Page 141 - sons-and-lovers

at the Co-op., and peeped in the reading-room. Usually one
or two men were there, either old, useless fellows, or colliers
‘on the club”. So he entered, full of shrinking and suffering
when they looked up, seated himself at the table, and pre-
tended to scan the news. He knew they would think: ‘What
does a lad of thirteen want in a reading-room with a news-
paper?’ and he suffered.
Then he looked wistfully out of the window. Already he
was a prisoner of industrialism. Large sunflowers stared
over the old red wall of the garden opposite, looking in
their jolly way down on the women who were hurrying with
something for dinner. The valley was full of corn, brighten-
ing in the sun. Two collieries, among the fields, waved their
small white plumes of steam. Far off on the hills were the
woods of Annesley, dark and fascinating. Already his heart
went down. He was being taken into bondage. His freedom
in the beloved home valley was going now.
The brewers’ waggons came rolling up from Keston with
enormous barrels, four a side, like beans in a burst bean-
pod. The waggoner, throned aloft, rolling massively in his
seat, was not so much below Paul’s eye. The man’s hair, on
his small, bullet head, was bleached almost white by the
sun, and on his thick red arms, rocking idly on his sack
apron, the white hairs glistened. His red face shone and was
almost asleep with sunshine. The horses, handsome and
brown, went on by themselves, looking by far the masters
of the show.
Paul wished he were stupid. ‘I wish,’ he thought to him-
self, ‘I was fat like him, and like a dog in the sun. I wish I

1 0 Sons and Lovers