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Essays Of Travel
By
Robert Louis Stevenson
Contents
PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW
II. COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK A FRAGMENT 1871=
IV. A WINTER’S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY=
A
FRAGMENT 1876
VI. A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE {175} A FRAGM=
ENT
1879
VII. RANDOM MEMORIES: ROSA QUO LOCORUM...
XII. THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS
XIV. ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES =
1874
To RO=
BERT
ALAN MOWBRAY STEVENSON
Our
friendship was not only founded before we were born by a community of blood,
but is in itself near as old as my life.
It began with our early ages, and, like a history, has been continue=
d to
the present time. Although we may not be old in the world, we are old to ea=
ch
other, having so long been intimates. We
are now widely separated, a great sea and continent intervening; but memory,
like care, mounts into iron ships and rides post behind the horseman. Neither time nor space nor enmity can c=
onquer
old affection; and as I dedicate these sketches, it is not to you only, but=
to
all in the old country, that I send the greeting of my heart.
<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> R.L.S.
1879.
I fir=
st
encountered my fellow-passengers on the Broomielaw in Glasgow. Thence we
descended the Clyde in no familiar spirit, but looking askance on each othe=
r as
on possible enemies. A few
Scandinavians, who had already grown acquainted on the North Sea, were frie=
ndly
and voluble over their long pipes; but among English speakers distance and
suspicion reigned supreme. The sun=
was
soon overclouded, the wind freshened and grew sharp as we continued to desc=
end
the widening estuary; and with the falling temperature the gloom among the
passengers increased. Two of the w=
omen
wept. Any one who had come aboard =
might
have supposed we were all absconding from the law. There was scarce a word interchanged, a=
nd no
common sentiment but that of cold united us, until at length, having touche=
d at
Greenock, a pointing arm and a rush to the starboard now announced that our
ocean steamer was in sight. There =
she
lay in mid-river, at the Tail of the Bank, her sea-signal flying: a wall of
bulwark, a street of white deck-houses, an aspiring forest of spars, larger
than a church, and soon to be as populous as many an incorporated town in t=
he
land to which she was to bear us.
I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although anxious to see the worst of em=
igrant
life, I had some work to finish on the voyage, and was advised to go by the
second cabin, where at least I should have a table at command. The advice was excellent; but to unders=
tand
the choice, and what I gained, some outline of the internal disposition of =
the
ship will first be necessary. In h=
er
very nose is Steerage No. 1, down two pair of stairs. A little abaft, another companion, labe=
lled
Steerage No. 2 and 3, gives admission to three galleries, two running forwa=
rd
towards Steerage No. 1, and the third aft towards the engines. The starboard forward gallery is the se=
cond
cabin. Away abaft the engines and =
below
the officers’ cabins, to complete our survey of the vessel, there is yet a
third nest of steerages, labelled 4 and 5.
The second cabin, to return, is thus a modified oasis in the very he=
art
of the steerages. Through the thin partition you can hear the steerage
passengers being sick, the rattle of tin dishes as they sit at meals, the
varied accents in which they converse, the crying of their children terrifi=
ed
by this new experience, or the clean flat smack of the parental hand in
chastisement.
There are, however, many advantages for the
inhabitant of this strip. He does =
not
require to bring his own bedding or dishes, but finds berths and a table
completely if somewhat roughly furnished.
He enjoys a distinct superiority in diet; but this, strange to say,
differs not only on different ships, but on the same ship according as her =
head
is to the east or west. In my own
experience, the principal difference between our table and that of the true
steerage passenger was the table itself, and the crockery plates from which=
we
ate. But lest I should show myself
ungrateful, let me recapitulate every advantage. At breakfast we had a choice between te=
a and
coffee for beverage; a choice not easy to make, the two were so surprisingly
alike. I found that I could sleep =
after
the coffee and lay awake after the tea, which is proof conclusive of some
chemical disparity; and even by the palate I could distinguish a smack of s=
nuff
in the former from a flavour of boiling and dish-cloths in the second. As a matter of fact, I have seen passen=
gers,
after many sips, still doubting which had been supplied them. In the way of eatables at the same meal=
we
were gloriously favoured; for in addition to porridge, which was common to =
all,
we had Irish stew, sometimes a bit of fish, and sometimes rissoles. The dinner of soup, roast fresh beef, b=
oiled
salt junk, and potatoes, was, I believe, exactly common to the steerage and=
the
second cabin; only I have heard it rumoured that our potatoes were of a
superior brand; and twice a week, on pudding-days, instead of duff, we had a
saddle-bag filled with currants under the name of a plum-pudding. At tea we
were served with some broken meat from the saloon; sometimes in the
comparatively elegant form of spare patties or rissoles; but as a general t=
hing
mere chicken-bones and flakes of fish, neither hot nor cold. If these were not the scrapings of plat=
es
their looks belied them sorely; yet we were all too hungry to be proud, and
fell to these leavings greedily. T=
hese,
the bread, which was excellent, and the soup and porridge which were both g=
ood,
formed my whole diet throughout the voyage; so that except for the broken m=
eat
and the convenience of a table I might as well have been in the steerage
outright. Had they given me porrid=
ge
again in the evening, I should have been perfectly contented with the
fare. As it was, with a few biscui=
ts and
some whisky and water before turning in, I kept my body going and my spirit=
s up
to the mark.
The last particular in which the second cabin
passenger remarkably stands ahead of his brother of the steerage is one
altogether of sentiment. In the st=
eerage
there are males and females; in the second cabin ladies and gentlemen. For some time after I came aboard I tho=
ught I
was only a male; but in the course of a voyage of discovery between decks, I
came on a brass plate, and learned that I was still a gentleman. Nobody knew it, of course. I was lost in the crowd of males and fe=
males,
and rigorously confined to the same quarter of the deck. Who could tell whether I housed on the =
port
or starboard side of steerage No. 2 and 3?
And it was only there that my superiority became practical; everywhe=
re
else I was incognito, moving among my inferiors with simplicity, not so muc=
h as
a swagger to indicate that I was a gentleman after all, and had broken meat=
to
tea. Still, I was like one with a =
patent
of nobility in a drawer at home; and when I felt out of spirits I could go =
down
and refresh myself with a look of that brass plate.
For all these advantages I paid but two
guineas. Six guineas is the steera=
ge
fare; eight that by the second cabin; and when you remember that the steera=
ge
passenger must supply bedding and dishes, and, in five cases out of ten, ei=
ther
brings some dainties with him, or privately pays the steward for extra rati=
ons,
the difference in price becomes almost nominal.
Air comparatively fit to breathe, food comparatively varied, and the
satisfaction of being still privately a gentleman, may thus be had almost f=
or
the asking. Two of my fellow-passe=
ngers
in the second cabin had already made the passage by the cheaper fare, and
declared it was an experiment not to be repeated. As I go on to tell about my steerage fr=
iends,
the reader will perceive that they were not alone in their opinion. Out of ten with whom I was more or less
intimate, I am sure not fewer than five vowed, if they returned, to travel
second cabin; and all who had left their wives behind them assured me they
would go without the comfort of their presence until they could afford to b=
ring
them by saloon.
Our party in the second cabin was not perhaps =
the
most interesting on board. Perhaps=
even
in the saloon there was as much good-will and character. Yet it had some elements of curiosity.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> There was a mixed group of Swedes, Dane=
s, and
Norsemen, one of whom, generally known by the name of ‘Johnny,’ in spite of=
his
own protests, greatly diverted us by his clever, cross-country efforts to s=
peak
English, and became on the strength of that an universal favourite—it takes=
so
little in this world of shipboard to create a popularity. There was, besides, a Scots mason, know=
n from
his favourite dish as ‘Irish Stew,’ three or four nondescript Scots, a fine
young Irishman, O’Reilly, and a pair of young men who deserve a special wor=
d of
condemnation. One of them was Scot=
s; the
other claimed to be American; admitted, after some fencing, that he was bor=
n in
England; and ultimately proved to be an Irishman born and nurtured, but ash=
amed
to own his country. He had a siste=
r on
board, whom he faithfully neglected throughout the voyage, though she was n=
ot
only sick, but much his senior, and had nursed and cared for him in
childhood. In appearance he was li=
ke an
imbecile Henry the Third of France. The
Scotsman, though perhaps as big an ass, was not so dead of heart; and I have
only bracketed them together because they were fast friends, and disgraced
themselves equally by their conduct at the table.
Next, to turn to topics more agreeable, we had=
a
newly-married couple, devoted to each other, with a pleasant story of how t=
hey
had first seen each other years ago at a preparatory school, and that very
afternoon he had carried her books home for her. I do not know if this story will be pla=
in to
southern readers; but to me it recalls many a school idyll, with wrathful
swains of eight and nine confronting each other stride-legs, flushed with
jealousy; for to carry home a young lady’s books was both a delicate attent=
ion
and a privilege.
Then there was an old lady, or indeed I am not
sure that she was as much old as antiquated and strangely out of place, who=
had
left her husband, and was travelling all the way to Kansas by herself. We had to take her own word that she was
married; for it was sorely contradicted by the testimony of her
appearance. Nature seemed to have
sanctified her for the single state; even the colour of her hair was
incompatible with matrimony, and her husband, I thought, should be a man of
saintly spirit and phantasmal bodily presence.
She was ill, poor thing; her soul turned from the viands; the dirty
tablecloth shocked her like an impropriety; and the whole strength of her
endeavour was bent upon keeping her watch true to Glasgow time till she sho=
uld
reach New York. They had heard rep=
orts,
her husband and she, of some unwarrantable disparity of hours between these=
two
cities; and with a spirit commendably scientific, had seized on this occasi=
on
to put them to the proof. It was a=
good
thing for the old lady; for she passed much leisure time in studying the wa=
tch.
Once, when prostrated by sickness, she let it run down. It was inscribed on her harmless mind i=
n letters
of adamant that the hands of a watch must never be turned backwards; and so=
it
behoved her to lie in wait for the exact moment ere she started it again. When she imagined this was about due, s=
he
sought out one of the young second-cabin Scotsmen, who was embarked on the =
same
experiment as herself and had hitherto been less neglectful. She was in quest of two o’clock; and wh=
en she
learned it was already seven on the shores of Clyde, she lifted up her voice
and cried ‘Gravy!’ I had not heard=
this
innocent expletive since I was a young child; and I suppose it must have be=
en
the same with the other Scotsmen present, for we all laughed our fill.
Last but not least, I come to my excellent fri=
end
Mr. Jones. It would be difficult t=
o say
whether I was his right-hand man, or he mine, during the voyage. Thus at table I carved, while he only s=
cooped
gravy; but at our concerts, of which more anon, he was the president who ca=
lled
up performers to sing, and I but his messenger who ran his errands and plea=
ded
privately with the over-modest. I =
knew I
liked Mr. Jones from the moment I saw him.
I thought him by his face to be Scottish; nor could his accent undec=
eive
me. For as there is a lingua franca of many tongues on the moles and in the
feluccas of the Mediterranean, so there is a free or common accent among
English-speaking men who follow the sea. They catch a twang in a New England
Port; from a cockney skipper, even a Scotsman sometimes learns to drop an <=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> h ; a word of a dialect is picked up from
another band in the forecastle; until often the result is undecipherable, a=
nd
you have to ask for the man’s place of birth.
So it was with Mr. Jones. I
thought him a Scotsman who had been long to sea; and yet he was from Wales,=
and
had been most of his life a blacksmith at an inland forge; a few years in
America and half a score of ocean voyages having sufficed to modify his spe=
ech
into the common pattern. By his own
account he was both strong and skilful in his trade. A few years back, he had been married a=
nd after
a fashion a rich man; now the wife was dead and the money gone. But his was the nature that looks forwa=
rd,
and goes on from one year to another and through all the extremities of for=
tune
undismayed; and if the sky were to fall to-morrow, I should look to see Jon=
es,
the day following, perched on a step-ladder and getting things to rights. He was always hovering round inventions=
like
a bee over a flower, and lived in a dream of patents. He had with him a patent medicine, for
instance, the composition of which he had bought years ago for five dollars
from an American pedlar, and sold the other day for a hundred pounds (I thi=
nk
it was) to an English apothecary. =
It was
called Golden Oil, cured all maladies without exception; and I am bound to =
say
that I partook of it myself with good results.
It is a character of the man that he was not only perpetually dosing
himself with Golden Oil, but wherever there was a head aching or a finger c=
ut,
there would be Jones with his bottle.
If he had one taste more strongly than another=
, it
was to study character. Many an ho=
ur
have we two walked upon the deck dissecting our neighbours in a spirit that=
was
too purely scientific to be called unkind; whenever a quaint or human trait=
slipped
out in conversation, you might have seen Jones and me exchanging glances; a=
nd
we could hardly go to bed in comfort till we had exchanged notes and discus=
sed
the day’s experience. We were then=
like
a couple of anglers comparing a day’s kill.
But the fish we angled for were of a metaphysical species, and we an=
gled
as often as not in one another’s baskets.
Once, in the midst of a serious talk, each found there was a
scrutinising eye upon himself; I own I paused in embarrassment at this doub=
le
detection; but Jones, with a better civility, broke into a peal of unaffect=
ed
laughter, and declared, what was the truth, that there was a pair of us ind=
eed.
We st=
eamed
out of the Clyde on Thursday night, and early on the Friday forenoon we too=
k in
our last batch of emigrants at Lough Foyle, in Ireland, and said farewell to
Europe. The company was now comple=
te,
and began to draw together, by inscrutable magnetisms, upon the decks. There were Scots and Irish in plenty, a=
few
English, a few Americans, a good handful of Scandinavians, a German or two,=
and
one Russian; all now belonging for ten days to one small iron country on the
deep.
As I walked the deck and looked round upon my
fellow-passengers, thus curiously assorted from all northern Europe, I began
for the first time to understand the nature of emigration. Day by day throughout the passage, and
thenceforward across all the States, and on to the shores of the Pacific, t=
his
knowledge grew more clear and melancholy.
Emigration, from a word of the most cheerful import, came to sound m=
ost
dismally in my ear. There is nothi=
ng
more agreeable to picture and nothing more pathetic to behold. The abstract idea, as conceived at home=
, is
hopeful and adventurous. A young m=
an,
you fancy, scorning restraints and helpers, issues forth into life, that gr=
eat
battle, to fight for his own hand. The
most pleasant stories of ambition, of difficulties overcome, and of ultimate
success, are but as episodes to this great epic of self-help. The epic is composed of individual hero=
isms;
it stands to them as the victorious war which subdued an empire stands to t=
he
personal act of bravery which spiked a single cannon and was adequately
rewarded with a medal. For in emig=
ration
the young men enter direct and by the shipload on their heritage of work; e=
mpty
continents swarm, as at the bo’s’un’s whistle, with industrious hands, and
whole new empires are domesticated to the service of man.
This is the closet picture, and is found, on
trial, to consist mostly of embellishments.
The more I saw of my fellow-passengers, the less I was tempted to the
lyric note. Comparatively few of t=
he men
were below thirty; many were married, and encumbered with families; not a f=
ew
were already up in years; and this itself was out of tune with my imaginati=
ons,
for the ideal emigrant should certainly be young. Again, I thought he should offer to the=
eye
some bold type of humanity, with bluff or hawk-like features, and the stamp=
of
an eager and pushing disposition. Now those around me were for the most part
quiet, orderly, obedient citizens, family men broken by adversity, elderly
youths who had failed to place themselves in life, and people who had seen
better days. Mildness was the prevailing character; mild mirth and mild
endurance. In a word, I was not ta=
king
part in an impetuous and conquering sally, such as swept over Mexico or
Siberia, but found myself, like Marmion, ‘in the lost battle, borne down by=
the
flying.’
Labouring mankind had in the last years, and
throughout Great Britain, sustained a prolonged and crushing series of
defeats. I had heard vaguely of th=
ese
reverses; of whole streets of houses standing deserted by the Tyne, the
cellar-doors broken and removed for firewood; of homeless men loitering at =
the
street-corners of Glasgow with their chests beside them; of closed factorie=
s,
useless strikes, and starving girls. But I had never taken them home to me =
or
represented these distresses livingly to my imagination.
A turn of the market may be a calamity as
disastrous as the French retreat from Moscow; but it hardly lends itself to
lively treatment, and makes a trifling figure in the morning papers. We may struggle as we please, we are no=
t born
economists. The individual is more=
affecting
than the mass. It is by the scenic
accidents, and the appeal to the carnal eye, that for the most part we grasp
the significance of tragedies. Thu=
s it
was only now, when I found myself involved in the rout, that I began to
appreciate how sharp had been the battle.
We were a company of the rejected; the drunken, the incompetent, the
weak, the prodigal, all who had been unable to prevail against circumstance=
s in
the one land, were now fleeing pitifully to another; and though one or two
might still succeed, all had already failed.
We were a shipful of failures, the broken men of England. Yet it must not be supposed that these =
people
exhibited depression. The scene, o=
n the
contrary, was cheerful. Not a tear=
was shed
on board the vessel. All were full=
of
hope for the future, and showed an inclination to innocent gaiety. Some were heard to sing, and all began =
to
scrape acquaintance with small jests and ready laughter.
The children found each other out like dogs, a=
nd
ran about the decks scraping acquaintance after their fashion also. ‘What do you call your mither?’ I heard=
one
ask. ‘Mawmaw,’ was the reply,
indicating, I fancy, a shade of difference in the social scale. When people pass each other on the high=
seas
of life at so early an age, the contact is but slight, and the relation more
like what we may imagine to be the friendship of flies than that of men; it=
is
so quickly joined, so easily dissolved, so open in its communications and so
devoid of deeper human qualities. =
The
children, I observed, were all in a band, and as thick as thieves at a fair,
while their elders were still ceremoniously manœuvring on the outskirts of
acquaintance. The sea, the ship, a=
nd the
seamen were soon as familiar as home to these half-conscious little ones. It was odd to hear them, throughout the
voyage, employ shore words to designate portions of the vessel. ‘Go ’way doon to yon dyke,’ I heard one=
say,
probably meaning the bulwark. I of=
ten
had my heart in my mouth, watching them climb into the shrouds or on the ra=
ils,
while the ship went swinging through the waves; and I admired and envied the
courage of their mothers, who sat by in the sun and looked on with composur=
e at
these perilous feats. ‘He’ll maybe=
be a
sailor,’ I heard one remark; ‘now’s the time to learn.’ I had been on the point of running forw=
ard to
interfere, but stood back at that, reproved.
Very few in the more delicate classes have the nerve to look upon the
peril of one dear to them; but the life of poorer folk, where necessity is =
so
much more immediate and imperious, braces even a mother to this extreme of
endurance. And perhaps, after all,=
it is
better that the lad should break his neck than that you should break his
spirit.
And since I am here on the chapter of the
children, I must mention one little fellow, whose family belonged to Steera=
ge
No. 4 and 5, and who, wherever he went, was like a strain of music round the
ship. He was an ugly, merry, unbre=
eched
child of three, his lint-white hair in a tangle, his face smeared with suet=
and
treacle; but he ran to and fro with so natural a step, and fell and picked
himself up again with such grace and good-humour, that he might fairly be
called beautiful when he was in motion.
To meet him, crowing with laughter and beating an accompaniment to h=
is
own mirth with a tin spoon upon a tin cup, was to meet a little triumph of =
the human
species. Even when his mother and =
the
rest of his family lay sick and prostrate around him, he sat upright in the=
ir
midst and sang aloud in the pleasant heartlessness of infancy.
Throughout the Friday, intimacy among us men m=
ade
but a few advances. We discussed t=
he
probable duration of the voyage, we exchanged pieces of information, naming=
our
trades, what we hoped to find in the new world, or what we were fleeing fro=
m in
the old; and, above all, we condoled together over the food and the vilenes=
s of
the steerage. One or two had been =
so
near famine that you may say they had run into the ship with the devil at t=
heir
heels; and to these all seemed for the best in the best of possible steamer=
s. But the majority were hugely contented.=
Coming as they did from a country in so=
low a
state as Great Britain, many of them from Glasgow, which commercially speak=
ing
was as good as dead, and many having long been out of work, I was surprised=
to
find them so dainty in their notions. I
myself lived almost exclusively on bread, porridge, and soup, precisely as =
it
was supplied to them, and found it, if not luxurious, at least sufficient.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> But these working men were loud in their
outcries. It was not ‘food for hum=
an
beings,’ it was ‘only fit for pigs,’ it was ‘a disgrace.’ Many of them lived almost entirely upon
biscuit, others on their own private supplies, and some paid extra for bett=
er
rations from the ship. This marvel=
lously
changed my notion of the degree of luxury habitual to the artisan. I was prepared to hear him grumble, for
grumbling is the traveller’s pastime; but I was not prepared to find him tu=
rn
away from a diet which was palatable to myself.
Words I should have disregarded, or taken with a liberal allowance; =
but
when a man prefers dry biscuit there can be no question of the sincerity of=
his
disgust.
With one of their complaints I could most hear=
tily
sympathise. A single night of the
steerage had filled them with horror. I
had myself suffered, even in my decent-second-cabin berth, from the lack of
air; and as the night promised to be fine and quiet, I determined to sleep =
on
deck, and advised all who complained of their quarters to follow my
example. I dare say a dozen of oth=
ers
agreed to do so, and I thought we should have been quite a party. Yet, when I brought up my rug about sev=
en
bells, there was no one to be seen but the watch. That chimerical terror of good night-ai=
r,
which makes men close their windows, list their doors, and seal themselves =
up
with their own poisonous exhalations, had sent all these healthy workmen do=
wn
below. One would think we had been
brought up in a fever country; yet in England the most malarious districts =
are
in the bedchambers.
I felt saddened at this defection, and yet
half-pleased to have the night so quietly to myself. The wind had hauled a little ahead on t=
he
starboard bow, and was dry but chilly. =
span>I
found a shelter near the fire-hole, and made myself snug for the night.
The ship moved over the uneven sea with a gent=
le
and cradling movement. The ponderous, organic labours of the engine in her
bowels occupied the mind, and prepared it for slumber. From time to time a heavier lurch would
disturb me as I lay, and recall me to the obscure borders of consciousness;=
or
I heard, as it were through a veil, the clear note of the clapper on the br=
ass
and the beautiful sea-cry, ‘All’s well!’
I know nothing, whether for poetry or music, that can surpass the ef=
fect
of these two syllables in the darkness of a night at sea.
The day dawned fairly enough, and during the e=
arly
part we had some pleasant hours to improve acquaintance in the open air; but
towards nightfall the wind freshened, the rain began to fall, and the sea r=
ose
so high that it was difficult to keep ones footing on the deck. I have spoken of our concerts. We were indeed a musical ship’s company=
, and
cheered our way into exile with the fiddle, the accordion, and the songs of=
all
nations. Good, bad, or
indifferent—Scottish, English, Irish, Russian, German or Norse,—the songs w=
ere
received with generous applause. Once or twice, a recitation, very spirited=
ly
rendered in a powerful Scottish accent, varied the proceedings; and once we
sought in vain to dance a quadrille, eight men of us together, to the music=
of
the violin. The performers were all humorous, frisky fellows, who loved to =
cut
capers in private life; but as soon as they were arranged for the dance, th=
ey
conducted themselves like so many mutes at a funeral. I have never seen decorum pushed so far=
; and
as this was not expected, the quadrille was soon whistled down, and the dan=
cers
departed under a cloud. Eight Fren=
chmen,
even eight Englishmen from another rank of society, would have dared to make
some fun for themselves and the spectators; but the working man, when sober,
takes an extreme and even melancholy view of personal deportment. A fifth-form schoolboy is not more care=
ful of
dignity. He dares not be comical; =
his
fun must escape from him unprepared, and above all, it must be unaccompanie=
d by
any physical demonstration. I like=
his
society under most circumstances, but let me never again join with him in
public gambols.
But the impulse to sing was strong, and triump=
hed
over modesty and even the inclemencies of sea and sky. On this rough Saturday night, we got to=
gether
by the main deck-house, in a place sheltered from the wind and rain. Some clinging to a ladder which led to =
the
hurricane deck, and the rest knitting arms or taking hands, we made a ring =
to
support the women in the violent lurching of the ship; and when we were thus
disposed, sang to our hearts’ content.
Some of the songs were appropriate to the scene; others strikingly t=
he
reverse. Bastard doggrel of the
music-hall, such as, ‘Around her splendid form, I weaved the magic circle,’
sounded bald, bleak, and pitifully silly.
‘We don’t want to fight, but, by Jingo, if we do,’ was in some measu=
re
saved by the vigour and unanimity with which the chorus was thrown forth in=
to
the night. I observed a Platt-Deut=
sch
mason, entirely innocent of English, adding heartily to the general
effect. And perhaps the German mas=
on is
but a fair example of the sincerity with which the song was rendered; for
nearly all with whom I conversed upon the subject were bitterly opposed to =
war,
and attributed their own misfortunes, and frequently their own taste for
whisky, to the campaigns in Zululand and Afghanistan.
Every now and again, however, some song that
touched the pathos of our situation was given forth; and you could hear by =
the
voices that took up the burden how the sentiment came home to each, ‘The An=
chor’s
Weighed’ was true for us. We were =
indeed
‘Rocked on the bosom of the stormy deep.’
How many of us could say with the singer, ‘I’m lonely to-night, love,
without you,’ or, ‘Go, some one, and tell them from me, to write me a letter
from home’! And when was there a m=
ore
appropriate moment for ‘Auld Lang Syne’ than now, when the land, the friend=
s,
and the affections of that mingled but beloved time were fading and fleeing
behind us in the vessel’s wake? It=
pointed
forward to the hour when these labours should be overpast, to the return
voyage, and to many a meeting in the sanded inn, when those who had parted =
in
the spring of youth should again drink a cup of kindness in their age. Had not Burns contemplated emigration, I
scarce believe he would have found that note.
All Sunday the weather remained wild and cloud=
y;
many were prostrated by sickness; only five sat down to tea in the second
cabin, and two of these departed abruptly ere the meal was at an end. The Sabbath was observed strictly by th=
e majority
of the emigrants. I heard an old w=
oman
express her surprise that ‘the ship didna gae doon,’ as she saw some one pa=
ss
her with a chess-board on the holy day.
Some sang Scottish psalms. =
Many
went to service, and in true Scottish fashion came back ill pleased with th=
eir
divine. ‘I didna think he was an
experienced preacher,’ said one girl to me.
Is was a bleak, uncomfortable day; but at nigh=
t,
by six bells, although the wind had not yet moderated, the clouds were all
wrecked and blown away behind the rim of the horizon, and the stars came out
thickly overhead. I saw Venus burn=
ing as
steadily and sweetly across this hurly-burly of the winds and waters as eve=
r at
home upon the summer woods. The en=
gine
pounded, the screw tossed out of the water with a roar, and shook the ship =
from
end to end; the bows battled with loud reports against the billows: and as I
stood in the lee-scuppers and looked up to where the funnel leaned out, ove=
r my
head, vomiting smoke, and the black and monstrous top-sails blotted, at each
lurch, a different crop of stars, it seemed as if all this trouble were a t=
hing
of small account, and that just above the mast reigned peace unbroken and
eternal.
