest of these absurd little sounds, so everybody stuffed their handkerchiefs into their mouths until the speech was over, and then came an outburst of laughter.
Undeterred by the Mayor’s embarrassing experience, a town councillor then leapt on to the platform, certain that he would be able to make a success. He really was even more absurd. His enunciation was always rather ridiculous and precise, but he was delighted at the thought of his well-turned phrases being now perpetuated.
‘When in Chicahgo in April lahst,’ he began, ‘I had the great pleasure of listening to Mr. Edison’s voice on the phonograph. It gives me great pleasure heah to congratulate him on his invention and to thank him for the pleasant hours we are enjoying this evening.’
The self-satisfaction in the speaker’s tone came back when the speech was reproduced with a very funny effect.
There is more to be said of this precisely speaking man. He was then Managing Director of the Wilton Carpet Factory, a very pious person and a strong teetotaller. The visit to Chicago of which he spoke that night was one of many, for he often went to the States, and he founded there a branch of the Wilton Carpet Factory. He died very suddenly, and his death was a great shock to the town, for no one had even heard that he was ill. He now was laid in state upon his bed, while the factory employees filed through the room in long lines, to see his face for the last time. As she went by, one of the factory girls was bold enough to lay her finger upon the dead man’s cheek, and then she sprang back, exclaiming:
‘Ain’t he warm!’
After this no further visitors were admitted to the room.
Two days later, as was the case with Tennyson’s Enoch Arden, it might have been said of Wilton that the little town—
‘Had seldom seen a costlier funeral.’
The procession was two miles long and the orations delivered over the grave by ministers of various denominations were if anything even longer.
Then followed an unexpected sequel. In transpired that this seemingly righteous man had been living a double life. He was no teetotaller in London or in the States, but had there spent his evenings entertaining chorus girls, and in drinking in restaurants. He had made away with a large amount of money belonging to the company which owned the factory. Its shareholders were ruined, and half the population of Wilton was out of work till a new company could be formed. The world marvelled at the fortunate appropriateness of his death; but those who lived near by reported that, on the night after the funeral, a mysterious, veiled widow, in height and proportions curiously resembling the dead man, had been seen to leave his house, and to drive away in a cab to an unknown destination.
The lettering on the grave in the cemetery has long ago faded out.
Chapter Seven
THE OLDEST INHABITANT
These words fill one with a passionate curiosity and hope, nearly always to be disappointed. The oldest inhabitant often has no desire to speak of his memories, and when he does speak, the things he remembers are seldom those which his questioner hopes to hear. When Mr. W. H. Hudson was walking about Wiltshire collecting materials for his book A Shepherd’s Life, he asked my father to direct him to some of the old people who might be likely to tell him things. They did not guess that he was a writer, for he looked, as he was, a very unassuming wayfaring fisherman, but in spite of that, he could not make them speak. Day after day he drew a blank.
The old Wilton people were generally ready to talk to my father, because they knew him so well, but their memories often meant nothing at all to anyone except themselves. He once asked old Francis, who was nearly a hundred, what was the first thing he could remember.
He remained quite silent for some minutes, sinking back into the past. Then, very slowly, he said:
‘I can mind when dthurteen vlocks did come to water to Bull Bridge.’
Like many of the most outstanding memories of country people, this was a memory of a year of exceptional weather. There had been a drought. But old Francis could not remember when it was. Only ‘a long time ago’.
My sister Mildred once gave