STEERAGE SCENES
Our
companion (Steerage No. 2 and 3) was a favourite resort. Down one flight of stairs there was a
comparatively large open space, the centre occupied by a hatchway, which ma=
de a
convenient seat for about twenty persons, while barrels, coils of rope, and=
the
carpenter’s bench afforded perches for perhaps as many more. The canteen, or steerage bar, was on on=
e side
of the stair; on the other, a no less attractive spot, the cabin of the
indefatigable interpreter.
I have seen people packed into this space like
herrings in a barrel, and many merry evenings prolonged there until five be=
lls,
when the lights were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to roost.
It had been rumoured since Friday that there w=
as a
fiddler aboard, who lay sick and unmelodious in Steerage No. 1; and on the
Monday forenoon, as I came down the companion, I was saluted by something in
Strathspey time. A white-faced Orp=
heus
was cheerily playing to an audience of white-faced women. It was as much as he could do to play, =
and
some of his hearers were scarce able to sit; yet they had crawled from their
bunks at the first experimental flourish, and found better than medicine in=
the
music. Some of the heaviest heads =
began
to nod in time, and a degree of animation looked from some of the palest ey=
es. Humanly speaking, it is a more important
matter to play the fiddle, even badly, than to write huge works upon recond=
ite
subjects. What could Mr. Darwin ha=
ve
done for these sick women? But this
fellow scraped away; and the world was positively a better place for all who
heard him. We have yet to understa=
nd the
economical value of these mere accomplishments.
I told the fiddler he was a happy man, carrying happiness about with=
him
in his fiddle-case, and he seemed alive to the fact.
‘It is a privilege,’ I said. He thought a while upon the word, turni=
ng it
over in his Scots head, and then answered with conviction, ‘Yes, a privileg=
e.’
That night I was summoned by ‘Merrily danced t=
he
Quake’s wife’ into the companion of Steerage No. 4 and 5. This was, properly speaking, but a strip
across a deck-house, lit by a sickly lantern which swung to and fro with the
motion of the ship. Through the op=
en
slide-door we had a glimpse of a grey night sea, with patches of phosphores=
cent
foam flying, swift as birds, into the wake, and the horizon rising and fall=
ing
as the vessel rolled to the wind. =
In the
centre the companion ladder plunged down sheerly like an open pit. Below, on the first landing, and lighte=
d by
another lamp, lads and lasses danced, not more than three at a time for lac=
k of
space, in jigs and reels and hornpipes.
Above, on either side, there was a recess railed with iron, perhaps =
two
feet wide and four long, which stood for orchestra and seats of honour. In the one balcony, five slatternly Iri=
sh
lasses sat woven in a comely group. In
the other was posted Orpheus, his body, which was convulsively in motion,
forming an odd contrast to his somnolent, imperturbable Scots face. His brother, a dark man with a vehement,
interested countenance, who made a god of the fiddler, sat by with open mou=
th,
drinking in the general admiration and throwing out remarks to kindle it.
‘That’s a bonny hornpipe now,’ he would say, ‘=
it’s
a great favourite with performers; they dance the sand dance to it.’ And he expounded the sand dance. Then suddenly, it would be a long, ‘Hus=
h!’
with uplifted finger and glowing, supplicating eyes, ‘he’s going to play “A=
uld
Robin Gray” on one string!’ And
throughout this excruciating movement,—‘On one string, that’s on one string=
!’
he kept crying. I would have given
something myself that it had been on none; but the hearers were much awed.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> I called for a tune or two, and thus
introduced myself to the notice of the brother, who directed his talk to me=
for
some little while, keeping, I need hardly mention, true to his topic, like =
the
seamen to the star. ‘He’s grand of it,’ he said confidentially. ‘His master was a music-hall man.’ Indeed the music-hall man had left his =
mark,
for our fiddler was ignorant of many of our best old airs; ‘Logie o’ Buchan=
,’
for instance, he only knew as a quick, jigging figure in a set of quadrille=
s,
and had never heard it called by name.
Perhaps, after all, the brother was the more interesting performer of
the two. I have spoken with him
afterwards repeatedly, and found him always the same quick, fiery bit of a =
man,
not without brains; but he never showed to such advantage as when he was th=
us
squiring the fiddler into public note.
There is nothing more becoming than a genuine admiration; and it sha=
res
this with love, that it does not become contemptible although misplaced.
The dancing was but feebly carried on. The space was almost impracticably smal=
l; and
the Irish wenches combined the extreme of bashfulness about this innocent
display with a surprising impudence and roughness of address. Most often, either the fiddle lifted up=
its
voice unheeded, or only a couple of lads would be footing it and snapping
fingers on the landing. And such w=
as the
eagerness of the brother to display all the acquirements of his idol, and s=
uch
the sleepy indifference of the performer, that the tune would as often as n=
ot
be changed, and the hornpipe expire into a ballad before the dancers had cut
half a dozen shuffles.
In the meantime, however, the audience had been
growing more and more numerous every moment; there was hardly standing-room
round the top of the companion; and the strange instinct of the race moved =
some
of the newcomers to close both the doors, so that the atmosphere grew
insupportable. It was a good place=
, as
the saying is, to leave.
The wind hauled ahead with a head sea. By ten at night heavy sprays were flyin=
g and
drumming over the forecastle; the companion of Steerage No. 1 had to be clo=
sed,
and the door of communication through the second cabin thrown open. Either from the convenience of the
opportunity, or because we had already a number of acquaintances in that pa=
rt
of the ship, Mr. Jones and I paid it a late visit. Steerage No. 1 is shaped like an isosce=
les
triangle, the sides opposite the equal angles bulging outward with the cont=
our
of the ship. It is lined with eigh=
t pens
of sixteen bunks apiece, four bunks below and four above on either side.
From all round in the dark bunks, the scarcely
human noises of the sick joined into a kind of farmyard chorus. In the midst, these five friends of min=
e were
keeping up what heart they could in company.
Singing was their refuge from discomfortable thoughts and
sensations. One piped, in feeble t=
ones,
‘Oh why left I my hame?’ which seemed a pertinent question in the circumsta=
nces. Another, from the invisible horrors of =
a pen
where he lay dog-sick upon the upper-shelf, found courage, in a blink of his
sufferings, to give us several verses of the ‘Death of Nelson’; and it was =
odd
and eerie to hear the chorus breathe feebly from all sorts of dark corners,=
and
‘this day has done his dooty’ rise and fall and be taken up again in this d=
im
inferno, to an accompaniment of plunging, hollow-sounding bows and the ratt=
ling
spray-showers overhead.
All seemed unfit for conversation; a certain
dizziness had interrupted the activity of their minds; and except to sing t=
hey
were tongue-tied. There was present, however, one tall, powerful fellow of
doubtful nationality, being neither quite Scotsman nor altogether Irish, bu=
t of
surprising clearness of conviction on the highest problems. He had gone nearly beside himself on the
Sunday, because of a general backwardness to indorse his definition of mind=
as
‘a living, thinking substance which cannot be felt, heard, or seen’—nor, I
presume, although he failed to mention it, smelt. Now he came forward in a pause with ano=
ther
contribution to our culture.
‘Just by way of change,’ said he, ‘I’ll ask yo=
u a
Scripture riddle. There’s profit in them too,’ he added ungrammatically.
This was the riddle—
C =
and
P Did agree To cut down C; But C and P Could not agree Without the leave of G; All the people cried to see The crueltie Of C and P.
Harsh are the words of Mercury after the songs=
of
Apollo! We were a long while over =
the
problem, shaking our heads and gloomily wondering how a man could be such a
fool; but at length he put us out of suspense and divulged the fact that C =
and
P stood for Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate.
I think it must have been the riddle that sett=
led
us; but the motion and the close air likewise hurried our departure. We had not been gone long, we heard next
morning, ere two or even three out of the five fell sick. We thought it lit=
tle
wonder on the whole, for the sea kept contrary all night. I now made my bed upon the second cabin
floor, where, although I ran the risk of being stepped upon, I had a free
current of air, more or less vitiated indeed, and running only from steerag=
e to
steerage, but at least not stagnant; and from this couch, as well as the us=
ual
sounds of a rough night at sea, the hateful coughing and retching of the si=
ck
and the sobs of children, I heard a man run wild with terror beseeching his
friend for encouragement. ‘The shi=
p’s
going down!’ he cried with a thrill of agony.
‘The ship’s going down!’ he repeated, now in a blank whisper, now wi=
th
his voice rising towards a sob; and his friend might reassure him, reason w=
ith
him, joke at him—all was in vain, and the old cry came back, ‘The ship’s go=
ing
down!’ There was something panicky=
and
catching in the emotion of his tones; and I saw in a clear flash what an
involved and hideous tragedy was a disaster to an emigrant ship. If this whole parishful of people came =
no
more to land, into how many houses would the newspaper carry woe, and what a
great part of the web of our corporate human life would be rent across for
ever!
The next morning when I came on deck I found a=
new
world indeed. The wind was fair; t=
he sun
mounted into a cloudless heaven; through great dark blue seas the ship cut a
swath of curded foam. The horizon =
was
dotted all day with companionable sails, and the sun shone pleasantly on the
long, heaving deck.
We had many fine-weather diversions to beguile=
the
time. There was a single chess-boa=
rd and
a single pack of cards. Sometimes =
as
many as twenty of us would be playing dominoes for love. Feats of dexterity, puzzles for the
intelligence, some arithmetical, some of the same order as the old problem =
of
the fox and goose and cabbage, were always welcome; and the latter, I obser=
ved,
more popular as well as more conspicuously well done than the former. We had a regular daily competition to g=
uess
the vessel’s progress; and twelve o’clock, when the result was published in=
the
wheel-house, came to be a moment of considerable interest. But the interest was unmixed. Not a bet was laid upon our guesses.
This Tuesday morning we were all delighted with
the change of weather, and in the highest possible spirits. We got in a cluster like bees, sitting
between each other’s feet under lee of the deck-houses. Stories and laughter went around. The children climbed about the shrouds.=
White faces appeared for the first time=
, and
began to take on colour from the wind. =
span>I
was kept hard at work making cigarettes for one amateur after another, and =
my
less than moderate skill was heartily admired.
Lastly, down sat the fiddler in our midst and began to discourse his
reels, and jigs, and ballads, with now and then a voice or two to take up t=
he
air and throw in the interest of human speech.
Through this merry and good-hearted scene there
came three cabin passengers, a gentleman and two young ladies, picking their
way with little gracious titters of indulgence, and a Lady-Bountiful air ab=
out
nothing, which galled me to the quick. =
span>I
have little of the radical in social questions, and have always nourished an
idea that one person was as good as another.
But I began to be troubled by this episode. It was astonishing what insults these pe=
ople
managed to convey by their presence.
They seemed to throw their clothes in our faces. Their eyes searched us all over for tat=
ters
and incongruities. A laugh was rea=
dy at
their lips; but they were too well-mannered to indulge it in our hearing. W=
ait
a bit, till they were all back in the saloon, and then hear how wittily they
would depict the manners of the steerage.
We were in truth very innocently, cheerfully, and sensibly engaged, =
and
there was no shadow of excuse for the swaying elegant superiority with which
these damsels passed among us, or for the stiff and waggish glances of their
squire. Not a word was said; only =
when
they were gone Mackay sullenly damned their impudence under his breath; but=
we
were all conscious of an icy influence and a dead break in the course of our
enjoyment.
We ha=
d a
fellow on board, an Irish-American, for all the world like a beggar in a pr=
int
by Callot; one-eyed, with great, splay crow’s-feet round the sockets; a kno=
tty
squab nose coming down over his moustache; a miraculous hat; a shirt that h=
ad
been white, ay, ages long ago; an alpaca coat in its last sleeves; and, wit=
hout
hyperbole, no buttons to his trousers.
Even in these rags and tatters, the man twinkled all over with impud=
ence
like a piece of sham jewellery; and I have heard him offer a situation to o=
ne
of his fellow-passengers with the air of a lord. Nothing could overlie such=
a
fellow; a kind of base success was written on his brow. He was then in his ill days; but I can
imagine him in Congress with his mouth full of bombast and sawder. As we moved in the same circle, I was b=
rought
necessarily into his society. I do=
not think
I ever heard him say anything that was true, kind, or interesting; but there
was entertainment in the man’s demeanour.
You might call him a half-educated Irish Tigg.
Our Russian made a remarkable contrast to this
impossible fellow. Rumours and legends were current in the steerages about =
his
antecedents. Some said he was a Nihilist escaping; others set him down for a
harmless spendthrift, who had squandered fifty thousand roubles, and whose
father had now despatched him to America by way of penance. Either tale might flourish in security;=
there
was no contradiction to be feared, for the hero spoke not one word of
English. I got on with him lumberi=
ngly
enough in broken German, and learned from his own lips that he had been an
apothecary. He carried the photogr=
aph of
his betrothed in a pocket-book, and remarked that it did not do her
justice. The cut of his head stood=
out
from among the passengers with an air of startling strangeness. The first natural instinct was to take =
him
for a desperado; but although the features, to our Western eyes, had a barb=
aric
and unhomely cast, the eye both reassured and touched. It was large and very dark and soft, wi=
th an
expression of dumb endurance, as if it had often looked on desperate
circumstances and never looked on them without resolution.
He cried out when I used the word. ‘No, no,’ he
said, ‘not resolution.’
‘The resolution to endure,’ I explained.
And then he shrugged his shoulders, and said, =
‘ Ach
, ja ,’ with gusto, like a man who=
has
been flattered in his favourite pretensions.
Indeed, he was always hinting at some secret sorrow; and his life, he
said, had been one of unusual trouble and anxiety; so the legends of the
steerage may have represented at least some shadow of the truth. Once, and once only, he sang a song at =
our
concerts; standing forth without embarrassment, his great stature somewhat
humped, his long arms frequently extended, his Kalmuck head thrown
backward. It was a suitable piece =
of
music, as deep as a cow’s bellow and wild like the White Sea. He was struck=
and
charmed by the freedom and sociality of our manners. At home, he said, no o=
ne
on a journey would speak to him, but those with whom he would not care to
speak; thus unconsciously involving himself in the condemnation of his
countrymen. But Russia was soon to=
be
changed; the ice of the Neva was softening under the sun of civilisation; t=
he
new ideas, ‘ wie eine feine Violine ,’ were audible among the big empty drum
notes of Imperial diplomacy; and he looked to see a great revival, though w=
ith
a somewhat indistinct and childish hope.
We had a father and son who made a pair of
Jacks-of-all-trades. It was the so=
n who
sang the ‘Death of Nelson’ under such contrarious circumstances. He was by trade a shearer of ship plate=
s; but
he could touch the organ, and led two choirs, and played the flute and picc=
olo
in a professional string band. His
repertory of songs was, besides, inexhaustible, and ranged impartially from=
the
very best to the very worst within his reach.
Nor did he seem to make the least distinction between these extremes,
but would cheerily follow up ‘Tom Bowling’ with ‘Around her splendid form.’=
The father, an old, cheery, small piece of
man-hood, could do everything connected with tinwork from one end of the
process to the other, use almost every carpenter’s tool, and make picture
frames to boot. ‘I sat down with s=
ilver
plate every Sunday,’ said he, ‘and pictures on the wall. I have made enough
money to be rolling in my carriage. But,
sir,’ looking at me unsteadily with his bright rheumy eyes, ‘I was troubled
with a drunken wife.’ He took a ho=
stile
view of matrimony in consequence. =
‘It’s
an old saying,’ he remarked: ‘God made ’em, and the devil he mixed ’em.’
I think he was justified by his experience.
Was she dead now? or, after all these years, h=
ad
he broken the chain, and run from home like a schoolboy? I could not discover which; but here at=
least
he was out on the adventure, and still one of the bravest and most youthful=
men
on board.
‘Now, I suppose, I must put my old bones to wo=
rk
again,’ said he; ‘but I can do a turn yet.’
And the son to whom he was going, I asked, was=
he
not able to support him?
‘Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘But I’m never happy without a job on
hand. And I’m stout; I can eat a’m=
ost
anything. You see no craze about m=
e.’
This tale of a drunken wife was paralleled on
board by another of a drunken father. He
was a capable man, with a good chance in life; but he had drunk up two thri=
ving
businesses like a bottle of sherry, and involved his sons along with him in
ruin. Now they were on board with =
us,
fleeing his disastrous neighbourhood.
Total abstinence, like all ascetical conclusio=
ns,
is unfriendly to the most generous, cheerful, and human parts of man; but it
could have adduced many instances and arguments from among our ship’s
company. I was, one day conversing=
with
a kind and happy Scotsman, running to fat and perspiration in the physical,=
but
with a taste for poetry and a genial sense of fun. I had asked him his hopes in emigrating=
. They were like those of so many others,=
vague
and unfounded; times were bad at home; they were said to have a turn for the
better in the States; a man could get on anywhere, he thought. That was precisely the weak point of his
position; for if he could get on in America, why could he not do the same in
Scotland? But I never had the cour=
age to
use that argument, though it was often on the tip of my tongue, and instead=
I
agreed with him heartily adding, with reckless originality, ‘If the man stu=
ck
to his work, and kept away from drink.’
‘Ah!’ said he slowly, ‘the drink! You see, that’s just my trouble.’
He spoke with a simplicity that was touching,
looking at me at the same time with something strange and timid in his eye,
half-ashamed, half-sorry, like a good child who knows he should be beaten.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> You would have said he recognised a des=
tiny
to which he was born, and accepted the consequences mildly. Like the merchant Abudah, he was at the=
same
time fleeing from his destiny and carrying it along with him, the whole at =
an
expense of six guineas.
As far as I saw, drink, idleness, and incompet=
ency
were the three great causes of emigration, and for all of them, and drink f=
irst
and foremost, this trick of getting transported overseas appears to me the
silliest means of cure. You cannot=
run
away from a weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if tha=
t be
so, why not now, and where you stand? Coelum non animam . Change Glenlivet for Bourbon, and it is=
still
whisky, only not so good. A sea-vo=
yage
will not give a man the nerve to put aside cheap pleasure; emigration has t=
o be
done before we climb the vessel; an aim in life is the only fortune worth t=
he
finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itsel=
f.
Speaking generally, there is no vice of this k=
ind
more contemptible than another; for each is but a result and outward sign o=
f a
soul tragically ship-wrecked. In t=
he
majority of cases, cheap pleasure is resorted to by way of anodyne. The pleasure-seeker sets forth upon lif=
e with
high and difficult ambitions; he meant to be nobly good and nobly happy, th=
ough
at as little pains as possible to himself; and it is because all has failed=
in
his celestial enterprise that you now behold him rolling in the garbage.
We had one on board with us, whom I have alrea=
dy
referred to under the name Mackay, who seemed to me not only a good instanc=
e of
this failure in life of which we have been speaking, but a good type of the
intelligence which here surrounded me.
Physically he was a small Scotsman, standing a little back as though=
he
were already carrying the elements of a corporation, and his looks somewhat
marred by the smallness of his eyes. Mentally, he was endowed above the
average. There were but few subjec=
ts on
which he could not converse with understanding and a dash of wit; delivering
himself slowly and with gusto like a man who enjoyed his own
sententiousness. He was a dry, qui=
ck,
pertinent debater, speaking with a small voice, and swinging on his heels to
launch and emphasise an argument. =
When
he began a discussion, he could not bear to leave it off, but would pick the
subject to the bone, without once relinquishing a point. An engineer by trade, Mackay believed i=
n the
unlimited perfectibility of all machines except the human machine. The latter he gave up with ridicule for=
a
compound of carrion and perverse gases.
He had an appetite for disconnected facts which I can only compare to
the savage taste for beads. What is
called information was indeed a passion with the man, and he not only delig=
hted
to receive it, but could pay you back in kind.
With all these capabilities, here was Mackay,
already no longer young, on his way to a new country, with no prospects, no
money, and but little hope. He was
almost tedious in the cynical disclosures of his despair. ‘The ship may go =
down
for me,’ he would say, ‘now or to-morrow.
I have nothing to lose and nothing to hope.’ And again: ‘I am sick of the whole damn=
ed
performance.’ He was, like the kind
little man, already quoted, another so-called victim of the bottle. But Mackay was miles from publishing his
weakness to the world; laid the blame of his failure on corrupt masters and=
a
corrupt State policy; and after he had been one night overtaken and had pla=
yed
the buffoon in his cups, sternly, though not without tact, suppressed all
reference to his escapade. It was a
treat to see him manage this: the various jesters withered under his gaze, =
and
you were forced to recognise in him a certain steely force, and a gift of
command which might have ruled a senate.
In truth it was not whisky that had ruined him=
; he
was ruined long before for all good human purposes but conversation. His eyes were sealed by a cheap, school=
-book
materialism. He could see nothing =
in the
world but money and steam-engines. He
did not know what you meant by the word happiness. He had forgotten the simple emotions of
childhood, and perhaps never encountered the delights of youth. He believed in production, that useful
figment of economy, as if it had been real like laughter; and production,
without prejudice to liquor, was his god and guide. One day he took me to task—novel cry to
me—upon the over-payment of literature.
Literary men, he said, were more highly paid than artisans; yet the
artisan made threshing-machines and butter-churns, and the man of letters,
except in the way of a few useful handbooks, made nothing worth the while.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He produced a mere fancy article. Mackay’s notion of a book was Hoppus’s Measurer . Now in my time I have possessed and even
studied that work; but if I were to be left to-morrow on Juan Fernandez,
Hoppus’s is not the book that I should choose for my companion volume.
I tried to fight the point with Mackay. I made him own that he had taken pleasu=
re in
reading books otherwise, to his view, insignificant; but he was too wary to
advance a step beyond the admission. It
was in vain for me to argue that here was pleasure ready-made and running f=
rom
the spring, whereas his ploughs and butter-churns were but means and mechan=
isms
to give men the necessary food and leisure before they start upon the search
for pleasure; he jibbed and ran away from such conclusions. The thing was different, he declared, a=
nd
nothing was serviceable but what had to do with food. ‘Eat, eat, eat!’ he cried; ‘that’s the =
bottom
and the top.’ By an odd irony of
circumstance, he grew so much interested in this discussion that he let the
hour slip by unnoticed and had to go without his tea. He had enough sense and humour, indeed =
he had
no lack of either, to have chuckled over this himself in private; and even =
to
me he referred to it with the shadow of a smile.
Mackay was a hot bigot. He would not hear of religion. I have seen him waste hours of time in
argument with all sorts of poor human creatures who understood neither him =
nor
themselves, and he had had the boyishness to dissect and criticise even so
small a matter as the riddler’s definition of mind. He snorted aloud with zealotry and the =
lust
for intellectual battle. Anything,
whatever it was, that seemed to him likely to discourage the continued
passionate production of corn and steam-engines he resented like a conspira=
cy
against the people. Thus, when I p=
ut in
the plea for literature, that it was only in good books, or in the society =
of
the good, that a man could get help in his conduct, he declared I was in a
different world from him. ‘Damn my
conduct!’ said he. ‘I have given i=
t up
for a bad job. My question is, “Ca=
n I
drive a nail?”’ And he plainly looked upon me as one who was insidiously
seeking to reduce the people’s annual bellyful of corn and steam-engines.
It may be argued that these opinions spring fr=
om
the defect of culture; that a narrow and pinching way of life not only
exaggerates to a man the importance of material conditions, but indirectly,=
by
denying him the necessary books and leisure, keeps his mind ignorant of lar=
ger
thoughts; and that hence springs this overwhelming concern about diet, and
hence the bald view of existence professed by Mackay. Had this been an English peasant the
conclusion would be tenable. But M=
ackay
had most of the elements of a liberal education. He had skirted metaphysical and mathema=
tical
studies. He had a thoughtful hold =
of
what he knew, which would be exceptional among bankers. He had been brought up in the midst of
hot-house piety, and told, with incongruous pride, the story of his own
brother’s deathbed ecstasies. Yet =
he had
somehow failed to fulfil himself, and was adrift like a dead thing among
external circumstances, without hope or lively preference or shaping aim. And further, there seemed a tendency am=
ong
many of his fellows to fall into the same blank and unlovely opinions. One thing, indeed, is not to be learned=
in
Scotland, and that is the way to be happy.
Yet that is the whole of culture, and perhaps two-thirds of
morality. Can it be that the Purit=
an school,
by divorcing a man from nature, by thinning out his instincts, and setting a
stamp of its disapproval on whole fields of human activity and interest, le=
ads
at last directly to material greed?
Nature is a good guide through life, and the l= ove of simple pleasures next, if not superior, to virtue; and we had on board an Irishman who based his claim to the widest and most affectionate popularity precisely upon these two qualities, that he was natural and happy. He boasted a fresh colour, a tight litt= le figure, unquenchable gaiety, and indefatigable goodwill. His clothes puzzled the diagnostic mind, until you heard he had been once a private coachman, when they became eloqu= ent and seemed a part of his biography. His face contained the rest, and, I fear, a prophecy of the future; the hawk’s = nose above accorded so ill with the pink baby’s mouth below. His spirit and his pride belonged, you = might say, to the nose; while it was the general shiftlessness expressed by the o= ther that had thrown him from situation to situation, and at length on board the emigrant ship. Barney ate, so to s= peak, nothing from the galley; his own tea, butter, and eggs supported him throug= hout the voyage; and about mealtime you might often find him up to the elbows in amateur cookery. His was the first= voice heard singing among all the passengers; he was the first who fell to dancing. From Loch Foyle to Sandy = Hook, there was not a piece of fun undertaken but there was Barney in the midst.<= o:p>
You ought to have seen him when he stood up to
sing at our concerts—his tight little figure stepping to and fro, and his f=
eet
shuffling to the air, his eyes seeking and bestowing encouragement—and to h=
ave
enjoyed the bow, so nicely calculated between jest and earnest, between gra=
ce
and clumsiness, with which he brought each song to a conclusion. He was not only a great favourite among
ourselves, but his songs attracted the lords of the saloon, who often leane=
d to
hear him over the rails of the hurricane-deck.
He was somewhat pleased, but not at all abashed, by this attention; =
and
one night, in the midst of his famous performance of ‘Billy Keogh,’ I saw h=
im
spin half round in a pirouette and throw an audacious wink to an old gentle=
man
above.
This was the more characteristic, as, for all =
his
daffing, he was a modest and very polite little fellow among ourselves.
He would not have hurt the feelings of a fly, = nor throughout the passage did he give a shadow of offence; yet he was always, = by his innocent freedoms and love of fun, brought upon that narrow margin where politeness must be natural to walk without a fall. He was once seriously angry, and that i= n a grave, quiet manner, because they supplied no fish on Friday; for Barney wa= s a conscientious Catholic. He had lik= ewise strict notions of refinement; and when, late one evening, after the women h= ad retired, a young Scotsman struck up an indecent song, Barney’s drab clothes were immediately missing from the group. His taste was for the society of gentlemen, of whom, with the reader= ’s permission, there was no lack in our five steerages and second cabin; and he avoided the rough and positive with a girlish shrinking. Mackay, partly from his superior powers= of mind, which rendered him incomprehensible, partly from his extreme opinions, was especially distasteful to the Irishman. I have seen him slink off with backward looks of terror and offended delicacy, while the other, in his witty, ugly way, had been professing hostility to God, and an extreme theatrical readiness to be shipwrecked on = the spot. These utterances hurt the little coachman’s modesty like a bad word.<= o:p>
One n=
ight
Jones, the young O’Reilly, and myself were walking arm-in-arm and briskly up
and down the deck. Six bells had r=
ung; a
head-wind blew chill and fitful, the fog was closing in with a sprinkle of
rain, and the fog-whistle had been turned on, and now divided time with its
unwelcome outcries, loud like a bull, thrilling and intense like a
mosquito. Even the watch lay somew=
here snugly
out of sight.
For some time we observed something lying black
and huddled in the scuppers, which at last heaved a little and moaned
aloud. We ran to the rails. An elderly man, but whether passenger or
seaman it was impossible in the darkness to determine, lay grovelling on his
belly in the wet scuppers, and kicking feebly with his outspread toes. We asked him what was amiss, and he rep=
lied
incoherently, with a strange accent and in a voice unmanned by terror, that=
he
had cramp in the stomach, that he had been ailing all day, had seen the doc=
tor
twice, and had walked the deck against fatigue till he was overmastered and=
had
fallen where we found him.
Jones remained by his side, while O’Reilly and=
I
hurried off to seek the doctor. We
knocked in vain at the doctor’s cabin; there came no reply; nor could we fi=
nd
any one to guide us. It was no tim=
e for
delicacy; so we ran once more forward; and I, whipping up a ladder and touc=
hing
my hat to the officer of the watch, addressed him as politely as I could—
‘I beg your pardon, sir; but there is a man ly=
ing
bad with cramp in the lee scuppers; and I can’t find the doctor.’
He looked at me peeringly in the darkness; and
then, somewhat harshly, ‘Well, I <=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> can’t leave the bridge, my man,’ said he=
.
‘No, sir; but you can tell me what to do,’ I r=
eturned.
‘Is it one of the crew?’ he asked.
‘I believe him to be a fireman,’ I replied.
I dare say officers are much annoyed by compla=
ints
and alarmist information from their freight of human creatures; but certain=
ly,
whether it was the idea that the sick man was one of the crew, or from
something conciliatory in my address, the officer in question was immediate=
ly
relieved and mollified; and speaking in a voice much freer from constraint,
advised me to find a steward and despatch him in quest of the doctor, who w=
ould
now be in the smoking-room over his pipe.
One of the stewards was often enough to be fou=
nd
about this hour down our companion, Steerage No. 2 and 3; that was his
smoking-room of a night. Let me call him Blackwood. O’Reilly and I rattled down the compani=
on,
breathing hurry; and in his shirt-sleeves and perched across the carpenters
bench upon one thigh, found Blackwood; a neat, bright, dapper, Glasgow-look=
ing
man, with a bead of an eye and a rank twang in his speech. I forget who was with him, but the pair=
were
enjoying a deliberate talk over their pipes.
I dare say he was tired with his day’s work, and eminently comfortab=
le
at that moment; and the truth is, I did not stop to consider his feelings, =
but
told my story in a breath.
‘Steward,’ said I, ‘there’s a man lying bad wi=
th
cramp, and I can’t find the doctor.’
He turned upon me as pert as a sparrow, but wi=
th a
black look that is the prerogative of man; and taking his pipe out of his
mouth—
‘That’s none of my business,’ said he. ‘I don’t care.’
I could have strangled the little ruffian wher=
e he
sat. The thought of his cabin civi=
lity
and cabin tips filled me with indignation.
I glanced at O’Reilly; he was pale and quivering, and looked like
assault and battery, every inch of him.
But we had a better card than violence.
‘You will have to make it your business,’ said=
I,
‘for I am sent to you by the officer on the bridge.’
Blackwood was fairly tripped. He made no answer, but put out his pipe=
, gave
me one murderous look, and set off upon his errand strolling. From that day forward, I should say, he
improved to me in courtesy, as though he had repented his evil speech and w=
ere
anxious to leave a better impression.
When we got on deck again, Jones was still bes=
ide
the sick man; and two or three late stragglers had gathered round, and were
offering suggestions. One proposed=
to
give the patient water, which was promptly negatived. Another bade us hold him up; he himself
prayed to be let lie; but as it was at least as well to keep him off the st=
reaming
decks, O’Reilly and I supported him between us.
It was only by main force that we did so, and neither an easy nor an
agreeable duty; for he fought in his paroxysms like a frightened child, and
moaned miserably when he resigned himself to our control.
‘O let me lie!’ he pleaded. ‘I’ll no’ get better anyway.’ And then, with a moan that went to my h=
eart,
‘O why did I come upon this miserable journey?’
I was reminded of the song which I had heard a
little while before in the close, tossing steerage: ‘O why left I my hame?’=
Meantime Jones, relieved of his immediate char=
ge,
had gone off to the galley, where we could see a light. There he found a belated cook scouring =
pans
by the radiance of two lanterns, and one of these he sought to borrow. The scullion was backward. ‘Was it one of the crew?’ he asked. And when Jones, smitten with my theory,=
had
assured him that it was a fireman, he reluctantly left his scouring and came
towards us at an easy pace, with one of the lanterns swinging from his fing=
er. The light, as it reached the spot, show=
ed us
an elderly man, thick-set, and grizzled with years; but the shifting and co=
arse
shadows concealed from us the expression and even the design of his face.
So soon as the cook set eyes on him he gave a =
sort
of whistle.
‘ It’s only a passenger !’ said he; and turning
about, made, lantern and all, for the galley.
‘He’s a man anyway,’ cried Jones in indignatio=
n.
‘Nobody said he was a woman,’ said a gruff voi=
ce,
which I recognised for that of the bo’s’un.
All this while there was no word of Blackwood =
or
the doctor; and now the officer came to our side of the ship and asked, over
the hurricane-deck rails, if the doctor were not yet come. We told him not.
‘No?’ he repeated with a breathing of anger; a=
nd
we saw him hurry aft in person.
Ten minutes after the doctor made his appearan=
ce
deliberately enough and examined our patient with the lantern. He made little of the case, had the man
brought aft to the dispensary, dosed him, and sent him forward to his bunk.=
Two of his neighbours in the steerage h=
ad now
come to our assistance, expressing loud sorrow that such ‘a fine cheery bod=
y’
should be sick; and these, claiming a sort of possession, took him entirely
under their own care. The drug had
probably relieved him, for he struggled no more, and was led along plaintive
and patient, but protesting. His h=
eart
recoiled at the thought of the steerage.
‘O let me lie down upon the bieldy side,’ he cried; ‘O dinna take me
down!’ And again: ‘O why did ever =
I come
upon this miserable voyage?’ And y=
et
once more, with a gasp and a wailing prolongation of the fourth word: ‘I ha=
d no
call to come.’
But there he was; and by the doctor’s orders and the kind force of h=
is
two shipmates disappeared down the companion of Steerage No. 1 into the den
allotted him.
At the foot of our own companion, just where I
found Blackwood, Jones and the bo’s’un were now engaged in talk. This last was a gruff, cruel-looking se=
aman,
who must have passed near half a century upon the seas; square-headed,
goat-bearded, with heavy blond eyebrows, and an eye without radiance, but
inflexibly steady and hard. I had =
not
forgotten his rough speech; but I remembered also that he had helped us abo=
ut
the lantern; and now seeing him in conversation with Jones, and being choked
with indignation, I proceeded to blow off my steam.
‘Well,’ said I, ‘I make you my compliments upon
your steward,’ and furiously narrated what had happened.
‘I’ve nothing to do with him,’ replied the bo’s’un. ‘They’re all alike. They wouldn’t mind if they saw you all lying dead one upon the top of another.’<= o:p>
This was enough.
A very little humanity went a long way with me after the experience =
of
the evening. A sympathy grew up at=
once
between the bo’s’un and myself; and that night, and during the next few day=
s, I
learned to appreciate him better. =
He was
a remarkable type, and not at all the kind of man you find in books. He had been at Sebastopol under English
colours; and again in a States ship, ‘after the Alabama , and praying God we shouldn’t f=
ind
her.’ He was a high Tory and a high
Englishman. No manufacturer could =
have
held opinions more hostile to the working man and his strikes. ‘The workmen,’ he said, ‘think nothing =
of
their country. They think of nothi=
ng but
themselves. They’re damned greedy,
selfish fellows.’ He would not hea=
r of
the decadence of England. ‘They say they send us beef from America,’ he arg=
ued;
‘but who pays for it? All the mone=
y in
the world’s in England.’ The Royal=
Navy
was the best of possible services, according to him. ‘Anyway the officers are gentlemen,’ sa=
id he;
‘and you can’t get hazed to death by a damned non-commissioned—as you can in
the army.’ Among nations, England =
was
the first; then came France. He
respected the French navy and liked the French people; and if he were force=
d to
make a new choice in life, ‘by God, he would try Frenchmen!’ For all his looks and rough, cold manne=
rs, I
observed that children were never frightened by him; they divined him at on=
ce
to be a friend; and one night when he had chalked his hand and clothes, it =
was
incongruous to hear this formidable old salt chuckling over his boyish monk=
ey
trick.
In the morning, my first thought was of the si=
ck
man. I was afraid I should not rec=
ognise
him, baffling had been the light of the lantern; and found myself unable to
decide if he were Scots, English, or Irish.
He had certainly employed north-country words and elisions; but the
accent and the pronunciation seemed unfamiliar and incongruous in my ear.
To descend on an empty stomach into Steerage N=
o.
1, was an adventure that required some nerve.
The stench was atrocious; each respiration tasted in the throat like
some horrible kind of cheese; and the squalid aspect of the place was
aggravated by so many people worming themselves into their clothes in twili=
ght
of the bunks. You may guess if I w=
as
pleased, not only for him, but for myself also, when I heard that the sick =
man
was better and had gone on deck.
The morning was raw and foggy, though the sun
suffused the fog with pink and amber; the fog-horn still blew, stertorous a=
nd
intermittent; and to add to the discomfort, the seamen were just beginning =
to
wash down the decks. But for a sic=
k man
this was heaven compared to the steerage.
I found him standing on the hot-water pipe, just forward of the salo=
on
deck house. He was smaller than I =
had
fancied, and plain-looking; but his face was distinguished by strange and
fascinating eyes, limpid grey from a distance, but, when looked into, full =
of
changing colours and grains of gold. His
manners were mild and uncompromisingly plain; and I soon saw that, when once
started, he delighted to talk. His
accent and language had been formed in the most natural way, since he was b=
orn
in Ireland, had lived a quarter of a century on the banks of Tyne, and was
married to a Scots wife. A fisherm=
an in
the season, he had fished the east coast from Fisherrow to Whitby. When the season was over, and the great=
boats,
which required extra hands, were once drawn up on shore till the next sprin=
g,
he worked as a labourer about chemical furnaces, or along the wharves unloa=
ding
vessels. In this comparatively hum=
ble
way of life he had gathered a competence, and could speak of his comfortable
house, his hayfield, and his garden. On
this ship, where so many accomplished artisans were fleeing from starvation=
, he
was present on a pleasure trip to visit a brother in New York.
Ere he started, he informed me, he had been wa=
rned
against the steerage and the steerage fare, and recommended to bring with h=
im a
ham and tea and a spice loaf. But =
he
laughed to scorn such counsels. ‘I=
’m not
afraid,’ he had told his adviser; ‘I’ll get on for ten days. I’ve not been a fisherman for nothing.’=
For it is no light matter, as he remind=
ed me,
to be in an open boat, perhaps waist-deep with herrings, day breaking with a
scowl, and for miles on every hand lee-shores, unbroken, iron-bound, surf-b=
eat,
with only here and there an anchorage where you dare not lie, or a harbour
impossible to enter with the wind that blows. The life of a North Sea fishe=
r is
one long chapter of exposure and hard work and insufficient fare; and even =
if
he makes land at some bleak fisher port, perhaps the season is bad or his b=
oat
has been unlucky and after fifty hours’ unsleeping vigilance and toil, not a
shop will give him credit for a loaf of bread.
Yet the steerage of the emigrant ship had been too vile for the
endurance of a man thus rudely trained.
He had scarce eaten since he came on board, until the day before, wh=
en
his appetite was tempted by some excellent pea-soup. We were all much of the same mind on bo=
ard,
and beginning with myself, had dined upon pea-soup not wisely but too well;
only with him the excess had been punished, perhaps because he was weakened=
by
former abstinence, and his first meal had resulted in a cramp. He had determined to live henceforth on
biscuit; and when, two months later, he should return to England, to make t=
he
passage by saloon. The second cabi=
n,
after due inquiry, he scouted as another edition of the steerage.
He spoke apologetically of his emotion when ill. ‘Ye see, I had no call to be = here,’ said he; ‘and I thought it was by with me last night. I’ve a good house at home, and plenty to nurse me, and I had no real call to leave them.’ Speaking of the attentions he had recei= ved from his shipmates generally, ‘they were all so kind,’ he said, ‘that there= ’s none to mention.’ And except in so= far as I might share in this, he troubled me with no reference to my services.<= o:p>
But what affected me in the most lively manner=
was
the wealth of this day-labourer, paying a two months’ pleasure visit to the
States, and preparing to return in the saloon, and the new testimony render=
ed
by his story, not so much to the horrors of the steerage as to the habitual
comfort of the working classes. One
foggy, frosty December evening, I encountered on Liberton Hill, near Edinbu=
rgh,
an Irish labourer trudging homeward from the fields. Our roads lay together, and it was natu=
ral
that we should fall into talk. He =
was
covered with mud; an inoffensive, ignorant creature, who thought the Atlant=
ic
Cable was a secret contrivance of the masters the better to oppress labouri=
ng
mankind; and I confess I was astonished to learn that he had nearly three
hundred pounds in the bank. But th=
is man
had travelled over most of the world, and enjoyed wonderful opportunities on
some American railroad, with two dollars a shift and double pay on Sunday a=
nd
at night; whereas my fellow-passenger had never quitted Tyneside, and had m=
ade
all that he possessed in that same accursed, down-falling England, whence
skilled mechanics, engineers, millwrights, and carpenters were fleeing as f=
rom
the native country of starvation.
Fitly enough, we slid off on the subject of
strikes and wages and hard times. =
Being
from the Tyne, and a man who had gained and lost in his own pocket by these
fluctuations, he had much to say, and held strong opinions on the subject.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He spoke sharply of the masters, and, w=
hen I
led him on, of the men also. The m=
asters
had been selfish and obstructive, the men selfish, silly, and
light-headed. He rehearsed to me t=
he
course of a meeting at which he had been present, and the somewhat long
discourse which he had there pronounced, calling into question the wisdom a=
nd
even the good faith of the Union delegates; and although he had escaped him=
self
through flush times and starvation times with a handsomely provided purse, =
he
had so little faith in either man or master, and so profound a terror for t=
he
unerring Nemesis of mercantile affairs, that he could think of no hope for =
our
country outside of a sudden and complete political subversion. Down must go Lords and Church and Army;=
and
capital, by some happy direction, must change hands from worse to better, or
England stood condemned. Such prin=
ciples,
he said, were growing ‘like a seed.’
From this mild, soft, domestic man, these words
sounded unusually ominous and grave. I
had heard enough revolutionary talk among my workmen fellow-passengers; but
most of it was hot and turgid, and fell discredited from the lips of
unsuccessful men. This man was cal=
m; he
had attained prosperity and ease; he disapproved the policy which had been
pursued by labour in the past; and yet this was his panacea,—to rend the old
country from end to end, and from top to bottom, and in clamour and civil
discord remodel it with the hand of violence.
On the
Sunday, among a party of men who were talking in our companion, Steerage No=
. 2
and 3, we remarked a new figure. H=
e wore
tweed clothes, well enough made if not very fresh, and a plain
smoking-cap. His face was pale, wi=
th
pale eyes, and spiritedly enough designed; but though not yet thirty, a sor=
t of
blackguardly degeneration had already overtaken his features. The fine nose had grown fleshy towards =
the
point, the pale eyes were sunk in fat.
His hands were strong and elegant; his experience of life evidently
varied; his speech full of pith and verve; his manners forward, but perfect=
ly
presentable. The lad who helped in=
the
second cabin told me, in answer to a question, that he did not know who he =
was,
but thought, ‘by his way of speaking, and because he was so polite, that he=
was
some one from the saloon.’
I was not so sure, for to me there was somethi=
ng
equivocal in his air and bearing. =
He
might have been, I thought, the son of some good family who had fallen early
into dissipation and run from home. But,
making every allowance, how admirable was his talk! I wish you could have heard him tell hi=
s own
stories. They were so swingingly s=
et
forth, in such dramatic language, and illustrated here and there by such
luminous bits of acting, that they could only lose in any reproduction. There were tales of the P. and O. Compa=
ny,
where he had been an officer; of the East Indies, where in former years he =
had
lived lavishly; of the Royal Engineers, where he had served for a period; a=
nd
of a dozen other sides of life, each introducing some vigorous thumb-nail
portrait. He had the talk to himse=
lf
that night, we were all so glad to listen.
The best talkers usually address themselves to some particular socie=
ty;
there they are kings, elsewhere camp-followers, as a man may know Russian a=
nd
yet be ignorant of Spanish; but this fellow had a frank, headlong power of
style, and a broad, human choice of subject, that would have turned any cir=
cle
in the world into a circle of hearers.
He was a Homeric talker, plain, strong, and cheerful; and the things=
and
the people of which he spoke became readily and clearly present to the mind=
s of
those who heard him. This, with a =
certain
added colouring of rhetoric and rodomontade, must have been the style of Bu=
rns,
who equally charmed the ears of duchesses and hostlers. Yet freely and personally as he spoke, many po=
ints
remained obscure in his narration. The
Engineers, for instance, was a service which he praised highly; it is true
there would be trouble with the sergeants; but then the officers were
gentlemen, and his own, in particular, one among ten thousand. It sounded so far exactly like an episo=
de in
the rakish, topsy-turvy life of such an one as I had imagined. But then there came incidents more doub=
tful,
which showed an almost impudent greed after gratuities, and a truly impudent
disregard for truth. And then ther=
e was
the tale of his departure. He had
wearied, it seems, of Woolwich, and one fine day, with a companion, slipped=
up
to London for a spree. I have a
suspicion that spree was meant to be a long one; but God disposes all thing=
s;
and one morning, near Westminster Bridge, whom should he come across but the
very sergeant who had recruited him at first!
What followed? He himself
indicated cavalierly that he had then resigned. Let us put it so. But these resignations are sometimes ve=
ry
trying. At length, after having delighted us for hours=
, he
took himself away from the companion; and I could ask Mackay who and what he
was. ‘That?’ said Mackay. ‘Why, that’s one of the stowaways.’ ‘No man,’ said the same authority, ‘who has had
anything to do with the sea, would ever think of paying for a passage.’ I give the statement as Mackay’s, witho=
ut
endorsement; yet I am tempted to believe that it contains a grain of truth;=
and
if you add that the man shall be impudent and thievish, or else dead-broke,=
it
may even pass for a fair representation of the facts. We gentlemen of England who live at hom=
e at
ease have, I suspect, very insufficient ideas on the subject. All the world over, people are stowing =
away
in coal-holes and dark corners, and when ships are once out to sea, appeari=
ng
again, begrimed and bashful, upon deck.
The career of these sea-tramps partakes largely of the adventurous.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> They may be poisoned by coal-gas, or di=
e by
starvation in their place of concealment; or when found they may be clapped=
at
once and ignominiously into irons, thus to be carried to their promised lan=
d,
the port of destination, and alas! brought back in the same way to that from
which they started, and there delivered over to the magistrates and the
seclusion of a county jail. Since I
crossed the Atlantic, one miserable stowaway was found in a dying state amo=
ng
the fuel, uttered but a word or two, and departed for a farther country than
America.
When the stowaway appears on deck, he has but =
one
thing to pray for: that he be set to work, which is the price and sign of h=
is
forgiveness. After half an hour wi=
th a
swab or a bucket, he feels himself as secure as if he had paid for his
passage. It is not altogether a bad
thing for the company, who get more or less efficient hands for nothing but=
a
few plates of junk and duff; and every now and again find themselves better
paid than by a whole family of cabin passengers. Not long ago, for instance, a packet was
saved from nearly certain loss by the skill and courage of a stowaway engin=
eer. As was no more than just, a handsome
subscription rewarded him for his success: but even without such exceptional
good fortune, as things stand in England and America, the stowaway will oft=
en
make a good profit out of his adventure.
Four engineers stowed away last summer on the same ship, the Circassia ; and before two days after th=
eir
arrival each of the four had found a comfortable berth. This was the most hopeful tale of emigr=
ation
that I heard from first to last; and as you see, the luck was for stowaways=
.
My curiosity was much inflamed by what I heard;
and the next morning, as I was making the round of the ship, I was delighte=
d to
find the ex-Royal Engineer engaged in washing down the white paint of a deck
house. There was another fellow at=
work
beside him, a lad not more than twenty, in the most miraculous tatters, his
handsome face sown with grains of beauty and lighted up by expressive
eyes. Four stowaways had been found
aboard our ship before she left the Clyde, but these two had alone escaped =
the
ignominy of being put ashore. Alic=
k, my
acquaintance of last night, was Scots by birth, and by trade a practical
engineer; the other was from Devonshire, and had been to sea before the
mast. Two people more unlike by
training, character, and habits it would be hard to imagine; yet here they =
were
together, scrubbing paint.
Alick had held all sorts of good situations, a=
nd
wasted many opportunities in life. I
have heard him end a story with these words: ‘That was in my golden days, w=
hen
I used finger-glasses.’ Situation =
after
situation failed him; then followed the depression of trade, and for months=
he
had hung round with other idlers, playing marbles all day in the West Park,=
and
going home at night to tell his landlady how he had been seeking for a
job. I believe this kind of existe=
nce
was not unpleasant to Alick himself, and he might have long continued to en=
joy
idleness and a life on tick; but he had a comrade, let us call him Brown, w=
ho
grew restive. This fellow was
continually threatening to slip his cable for the States, and at last, one
Wednesday, Glasgow was left widowed of her Brown. Some months afterwards, Alick met anoth=
er old
chum in Sauchiehall Street.
‘By the bye, Alick,’ said he, ‘I met a gentlem=
an
in New York who was asking for you.’
‘Who was that?’ asked Alick.
‘The new second engineer on board the So-and-so ,’ was the reply.
‘Well, and who is he?’
‘Brown, to be sure.’
For Brown had been one of the fortunate quarte=
tte
aboard the Circassia . If that was=
the
way of it in the States, Alick thought it was high time to follow Brown’s e=
xample. He spent his last day, as he put it,
‘reviewing the yeomanry,’ and the next morning says he to his landlady, ‘Mr=
s.
X., I’ll not take porridge to-day, please; I’ll take some eggs.’
‘Why, have you found a job?’ she asked, deligh=
ted.
‘Well, yes,’ returned the perfidious Alick; ‘I
think I’ll start to-day.’
And so, well lined with eggs, start he did, but
for America. I am afraid that land=
lady
has seen the last of him.
It was easy enough to get on board in the
confusion that attends a vessel’s departure; and in one of the dark corners=
of
Steerage No. 1, flat in a bunk and with an empty stomach, Alick made the vo=
yage
from the Broomielaw to Greenock. T=
hat
night, the ship’s yeoman pulled him out by the heels and had him before the
mate. Two other stowaways had alre=
ady
been found and sent ashore; but by this time darkness had fallen, they were=
out
in the middle of the estuary, and the last steamer had left them till the
morning.
‘Take him to the forecastle and give him a mea=
l,’
said the mate, ‘and see and pack him off the first thing to-morrow.’
In the forecastle he had supper, a good night’s
rest, and breakfast; and was sitting placidly with a pipe, fancying all was
over and the game up for good with that ship, when one of the sailors grumb=
led
out an oath at him, with a ‘What are you doing there?’ and ‘Do you call that
hiding, anyway?’ There was need of=
no
more; Alick was in another bunk before the day was older. Shortly before the passengers arrived, =
the
ship was cursorily inspected. He h=
eard
the round come down the companion and look into one pen after another, until
they came within two of the one in which he lay concealed. Into these last two they did not enter,=
but
merely glanced from without; and Alick had no doubt that he was personally
favoured in this escape. It was the
character of the man to attribute nothing to luck and but little to kindnes=
s;
whatever happened to him he had earned in his own right amply; favours came=
to
him from his singular attraction and adroitness, and misfortunes he had alw=
ays
accepted with his eyes open. Half =
an
hour after the searchers had departed, the steerage began to fill with
legitimate passengers, and the worst of Alick’s troubles was at an end. He was soon making himself popular, smo=
king
other people’s tobacco, and politely sharing their private stock delicacies,
and when night came he retired to his bunk beside the others with composure=
.
Next day by afternoon, Lough Foyle being alrea=
dy
far behind, and only the rough north-western hills of Ireland within view,
Alick appeared on deck to court inquiry and decide his fate. As a matter of fact, he was known to se=
veral
on board, and even intimate with one of the engineers; but it was plainly n=
ot
the etiquette of such occasions for the authorities to avow their informati=
on. Every one professed surprise and anger =
on his
appearance, and he was led prison before the captain.
‘What have you got to say for yourself?’ inqui=
red
the captain.
‘Not much,’ said Alick; ‘but when a man has be=
en a
long time out of a job, he will do things he would not under other
circumstances.’
‘Are you willing to work?’
Alick swore he was burning to be useful.
‘And what can you do?’ asked the captain.
He replied composedly that he was a brass-fitt=
er
by trade.
‘I think you will be better at engineering?’
suggested the officer, with a shrewd look.
‘No, sir,’ says Alick simply.—‘There’s few can
beat me at a lie,’ was his engaging commentary to me as he recounted the
affair.
‘Have you been to sea?’ again asked the captai=
n.
‘I’ve had a trip on a Clyde steamboat, sir, bu=
t no
more,’ replied the unabashed Alick.
‘Well, we must try and find some work for you,’
concluded the officer.
And hence we behold Alick, clear of the hot
engine-room, lazily scraping paint and now and then taking a pull upon a
sheet. ‘You leave me alone,’ was h=
is
deduction. ‘When I get talking to =
a man,
I can get round him.’
The other stowaway, whom I will call the
Devonian—it was noticeable that neither of them told his name—had both been
brought up and seen the world in a much smaller way. His father, a confectioner, died and was
closely followed by his mother. His
sisters had taken, I think, to dressmaking. He himself had returned from se=
a about
a year ago and gone to live with his brother, who kept the ‘George Hotel’—‘=
it
was not quite a real hotel,’ added the candid fellow—‘and had a hired man to
mind the horses.’ At first the Dev=
onian
was very welcome; but as time went on his brother not unnaturally grew cool
towards him, and he began to find himself one too many at the ‘George
Hotel.’ ‘I don’t think brothers ca=
re
much for you,’ he said, as a general reflection upon life. Hurt at this change, nearly penniless, =
and
too proud to ask for more, he set off on foot and walked eighty miles to
Weymouth, living on the journey as he could.
He would have enlisted, but he was too small for the army and too old
for the navy; and thought himself fortunate at last to find a berth on boar=
d a
trading dandy. Somewhere in the Br=
istol
Channel the dandy sprung a leak and went down; and though the crew were pic=
ked
up and brought ashore by fishermen, they found themselves with nothing but =
the
clothes upon their back. His next
engagement was scarcely better starred; for the ship proved so leaky, and
frightened them all so heartily during a short passage through the Irish Se=
a,
that the entire crew deserted and remained behind upon the quays of Belfast=
.
Evil days were now coming thick on the
Devonian. He could find no berth in
Belfast, and had to work a passage to Glasgow on a steamer. She reached the Broomielaw on a Wednesd=
ay:
the Devonian had a bellyful that morning, laying in breakfast manfully to
provide against the future, and set off along the quays to seek
employment. But he was now not only
penniless, his clothes had begun to fall in tatters; he had begun to have t=
he
look of a street Arab; and captains will have nothing to say to a ragamuffi=
n;
for in that trade, as in all others, it is the coat that depicts the man. You may hand, reef, and steer like an a=
ngel,
but if you have a hole in your trousers, it is like a millstone round your
neck. The Devonian lost heart at so many refusals. He had not the impudence to beg; althou=
gh, as
he said, ‘when I had money of my own, I always gave it.’ It was only on Saturday morning, after =
three
whole days of starvation, that he asked a scone from a milkwoman, who added=
of
her own accord a glass of milk. He=
had
now made up his mind to stow away, not from any desire to see America, but
merely to obtain the comfort of a place in the forecastle and a supply of
familiar sea-fare. He lived by beg=
ging,
always from milkwomen, and always scones and milk, and was not once
refused. It was vile wet weather, =
and he
could never have been dry. By night he walked the streets, and by day slept
upon Glasgow Green, and heard, in the intervals of his dozing, the famous
theologians of the spot clear up intricate points of doctrine and appraise =
the
merits of the clergy. He had not m=
uch
instruction; he could ‘read bills on the street,’ but was ‘main bad at writ=
ing’;
yet these theologians seem to have impressed him with a genuine sense of
amusement. Why he did not go to the
Sailors’ House I know not; I presume there is in Glasgow one of these
institutions, which are by far the happiest and the wisest effort of contem=
poraneous
charity; but I must stand to my author, as they say in old books, and relate
the story as I heard it. In the
meantime, he had tried four times to stow away in different vessels, and fo=
ur
times had been discovered and handed back to starvation. The fifth time was lucky; and you may ju=
dge if
he were pleased to be aboard ship again, at his old work, and with duff twi=
ce a
week. He was, said Alick, ‘a devil=
for
the duff.’ Or if devil was not the=
word,
it was one if anything stronger.
The difference in the conduct of the two was
remarkable. The Devonian was as wi=
lling
as any paid hand, swarmed aloft among the first, pulled his natural weight =
and
firmly upon a rope, and found work for himself when there was none to show
him. Alick, on the other hand, was=
not
only a skulker in the brain, but took a humorous and fine gentlemanly view =
of
the transaction. He would speak to=
me by
the hour in ostentatious idleness; and only if the bo’s’un or a mate came b=
y,
fell-to languidly for just the necessary time till they were out of sight. =
‘I’m
not breaking my heart with it,’ he remarked.
Once there was a hatch to be opened near where= he was stationed; he watched the preparations for a second or so suspiciously,= and then, ‘Hullo,’ said he, ‘here’s some real work coming—I’m off,’ and he was = gone that moment. Again, calculating th= e six guinea passage-money, and the probable duration of the passage, he remarked pleasantly that he was getting six shillings a day for this job, ‘and it’s pretty dear to the company at that.’ ‘They are making nothing by me,’ was another of his observations; ‘they’re making something by that fellow.’ And he pointed to the Devonian, who was just then busy to the eyes.<= o:p>
The more you saw of Alick, the more, it must be
owned, you learned to despise him. His
natural talents were of no use either to himself or others; for his charact=
er
had degenerated like his face, and become pulpy and pretentious. Even his power of persuasion, which was
certainly very surprising, stood in some danger of being lost or neutralise=
d by
over-confidence. He lied in an
aggressive, brazen manner, like a pert criminal in the dock; and he was so =
vain
of his own cleverness that he could not refrain from boasting, ten minutes =
after,
of the very trick by which he had deceived you.
‘Why, now I have more money than when I came on board,’ he said one
night, exhibiting a sixpence, ‘and yet I stood myself a bottle of beer befo=
re I
went to bed yesterday. And as for
tobacco, I have fifteen sticks of it.’
That was fairly successful indeed; yet a man of his superiority, and
with a less obtrusive policy, might, who knows? have got the length of half=
a
crown. A man who prides himself up=
on
persuasion should learn the persuasive faculty of silence, above all as to =
his
own misdeeds. It is only in the fa=
rce
and for dramatic purposes that Scapin enlarges on his peculiar talents to t=
he
world at large.
Scapin is perhaps a good name for this clever,
unfortunate Alick; for at the bottom of all his misconduct there was a guid=
ing
sense of humour that moved you to forgive him.
It was more than half a jest that he conducted his existence. ‘Oh, man,’ he said to me once with unus=
ual
emotion, like a man thinking of his mistress, ‘I would give up anything for=
a
lark.’
It was in relation to his fellow-stowaway that
Alick showed the best, or perhaps I should say the only good, points of his
nature. ‘Mind you,’ he said sudden=
ly,
changing his tone, ‘mind you that’s a good boy.
He wouldn’t tell you a lie. A lot
of them think he is a scamp because his clothes are ragged, but he isn’t; h=
e’s
as good as gold.’ To hear him, you
become aware that Alick himself had a taste for virtue. He thought his own idleness and the oth=
er’s
industry equally becoming. He was =
no
more anxious to insure his own reputation as a liar than to uphold the
truthfulness of his companion; and he seemed unaware of what was incongruou=
s in
his attitude, and was plainly sincere in both characters.
It was not surprising that he should take an
interest in the Devonian, for the lad worshipped and served him in love and
wonder. Busy as he was, he would f=
ind
time to warn Alick of an approaching officer, or even to tell him that the
coast was clear, and he might slip off and smoke a pipe in safety. ‘Tom,’ he once said to him, for that wa=
s the
name which Alick ordered him to use, ‘if you don’t like going to the galley,
I’ll go for you. You ain’t used to=
this
kind of thing, you ain’t. But I’m a
sailor; and I can understand the feelings of any fellow, I can.’ Again, he was hard up, and casting abou=
t for
some tobacco, for he was not so liberally used in this respect as others
perhaps less worthy, when Alick offered him the half of one of his fifteen
sticks. I think, for my part, he m=
ight
have increased the offer to a whole one, or perhaps a pair of them, and not
lived to regret his liberality. Bu=
t the
Devonian refused. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you’re a stowaway like me; I won’t take it
from you, I’ll take it from some one who’s not down on his luck.’
It was notable in this generous lad that he was
strongly under the influence of sex. If
a woman passed near where he was working, his eyes lit up, his hand paused,=
and
his mind wandered instantly to other thoughts.
It was natural that he should exercise a fascination proportionally
strong upon women. He begged, you =
will
remember, from women only, and was never refused. Without wishing to explain away the cha=
rity
of those who helped him, I cannot but fancy he may have owed a little to his
handsome face, and to that quick, responsive nature, formed for love, which
speaks eloquently through all disguises, and can stamp an impression in ten
minutes’ talk or an exchange of glances.
He was the more dangerous in that he was far from bold, but seemed to
woo in spite of himself, and with a soft and pleading eye. Ragged as he was, and many a scarecrow =
is in
that respect more comfortably furnished, even on board he was not without s=
ome
curious admirers.
There was a girl among the passengers, a tall,
blonde, handsome, strapping Irishwoman, with a wild, accommodating eye, whom
Alick had dubbed Tommy, with that transcendental appropriateness that defies
analysis. One day the Devonian was=
lying
for warmth in the upper stoke-hole, which stands open on the deck, when Iri=
sh
Tommy came past, very neatly attired, as was her custom.
‘Poor fellow,’ she said, stopping, ‘you haven’=
t a
vest.’
‘No,’ he said; ‘I wish I ’ad.’
Then she stood and gazed on him in silence, un=
til,
in his embarrassment, for he knew not how to look under this scrutiny, he
pulled out his pipe and began to fill it with tobacco.
‘Do you want a match?’ she asked. And before he had time to reply, she ra=
n off
and presently returned with more than one.
That was the beginning and the end, as far as =
our
passage is concerned, of what I will make bold to call this love-affair.
Rigidly speaking, this would end the chapter of
the stowaways; but in a larger sense of the word I have yet more to add.
On the Thursday before we arrived, the tickets
were collected; and soon a rumour began to go round the vessel; and this gi=
rl,
with her bit of sealskin cap, became the centre of whispering and pointed
fingers. She also, it was said, wa=
s a
stowaway of a sort; for she was on board with neither ticket nor money; and=
the
man with whom she travelled was the father of a family, who had left wife a=
nd
children to be hers. The ship’s of=
ficers
discouraged the story, which may therefore have been a story and no more; b=
ut
it was believed in the steerage, and the poor girl had to encounter many cu=
rious
eyes from that day forth.
Trave=
l is
of two kinds; and this voyage of mine across the ocean combined both. ‘Out of my country and myself I go,’ si=
ngs
the old poet: and I was not only travelling out of my country in latitude a=
nd
longitude, but out of myself in diet, associates, and consideration. Part of the interest and a great deal o=
f the
amusement flowed, at least to me, from this novel situation in the world.
I found that I had what they call fallen in li=
fe
with absolute success and verisimilitude.
I was taken for a steerage passenger; no one seemed surprised that I
should be so; and there was nothing but the brass plate between decks to re=
mind
me that I had once been a gentleman. In
a former book, describing a former journey, I expressed some wonder that I
could be readily and naturally taken for a pedlar, and explained the accide=
nt
by the difference of language and manners between England and France. I must now take a humbler view; for her=
e I
was among my own countrymen, somewhat roughly clad to be sure, but with eve=
ry
advantage of speech and manner; and I am bound to confess that I passed for
nearly anything you please except an educated gentleman. The sailors called me ‘mate,’ the offic=
ers
addressed me as ‘my man,’ my comrades accepted me without hesitation for a
person of their own character and experience, but with some curious
information. One, a mason himself,
believed I was a mason; several, and among these at least one of the seaman,
judged me to be a petty officer in the American navy; and I was so often set
down for a practical engineer that at last I had not the heart to deny it.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> From all these guesses I drew one concl=
usion,
which told against the insight of my companions. They might be close observers in their =
own
way, and read the manners in the face; but it was plain that they did not
extend their observation to the hands.
To the saloon passengers also I sustained my p=
art
without a hitch. It is true I came
little in their way; but when we did encounter, there was no recognition in
their eye, although I confess I sometimes courted it in silence. All these, my inferiors and equals, too=
k me,
like the transformed monarch in the story, for a mere common, human man.
With the women this surprised me less, as I had
already experimented on the sex by going abroad through a suburban part of
London simply attired in a sleeve-waistcoat.
The result was curious. I t=
hen
learned for the first time, and by the exhaustive process, how much attenti=
on
ladies are accustomed to bestow on all male creatures of their own station;
for, in my humble rig, each one who went by me caused me a certain shock of
surprise and a sense of something wanting.
In my normal circumstances, it appeared every young lady must have p=
aid
me some tribute of a glance; and though I had often not detected it when it=
was
given, I was well aware of its absence when it was withheld. My height seemed to decrease with every=
woman
who passed me, for she passed me like a dog.
This is one of my grounds for supposing that what are called the upp=
er
classes may sometimes produce a disagreeable impression in what are called =
the
lower; and I wish some one would continue my experiment, and find out exact=
ly
at what stage of toilette a man becomes invisible to the well-regulated fem=
ale
eye.
Here on shipboard the matter was put to a more
complete test; for, even with the addition of speech and manner, I passed a=
mong
the ladies for precisely the average man of the steerage. It was one afternoon that I saw this
demonstrated. A very plainly dress=
ed
woman was taken ill on deck. I thi=
nk I
had the luck to be present at every sudden seizure during all the passage; =
and
on this occasion found myself in the place of importance, supporting the
sufferer. There was not only a lar=
ge
crowd immediately around us, but a considerable knot of saloon passengers
leaning over our heads from the hurricane-deck.
One of these, an elderly managing woman, hailed me with counsels.
To such of the officers as knew about me—the
doctor, the purser, and the stewards—I appeared in the light of a broad
joke. The fact that I spent the be=
tter
part of my day in writing had gone abroad over the ship and tickled them all
prodigiously. Whenever they met me=
they
referred to my absurd occupation with familiarity and breadth of humorous i=
ntention.
Their manner was well calculated to remind me of my fallen fortunes. You may be sincerely amused by the amat=
eur
literary efforts of a gentleman, but you scarce publish the feeling to his
face. ‘Well!’ they would say: ‘still writing?’
And the smile would widen into a laugh.
The purser came one day into the cabin, and, touched to the heart by=
my
misguided industry, offered me some other kind of writing, ‘for which,’ he
added pointedly, ‘you will be paid.’
This was nothing else than to copy out the list of passengers.
Another trick of mine which told against my
reputation was my choice of roosting-place in an active draught upon the ca=
bin
floor. I was openly jeered and flo=
uted
for this eccentricity; and a considerable knot would sometimes gather at the
door to see my last dispositions for the night. This was embarrassing, but I
learned to support the trial with equanimity.
Indeed I may say that, upon the whole, my new
position sat lightly and naturally upon my spirits. I accepted the consequences with readin=
ess,
and found them far from difficult to bear.
The steerage conquered me; I conformed more and more to the type of =
the
place, not only in manner but at heart, growing hostile to the officers and
cabin passengers who looked down upon me, and day by day greedier for small
delicacies. Such was the result, a=
s I
fancy, of a diet of bread and butter, soup and porridge. We think we have no sweet tooth as long=
as we
are full to the brim of molasses; but a man must have sojourned in the
workhouse before he boasts himself indifferent to dainties. Every evening, for instance, I was more=
and
more preoccupied about our doubtful fare at tea. If it was delicate my heart was much
lightened; if it was but broken fish I was proportionally downcast. The offer of a little jelly from a
fellow-passenger more provident than myself caused a marked elevation in my
spirits. And I would have gone to =
the
ship’s end and back again for an oyster or a chipped fruit.
In other ways I was content with my position.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> It seemed no disgrace to be confounded =
with
my company; for I may as well declare at once I found their manners as gent=
le
and becoming as those of any other class.
I do not mean that my friends could have sat down without embarrassm=
ent
and laughable disaster at the table of a duke.
That does not imply an inferiority of breeding, but a difference of
usage. Thus I flatter myself that I
conducted myself well among my fellow-passengers; yet my most ambitious hop=
e is
not to have avoided faults, but to have committed as few as possible. I know too well that my tact is not the=
same
as their tact, and that my habit of a different society constituted, not on=
ly
no qualification, but a positive disability to move easily and becomingly in
this. When Jones complimented me—b=
ecause
I ‘managed to behave very pleasantly’ to my fellow-passengers, was how he p=
ut
it—I could follow the thought in his mind, and knew his compliment to be su=
ch
as we pay foreigners on their proficiency in English. I dare say this praise was given me imm=
ediately
on the back of some unpardonable solecism, which had led him to review my
conduct as a whole. We are all rea=
dy to
laugh at the ploughman among lords; we should consider also the case of a l=
ord
among the ploughmen. I have seen a
lawyer in the house of a Hebridean fisherman; and I know, but nothing will
induce me to disclose, which of these two was the better gentleman. Some of our finest behaviour, though it=
looks
well enough from the boxes, may seem even brutal to the gallery. We boast too often manners that are par=
ochial
rather than universal; that, like a country wine, will not bear transportat=
ion
for a hundred miles, nor from the parlour to the kitchen. To be a gentleman=
is
to be one all the world over, and in every relation and grade of society. It is a high calling, to which a man mu=
st
first be born, and then devote himself for life. And, unhappily, the manners of a certain
so-called upper grade have a kind of currency, and meet with a certain exte=
rnal
acceptation throughout all the others, and this tends to keep us well satis=
fied
with slight acquirements and the amateurish accomplishments of a clique.
Some of my fellow-passengers, as I now moved a=
mong
them in a relation of equality, seemed to me excellent gentlemen. They were not rough, nor hasty, nor
disputatious; debated pleasantly, differed kindly; were helpful, gentle,
patient, and placid. The type of m=
anners
was plain, and even heavy; there was little to please the eye, but nothing =
to
shock; and I thought gentleness lay more nearly at the spring of behaviour =
than
in many more ornate and delicate societies.
I say delicate, where I cannot say refined; a thing may be fine, like
ironwork, without being delicate, like lace.
There was here less delicacy; the skin supported more callously the
natural surface of events, the mind received more bravely the crude facts of
human existence; but I do not think that there was less effective refinemen=
t,
less consideration for others, less polite suppression of self. I speak of the best among my
fellow-passengers; for in the steerage, as well as in the saloon, there is a
mixture. Those, then, with whom I =
found
myself in sympathy, and of whom I may therefore hope to write with a greater
measure of truth, were not only as good in their manners, but endowed with =
very
much the same natural capacities, and about as wise in deduction, as the
bankers and barristers of what is called society. One and all were too much interested in
disconnected facts, and loved information for its own sake with too rash a
devotion; but people in all classes display the same appetite as they gorge
themselves daily with the miscellaneous gossip of the newspaper.
Newspaper-reading, as far as I can make out, is often rather a sort of brown
study than an act of culture. I ha=
ve
myself palmed off yesterday’s issue on a friend, and seen him re-peruse it =
for
a continuance of minutes with an air at once refreshed and solemn. Workmen, perhaps, pay more attention; b=
ut
though they may be eager listeners, they have rarely seemed to me either
willing or careful thinkers. Cultu=
re is
not measured by the greatness of the field which is covered by our knowledg=
e,
but by the nicety with which we can perceive relations in that field, wheth=
er
great or small. Workmen, certainly=
those
who were on board with me, I found wanting in this quality or habit of the
mind. They did not perceive relati=
ons,
but leaped to a so-called cause, and thought the problem settled. Thus the cause of everything in England=
was
the form of government, and the cure for all evils was, by consequence, a
revolution. It is surprising how many of them said this, and that none shou=
ld
have had a definite thought in his head as he said it. Some hated the Church because they disa=
greed
with it; some hated Lord Beaconsfield because of war and taxes; all hated t=
he
masters, possibly with reason. But=
these
failings were not at the root of the matter; the true reasoning of their so=
uls
ran thus—I have not got on; I ought to have got on; if there was a revoluti=
on I
should get on. How? They had no idea. Why? Because—because—well, look at Amer=
ica!
To be politically blind is no distinction; we =
are
all so, if you come to that. At bo=
ttom,
as it seems to me, there is but one question in modern home politics, thoug=
h it
appears in many shapes, and that is the question of money; and but one
political remedy, that the people should grow wiser and better. My workmen fellow-passengers were as
impatient and dull of hearing on the second of these points as any member of
Parliament; but they had some glimmerings of the first. They would not hear of improvement on t=
heir
part, but wished the world made over again in a crack, so that they might
remain improvident and idle and debauched, and yet enjoy the comfort and
respect that should accompany the opposite virtues; and it was in this
expectation, as far as I could see, that many of them were now on their way=
to
America. But on the point of money=
they
saw clearly enough that inland politics, so far as they were concerned, were
reducible to the question of annual income; a question which should long ago
have been settled by a revolution, they did not know how, and which they we=
re
now about to settle for themselves, once more they knew not how, by crossing
the Atlantic in a steamship of considerable tonnage.
And yet it has been amply shown them that the
second or income question is in itself nothing, and may as well be left
undecided, if there be no wisdom and virtue to profit by the change. It is not by a man’s purse, but by his =
character
that he is rich or poor. Barney wi=
ll be
poor, Alick will be poor, Mackay will be poor; let them go where they will,=
and
wreck all the governments under heaven, they will be poor until they die.
Nothing is perhaps more notable in the average
workman than his surprising idleness, and the candour with which he confess=
es
to the failing. It has to me been =
always
something of a relief to find the poor, as a general rule, so little oppres=
sed
with work. I can in consequence en=
joy my
own more fortunate beginning with a better grace. The other day I was living
with a farmer in America, an old frontiersman, who had worked and fought,
hunted and farmed, from his childhood up.
He excused himself for his defective education on the ground that he=
had
been overworked from first to last. Even
now, he said, anxious as he was, he had never the time to take up a book. In consequence of this, I observed him
closely; he was occupied for four or, at the extreme outside, for five hours
out of the twenty-four, and then principally in walking; and the remainder =
of
the day he passed in born idleness, either eating fruit or standing with his
back against a door. I have known =
men do
hard literary work all morning, and then undergo quite as much physical fat=
igue
by way of relief as satisfied this powerful frontiersman for the day. He, at least, like all the educated cla=
ss,
did so much homage to industry as to persuade himself he was industrious. But the average mechanic recognises his
idleness with effrontery; he has even, as I am told, organised it.
I give the story as it was told me, and it was
told me for a fact. A man fell fro=
m a
housetop in the city of Aberdeen, and was brought into hospital with broken
bones. He was asked what was his t=
rade,
and replied that he was a tapper .=
No one had ever heard of such a thing b=
efore;
the officials were filled with curiosity; they besought an explanation. It
appeared that when a party of slaters were engaged upon a roof, they would =
now
and then be taken with a fancy for the public-house. Now a seamstress, for example, might sl=
ip
away from her work and no one be the wiser; but if these fellows adjourned,=
the
tapping of the mallets would cease, and thus the neighbourhood be advertise=
d of
their defection. Hence the career of the tapper. He has to do the tapping and keep up an
industrious bustle on the housetop during the absence of the slaters. When =
he
taps for only one or two the thing is child’s-play, but when he has to
represent a whole troop, it is then that he earns his money in the sweat of=
his
brow. Then must he bound from spot=
to
spot, reduplicate, triplicate, sexduplicate his single personality, and swe=
ll
and hasten his blows., until he produce a perfect illusion for the ear, and=
you
would swear that a crowd of emulous masons were continuing merrily to roof =
the
house. It must be a strange sight =
from
an upper window.
I heard nothing on board of the tapper; but I =
was
astonished at the stories told by my companions. Skulking, shirking, malingering, were a=
ll
established tactics, it appeared. =
They
could see no dishonesty where a man who is paid for an bones work gives hal=
f an
hour’s consistent idling in its place.
Thus the tapper would refuse to watch for the police during a burgla=
ry,
and call himself a honest man. It =
is not
sufficiently recognised that our race detests to work. If I thought that I should have to work=
every
day of my life as hard as I am working now, I should be tempted to give up =
the
struggle. And the workman early be=
gins
on his career of toil. He has neve=
r had
his fill of holidays in the past, and his prospect of holidays in the futur=
e is
both distant and uncertain. In the
circumstances, it would require a high degree of virtue not to snatch
alleviations for the moment.
There were many good talkers on the ship; and I
believe good talking of a certain sort is a common accomplishment among wor=
king
men. Where books are comparatively
scarce, a greater amount of information will be given and received by word =
of
mouth; and this tends to produce good talkers, and, what is no less needful=
for
conversation, good listeners. They=
could
all tell a story with effect. I am
sometimes tempted to think that the less literary class show always better =
in
narration; they have so much more patience with detail, are so much less
hurried to reach the points, and preserve so much juster a proportion among=
the
facts. At the same time their talk=
is
dry; they pursue a topic ploddingly, have not an agile fancy, do not throw
sudden lights from unexpected quarters, and when the talk is over they often
leave the matter where it was. The=
y mark
time instead of marching. They thi=
nk
only to argue, not to reach new conclusions, and use their reason rather as=
a weapon
of offense than as a tool for self-improvement.
Hence the talk of some of the cleverest was unprofitable in result,
because there was no give and take; they would grant you as little as possi=
ble
for premise, and begin to dispute under an oath to conquer or to die.
But the talk of a workman is apt to be more
interesting than that of a wealthy merchant, because the thoughts, hopes, a=
nd
fears of which the workman’s life is built lie nearer to necessity and
nature. They are more immediate to=
human
life. An income calculated by the =
week
is a far more human thing than one calculated by the year, and a small inco=
me,
simply from its smallness, than a large one.
I never wearied listening to the details of a workman’s economy, bec=
ause
every item stood for some real pleasure.
If he could afford pudding twice a week, you know that twice a week =
the
man ate with genuine gusto and was physically happy; while if you learn tha=
t a
rich man has seven courses a day, ten to one the half of them remain untast=
ed,
and the whole is but misspent money and a weariness to the flesh.
The difference between England and America to a
working man was thus most humanly put to me by a fellow-passenger: ‘In
America,’ said he, ‘you get pies and puddings.’
I do not hear enough, in economy books, of pies and pudding. A man lives in and for the delicacies, =
adornments,
and accidental attributes of life, such as pudding to eat and pleasant books
and theatres to occupy his leisure. The
bare terms of existence would be rejected with contempt by all. If a man feeds on bread and butter, sou=
p and
porridge, his appetite grows wolfish after dainties. And the workman dwells in a borderland,=
and
is always within sight of those cheerless regions where life is more diffic=
ult
to sustain than worth sustaining. Every detail of our existence, where it is
worth while to cross the ocean after pie and pudding, is made alive and
enthralling by the presence of genuine desire; but it is all one to me whet=
her
Crœsus has a hundred or a thousand thousands in the bank. There is more adventure in the life of =
the
working man who descends as a common solder into the battle of life, than in
that of the millionaire who sits apart in an office, like Von Moltke, and o=
nly
directs the manœuvres by telegraph. Give
me to hear about the career of him who is in the thick of business; to whom=
one
change of market means empty belly, and another a copious and savoury
meal. This is not the philosophica=
l, but
the human side of economics; it interests like a story; and the life all who
are thus situated partakes in a small way the charm of Robinson Crusoe ; for every step is crit=
ical
and human life is presented to you naked and verging to its lowest terms.
As we=
drew
near to New York I was at first amused, and then somewhat staggered, by the
cautious and the grisly tales that went the round. You would have thought we were to land =
upon a
cannibal island. You must speak to=
no
one in the streets, as they would not leave you till you were rooked and
beaten. You must enter a hotel with
military precautions; for the least you had to apprehend was to awake next
morning without money or baggage, or necessary raiment, a lone forked radis=
h in
a bed; and if the worst befell, you would instantly and mysteriously disapp=
ear
from the ranks of mankind.
I have usually found such stories correspond to
the least modicum of fact. Thus I =
was
warned, I remember, against the roadside inns of the Cévennes, and that by a
learned professor; and when I reached Pradelles the warning was explained—it
was but the far-away rumour and reduplication of a single terrifying story
already half a century old, and half forgotten in the theatre of the
events. So I was tempted to make l=
ight
of these reports against America. =
But we
had on board with us a man whose evidence it would not do to put aside. He had come near these perils in the bo=
dy; he
had visited a robber inn. The publ=
ic has
an old and well-grounded favour for this class of incident, and shall be
gratified to the best of my power.
My fellow-passenger, whom we shall call
M’Naughten, had come from New York to Boston with a comrade, seeking work.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> They were a pair of rattling blades; an=
d,
leaving their baggage at the station, passed the day in beer saloons, and w=
ith
congenial spirits, until midnight struck. Then they applied themselves to f=
ind
a lodging, and walked the streets till two, knocking at houses of entertain=
ment
and being refused admittance, or themselves declining the terms. By two the inspiration of their liquor =
had
begun to wear off; they were weary and humble, and after a great circuit fo=
und
themselves in the same street where they had begun their search, and in fro=
nt
of a French hotel where they had already sought accommodation. Seeing the house still open, they retur=
ned to
the charge. A man in a white cap s=
at in
an office by the door. He seemed t=
o welcome
them more warmly than when they had first presented themselves, and the cha=
rge
for the night had somewhat unaccountably fallen from a dollar to a
quarter. They thought him ill-look=
ing,
but paid their quarter apiece, and were shown upstairs to the top of the
house. There, in a small room, the=
man
in the white cap wished them pleasant slumbers.
It was furnished with a bed, a chair, and some
conveniences. The door did not loc=
k on
the inside; and the only sign of adornment was a couple of framed pictures,=
one
close above the head of the bed, and the other opposite the foot, and both
curtained, as we may sometimes see valuable water-colours, or the portraits=
of
the dead, or works of art more than usually skittish in the subject. It was perhaps in the hope of finding
something of this last description that M’Naughten’s comrade pulled aside t=
he
curtain of the first. He was start=
lingly
disappointed. There was no picture=
. The frame surrounded, and the curtain w=
as
designed to hide, an oblong aperture in the partition, through which they
looked forth into the dark corridor. A
person standing without could easily take a purse from under the pillow, or
even strangle a sleeper as he lay abed. M’Naughten and his comrade stared at
each other like Vasco’s seamen, ‘with a wild surmise’; and then the latter,
catching up the lamp, ran to the other frame and roughly raised the
curtain. There he stood, petrified=
; and
M’Naughten, who had followed, grasped him by the wrist in terror. They could see into another room, large=
r in
size than that which they occupied, where three men sat crouching and silen=
t in
the dark. For a second or so these=
five
persons looked each other in the eyes, then the curtain was dropped, and
M’Naughten and his friend made but one bolt of it out of the room and
downstairs. The man in the white c=
ap
said nothing as they passed him; and they were so pleased to be once more in
the open night that they gave up all notion of a bed, and walked the street=
s of
Boston till the morning.
No one seemed much cast down by these stories,=
but
all inquired after the address of a respectable hotel; and I, for my part, =
put
myself under the conduct of Mr. Jones.
Before noon of the second Sunday we sighted the low shores outside of
New York harbour; the steerage passengers must remain on board to pass thro=
ugh
Castle Garden on the following morning; but we of the second cabin made our
escape along with the lords of the saloon; and by six o’clock Jones and I
issued into West Street, sitting on some straw in the bottom of an open
baggage-wagon. It rained miraculou=
sly;
and from that moment till on the following night I left New York, there was
scarce a lull, and no cessation of the downpour. The roadways were flooded; a loud strid=
ent
noise of falling water filled the air; the restaurants smelt heavily of wet
people and wet clothing.
It took us but a few minutes, though it cost u=
s a
good deal of money, to be rattled along West Street to our destination:
‘Reunion House, No. 10 West Street, one minutes walk from Castle Garden;
convenient to Castle Garden, the Steamboat Landings, California Steamers and
Liverpool Ships; Board and Lodging per day 1 dollar, single meals 25 cents,
lodging per night 25 cents; private rooms for families; no charge for stora=
ge
or baggage; satisfaction guaranteed to all persons; Michael Mitchell,
Proprietor.’ Reunion House was, I =
may go
the length of saying, a humble hostelry.
You entered through a long bar-room, thence passed into a little
dining-room, and thence into a still smaller kitchen. The furniture was of the plainest; but =
the
bar was hung in the American taste, with encouraging and hospitable mottoes=
.
Jones was well known; we were received warmly;=
and
two minutes afterwards I had refused a drink from the proprietor, and was g=
oing
on, in my plain European fashion, to refuse a cigar, when Mr. Mitchell ster=
nly
interposed, and explained the situation.
He was offering to treat me, it appeared, whenever an American
bar-keeper proposes anything, it must be borne in mind that he is offering =
to
treat; and if I did not want a drink, I must at least take the cigar. I took it bashfully, feeling I had begu=
n my
American career on the wrong foot. I did
not enjoy that cigar; but this may have been from a variety of reasons, even
the best cigar often failing to please if you smoke three-quarters of it in=
a
drenching rain.
For many years America was to me a sort of
promised land; ‘westward the march of empire holds its way’; the race is for
the moment to the young; what has been and what is we imperfectly and obscu=
rely
know; what is to be yet lies beyond the flight of our imaginations. Greece, Rome, and Judæa are gone by for=
ever,
leaving to generations the legacy of their accomplished work; China still
endures, an old-inhabited house in the brand-new city of nations; England h=
as
already declined, since she has lost the States; and to these States,
therefore, yet undeveloped, full of dark possibilities, and grown, like ano=
ther
Eve, from one rib out of the side of their own old land, the minds of young=
men
in England turn naturally at a certain hopeful period of their age. It will be hard for an American to unde=
rstand
the spirit. But let him imagine a =
young
man, who shall have grown up in an old and rigid circle, following bygone
fashions and taught to distrust his own fresh instincts, and who now sudden=
ly
hears of a family of cousins, all about his own age, who keep house togethe=
r by
themselves and live far from restraint and tradition; let him imagine this,=
and
he will have some imperfect notion of the sentiment with which spirited Eng=
lish
youths turn to the thought of the American Republic. It seems to them as if, out west, the w=
ar of
life was still conducted in the open air, and on free barbaric terms; as if=
it had
not yet been narrowed into parlours, nor begun to be conducted, like some
unjust and dreary arbitration, by compromise, costume forms of procedure, a=
nd
sad, senseless self-denial. Which =
of
these two he prefers, a man with any youth still left in him will decide
rightly for himself. He would rath=
er be
houseless than denied a pass-key; rather go without food than partake of
stalled ox in stiff, respectable society; rather be shot out of hand than
direct his life according to the dictates of the world.
He knows or thinks nothing of the Maine Laws, = the Puritan sourness, the fierce, sordid appetite for dollars, or the dreary existence of country towns. A few = wild story-books which delighted his childhood form the imaginative basis of his picture of America. In course of t= ime, there is added to this a great crowd of stimulating details—vast cities that grow up as by enchantment; the birds, that have gone south in autumn, retur= ning with the spring to find thousands camped upon their marshes, and the lamps burning far and near along populous streets; forests that disappear like sn= ow; countries larger than Britain that are cleared and settled, one man running forth with his household gods before another, while the bear and the Indian= are yet scarce aware of their approach; oil that gushes from the earth; gold th= at is washed or quarried in the brooks or glens of the Sierras; and all that bustle, courage, action, and constant kaleidoscopic change that Walt Whitman has seized and set forth in his vigorous, cheerful, and loquacious verses.<= o:p>
Here I was at last in America, and was soon out
upon New York streets, spying for things foreign. The place had to me an air of Liverpool=
; but
such was the rain that not Paradise itself would have looked inviting. We w=
ere
a party of four, under two umbrellas; Jones and I and two Scots lads, recent
immigrants, and not indisposed to welcome a compatriot. They had been six w=
eeks
in New York, and neither of them had yet found a single job or earned a sin=
gle
halfpenny. Up to the present they =
were
exactly out of pocket by the amount of the fare.
The lads soon left us. Now I had sworn by all my gods to have =
such a
dinner as would rouse the dead; there was scarce any expense at which I sho=
uld
have hesitated; the devil was in it, but Jones and I should dine like heath=
en
emperors. I set to work, asking af=
ter a
restaurant; and I chose the wealthiest and most gastronomical-looking
passers-by to ask from. Yet, altho=
ugh I
had told them I was willing to pay anything in reason, one and all sent me =
off
to cheap, fixed-price houses, where I would not have eaten that night for t=
he
cost of twenty dinners. I do not k=
now if
this were characteristic of New York, or whether it was only Jones and I who
looked un-dinerly and discouraged enterprising suggestions. But at length, by our own sagacity, we =
found
a French restaurant, where there was a French waiter, some fair French cook=
ing,
some so-called French wine, and French coffee to conclude the whole. I never entered into the feelings of Ja=
ck on
land so completely as when I tasted that coffee.
I suppose we had one of the ‘private rooms for
families’ at Reunion House. It was=
very
small, furnished with a bed, a chair, and some clothes-pegs; and it derived=
all
that was necessary for the life of the human animal through two borrowed
lights; one looking into the passage, and the second opening, without sash,
into another apartment, where three men fitfully snored, or in intervals of
wakefulness, drearily mumbled to each other all night long. It will be observed that this was almost
exactly the disposition of the room in M’Naughten’s story. Jones had the bed; I pitched my camp up=
on the
floor; he did not sleep until near morning, and I, for my part, never close=
d an
eye.
At sunrise I heard a cannon fired; and shortly
afterwards the men in the next room gave over snoring for good, and began to
rustle over their toilettes. The s=
ound
of their voices as they talked was low and like that of people watching by =
the
sick. Jones, who had at last begun=
to
doze, tumbled and murmured, and every now and then opened unconscious eyes =
upon
me where I lay. I found myself gro=
wing
eerier and eerier, for I dare say I was a little fevered by my restless nig=
ht,
and hurried to dress and get downstairs.
You had to pass through the rain, which still =
fell
thick and resonant, to reach a lavatory on the other side of the court. There were three basin-stands, and a few
crumpled towels and pieces of wet soap, white and slippery like fish; nor
should I forget a looking-glass and a pair of questionable combs. Another Scots lad was here, scrubbing h=
is
face with a good will. He had been=
three
months in New York and had not yet found a single job nor earned a single
halfpenny. Up to the present, he a=
lso
was exactly out of pocket by the amount of the fare. I began to grow sick at heart for my
fellow-emigrants.
Of my nightmare wanderings in New York I spare=
to
tell. I had a thousand and one thi=
ngs to
do; only the day to do them in, and a journey across the continent before m=
e in
the evening. It rained with patient
fury; every now and then I had to get under cover for a while in order, so =
to
speak, to give my mackintosh a rest; for under this continued drenching it
began to grow damp on the inside. =
I went
to banks, post-offices, railway-offices, restaurants, publishers, bookselle=
rs,
money-changers, and wherever I went a pool would gather about my feet, and
those who were careful of their floors would look on with an unfriendly
eye. Wherever I went, too, the same
traits struck me: the people were all surprisingly rude and surprisingly
kind. The money-changer cross-ques=
tioned
me like a French commissary, asking my age, my business, my average income,=
and
my destination, beating down my attempts at evasion, and receiving my answe=
rs
in silence; and yet when all was over, he shook hands with me up to the elb=
ows,
and sent his lad nearly a quarter of a mile in the rain to get me books at a
reduction. Again, in a very large
publishing and bookselling establishment, a man, who seemed to be the manag=
er,
received me as I had certainly never before been received in any human shop,
indicated squarely that he put no faith in my honesty, and refused to look =
up
the names of books or give me the slightest help or information, on the gro=
und,
like the steward, that it was none of his business. I lost my temper at last, said I was a
stranger in America and not learned in their etiquette; but I would assure =
him,
if he went to any bookseller in England, of more handsome usage. The boast was perhaps exaggerated; but =
like
many a long shot, it struck the gold.
The manager passed at once from one extreme to the other; I may say =
that
from that moment he loaded me with kindness; he gave me all sorts of good
advice, wrote me down addresses, and came bareheaded into the rain to point=
me
out a restaurant, where I might lunch, nor even then did he seem to think t=
hat
he had done enough. These are (it =
is as
well to be bold in statement) the manners of America. It is this same opposition that has most
struck me in people of almost all classes and from east to west. By the time a man had about strung me u=
p to
be the death of him by his insulting behaviour, he himself would be just up=
on
the point of melting into confidence and serviceable attentions. Yet I suspect, although I have met with=
the
like in so many parts, that this must be the character of some particular s=
tate
or group of states, for in America, and this again in all classes, you will
find some of the softest-mannered gentlemen in the world.
I was so wet when I got back to Mitchell’s tow=
ard
the evening, that I had simply to divest myself of my shoes, socks, and
trousers, and leave them behind for the benefit of New York city. No fire could have dried them ere I had=
to
start; and to pack them in their present condition was to spread ruin among=
my
other possessions. With a heavy he=
art I
said farewell to them as they lay a pulp in the middle of a pool upon the f=
loor
of Mitchell’s kitchen. I wonder if=
they
are dry by now. Mitchell hired a m=
an to
carry my baggage to the station, which was hard by, accompanied me thither
himself, and recommended me to the particular attention of the officials. No one could have been kinder. Those who are out of pocket may go safe=
ly to
Reunion House, where they will get decent meals and find an honest and obli=
ging
landlord. I owed him this word of
thanks, before I enter fairly on the second {92} and far less agreeable cha=
pter
of my emigrant experience.
Very =
much
as a painter half closes his eyes so that some salient unity may disengage
itself from among the crowd of details, and what he sees may thus form itse=
lf
into a whole; very much on the same principle, I may say, I allow a
considerable lapse of time to intervene between any of my little journeyings
and the attempt to chronicle them. I
cannot describe a thing that is before me at the moment, or that has been
before me only a very little while before; I must allow my recollections to=
get
thoroughly strained free from all chaff till nothing be except the pure gol=
d;
allow my memory to choose out what is truly memorable by a process of natur=
al
selection; and I piously believe that in this way I ensure the Survival of =
the
Fittest. If I make notes for futur=
e use,
or if I am obliged to write letters during the course of my little excursio=
n, I
so interfere with the process that I can never again find out what is worth=
y of
being preserved, or what should be given in full length, what in torso, or =
what
merely in profile. This process of=
incubation
may be unreasonably prolonged; and I am somewhat afraid that I have made th=
is
mistake with the present journey. =
Like a
bad daguerreotype, great part of it has been entirely lost; I can tell you
nothing about the beginning and nothing about the end; but the doings of so=
me
fifty or sixty hours about the middle remain quite distinct and definite, l=
ike
a little patch of sunshine on a long, shadowy plain, or the one spot on an =
old
picture that has been restored by the dexterous hand of the cleaner. I remember a tale of an old Scots minis=
ter
called upon suddenly to preach, who had hastily snatched an old sermon out =
of
his study and found himself in the pulpit before he noticed that the rats h=
ad
been making free with his manuscript and eaten the first two or three pages
away; he gravely explained to the congregation how he found himself situate=
d:
‘And now,’ said he, ‘let us just begin where the rats have left off.’ I must follow the divine’s example, and=
take
up the thread of my discourse where it first distinctly issues from the lim=
bo
of forgetfulness.
I was
lighting my pipe as I stepped out of the inn at Cockermouth, and did not ra=
ise
my head until I was fairly in the street.
When I did so, it flashed upon me that I was in England; the evening
sunlight lit up English houses, English faces, an English conformation of
street,—as it were, an English atmosphere blew against my face. There is nothing perhaps more puzzling =
(if
one thing in sociology can ever really be more unaccountable than another) =
than
the great gulf that is set between England and Scotland—a gulf so easy in
appearance, in reality so difficult to traverse. Here are two people almost identical in
blood; pent up together on one small island, so that their intercourse (one=
would
have thought) must be as close as that of prisoners who shared one cell of =
the
Bastille; the same in language and religion; and yet a few years of quarrel=
some
isolation—a mere forenoon’s tiff, as one may call it, in comparison with the
great historical cycles—has so separated their thoughts and ways that not
unions, not mutual dangers, nor steamers, nor railways, nor all the king’s
horses and all the king’s men, seem able to obliterate the broad
distinction. In the trituration of
another century or so the corners may disappear; but in the meantime, in the
year of grace 1871, I was as much in a new country as if I had been walking=
out
of the Hotel St. Antoine at Antwerp.
I felt a little thrill of pleasure at my heart=
as
I realised the change, and strolled away up the street with my hands behind=
my
back, noting in a dull, sensual way how foreign, and yet how friendly, were=
the
slopes of the gables and the colour of the tiles, and even the demeanour and
voices of the gossips round about me.
Wandering in this aimless humour, I turned up a
lane and found myself following the course of the bright little river. I passed first one and then another, th=
en a
third, several couples out love-making in the spring evening; and a consequ=
ent
feeling of loneliness was beginning to grow upon me, when I came to a dam
across the river, and a mill—a great, gaunt promontory of building,—half on=
dry
ground and half arched over the stream.
The road here drew in its shoulders and crept through between the
landward extremity of the mill and a little garden enclosure, with a small
house and a large signboard within its privet hedge. I was pleased to fancy this an inn, and=
drew
little etchings in fancy of a sanded parlour, and three-cornered spittoons,=
and
a society of parochial gossips seated within over their churchwardens; but =
as I
drew near, the board displayed its superscription, and I could read the nam=
e of
Smethurst, and the designation of ‘Canadian Felt Hat Manufacturers.’ There was no more hope of evening fello=
wship,
and I could only stroll on by the river-side, under the trees. The water was dappled with slanting sun=
shine,
and dusted all over with a little mist of flying insects. There were some amorous ducks, also, wh=
ose
lovemaking reminded me of what I had seen a little farther down. But the road grew sad, and I grew weary=
; and
as I was perpetually haunted with the terror of a return of the tie that had
been playing such ruin in my head a week ago, I turned and went back to the
inn, and supper, and my bed.
The next morning, at breakfast, I communicated=
to
the smart waitress my intention of continuing down the coast and through
Whitehaven to Furness, and, as I might have expected, I was instantly
confronted by that last and most worrying form of interference, that choose=
s to
introduce tradition and authority into the choice of a man’s own
pleasures. I can excuse a person
combating my religious or philosophical heresies, because them I have
deliberately accepted, and am ready to justify by present argument. But I do not seek to justify my
pleasures. If I prefer tame scener=
y to
grand, a little hot sunshine over lowland parks and woodlands to the war of=
the
elements round the summit of Mont Blanc; or if I prefer a pipe of mild toba=
cco,
and the company of one or two chosen companions, to a ball where I feel mys=
elf
very hot, awkward, and weary, I merely state these preferences as facts, an=
d do
not seek to establish them as principles.
This is not the general rule, however, and accordingly the waitress =
was
shocked, as one might be at a heresy, to hear the route that I had sketched=
out
for myself. Everybody who came to
Cockermouth for pleasure, it appeared, went on to Keswick. It was in vain that I put up a little p=
lea
for the liberty of the subject; it was in vain that I said I should prefer =
to
go to Whitehaven. I was told that =
there
was ‘nothing to see there’—that weary, hackneyed, old falsehood; and at las=
t,
as the handmaiden began to look really concerned, I gave way, as men always=
do
in such circumstances, and agreed that I was to leave for Keswick by a trai=
n in
the early evening.
Cocke= rmouth itself, on the same authority, was a Place with ‘nothing to see’; neverthel= ess I saw a good deal, and retain a pleasant, vague picture of the town and all= its surroundings. I might have dodged happily enough all day about the main street and up to the castle and in and out of byways, but the curious attraction that leads a person in a strange place to follow, day after day, the same round, and to make set habits for himself in a week or ten days, led me half unconsciously up the same, road = that I had gone the evening before. Whe= n I came up to the hat manufactory, Smethurst himself was standing in the garden gate. He was brushing one Canadian= felt hat, and several others had been put to await their turn one above the othe= r on his own head, so that he looked something like the typical Jew old-clothes man. As I drew near, he came sidli= ng out of the doorway to accost me, with so curious an expression on his face that= I instinctively prepared myself to apologise for some unwitting trespass. His first question rather confirmed me = in this belief, for it was whether or not he had seen me going up this way last night; and after having answered in the affirmative, I waited in some alarm= for the rest of my indictment. But the= good man’s heart was full of peace; and he stood there brushing his hats and prattling on about fishing, and walking, and the pleasures of convalescence= , in a bright shallow stream that kept me pleased and interested, I could scarce= ly say how. As he went on, he warmed = to his subject, and laid his hats aside to go along the water-side and show me whe= re the large trout commonly lay, underneath an overhanging bank; and he was mu= ch disappointed, for my sake, that there were none visible just then. Then he wandered off on to another tack= , and stood a great while out in the middle of a meadow in the hot sunshine, tryi= ng to make out that he had known me before, or, if not me, some friend of mine, merely, I believe, out of a desire that we should feel more friendly and at= our ease with one another. At last he = made a little speech to me, of which I wish I could recollect the very words, for = they were so simple and unaffected that they put all the best writing and speaki= ng to the blush; as it is, I can recall only the sense, and that perhaps imperfectly. He began by saying th= at he had little things in his past life that it gave him especial pleasure to recall; and that the faculty of receiving such sharp impressions had now di= ed out in himself, but must at my age be still quite lively and active. Then he told me that he had a little ra= ft afloat on the river above the dam which he was going to lend me, in order t= hat I might be able to look back, in after years, upon having done so, and get great pleasure from the recollection. Now, I have a friend of my own who will forgo present enjoyments and suffer much present inconvenience for the sake of manufacturing ‘a reminiscence’ for himself; but there was something singularly refined in th= is pleasure that the hatmaker found in making reminiscences for others; surely= no more simple or unselfish luxury can be imagined. After he had unmoored his little embark= ation, and seen me safely shoved off into midstream, he ran away back to his hats = with the air of a man who had only just recollected that he had anything to do.<= o:p>
I did not stay very long on the raft. It ought to have been very nice punting=
about
there in the cool shade of the trees, or sitting moored to an over-hanging
root; but perhaps the very notion that I was bound in gratitude specially to
enjoy my little cruise, and cherish its recollection, turned the whole thing
from a pleasure into a duty. Be th=
at as
it may, there is no doubt that I soon wearied and came ashore again, and th=
at
it gives me more pleasure to recall the man himself and his simple, happy
conversation, so full of gusto and sympathy, than anything possibly connect=
ed
with his crank, insecure embarkation. In
order to avoid seeing him, for I was not a little ashamed of myself for hav=
ing
failed to enjoy his treat sufficiently, I determined to continue up the riv=
er,
and, at all prices, to find some other way back into the town in time for
dinner. As I went, I was thinking =
of
Smethurst with admiration; a look into that man’s mind was like a retrospect
over the smiling champaign of his past life, and very different from the
Sinai-gorges up which one looks for a terrified moment into the dark souls =
of
many good, many wise, and many prudent men.
I cannot be very grateful to such men for their excellence, and wisd=
om,
and prudence. I find myself facing=
as
stoutly as I can a hard, combative existence, full of doubt, difficulties,
defeats, disappointments, and dangers, quite a hard enough life without the=
ir dark
countenances at my elbow, so that what I want is a happy-minded Smethurst
placed here and there at ugly corners of my life’s wayside, preaching his g=
ospel
of quiet and contentment.
I was
shortly to meet with an evangelist of another stamp. After I had forced my way through a gen=
tleman’s
grounds, I came out on the high road, and sat down to rest myself on a heap=
of
stones at the top of a long hill, with Cockermouth lying snugly at the
bottom. An Irish beggar-woman, wit=
h a
beautiful little girl by her side, came up to ask for alms, and gradually f=
ell
to telling me the little tragedy of her life.
Her own sister, she told me, had seduced her husband from her after =
many
years of married life, and the pair had fled, leaving her destitute, with t=
he
little girl upon her hands. She se=
emed
quite hopeful and cheery, and, though she was unaffectedly sorry for the lo=
ss
of her husband’s earnings, she made no pretence of despair at the loss of h=
is
affection; some day she would meet the fugitives, and the law would see her
duly righted, and in the meantime the smallest contribution was gratefully
received. While she was telling al=
l this
in the most matter-of-fact way, I had been noticing the approach of a tall =
man,
with a high white hat and darkish clothes.
He came up the hill at a rapid pace, and joined our little group wit=
h a
sort of half-salutation. Turning at once to the woman, he asked her in a
business-like way whether she had anything to do, whether she were a Cathol=
ic
or a Protestant, whether she could read, and so forth; and then, after a few
kind words and some sweeties to the child, he despatched the mother with so=
me
tracts about Biddy and the Priest, and the Orangeman’s Bible. I was a little amused at his abrupt man=
ner,
for he was still a young man, and had somewhat the air of a navy officer; b=
ut
he tackled me with great solemnity. I
could make fun of what he said, for I do not think it was very wise; but the
subject does not appear to me just now in a jesting light, so I shall only =
say
that he related to me his own conversion, which had been effected (as is ve=
ry
often the case) through the agency of a gig accident, and that, after having
examined me and diagnosed my case, he selected some suitable tracts from his
repertory, gave them to me, and, bidding me God-speed, went on his way.
That
evening I got into a third-class carriage on my way for Keswick, and was
followed almost immediately by a burly man in brown clothes. This fellow-passenger was seemingly ill=
at
ease, and kept continually putting his head out of the window, and asking t=
he
bystanders if they saw him coming.
At last, when the train was already in motion, there was a commotion=
on
the platform, and a way was left clear to our carriage door. He had
arrived. In the hurry I could just=
see
Smethurst, red and panting, thrust a couple of clay pipes into my companion=
’s
outstretched band, and hear him crying his farewells after us as we slipped=
out
of the station at an ever accelerating pace.
I said something about it being a close run, and the broad man, alre=
ady
engaged in filling one of the pipes, assented, and went on to tell me of his
own stupidity in forgetting a necessary, and of how his friend had
good-naturedly gone down town at the last moment to supply the omission.
The night had fallen already when I reached the
water-side, at a place where many pleasure-boats are moored and ready for h=
ire;
and as I went along a stony path, between wood and water, a strong wind ble=
w in
gusts from the far end of the lake. The
sky was covered with flying scud; and, as this was ragged, there was quite a
wild chase of shadow and moon-glimpse over the surface of the shuddering wa=
ter. I had to hold my hat on, and was growing
rather tired, and inclined to go back in disgust, when a little incident
occurred to break the tedium. A su=
dden
and violent squall of wind sundered the low underwood, and at the same time
there came one of those brief discharges of moonlight, which leaped into the
opening thus made, and showed me three girls in the prettiest flutter and
disorder. It was as though they had
sprung out of the ground. I accost=
ed
them very politely in my capacity of stranger, and requested to be told the
names of all manner of hills and woods and places that I did not wish to kn=
ow,
and we stood together for a while and had an amusing little talk. The wind, too, made himself of the part=
y,
brought the colour into their faces, and gave them enough to do to repress
their drapery; and one of them, amid much giggling, had to pirouette round =
and
round upon her toes (as girls do) when some specially strong gust had got t=
he
advantage over her. They were just=
high
enough up in the social order not to be afraid to speak to a gentleman; and
just low enough to feel a little tremor, a nervous consciousness of
wrong-doing—of stolen waters, that gave a considerable zest to our most
innocent interview. They were as much discomposed and fluttered, indeed, as=
if
I had been a wicked baron proposing to elope with the whole trio; but they
showed no inclination to go away, and I had managed to get them off hills a=
nd
waterfalls and on to more promising subjects, when a young man was descried
coming along the path from the direction of Keswick. Now whether he was the young man of one=
of my
friends, or the brother of one of them, or indeed the brother of all, I do =
not
know; but they incontinently said that they must be going, and went away up=
the
path with friendly salutations. I =
need
not say that I found the lake and the moonlight rather dull after their
departure, and speedily found my way back to potted herrings and
whisky-and-water in the commercial room with my late fellow-traveller. In the smoking-room there was a tall da=
rk man
with a moustache, in an ulster coat, who had got the best place and was
monopolising most of the talk; and, as I came in, a whisper came round to me
from both sides, that this was the manager of a London theatre. The presence of such a man was a great =
event
for Keswick, and I must own that the manager showed himself equal to his
position. He had a large fat
pocket-book, from which he produced poem after poem, written on the backs of
letters or hotel-bills; and nothing could be more humorous than his recitat=
ion
of these elegant extracts, except perhaps the anecdotes with which he varied
the entertainment. Seeing, I suppo=
se,
something less countrified in my appearance than in most of the company, he
singled me out to corroborate some statements as to the depravity and vice =
of
the aristocracy, and when he went on to describe some gilded saloon
experiences, I am proud to say that he honoured my sagacity with one little
covert wink before a second time appealing to me for confirmation. The wink=
was
not thrown away; I went in up to the elbows with the manager, until I think
that some of the glory of that great man settled by reflection upon me, and
that I was as noticeably the second person in the smoking-room as he was the
first. For a young man, this was a
position of some distinction, I think you will admit. . . .
‘=
Nous
ne décrivons jamais mieux la nature que lorsque nous nous efforçons d’exprimer sobrement et
simplement l’impression que nous en
avons reçue.’—M. ANDRÉ THEURIET, ‘L’Automne dans les Bois,’ Revue
des Deux Mondes, 1st Oct. 1874,
p.562. {106}
A country rapidly passed through under favoura=
ble
auspices may leave upon us a unity of impression that would only be disturb=
ed
and dissipated if we stayed longer.
Clear vision goes with the quick foot.
Things fall for us into a sort of natural perspective when we see th=
em
for a moment in going by; we generalise boldly and simply, and are gone bef=
ore
the sun is overcast, before the rain falls, before the season can steal lik=
e a
dial-hand from his figure, before the lights and shadows, shifting round
towards nightfall, can show us the other side of things, and belie what they
showed us in the morning. We expos=
e our
mind to the landscape (as we would expose the prepared plate in the camera)=
for
the moment only during which the effect endures; and we are away before the
effect can change. Hence we shall =
have
in our memories a long scroll of continuous wayside pictures, all imbued
already with the prevailing sentiment of the season, the weather and the
landscape, and certain to be unified more and more, as time goes on, by the
unconscious processes of thought. =
So
that we who have only looked at a country over our shoulder, so to speak, a=
s we
went by, will have a conception of it far more memorable and articulate tha=
n a
man who has lived there all his life from a child upwards, and had his
impression of to-day modified by that of to-morrow, and belied by that of t=
he
day after, till at length the stable characteristics of the country are all
blotted out from him behind the confusion of variable effect.
I begin my little pilgrimage in the most envia=
ble
of all humours: that in which a person, with a sufficiency of money and a
knapsack, turns his back on a town and walks forward into a country of whic=
h he
knows only by the vague report of others.
Such an one has not surrendered his will and contracted for the next
hundred miles, like a man on a railway.
He may change his mind at every finger-post, and, where ways meet,
follow vague preferences freely and go the low road or the high, choose the
shadow or the sun-shine, suffer himself to be tempted by the lane that turns
immediately into the woods, or the broad road that lies open before him into
the distance, and shows him the far-off spires of some city, or a range of
mountain-tops, or a rim of sea, perhaps, along a low horizon. In short, he =
may
gratify his every whim and fancy, without a pang of reproving conscience, or
the least jostle to his self-respect. It
is true, however, that most men do not possess the faculty of free action, =
the
priceless gift of being able to live for the moment only; and as they begin=
to
go forward on their journey, they will find that they have made for themsel=
ves
new fetters. Slight projects they =
may
have entertained for a moment, half in jest, become iron laws to them, they
know not why. They will be led by the nose by these vague reports of which I
spoke above; and the mere fact that their informant mentioned one village a=
nd
not another will compel their footsteps with inexplicable power. And yet a little while, yet a few days =
of
this fictitious liberty, and they will begin to hear imperious voices calli=
ng
on them to return; and some passion, some duty, some worthy or unworthy exp=
ectation,
will set its hand upon their shoulder and lead them back into the old
paths. Once and again we have all =
made
the experiment. We know the end of=
it
right well. And yet if we make it for the hundredth time to-morrow: it will
have the same charm as ever; our heart will beat and our eyes will be brigh=
t,
as we leave the town behind us, and we shall feel once again (as we have fe=
lt
so often before) that we are cutting ourselves loose for ever from our whole
past life, with all its sins and follies and circumscriptions, and go forwa=
rd
as a new creature into a new world.
It was well, perhaps, that I had this first
enthusiasm to encourage me up the long hill above High Wycombe; for the day=
was
a bad day for walking at best, and now began to draw towards afternoon, dul=
l,
heavy, and lifeless. A pall of grey
cloud covered the sky, and its colour reacted on the colour of the
landscape. Near at hand, indeed, t=
he
hedgerow trees were still fairly green, shot through with bright autumnal
yellows, bright as sunshine. But a
little way off, the solid bricks of woodland that lay squarely on slope and
hill-top were not green, but russet and grey, and ever less russet and more
grey as they drew off into the distance.
As they drew off into the distance, also, the woods seemed to mass
themselves together, and lie thin and straight, like clouds, upon the limit=
of
one’s view. Not that this massing =
was
complete, or gave the idea of any extent of forest, for every here and there
the trees would break up and go down into a valley in open order, or stand =
in
long Indian file along the horizon, tree after tree relieved, foolishly eno=
ugh,
against the sky. I say foolishly e=
nough,
although I have seen the effect employed cleverly in art, and such long lin=
e of
single trees thrown out against the customary sunset of a Japanese picture =
with
a certain fantastic effect that was not to be despised; but this was over w=
ater
and level land, where it did not jar, as here, with the soft contour of hil=
ls
and valleys. The whole scene had a=
n indefinable
look of being painted, the colour was so abstract and correct, and there was
something so sketchy and merely impressional about these distant single tre=
es
on the horizon that one was forced to think of it all as of a clever French
landscape. For it is rather in nat=
ure
that we see resemblance to art, than in art to nature; and we say a hundred
times, ‘How like a picture!’ for once that we say, ‘How like the truth!’
The sun came out before I had been long on my =
way;
and as I had got by that time to the top of the ascent, and was now treadin=
g a
labyrinth of confined by-roads, my whole view brightened considerably in
colour, for it was the distance only that was grey and cold, and the distan=
ce I
could see no longer. Overhead ther=
e was
a wonderful carolling of larks which seemed to follow me as I went. Indeed, during all the time I was in th=
at
country the larks did not desert me. The
air was alive with them from High Wycombe to Tring; and as, day after day,
their ‘shrill delight’ fell upon me out of the vacant sky, they began to ta=
ke
such a prominence over other conditions, and form so integral a part of my
conception of the country, that I could have baptized it ‘The Country of
Larks.’ This, of course, might jus=
t as
well have been in early spring; but everything else was deeply imbued with =
the
sentiment of the later year. There=
was
no stir of insects in the grass. T=
he
sunshine was more golden, and gave less heat than summer sunshine; and the
shadows under the hedge were somewhat blue and misty. It was only in autumn that you could ha=
ve
seen the mingled green and yellow of the elm foliage, and the fallen leaves
that lay about the road, and covered the surface of wayside pools so thickly
that the sun was reflected only here and there from little joints and pinho=
les
in that brown coat of proof; or that your ear would have been troubled, as =
you
went forward, by the occasional report of fowling-pieces from all directions
and all degrees of distance.
For a long time this dropping fire was the one
sign of human activity that came to disturb me as I walked. The lanes were profoundly still. They w=
ould
have been sad but for the sunshine and the singing of the larks. And as it was, there came over me at ti=
mes a
feeling of isolation that was not disagreeable, and yet was enough to make =
me
quicken my steps eagerly when I saw some one before me on the road. This fellow-voyager proved to be no les=
s a
person than the parish constable. =
It had
occurred to me that in a district which was so little populous and so well
wooded, a criminal of any intelligence might play hide-and-seek with the
authorities for months; and this idea was strengthened by the aspect of the
portly constable as he walked by my side with deliberate dignity and turned=
-out
toes. But a few minutes’ converse =
set my
heart at rest. These rural criminals are very tame birds, it appeared. If my informant did not immediately lay=
his
hand on an offender, he was content to wait; some evening after nightfall t=
here
would come a tap at his door, and the outlaw, weary of outlawry, would give
himself quietly up to undergo sentence, and resume his position in the life=
of
the country-side. Married men caused him no disquietude whatever; he had th=
em
fast by the foot. Sooner or later =
they
would come back to see their wives, a peeping neighbour would pass the word,
and my portly constable would walk quietly over and take the bird sitting.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> And if there were a few who had no part=
icular
ties in the neighbourhood, and preferred to shift into another county when =
they
fell into trouble, their departure moved the placid constable in no
degree. He was of Dogberry’s opini=
on;
and if a man would not stand in the Prince’s name, he took no note of him, =
but
let him go, and thanked God he was rid of a knave. And surely the crime and the law were in
admirable keeping; rustic constable was well met with rustic offender. The officer sitting at home over a bit =
of
fire until the criminal came to visit him, and the criminal coming—it was a
fair match. One felt as if this must have been the order in that delightful
seaboard Bohemia where Florizel and Perdita courted in such sweet accents, =
and
the Puritan sang Psalms to hornpipes, and the four-and-twenty shearers danc=
ed
with nosegays in their bosoms, and chanted their three songs apiece at the =
old
shepherd’s festival; and one could not help picturing to oneself what havoc
among good peoples purses, and tribulation for benignant constables, might =
be
worked here by the arrival, over stile and footpath, of a new Autolycus.
Bidding good-morning to my fellow-traveller, I
left the road and struck across country.
It was rather a revelation to pass from between the hedgerows and fi=
nd
quite a bustle on the other side, a great coming and going of school-childr=
en
upon by-paths, and, in every second field, lusty horses and stout country-f=
olk
a-ploughing. The way I followed to=
ok me
through many fields thus occupied, and through many strips of plantation, a=
nd
then over a little space of smooth turf, very pleasant to the feet, set wit=
h tall
fir-trees and clamorous with rooks making ready for the winter, and so back
again into the quiet road. I was n=
ow not
far from the end of my day’s journey. A
few hundred yards farther, and, passing through a gap in the hedge, I began=
to
go down hill through a pretty extensive tract of young beeches. I was soon in shadow myself, but the
afternoon sun still coloured the upmost boughs of the wood, and made a fire
over my head in the autumnal foliage. A
little faint vapour lay among the slim tree-stems in the bottom of the holl=
ow;
and from farther up I heard from time to time an outburst of gross laughter=
, as
though clowns were making merry in the bush.
There was something about the atmosphere that brought all sights and
sounds home to one with a singular purity, so that I felt as if my senses h=
ad
been washed with water. After I had
crossed the little zone of mist, the path began to remount the hill; and ju=
st
as I, mounting along with it, had got back again, from the head downwards, =
into
the thin golden sunshine, I saw in front of me a donkey tied to a tree. Now, I have a certain liking for donkey=
s,
principally, I believe, because of the delightful things that Sterne has
written of them. But this was not =
after
the pattern of the ass at Lyons. He was of a white colour, that seemed to f=
it
him rather for rare festal occasions than for constant drudgery. Besides, he was very small, and of the
daintiest portions you can imagine in a donkey.
And so, sure enough, you had only to look at him to see he had never
worked. There was something too ro=
guish
and wanton in his face, a look too like that of a schoolboy or a street Ara=
b,
to have survived much cudgelling. =
It was
plain that these feet had kicked off sportive children oftener than they had
plodded with a freight through miry lanes.
He was altogether a fine-weather, holiday sort of donkey; and though=
he
was just then somewhat solemnised and rueful, he still gave proof of the le=
vity
of his disposition by impudently wagging his ears at me as I drew near. I say he was somewhat solemnised just t=
hen; for,
with the admirable instinct of all men and animals under restraint, he had =
so
wound and wound the halter about the tree that he could go neither back nor
forwards, nor so much as put down his head to browse. There he stood, poor rogue, part puzzle=
d, part
angry, part, I believe, amused. He=
had
not given up hope, and dully revolved the problem in his head, giving ever =
and
again another jerk at the few inches of free rope that still remained unwou=
nd. A humorous sort of sympathy for the cre=
ature
took hold upon me. I went up, and,=
not
without some trouble on my part, and much distrust and resistance on the pa=
rt
of Neddy, got him forced backwards until the whole length of the halter was=
set
loose, and he was once more as free a donkey as I dared to make him. I was pleased (as people are) with this
friendly action to a fellow-creature in tribulation, and glanced back over =
my
shoulder to see how he was profiting by his freedom. The brute was looking after me; and no =
sooner
did he catch my eye than he put up his long white face into the air, pulled=
an
impudent mouth at me, and began to bray derisively. If ever any one person made a grimace at
another, that donkey made a grimace at me.
The hardened ingratitude of his behaviour, and the impertinence that=
inspired
his whole face as he curled up his lip, and showed his teeth, and began to
bray, so tickled me, and was so much in keeping with what I had imagined to
myself about his character, that I could not find it in my heart to be angr=
y,
and burst into a peal of hearty laughter. This seemed to strike the ass as a
repartee, so he brayed at me again by way of rejoinder; and we went on for a
while, braying and laughing, until I began to grow aweary of it, and, shout=
ing
a derisive farewell, turned to pursue my way.
In so doing—it was like going suddenly into cold water—I found myself
face to face with a prim little old maid.
She was all in a flutter, the poor old dear! She had concluded beyond question that =
this
must be a lunatic who stood laughing aloud at a white donkey in the placid
beech-woods. I was sure, by her fa=
ce,
that she had already recommended her spirit most religiously to Heaven, and
prepared herself for the worst. An=
d so,
to reassure her, I uncovered and besought her, after a very staid fashion, =
to
put me on my way to Great Missenden. Her
voice trembled a little, to be sure, but I think her mind was set at rest; =
and
she told me, very explicitly, to follow the path until I came to the end of=
the
wood, and then I should see the village below me in the bottom of the
valley. And, with mutual courtesie=
s, the
little old maid and I went on our respective ways.
Nor had she misled me. Great Missenden was close at hand, as s=
he had
said, in the trough of a gentle valley, with many great elms about it. The
smoke from its chimneys went up pleasantly in the afternoon sunshine. The
sleepy hum of a threshing-machine filled the neighbouring fields and hung a=
bout
the quaint street corners. A little
above, the church sits well back on its haunches against the hillside—an
attitude for a church, you know, that makes it look as if it could be ever =
so
much higher if it liked; and the trees grew about it thickly, so as to make=
a
density of shade in the churchyard. A
very quiet place it looks; and yet I saw many boards and posters about
threatening dire punishment against those who broke the church windows or
defaced the precinct, and offering rewards for the apprehension of those who
had done the like already. It was =
fair
day in Great Missenden. There were=
three
stalls set up, sub jove , for the =
sale
of pastry and cheap toys; and a great number of holiday children thronged a=
bout
the stalls and noisily invaded every corner of the straggling village. They came round me by coveys, blowing
simultaneously upon penny trumpets as though they imagined I should fall to
pieces like the battlements of Jericho.
I noticed one among them who could make a wheel of himself like a Lo=
ndon
boy, and seemingly enjoyed a grave pre-eminence upon the strength of the
accomplishment. By and by, however=
, the
trumpets began to weary me, and I went indoors, leaving the fair, I fancy, =
at
its height.
Night had fallen before I ventured forth
again. It was pitch-dark in the vi=
llage
street, and the darkness seemed only the greater for a light here and there=
in
an uncurtained window or from an open door.
Into one such window I was rude enough to peep, and saw within a
charming genre picture.
In a room, all white wainscot and crimson wall-paper, a perfect gem =
of
colour after the black, empty darkness in which I had been groping, a pretty
girl was telling a story, as well as I could make out, to an attentive child
upon her knee, while an old woman sat placidly dozing over the fire. You may be sure I was not behindhand wi=
th a
story for myself—a good old story after the manner of G. P. R. James and the
village melodramas, with a wicked squire, and poachers, and an attorney, an=
d a
virtuous young man with a genius for mechanics, who should love, and protec=
t,
and ultimately marry the girl in the crimson room. Baudelaire has a few dai=
nty
sentences on the fancies that we are inspired with when we look through a
window into other people’s lives; and I think Dickens has somewhere enlarge=
d on
the same text. The subject, at lea=
st, is
one that I am seldom weary of entertaining.
I remember, night after night, at Brussels, watching a good family s=
up
together, make merry, and retire to rest; and night after night I waited to=
see
the candles lit, and the salad made, and the last salutations dutifully
exchanged, without any abatement of interest.
Night after night I found the scene rivet my attention and keep me a=
wake
in bed with all manner of quaint imaginations.
Much of the pleasure of the Arabian
Nights hinges upon this Asmodean
interest; and we are not weary of lifting other people’s roofs, and going a=
bout
behind the scenes of life with the Caliph and the serviceable Giaffar. It is a salutary exercise, besides; it =
is
salutary to get out of ourselves and see people living together in perfect
unconsciousness of our existence, as they will live when we are gone. If to-morrow the blow falls, and the wo=
rst of
our ill fears is realised, the girl will none the less tell stories to the
child on her lap in the cottage at Great Missenden, nor the good Belgians l=
ight
their candle, and mix their salad, and go orderly to bed.
The next morning was sunny overhead and damp
underfoot, with a thrill in the air like a reminiscence of frost. I went up into the sloping garden behin=
d the
inn and smoked a pipe pleasantly enough, to the tune of my landlady’s
lamentations over sundry cabbages and cauliflowers that had been spoiled by
caterpillars. She had been so much
pleased in the summer-time, she said, to see the garden all hovered over by
white butterflies. And now, look a=
t the
end of it! She could nowise reconc=
ile
this with her moral sense. And, in=
deed,
unless these butterflies are created with a side-look to the composition of
improving apologues, it is not altogether easy, even for people who have re=
ad
Hegel and Dr. M’Cosh, to decide intelligibly upon the issue raised. Then I fell into a long and abstruse
calculation with my landlord; having for object to compare the distance dri=
ven
by him during eight years’ service on the box of the Wendover coach with the
girth of the round world itself. We
tackled the question most conscientiously, made all necessary allowance for
Sundays and leap-years, and were just coming to a triumphant conclusion of =
our
labours when we were stayed by a small lacuna in my information. I did not know the circumference of the
earth. The landlord knew it, to be
sure—plainly he had made the same calculation twice and once before,—but he
wanted confidence in his own figures, and from the moment I showed myself so
poor a second seemed to lose all interest in the result.
Wendover (which was my next stage) lies in the
same valley with Great Missenden, but at the foot of it, where the hills tr=
end
off on either hand like a coast-line, and a great hemisphere of plain lies,
like a sea, before one, I went up a chalky road, until I had a good outlook
over the place. The vale, as it op=
ened
out into the plain, was shallow, and a little bare, perhaps, but full of
graceful convolutions. From the le=
vel to
which I have now attained the fields were exposed before me like a map, and=
I
could see all that bustle of autumn field-work which had been hid from me
yesterday behind the hedgerows, or shown to me only for a moment as I follo=
wed
the footpath. Wendover lay well do=
wn in
the midst, with mountains of foliage about it.
The great plain stretched away to the northward, variegated near at =
hand
with the quaint pattern of the fields, but growing ever more and more
indistinct, until it became a mere hurly-burly of trees and bright crescent=
s of
river, and snatches of slanting road, and finally melted into the ambiguous
cloud-land over the horizon. The s=
ky was
an opal-grey, touched here and there with blue, and with certain faint russ=
ets
that looked as if they were reflections of the colour of the autumnal woods
below. I could hear the ploughmen
shouting to their horses, the uninterrupted carol of larks innumerable
overhead, and, from a field where the shepherd was marshalling his flock, a
sweet tumultuous tinkle of sheep-bells.
All these noises came to me very thin and distinct in the clear
air. There was a wonderful sentime=
nt of
distance and atmosphere about the day and the place.
I mounted the hill yet farther by a rough
staircase of chalky footholds cut in the turf.
The hills about Wendover and, as far as I could see, all the hills in
Buckinghamshire, wear a sort of hood of beech plantation; but in this
particular case the hood had been suffered to extend itself into something =
more
like a cloak, and hung down about the shoulders of the hill in wide folds,
instead of lying flatly along the summit.
The trees grew so close, and their boughs were so matted together, t=
hat
the whole wood looked as dense as a bush of heather. The prevailing colour was a dull, smoul=
dering
red, touched here and there with vivid yellow.
But the autumn had scarce advanced beyond the outworks; it was still
almost summer in the heart of the wood; and as soon as I had scrambled thro=
ugh
the hedge, I found myself in a dim green forest atmosphere under eaves of
virgin foliage. In places where th=
e wood
had itself for a background and the trees were massed together thickly, the
colour became intensified and almost gem-like: a perfect fire green, that
seemed none the less green for a few specks of autumn gold. None of the trees were of any considera=
ble age
or stature; but they grew well together, I have said; and as the road turned
and wound among them, they fell into pleasant groupings and broke the light=
up
pleasantly. Sometimes there would =
be a
colonnade of slim, straight tree-stems with the light running down them as =
down
the shafts of pillars, that looked as if it ought to lead to something, and=
led
only to a corner of sombre and intricate jungle. Sometimes a spray of delicate foliage w=
ould
be thrown out flat, the light lying flatly along the top of it, so that aga=
inst
a dark background it seemed almost luminous.
There was a great bush over the thicket (for, indeed, it was more of=
a
thicket than a wood); and the vague rumours that went among the tree-tops, =
and
the occasional rustling of big birds or hares among the undergrowth, had in
them a note of almost treacherous stealthiness, that put the imagination on=
its
guard and made me walk warily on the russet carpeting of last year’s
leaves. The spirit of the place se=
emed
to be all attention; the wood listened as I went, and held its breath to nu=
mber
my footfalls. One could not help f=
eeling
that there ought to be some reason for this stillness; whether, as the brig=
ht
old legend goes, Pan lay somewhere near in siesta, or whether, perhaps, the
heaven was meditating rain, and the first drops would soon come pattering
through the leaves. It was not unpleasant, in such an humour, to catch sigh=
t,
ever and anon, of large spaces of the open plain. This happened only where the path lay m=
uch
upon the slope, and there was a flaw in the solid leafy thatch of the wood =
at
some distance below the level at which I chanced myself to be walking; then,
indeed, little scraps of foreshortened distance, miniature fields, and
Lilliputian houses and hedgerow trees would appear for a moment in the
aperture, and grow larger and smaller, and change and melt one into another=
, as
I continued to go forward, and so shift my point of view.
For ten minutes, perhaps, I had heard from
somewhere before me in the wood a strange, continuous noise, as of clucking,
cooing, and gobbling, now and again interrupted by a harsh scream. As I advanced towards this noise, it be=
gan to
grow lighter about me, and I caught sight, through the trees, of sundry gab=
les
and enclosure walls, and something like the tops of a rickyard. And sure enough, a rickyard it proved t=
o be,
and a neat little farm-steading, with the beech-woods growing almost to the
door of it. Just before me, howeve=
r, as
I came upon the path, the trees drew back and let in a wide flood of daylig=
ht
on to a circular lawn. It was here=
that
the noises had their origin. More =
than a
score of peacocks (there are altogether thirty at the farm), a proper
contingent of peahens, and a great multitude that I could not number of more
ordinary barn-door fowls, were all feeding together on this little open lawn
among the beeches. They fed in a d=
ense
crowd, which swayed to and fro, and came hither and thither as by a sort of
tide, and of which the surface was agitated like the surface of a sea as ea=
ch bird
guzzled his head along the ground after the scattered corn. The clucking, cooing noise that had led=
me
thither was formed by the blending together of countless expressions of
individual contentment into one collective expression of contentment, or ge=
neral
grace during meat. Every now and a=
gain a
big peacock would separate himself from the mob and take a stately turn or =
two
about the lawn, or perhaps mount for a moment upon the rail, and there shri=
lly
publish to the world his satisfaction with himself and what he had to eat.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> It happened, for my sins, that none of =
these
admirable birds had anything beyond the merest rudiment of a tail. Tails, it seemed, were out of season ju=
st
then. But they had their necks for=
all
that; and by their necks alone they do as much surpass all the other birds =
of
our grey climate as they fall in quality of song below the blackbird or the
lark. Surely the peacock, with its
incomparable parade of glorious colour and the scannel voice of it issuing
forth, as in mockery, from its painted throat, must, like my landlady’s
butterflies at Great Missenden, have been invented by some skilful fabulist=
for
the consolation and support of homely virtue: or rather, perhaps, by a fabu=
list
not quite so skilful, who made points for the moment without having a studi=
ous
enough eye to the complete effect; for I thought these melting greens and b=
lues
so beautiful that afternoon, that I would have given them my vote just then
before the sweetest pipe in all the spring woods. For indeed there is no piece of colour =
of the
same extent in nature, that will so flatter and satisfy the lust of a man’s
eyes; and to come upon so many of them, after these acres of stone-coloured
heavens and russet woods, and grey-brown ploughlands and white roads, was l=
ike
going three whole days’ journey to the southward, or a month back into the
summer.
I was sorry to leave Peacock Farm —for so the place is called,
after the name of its splendid pensioners—and go forwards again in the quiet
woods. It began to grow both damp and dusk under the beeches; and as the day
declined the colour faded out of the foliage; and shadow, without form and
void, took the place of all the fine tracery of leaves and delicate gradati=
ons
of living green that had before accompanied my walk. I had been sorry to leave Peacock Farm , but I was not sorry to fi=
nd
myself once more in the open road, under a pale and somewhat troubled-looki=
ng
evening sky, and put my best foot foremost for the inn at Wendover.
Wendover, in itself, is a straggling, purposel=
ess
sort of place. Everybody seems to have had his own opinion as to how the st=
reet
should go; or rather, every now and then a man seems to have arisen with a =
new
idea on the subject, and led away a little sect of neighbours to join in his
heresy. It would have somewhat the=
look
of an abortive watering-place, such as we may now see them here and there a=
long
the coast, but for the age of the houses, the comely quiet design of some of
them, and the look of long habitation, of a life that is settled and rooted,
and makes it worth while to train flowers about the windows, and otherwise
shape the dwelling to the humour of the inhabitant. The church, which might perhaps have se=
rved
as rallying-point for these loose houses, and pulled the township into some=
thing
like intelligible unity, stands some distance off among great trees; but the
inn (to take the public buildings in order of importance) is in what I
understand to be the principal street: a pleasant old house, with bay-windo=
ws,
and three peaked gables, and many swallows’ nests plastered about the eaves=
.
The interior of the inn was answerable to the
outside: indeed, I never saw any room much more to be admired than the low
wainscoted parlour in which I spent the remainder of the evening. It was a short oblong in shape, save th=
at the
fireplace was built across one of the angles so as to cut it partially off,=
and
the opposite angle was similarly truncated by a corner cupboard. The wainscot was white, and there was a
Turkey carpet on the floor, so old that it might have been imported by Walt=
er
Shandy before he retired, worn almost through in some places, but in others
making a good show of blues and oranges, none the less harmonious for being
somewhat faded. The corner cupboar=
d was
agreeable in design; and there were just the right things upon the
shelves—decanters and tumblers, and blue plates, and one red rose in a glas=
s of
water. The furniture was old-fashi=
oned
and stiff. Everything was in keepi=
ng,
down to the ponderous leaden inkstand on the round table. And you may fancy how pleasant it looke=
d, all
flushed and flickered over by the light of a brisk companionable fire, and
seen, in a strange, tilted sort of perspective, in the three compartments of
the old mirror above the chimney. =
As I
sat reading in the great armchair, I kept looking round with the tail of my=
eye
at the quaint, bright picture that was about me, and could not help some
pleasure and a certain childish pride in forming part of it. The book I read was about Italy in the =
early
Renaissance, the pageantries and the light loves of princes, the passion of=
men
for learning, and poetry, and art; but it was written, by good luck, after a
solid, prosaic fashion, that suited the room infinitely more nearly than the
matter; and the result was that I thought less, perhaps, of Lippo Lippi, or
Lorenzo, or Politian, than of the good Englishman who had written in that
volume what he knew of them, and taken so much pleasure in his solemn
polysyllables.
I was not left without society. My landlord had a very pretty little
daughter, whom we shall call Lizzie. If
I had made any notes at the time, I might be able to tell you something
definite of her appearance. But faces have a trick of growing more and more
spiritualised and abstract in the memory, until nothing remains of them but=
a
look, a haunting expression; just that secret quality in a face that is apt=
to
slip out somehow under the cunningest painter’s touch, and leave the portra=
it
dead for the lack of it. And if it=
is
hard to catch with the finest of camel’s-hair pencils, you may think how
hopeless it must be to pursue after it with clumsy words. If I say, for instance, that this look,=
which
I remember as Lizzie, was something wistful that seemed partly to come of
slyness and in part of simplicity, and that I am inclined to imagine it had
something to do with the daintiest suspicion of a cast in one of her large
eyes, I shall have said all that I can, and the reader will not be much
advanced towards comprehension. I =
had
struck up an acquaintance with this little damsel in the morning, and profe=
ssed
much interest in her dolls, and an impatient desire to see the large one wh=
ich
was kept locked away for great occasions.
And so I had not been very long in the parlour before the door opene=
d,
and in came Miss Lizzie with two dolls tucked clumsily under her arm. She was followed by her brother John, a=
year
or so younger than herself, not simply to play propriety at our interview, =
but
to show his own two whips in emulation of his sister’s dolls. I did my best to make myself agreeable =
to my
visitors, showing much admiration for the dolls and dolls’ dresses, and, wi=
th a
very serious demeanour, asking many questions about their age and
character. I do not think that Liz=
zie
distrusted my sincerity, but it was evident that she was both bewildered an=
d a
little contemptuous. Although she was ready herself to treat her dolls as if
they were alive, she seemed to think rather poorly of any grown person who
could fall heartily into the spirit of the fiction. Sometimes she would look at me with gra=
vity
and a sort of disquietude, as though she really feared I must be out of my
wits. Sometimes, as when I inquire=
d too
particularly into the question of their names, she laughed at me so long and
heartily that I began to feel almost embarrassed. But when, in an evil moment, I asked to=
be
allowed to kiss one of them, she could keep herself no longer to herself. Clambering down from the chair on which=
she
sat perched to show me, Cornelia-like, her jewels, she ran straight out of =
the
room and into the bar—it was just across the passage,—and I could hear her
telling her mother in loud tones, but apparently more in sorrow than in
merriment, that the gentleman in t=
he
parlour wanted to kiss Dolly . I f=
ancy
she was determined to save me from this humiliating action, even in spite of
myself, for she never gave me the desired permission. She reminded me of an old dog I once kn=
ew,
who would never suffer the master of the house to dance, out of an exaggera=
ted
sense of the dignity of that master’s place and carriage.
After the young people were gone there was but=
one
more incident ere I went to bed. I=
heard
a party of children go up and down the dark street for a while, singing
together sweetly. And the mystery =
of
this little incident was so pleasant to me that I purposely refrained from
asking who they were, and wherefore they went singing at so late an hour. One can rarely be in a pleasant place w=
ithout
meeting with some pleasant accident. I
have a conviction that these children would not have gone singing before the
inn unless the inn-parlour had been the delightful place it was. At least, if I had been in the customary
public room of the modern hotel, with all its disproportions and discomfort=
s,
my ears would have been dull, and there would have been some ugly temper or
other uppermost in my spirit, and so they would have wasted their songs upo=
n an
unworthy hearer.
Next morning I went along to visit the
church. It is a long-backed
red-and-white building, very much restored, and stands in a pleasant gravey=
ard
among those great trees of which I have spoken already. The sky was drowned in a mist. Now and again pulses of cold wind went =
about
the enclosure, and set the branches busy overhead, and the dead leaves
scurrying into the angles of the church buttresses. Now and again, also, I could hear the d=
ull
sudden fall of a chestnut among the grass—the dog would bark before the rec=
tory
door—or there would come a clinking of pails from the stable-yard behind. But in spite of these occasional
interruptions—in spite, also, of the continuous autumn twittering that fill=
ed
the trees—the chief impression somehow was one as of utter silence, insomuch
that the little greenish bell that peeped out of a window in the tower
disquieted me with a sense of some possible and more inharmonious
disturbance. The grass was wet, as=
if
with a hoar frost that had just been melted.
I do not know that ever I saw a morning more autumnal. As I went to and fro among the graves, =
I saw
some flowers set reverently before a recently erected tomb, and drawing nea=
r,
was almost startled to find they lay on the grave a man seventy-two years o=
ld
when he died. We are accustomed to=
strew
flowers only over the young, where love has been cut short untimely, and gr=
eat possibilities
have been restrained by death. We =
strew
them there in token, that these possibilities, in some deeper sense, shall =
yet
be realised, and the touch of our dead loves remain with us and guide us to=
the
end. And yet there was more
significance, perhaps, and perhaps a greater consolation, in this little
nosegay on the grave of one who had died old.
We are apt to make so much of the tragedy of death, and think so lit=
tle
of the enduring tragedy of some men’s lives, that we see more to lament for=
in
a life cut off in the midst of usefulness and love, than in one that misera=
bly
survives all love and usefulness, and goes about the world the phantom of
itself, without hope, or joy, or any consolation. These flowers seemed not so much the to=
ken of
love that survived death, as of something yet more beautiful—of love that h=
ad
lived a man’s life out to an end with him, and been faithful and companiona=
ble,
and not weary of loving, throughout all these years.
The morning cleared a little, and the sky was =
once
more the old stone-coloured vault over the sallow meadows and the russet wo=
ods,
as I set forth on a dog-cart from Wendover to Tring. The road lay for a good distance along =
the
side of the hills, with the great plain below on one hand, and the beech-wo=
ods
above on the other. The fields wer=
e busy
with people ploughing and sowing; every here and there a jug of ale stood in
the angle of the hedge, and I could see many a team wait smoking in the fur=
row
as ploughman or sower stepped aside for a moment to take a draught. Over all the brown ploughlands, and und=
er all
the leafless hedgerows, there was a stout piece of labour abroad, and, as it
were, a spirit of picnic. The hors=
es smoked
and the men laboured and shouted and drank in the sharp autumn morning; so =
that
one had a strong effect of large, open-air existence. The fellow who drove me was something o=
f a
humourist; and his conversation was all in praise of an agricultural labour=
er’s
way of life. It was he who called =
my
attention to these jugs of ale by the hedgerow; he could not sufficiently
express the liberality of these men’s wages; he told me how sharp an appeti=
te
was given by breaking up the earth in the morning air, whether with plough =
or
spade, and cordially admired this provision of nature. He sang O fortunatos agricolas ! indeed, in every
possible key, and with many cunning inflections, till I began to wonder what
was the use of such people as Mr. Arch, and to sing the same air myself in a
more diffident manner.
Tring was reached, and then Tring railway-stat=
ion;
for the two are not very near, the good people of Tring having held the
railway, of old days, in extreme apprehension, lest some day it should break
loose in the town and work mischief. I
had a last walk, among russet beeches as usual, and the air filled, as usua=
l,
with the carolling of larks; I heard shots fired in the distance, and saw, =
as a
new sign of the fulfilled autumn, two horsemen exercising a pack of
fox-hounds. And then the train cam=
e and
carried me back to London.
At the
famous bridge of Doon, Kyle, the central district of the shire of Ayr, marc=
hes
with Carrick, the most southerly. =
On the
Carrick side of the river rises a hill of somewhat gentle conformation, cle=
ft
with shallow dells, and sown here and there with farms and tufts of wood.
Inland, it loses itself, joining, I suppose, the great herd of similar hills
that occupies the centre of the Lowlands.
Towards the sea it swells out the coast-line into a protuberance, li=
ke a
bay-window in a plan, and is fortified against the surf behind bold crags.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> This hill is known as the Brown Hill of
Carrick, or, more shortly, Brown Carrick.
It had snowed overnight. The fields were all sheeted up; they we=
re
tucked in among the snow, and their shape was modelled through the pliant
counterpane, like children tucked in by a fond mother. The wind had made ripples and folds upo=
n the
surface, like what the sea, in quiet weather, leaves upon the sand. There was a frosty stifle in the air. An effusion of coppery light on the sum=
mit of
Brown Carrick showed where the sun was trying to look through; but along the
horizon clouds of cold fog had settled down, so that there was no distincti=
on of
sky and sea. Over the white should=
ers of
the headlands, or in the opening of bays, there was nothing but a great vac=
ancy
and blackness; and the road as it drew near the edge of the cliff seemed to
skirt the shores of creation and void space.
The snow crunched under foot, and at farms all=
the
dogs broke out barking as they smelt a passer-by upon the road. I met a fine old fellow, who might have=
sat
as the father in ‘The Cottar’s Saturday Night,’ and who swore most heatheni=
shly
at a cow he was driving. And a lit=
tle
after I scraped acquaintance with a poor body tramping out to gather cockle=
s.
His face was wrinkled by exposure; it was broken up into flakes and channel=
s,
like mud beginning to dry, and weathered in two colours, an incongruous pink
and grey. He had a faint air of be=
ing
surprised—which, God knows, he might well be—that life had gone so ill with
him. The shape of his trousers was=
in
itself a jest, so strangely were they bagged and ravelled about his knees; =
and
his coat was all bedaubed with clay as tough he had lain in a rain-dub duri=
ng
the New Year’s festivity. I will o=
wn I
was not sorry to think he had had a merry New Year, and been young again fo=
r an
evening; but I was sorry to see the mark still there. One could not expect such an old gentle=
man to
be much of a dandy or a great student of respectability in dress; but there
might have been a wife at home, who had brushed out similar stains after fi=
fty
New Years, now become old, or a round-armed daughter, who would wish to have
him neat, were it only out of self-respect and for the ploughman sweetheart
when he looks round at night. Plai=
nly,
there was nothing of this in his life, and years and loneliness hung heavil=
y on
his old arms. He was seventy-six, =
he
told me; and nobody would give a day’s work to a man that age: they would t=
hink
he couldn’t do it. ‘And, ’deed,’ h=
e went
on, with a sad little chuckle, ‘’deed, I doubt if I could.’ He said goodbye to me at a footpath, and
crippled wearily off to his work. =
It
will make your heart ache if you think of his old fingers groping in the sn=
ow.
He told me I was to turn down beside the
school-house for Dunure. And so, w=
hen I
found a lone house among the snow, and heard a babble of childish voices fr=
om
within, I struck off into a steep road leading downwards to the sea. Dunure lies close under the steep hill:=
a
haven among the rocks, a breakwater in consummate disrepair, much apparatus=
for
drying nets, and a score or so of fishers’ houses. Hard by, a few shards of ruined castle
overhang the sea, a few vaults, and one tall gable honeycombed with
windows. The snow lay on the beach=
to
the tidemark. It was daubed on to =
the
sills of the ruin: it roosted in the crannies of the rock like white sea-bi=
rds;
even on outlying reefs there would be a little cock of snow, like a toy
lighthouse. Everything was grey and
white in a cold and dolorous sort of shepherd’s plaid. In the profound silence, broken only by=
the
noise of oars at sea, a horn was sounded twice; and I saw the postman, girt
with two bags, pause a moment at the end of the clachan for letters.
It is, perhaps, characteristic of Dunure that =
none
were brought him.
The people at the public-house did not seem we=
ll
pleased to see me, and though I would fain have stayed by the kitchen fire,
sent me ‘ben the hoose’ into the guest-room.
This guest-room at Dunure was painted in quite æsthetic fashion. There are rooms in the same taste not a
hundred miles from London, where persons of an extreme sensibility meet
together without embarrassment. It=
was
all in a fine dull bottle-green and black; a grave harmonious piece of
colouring, with nothing, so far as coarser folk can judge, to hurt the bett=
er
feelings of the most exquisite purist. A cherry-red half window-blind kept =
up
an imaginary warmth in the cold room, and threw quite a glow on the floor.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Twelve cockle-shells and a half-penny c=
hina
figure were ranged solemnly along the mantel-shelf. Even the spittoon was an
original note, and instead of sawdust contained sea-shells. And as for the hearthrug, it would meri=
t an
article to itself, and a coloured diagram to help the text. It was patchwork, but the patchwork of =
the
poor; no glowing shreds of old brocade and Chinese silk, shaken together in=
the
kaleidoscope of some tasteful housewife’s fancy; but a work of art in its o=
wn
way, and plainly a labour of love. The patches came exclusively from people=
’s
raiment. There was no colour more
brilliant than a heather mixture; ‘My Johnny’s grey breeks,’ well polished =
over
the oar on the boat’s thwart, entered largely into its composition. And the spoils of an old black cloth co=
at,
that had been many a Sunday to church, added something (save the mark!) of
preciousness to the material.
While I was at luncheon four carters came
in—long-limbed, muscular Ayrshire Scots, with lean, intelligent faces. Four quarts of stout were ordered; they=
kept
filling the tumbler with the other hand as they drank; and in less time tha=
n it
takes me to write these words the four quarts were finished—another round w=
as
proposed, discussed, and negatived—and they were creaking out of the village
with their carts.
The ruins drew you towards them. You never saw any place more desolate f=
rom a
distance, nor one that less belied its promise near at hand. Some crows and gulls flew away croaking=
as I
scrambled in. The snow had drifted=
into
the vaults. The clachan dabbled wi=
th
snow, the white hills, the black sky, the sea marked in the coves with faint
circular wrinkles, the whole world, as it looked from a loop-hole in Dunure,
was cold, wretched, and out-at-elbows.
If you had been a wicked baron and compelled to stay there all the
afternoon, you would have had a rare fit of remorse. How you would have heaped up the fire a=
nd
gnawed your fingers! I think it wo=
uld
have come to homicide before the evening—if it were only for the pleasure of
seeing something red! And the mast=
ers of
Dunure, it is to be noticed, were remarkable of old for inhumanity. One of these vaults where the snow had
drifted was that ‘black route’ where ‘Mr. Alane Stewart, Commendatour of
Crossraguel,’ endured his fiery trials.
On the 1st and 7th of September 1570 (ill dates for Mr. Alan!), Gilb=
ert,
Earl of Cassilis, his chaplain, his baker, his cook, his pantryman, and ano=
ther
servant, bound the Poor Commendator ‘betwix an iron chimlay and a fire,’ and
there cruelly roasted him until he signed away his abbacy. It is one of the ugliest stories of an =
ugly
period, but not, somehow, without such a flavour of the ridiculous as makes=
it
hard to sympathise quite seriously with the victim. And it is consoling to remember that he=
got
away at last, and kept his abbacy, and, over and above, had a pension from =
the
Earl until he died.
Some way beyond Dunure a wide bay, of somewhat
less unkindly aspect, opened out.
Colzean plantations lay all along the steep shore, and there was a
wooded hill towards the centre, where the trees made a sort of shadowy etch=
ing
over the snow. The road went down =
and
up, and past a blacksmith’s cottage that made fine music in the valley. Three compatriots of Burns drove up to =
me in
a cart. They were all drunk, and a=
sked
me jeeringly if this was the way to Dunure.
I told them it was; and my answer was received with unfeigned
merriment. One gentleman was so mu=
ch
tickled he nearly fell out of the cart; indeed, he was only saved by a
companion, who either had not so fine a sense of humour or had drunken less=
.
‘The toune of Mayboll,’ says the inimitable
Abercrummie, {136} ‘stands upon an ascending ground from east to west, and =
lyes
open to the south. It hath one principals street, with houses upon both sid=
es,
built of freestone; and it is beautifyed with the situation of two castles,=
one
at each end of this street. That o=
n the
east belongs to the Erle of Cassilis. On
the west end is a castle, which belonged sometime to the laird of Blairquan,
which is now the tolbuith, and is adorned with a pyremide [conical roof], a=
nd a
row of ballesters round it raised from the top of the staircase, into which
they have mounted a fyne clock. Th=
ere be
four lanes which pass from the principall street; one is called the Black
Vennel, which is steep, declining to the south-west, and leads to a lower
street, which is far larger than the high chiefe street, and it runs from t=
he
Kirkland to the Well Trees, in which there have been many pretty buildings,
belonging to the severall gentry of the countrey, who were wont to resort
thither in winter, and divert themselves in converse together at their owne
houses. It was once the principall
street of the town; but many of these houses of the gentry having been deca=
yed
and ruined, it has lost much of its ancient beautie. Just opposite to this vennel, there is
another that leads north-west, from the chiefe street to the green, which i=
s a
pleasant plott of ground, enclosed round with an earthen wall, wherein they
were wont to play football, but now at the Gowff and byasse-bowls. The houses of this towne, on both sides=
of
the street, have their several gardens belonging to them; and in the lower
street there be some pretty orchards, that yield store of good fruit.’ As
Patterson says, this description is near enough even to-day, and is mighty
nicely written to boot. I am bound=
to
add, of my own experience, that Maybole is tumbledown and dreary. Prosperous enough in reality, it has an=
air
of decay; and though the population has increased, a roofless house every h=
ere
and there seems to protest the contrary.
The women are more than well-favoured, and the men fine tall fellows;
but they look slipshod and dissipated.
As they slouched at street corners, or stood about gossiping in the =
snow,
it seemed they would have been more at home in the slums of a large city th=
an
here in a country place betwixt a village and a town. I heard a great deal about drinking, an=
d a
great deal about religious revivals: two things in which the Scottish chara=
cter
is emphatic and most unlovely. In
particular, I heard of clergymen who were employing their time in explainin=
g to
a delighted audience the physics of the Second Coming. It is not very likely any of us will be=
asked
to help. If we were, it is likely =
we
should receive instructions for the occasion, and that on more reliable
authority. And so I can only figur=
e to
myself a congregation truly curious in such flights of theological fancy, as
one of veteran and accomplished saints, who have fought the good fight to an
end and outlived all worldly passion, and are to be regarded rather as a pa=
rt
of the Church Triumphant than the poor, imperfect company on earth. And yet I saw some young fellows about =
the
smoking-room who seemed, in the eyes of one who cannot count himself
strait-laced, in need of some more practical sort of teaching. They seemed only eager to get drunk, an=
d to
do so speedily. It was not much mo=
re
than a week after the New Year; and to hear them return on their past bouts
with a gusto unspeakable was not altogether pleasing. Here is one snatch of talk, for the acc=
uracy
of which I can vouch—
‘Ye had a spree here last Tuesday?’
‘We had that!’
‘I wasna able to be oot o’ my bed. Man, I was awful bad on Wednesday.’
‘Ay, ye were gey bad.’
And you should have seen the bright eyes, and
heard the sensual accents! They recalled their doings with devout gusto and=
a
sort of rational pride. Schoolboys,
after their first drunkenness, are not more boastful; a cock does not plume
himself with a more unmingled satisfaction as he paces forth among his hare=
m;
and yet these were grown men, and by no means short of wit. It was hard to suppose they were very e=
ager
about the Second Coming: it seemed as if some elementary notions of tempera=
nce
for the men and seemliness for the women would have gone nearer the mark. A=
nd
yet, as it seemed to me typical of much that is evil in Scotland, Maybole is
also typical of much that is best. Some
of the factories, which have taken the place of weaving in the town’s econo=
my,
were originally founded and are still possessed by self-made men of the
sterling, stout old breed—fellows who made some little bit of an invention,
borrowed some little pocketful of capital, and then, step by step, in coura=
ge,
thrift and industry, fought their way upwards to an assured position.
Abercrummie has told you enough of the Tolboot=
h;
but, as a bit of spelling, this inscription on the Tolbooth bell seems too
delicious to withhold: ‘This bell is founded at Maiboll Bi Danel Geli, a
Frenchman, the 6th November, 1696, Bi appointment of the heritors of the pa=
rish
of Maiyboll.’ The Castle deserves =
more
notice. It is a large and shapely =
tower,
plain from the ground upwards, but with a zone of ornamentation running abo=
ut
the top. In a general way this ado=
rnment
is perched on the very summit of the chimney-stacks; but there is one corner
more elaborate than the rest. A ve=
ry
heavy string-course runs round the upper story, and just above this, facing=
up
the street, the tower carries a small oriel window, fluted and corbelled and
carved about with stone heads. It =
is so
ornate it has somewhat the air of a shrine.
And it was, indeed, the casket of a very precious jewel, for in the =
room
to which it gives light lay, for long years, the heroine of the sweet old
ballad of ‘Johnnie Faa’—she who, at the call of the gipsies’ songs, ‘came
tripping down the stair, and all her maids before her.’ Some people say the ballad has no basis=
in
fact, and have written, I believe, unanswerable papers to the proof. But in the face of all that, the very l=
ook of
that high oriel window convinces the imagination, and we enter into all the
sorrows of the imprisoned dame. We
conceive the burthen of the long, lack-lustre days, when she leaned her sick
head against the mullions, and saw the burghers loafing in Maybole High Str=
eet,
and the children at play, and ruffling gallants riding by from hunt or
foray. We conceive the passion of =
odd
moments, when the wind threw up to her some snatch of song, and her heart g=
rew
hot within her, and her eyes overflowed at the memory of the past. And even if the tale be not true of thi=
s or
that lady, or this or that old tower, it is true in the essence of all men =
and
women: for all of us, some time or other, hear the gipsies singing; over al=
l of
us is the glamour cast. Some resis=
t and
sit resolutely by the fire. Most g=
o and
are brought back again, like Lady Cassilis.
A few, of the tribe of Waring, go and are seen no more; only now and
again, at springtime, when the gipsies’ song is afloat in the amethyst even=
ing,
we can catch their voices in the glee.
By night it was clearer, and Maybole more visi=
ble
than during the day. Clouds coursed over the sky in great masses; the full =
moon
battled the other way, and lit up the snow with gleams of flying silver; the
town came down the hill in a cascade of brown gables, bestridden by smooth
white roofs, and sprangled here and there with lighted windows. At either end the snow stood high up in=
the
darkness, on the peak of the Tolbooth and among the chimneys of the
Castle. As the moon flashed a bull=
’s-eye
glitter across the town between the racing clouds, the white roofs leaped i=
nto
relief over the gables and the chimney-stacks, and their shadows over the w=
hite
roofs. In the town itself the lit =
face
of the clock peered down the street; an hour was hammered out on Mr. Geli’s
bell, and from behind the red curtains of a public-house some one trolled o=
ut—a
compatriot of Burns, again!—‘The saut tear blin’s my e’e.’
Next morning there was sun and a flapping wind=
. From the street corners of Maybole I co=
uld
catch breezy glimpses of green fields.
The road underfoot was wet and heavy—part ice, part snow, part water,
and any one I met greeted me, by way of salutation, with ‘A fine thowe’
(thaw). My way lay among rather bl=
eak
bills, and past bleak ponds and dilapidated castles and monasteries, to the
Highland-looking village of Kirkoswald. It has little claim to notice, save
that Burns came there to study surveying in the summer of 1777, and there a=
lso,
in the kirkyard, the original of Tam o’ Shanter sleeps his last sleep. It is worth noticing, however, that thi=
s was
the first place I thought ‘Highland-looking.’ Over the bill from Kirkoswald=
a
farm-road leads to the coast. As I=
came
down above Turnberry, the sea view was indeed strangely different from the =
day
before. The cold fogs were all blo=
wn
away; and there was Ailsa Craig, like a refraction, magnified and deformed,=
of
the Bass Rock; and there were the chiselled mountain-tops of Arran, veined =
and
tipped with snow; and behind, and fainter, the low, blue land of Cantyre. Cottony clouds stood in a great castle =
over
the top of Arran, and blew out in long streamers to the south. The sea was bitten all over with white;
little ships, tacking up and down the Firth, lay over at different angles in
the wind. On Shanter they were plo=
ughing
lea; a cart foal, all in a field by himself, capered and whinnied as if the
spring were in him.
The road from Turnberry to Girvan lies along t=
he
shore, among sand-hills and by wildernesses of tumbled bent. Every here and there a few cottages sto=
od
together beside a bridge. They had=
one
odd feature, not easy to describe in words: a triangular porch projected fr=
om
above the door, supported at the apex by a single upright post; a secondary
door was hinged to the post, and could be hasped on either cheek of the real
entrance; so, whether the wind was north or south, the cotter could make
himself a triangular bight of shelter where to set his chair and finish a p=
ipe
with comfort. There is one objecti=
on to
this device; for, as the post stands in the middle of the fairway, any one
precipitately issuing from the cottage must run his chance of a broken
head. So far as I am aware, it is
peculiar to the little corner of country about Girvan. And that corner is noticeable for more
reasons: it is certainly one of the most characteristic districts in Scotla=
nd,
It has this movable porch by way of architecture; it has, as we shall see, a
sort of remnant of provincial costume, and it has the handsomest population=
in
the Lowlands. . . .
Perha=
ps the
reader knows already the aspect of the great levels of the Gâtinais, where =
they
border with the wooded hills of Fontainebleau.
Here and there a few grey rocks creep out of the forest as if to sun
themselves. Here and there a few
apple-trees stand together on a knoll. The quaint, undignified tartan of a
myriad small fields dies out into the distance; the strips blend and disapp=
ear;
and the dead flat lies forth open and empty, with no accident save perhaps a
thin line of trees or faint church spire against the sky. Solemn and vast at all times, in spite =
of
pettiness in the near details, the impression becomes more solemn and vast
towards evening. The sun goes down=
, a swollen
orange, as it were into the sea. A
blue-clad peasant rides home, with a harrow smoking behind him among the dry
clods. Another still works with hi=
s wife
in their little strip. An immense =
shadow
fills the plain; these people stand in it up to their shoulders; and their
heads, as they stoop over their work and rise again, are relieved from time=
to
time against the golden sky.
These peasant farmers are well off nowadays, a=
nd
not by any means overworked; but somehow you always see in them the histori=
cal
representative of the serf of yore, and think not so much of present times,
which may be prosperous enough, as of the old days when the peasant was tax=
ed
beyond possibility of payment, and lived, in Michelet’s image, like a hare
between two furrows. These very pe=
ople
now weeding their patch under the broad sunset, that very man and his wife,=
it
seems to us, have suffered all the wrongs of France. It is they who have been their country’s
scapegoat for long ages; they who, generation after generation, have sowed =
and
not reaped, reaped and another has garnered; and who have now entered into
their reward, and enjoy their good things in their turn. For the days are gone by when the Seign=
eur
ruled and profited. ‘Le Seigneur,’=
says
the old formula, ‘enferme ses manants comme sous porte et gonds, du ciel à =
la
terre. Tout est à lui, forêt chenu=
e,
oiseau dans l’air, poisson dans l’eau, bête an buisson, l’onde qui coule, la
cloche dont le son au loin roule.’ Such
was his old state of sovereignty, a local god rather than a mere king. And now you may ask yourself where he i=
s, and
look round for vestiges of my late lord, and in all the country-side there =
is
no trace of him but his forlorn and fallen mansion. At the end of a long avenue, now sown w=
ith
grain, in the midst of a close full of cypresses and lilacs, ducks and crow=
ing
chanticleers and droning bees, the old château lifts its red chimneys and
peaked roofs and turning vanes into the wind and sun. There is a glad spring bustle in the ai=
r,
perhaps, and the lilacs are all in flower, and the creepers green about the
broken balustrade: but no spring shall revive the honour of the place. Old women of the people, little, childr=
en of
the people, saunter and gambol in the walled court or feed the ducks in the=
neglected
moat. Plough-horses, mighty of lim=
b,
browse in the long stables. The
dial-hand on the clock waits for some better hour. Out on the plain, where hot sweat trick=
les
into men’s eyes, and the spade goes in deep and comes up slowly, perhaps the
peasant may feel a movement of joy at his heart when he thinks that these
spacious chimneys are now cold, which have so often blazed and flickered up=
on
gay folk at supper, while he and his hollow-eyed children watched through t=
he
night with empty bellies and cold feet.
And perhaps, as he raises his head and sees the forest lying like a
coast-line of low hills along the sea-level of the plain, perhaps forest and
château hold no unsimilar place in his affections.
If the château was my lord’s, the forest was m=
y lord
the king’s; neither of them for this poor Jacques. If he thought to eke out his meagre way=
of
life by some petty theft of wood for the fire, or for a new roof-tree, he f=
ound
himself face to face with a whole department, from the Grand Master of the =
Woods
and Waters, who was a high-born lord, down to the common sergeant, who was a
peasant like himself, and wore stripes or a bandoleer by way of uniform.
And then, if he lived near to a cover, there w=
ould
be the more hares and rabbits to eat out his harvest, and the more hunters =
to
trample it down. My lord has a new horn from England. He has laid out seven francs in decorat=
ing it
with silver and gold, and fitting it with a silken leash to hang about his
shoulder. The hounds have been on a
pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Mesmer, or Saint Hubert in the Ardennes, =
or
some other holy intercessor who has made a speciality of the health of
hunting-dogs. In the grey dawn the game was turned and the branch broken by=
our
best piqueur. A rare day’s hunting=
lies
before us. Wind a jolly flourish, =
sound
the bien-aller with all your lungs. Jacques must stand by, hat in hand, whi=
le the
quarry and hound and huntsman sweep across his field, and a year’s sparing =
and
labouring is as though it had not been.
If he can see the ruin with a good enough grace, who knows but he may
fall in favour with my lord; who knows but his son may become the last and
least among the servants at his lordship’s kennel—one of the two poor varle=
ts
who get no wages and sleep at night among the hounds? {147}
For all that, the forest has been of use to
Jacques, not only warming him with fallen wood, but giving him shelter in d=
ays
of sore trouble, when my lord of the château, with all his troopers and
trumpets, had been beaten from field after field into some ultimate fastnes=
s,
or lay over-seas in an English prison.
In these dark days, when the watch on the church steeple saw the smo=
ke
of burning villages on the sky-line, or a clump of spears and fluttering
pensions drawing nigh across the plain, these good folk gat them up, with a=
ll
their household gods, into the wood, whence, from some high spur, their tim=
id
scouts might overlook the coming and going of the marauders, and see the
harvest ridden down, and church and cottage go up to heaven all night in
flame. It was but an unhomely refu=
ge
that the woods afforded, where they must abide all change of weather and ke=
ep
house with wolves and vipers. Often
there was none left alive, when they returned, to show the old divisions of
field from field. And yet, as times went, when the wolves entered at night =
into
depopulated Paris, and perhaps De Retz was passing by with a company of dem=
ons
like himself, even in these caves and thickets there were glad hearts and
grateful prayers.
Once or twice, as I say, in the course of the
ages, the forest may have served the peasant well, but at heart it is a roy=
al
forest, and noble by old associations.
These woods have rung to the horns of all the kings of France, from
Philip Augustus downwards. They ha=
ve
seen Saint Louis exercise the dogs he brought with him from Egypt; Francis =
I.
go a-hunting with ten thousand horses in his train; and Peter of Russia
following his first stag. And so t=
hey
are still haunted for the imagination by royal hunts and progresses, and
peopled with the faces of memorable men of yore. And this distinction is not only in vir=
tue of
the pastime of dead monarchs. Great
events, great revolutions, great cycles in the affairs of men, have here le=
ft
their note, here taken shape in some significant and dramatic situation.
Close=
into
the edge of the forest, so close that the trees of the bornage stand pleasantly about the last houses, =
sits a
certain small and very quiet village.
There is but one street, and that, not long ago, was a green lane, w=
here
the cattle browsed between the doorsteps.
As you go up this street, drawing ever nearer the beginning of the w=
ood,
you will arrive at last before an inn where artists lodge. To the door (for I imagine it to be six
o’clock on some fine summer’s even), half a dozen, or maybe half a score, of
people have brought out chairs, and now sit sunning themselves, and waiting=
the
omnibus from Melun. If you go on i=
nto
the court you will find as many more, some in billiard-room over absinthe a=
nd a
match of corks some without over a last cigar and a vermouth. The doves coo and flutter from the dove=
cot;
Hortense is drawing water from the well; and as all the rooms open into the
court, you can see the white-capped cook over the furnace in the kitchen, a=
nd
some idle painter, who has stored his canvases and washed his brushes, jang=
ling
a waltz on the crazy, tongue-tied piano in the salle-à-manger. ‘ Edmond , <=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> encore un vermouth ,’ cries a man in
velveteen, adding in a tone of apologetic afterthought, ‘ un double , s’il vous plaît .’ ‘Where are you workin=
g?’
asks one in pure white linen from top to toe. ‘At the Carrefour de l’Épine,’
returns the other in corduroy (they are all gaitered, by the way). ‘I couldn’t do a thing to it. I ran out of white. Where were you?’ ‘I wasn’t working. I was looking for motives.’ Here is an
outbreak of jubilation, and a lot of men clustering together about some
new-comer with outstretched hands; perhaps the ‘correspondence’ has come in=
and
brought So-and-so from Paris, or perhaps it is only So-and-so who has walked
over from Chailly to dinner.
‘ À table , Messieurs !’ cries M. Siron, bearing thr=
ough
the court the first tureen of soup. And
immediately the company begins to settle down about the long tables in the
dining-room, framed all round with sketches of all degrees of merit and
demerit. There’s the big picture o=
f the
huntsman winding a horn with a dead boar between his legs, and his legs—wel=
l,
his legs in stockings. And here is=
the
little picture of a raw mutton-chop, in which Such-a-one knocked a hole last
summer with no worse a missile than a plum from the dessert. And under all these works of art so much
eating goes forward, so much drinking, so much jabbering in French and Engl=
ish,
that it would do your heart good merely to peep and listen at the door. One man is telling how they all went la=
st
year to the fête at Fleury, and another how well so-and-so would sing of an
evening: and here are a third and fourth making plans for the whole future =
of
their lives; and there is a fifth imitating a conjurer and making faces on =
his
clenched fist, surely of all arts the most difficult and admirable! A sixth has eaten his fill, lights a
cigarette, and resigns himself to digestion.
A seventh has just dropped in, and calls for soup. Number eight, meanwhile, has left the t=
able,
and is once more trampling the poor piano under powerful and uncertain fing=
ers.
Dinner over, people drop outside to smoke and
chat. Perhaps we go along to visit=
our
friends at the other end of the village, where there is always a good welco=
me
and a good talk, and perhaps some pickled oysters and white wine to close t=
he
evening. Or a dance is organised i=
n the
dining-room, and the piano exhibits all its paces under manful jockeying, to
the light of three or four candles and a lamp or two, while the waltzers mo=
ve
to and fro upon the wooden floor, and sober men, who are not given to such
light pleasures, get up on the table or the sideboard, and sit there lookin=
g on
approvingly over a pipe and a tumbler of wine. Or sometimes—suppose my lady
moon looks forth, and the court from out the half-lit dining-room seems nea=
rly
as bright as by day, and the light picks out the window-panes, and makes a
clear shadow under every vine-leaf on the wall—sometimes a picnic is propos=
ed,
and a basket made ready, and a good procession formed in front of the
hotel. The two trumpeters in honou=
r go
before; and as we file down the long alley, and up through devious footpaths
among rocks and pine-trees, with every here and there a dark passage of sha=
dow,
and every here and there a spacious outlook over moonlit woods, these two
precede us and sound many a jolly flourish as they walk. We gather ferns and dry boughs into the
cavern, and soon a good blaze flutters the shadows of the old bandits’ haun=
t,
and shows shapely beards and comely faces and toilettes ranged about the
wall. The bowl is lit, and the pun=
ch is
burnt and sent round in scalding thimblefuls.
So a good hour or two may pass with song and jest. And then we go home in the moonlit morn=
ing,
straggling a good deal among the birch tufts and the boulders, but ever cal=
led
together again, as one of our leaders winds his horn. Perhaps some one of the party will not =
heed
the summons, but chooses out some by-way of his own. As he follows the winding sandy road, he
hears the flourishes grow fainter and fainter in the distance, and die fina=
lly
out, and still walks on in the strange coolness and silence and between the
crisp lights and shadows of the moonlit woods, until suddenly the bell rings
out the hour from far-away Chailly, and he starts to find himself alone.
The w=
oods
by night, in all their uncanny effect, are not rightly to be understood unt=
il
you can compare them with the woods by day.
The stillness of the medium, the floor of glittering sand, these tre=
es
that go streaming up like monstrous sea-weeds and waver in the moving winds
like the weeds in submarine currents, all these set the mind working on the
thought of what you may have seen off a foreland or over the side of a boat,
and make you feel like a diver, down in the quiet water, fathoms below the
tumbling, transitory surface of the sea.
And yet in itself, as I say, the strangeness of these nocturnal
solitudes is not to be felt fully without the sense of contrast. You must have risen in the morning and =
seen
the woods as they are by day, kindled and coloured in the sun’s light; you =
must
have felt the odour of innumerable trees at even, the unsparing heat along =
the
forest roads, and the coolness of the groves.
And on the first morning you will doubtless ri=
se
betimes. If you have not been wake=
ned
before by the visit of some adventurous pigeon, you will be wakened as soon=
as
the sun can reach your window—for there are no blind or shutters to keep him
out—and the room, with its bare wood floor and bare whitewashed walls, shin=
es
all round you in a sort of glory of reflected lights. You may doze a while longer by snatches=
, or
lie awake to study the charcoal men and dogs and horses with which former
occupants have defiled the partitions: Thiers, with wily profile; local
celebrities, pipe in hand; or, maybe, a romantic landscape splashed in
oil. Meanwhile artist after artist=
drops
into the salle-à-manger for coffee, and then shoulders easel, sunshade, sto=
ol,
and paint-box, bound into a fagot, and sets of for what he calls his
‘motive.’ And artist after artist,=
as he
goes out of the village, carries with him a little following of dogs. For the dogs, who belong only nominally=
to
any special master, hang about the gate of the forest all day long, and
whenever any one goes by who hits their fancy, profit by his escort, and go
forth with him to play an hour or two at hunting. They would like to be under the trees a=
ll
day. But they cannot go alone. They require a pretext. And so they take the passing artist as =
an
excuse to go into the woods, as they might take a walking-stick as an excus=
e to
bathe. With quick ears, long spine=
s, and
bandy legs, or perhaps as tall as a greyhound and with a bulldog’s head, th=
is
company of mongrels will trot by your side all day and come home with you at
night, still showing white teeth and wagging stunted tail. Their good humour is not to be
exhausted. You may pelt them with =
stones
if you please, and all they will do is to give you a wider berth. If once they come out with you, to you =
they
will remain faithful, and with you return; although if you meet them next
morning in the street, it is as like as not they will cut you with a
countenance of brass.
The forest—a strange thing for an Englishman—is
very destitute of birds. This is no country where every patch of wood among=
the
meadows gibes up an increase of song, and every valley wandered through by a
streamlet rings and reverberates from side to with a profusion of clear not=
es. And this rarity of birds is not to be
regretted on its own account only. For
the insects prosper in their absence, and become as one of the plagues of
Egypt. Ants swarm in the hot sand;
mosquitos drone their nasal drone; wherever the sun finds a hole in the roo=
f of
the forest, you see a myriad transparent creatures coming and going in the
shaft of light; and even between-whiles, even where there is no incursion of
sun-rays into the dark arcade of the wood, you are conscious of a continual
drift of insects, an ebb and flow of infinitesimal living things between the
trees. Nor are insects the only ev=
il
creatures that haunt the forest. For you may plump into a cave among the ro=
cks,
and find yourself face to face with a wild boar, or see a crooked viper sli=
ther
across the road.
Perhaps you may set yourself down in the bay
between two spreading beech-roots with a book on your lap, and be awakened =
all
of a sudden by a friend: ‘I say, just keep where you are, will you? You make the jolliest motive.’ And you reply: ‘Well, I don’t mind, if =
I may
smoke.’ And thereafter the hours g=
o idly
by. Your friend at the easel labou=
rs
doggedly a little way off, in the wide shadow of the tree; and yet farther,
across a strait of glaring sunshine, you see another painter, encamped in t=
he
shadow of another tree, and up to his waist in the fern. You cannot watch y=
our
own effigy growing out of the white trunk, and the trunk beginning to stand
forth from the rest of the wood, and the whole picture getting dappled over
with the flecks of sun that slip through the leaves overhead, and, as a wind
goes by and sets the trees a-talking, flicker hither and thither like
butterflies of light. But you know=
it is
going forward; and, out of emulation with the painter, get ready your own
palette, and lay out the colour for a woodland scene in words.
Your tree stands in a hollow paved with fern a=
nd
heather, set in a basin of low hills, and scattered over with rocks and
junipers. All the open is steeped =
in
pitiless sunlight. Everything stan=
ds out
as though it were cut in cardboard, every colour is strained into its highe=
st
key. The boulders are some of them
upright and dead like monolithic castles, some of them prone like sleeping
cattle. The junipers—looking, in t=
heir
soiled and ragged mourning, like some funeral procession that has gone seek=
ing
the place of sepulchre three hundred years and more in wind and rain—are da=
ubed
in forcibly against the glowing ferns and heather. Every tassel of their rusty foliage is
defined with pre-Raphaelite minuteness. And a sorry figure they make out th=
ere
in the sun, like misbegotten yew-trees!
The scene is all pitched in a key of colour so peculiar, and lit up =
with
such a discharge of violent sunlight, as a man might live fifty years in
England and not see.
Meanwhile at your elbow some one tunes up a so=
ng,
words of Ronsard to a pathetic tremulous air, of how the poet loved his
mistress long ago, and pressed on her the flight of time, and told her how
white and quiet the dead lay under the stones, and how the boat dipped and
pitched as the shades embarked for the passionless land. Yet a little while, sang the poet, and =
there
shall be no more love; only to sit and remember loves that might have been.=
There is a falling flourish in the air =
that
remains in the memory and comes back in incongruous places, on the seat of
hansoms or in the warm bed at night, with something of a forest savour.
‘You can get up now,’ says the painter; ‘I’m at
the background.’
And so up you get, stretching yourself, and go
your way into the wood, the daylight becoming richer and more golden, and t=
he
shadows stretching farther into the open.
A cool air comes along the highways, and the scents awaken. The fir-trees breathe abroad their
ozone. Out of unknown thickets com=
es
forth the soft, secret, aromatic odour of the woods, not like a smell of the
free heaven, but as though court ladies, who had known these paths in ages =
long
gone by, still walked in the summer evenings, and shed from their brocades a
breath of musk or bergamot upon the woodland winds. One side of the long avenues is still k=
indled
with the sun, the other is plunged in transparent shadow. Over the trees the west begins to burn =
like a
furnace; and the painters gather up their chattels, and go down, by avenue =
or
footpath, to the plain.
As th=
is
excursion is a matter of some length, and, moreover, we go in force, we have
set aside our usual vehicle, the pony-cart, and ordered a large wagonette f=
rom
Lejosne’s. It has been waiting for=
near
an hour, while one went to pack a knapsack, and t’other hurried over his
toilette and coffee; but now it is filled from end to end with merry folk in
summer attire, the coachman cracks his whip, and amid much applause from ro=
und
the inn door off we rattle at a spanking trot.
The way lies through the forest, up hill and down dale, and by beech=
and
pine wood, in the cheerful morning sunshine.
The English get down at all the ascents and walk on ahead for exerci=
se;
the French are mightily entertained at this, and keep coyly underneath the
tilt. As we go we carry with us a
pleasant noise of laughter and light speech, and some one will be always
breaking out into a bar or two of opera bouffe.
Before we get to the Route Ronde here comes Desprez, the colourman f=
rom
Fontainebleau, trudging across on his weekly peddle with a case of merchand=
ise;
and it is ‘Desprez, leave me some malachite green’; ‘Desprez, leave me so m=
uch
canvas’; ‘Desprez, leave me this, or leave me that’; M. Desprez standing the
while in the sunlight with grave face and many salutations. The next interruption is more important=
. For some time back we have had the soun=
d of
cannon in our ears; and now, a little past Franchard, we find a mounted tro=
oper
holding a led horse, who brings the wagonette to a stand. The artillery is
practising in the Quadrilateral, it appears; passage along the Route Ronde
formally interdicted for the moment.
There is nothing for it but to draw up at the glaring cross-roads and
get down to make fun with the notorious Cocardon, the most ungainly and
ill-bred dog of all the ungainly and ill-bred dogs of Barbizon, or clamber
about the sandy banks. And meanwhi=
le the
doctor, with sun umbrella, wide Panama, and patriarchal beard, is busy
wheedling and (for aught the rest of us know) bribing the too facile
sentry. His speech is smooth and d=
ulcet,
his manner dignified and insinuating. It
is not for nothing that the Doctor has voyaged all the world over, and spea=
ks
all languages from French to Patagonian.
He has not come borne from perilous journeys to be thwarted by a
corporal of horse. And so we soon =
see
the soldier’s mouth relax, and his shoulders imitate a relenting heart. ‘ En voiture , Messieurs , Mesdames ,’ sings the Doctor; and on we =
go
again at a good round pace, for black care follows hard after us, and
discretion prevails not a little over valour in some timorous spirits of the
party. At any moment we may meet t=
he
sergeant, who will send us back. A=
t any
moment we may encounter a flying shell, which will send us somewhere farther
off than Grez.
Grez—for that is our destination—has been high=
ly
recommended for its beauty. ‘ Il y=
a de
l’eau ,’ people have said, with an emphasis, as if that settled the questio=
n,
which, for a French mind, I am rather led to think it does. And Grez, when we get there, is indeed a
place worthy of some praise. It li=
es out
of the forest, a cluster of houses, with an old bridge, an old castle in ru=
in,
and a quaint old church. The inn g=
arden
descends in terraces to the river; stable-yard, kailyard, orchard, and a sp=
ace
of lawn, fringed with rushes and embellished with a green arbour. On the
opposite bank there is a reach of English-looking plain, set thickly with
willows and poplars. And between t=
he two
lies the river, clear and deep, and full of reeds and floating lilies. Water-plants cluster about the starling=
s of
the long low bridge, and stand half-way up upon the piers in green
luxuriance. They catch the dipped =
oar with
long antennæ, and chequer the slimy bottom with the shadow of their leaves.=
And
the river wanders and thither hither among the islets, and is smothered and
broken up by the reeds, like an old building in the lithe, hardy arms of the
climbing ivy. You may watch the box
where the good man of the inn keeps fish alive for his kitchen, one oily ri=
pple
following another over the top of the yellow deal. And you can hear a splashing and a prat=
tle of
voices from the shed under the old kirk, where the village women wash and w=
ash
all day among the fish and water-lilies.
It seems as if linen washed there should be specially cool and sweet=
.
We have come here for the river. And no sooner have we all bathed than we
board the two shallops and push off gaily, and go gliding under the trees a=
nd
gathering a great treasure of water-lilies.
Some one sings; some trail their hands in the cool water; some lean =
over
the gunwale to see the image of the tall poplars far below, and the shadow =
of
the boat, with the balanced oars and their own head protruded, glide smooth=
ly
over the yellow floor of the stream. At
last, the day declining—all silent and happy, and up to the knees in the wet
lilies—we punt slowly back again to the landing-place beside the bridge.
Half the party are to return to-night with the
wagonette; and some of the others, loath to break up company, will go with =
them
a bit of the way and drink a stirrup-cup at Marlotte. It is dark in the wagonette, and not so=
merry
as it might have been. The coachman
loses the road. So-and-so tries to=
light
fireworks with the most indifferent success.
Some sing, but the rest are too weary to applaud; and it seems as if=
the
festival were fairly at an end—
‘N=
ous
avons fait la noce, Rentrons à =
nos
foyers!’
And such is the burthen, even after we have co=
me
to Marlotte and taken our places in the court at Mother Antonine’s. There is punch on the long table out in=
the
open air, where the guests dine in summer weather. The candles flare in the night wind, an=
d the
faces round the punch are lit up, with shifting emphasis, against a backgro=
und
of complete and solid darkness. It=
is
all picturesque enough; but the fact is, we are aweary. We yawn; we are out=
of
the vein; we have made the wedding, as the song says, and now, for pleasure=
’s
sake, let’s make an end on’t. When=
here
comes striding into the court, booted to mid-thigh, spurred and splashed, i=
n a
jacket of green cord, the great, famous, and redoubtable Blank; and in a mo=
ment
the fire kindles again, and the night is witness of our laughter as he imit=
ates
Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen, picture-dealers, all eccentric ways of spea=
king
and thinking, with a possession, a fury, a strain of mind and voice, that w=
ould
rather suggest a nervous crisis than a desire to please. We are as merry as ever when the trap s=
ets
forth again, and say farewell noisily to all the good folk going farther. T=
hen,
as we are far enough from thoughts of sleep, we visit Blank in his quaint h=
ouse,
and sit an hour or so in a great tapestried chamber, laid with furs, litter=
ed
with sleeping hounds, and lit up, in fantastic shadow and shine, by a wood =
fire
in a mediæval chimney. And then we=
plod
back through the darkness to the inn beside the river.
How quick bright things come to confusion! When we arise next morning, the grey sh=
owers
fall steadily, the trees hang limp, and the face of the stream is spoiled w=
ith
dimpling raindrops. Yesterday’s li=
lies
encumber the garden walk, or begin, dismally enough, their voyage towards t=
he
Seine and the salt sea. A sickly s=
himmer
lies upon the dripping house-roofs, and all the colour is washed out of the
green and golden landscape of last night, as though an envious man had take=
n a
water-colour sketch and blotted it together with a sponge. We go out a-walking in the wet roads. But the roads about Grez have a trick of
their own. They go on for a while =
among
clumps of willows and patches of vine, and then, suddenly and without any
warning, cease and determine in some miry hollow or upon some bald knowe; a=
nd
you have a short period of hope, then right-about face, and back the way you
came! So we draw about the kitchen=
fire
and play a round game of cards for ha’pence, or go to the billiard-room, fo=
r a
match at corks and by one consent a messenger is sent over for the
wagonette—Grez shall be left to-morrow.
To-morrow dawns so fair that two of the party
agree to walk back for exercise, and let their kidnap-sacks follow by the
trap. I need hardly say they are n=
either
of them French; for, of all English phrases, the phrase ‘for exercise’ is t=
he
least comprehensible across the Straits of Dover. All goes well for a while with the
pedestrians. The wet woods are ful=
l of
scents in the noontide. At a certa=
in
cross, where there is a guardhouse, they make a halt, for the forester’s wi=
fe
is the daughter of their good host at Barbizon.
And so there they are hospitably received by the comely woman, with =
one
child in her arms and another prattling and tottering at her gown, and drink
some syrup of quince in the back parlour, with a map of the forest on the w=
all,
and some prints of love-affairs and the great Napoleon hunting. As they draw near the Quadrilateral, an=
d hear
once more the report of the big guns, they take a by-road to avoid the
sentries, and go on a while somewhat vaguely, with the sound of the cannon =
in
their ears and the rain beginning to fall. The ways grow wider and sandier;
here and there there are real sand-hills, as though by the sea-shore; the
fir-wood is open and grows in clumps upon the hillocks, and the race of
sign-posts is no more. One begins =
to
look at the other doubtfully. ‘I a=
m sure
we should keep more to the right,’ says one; and the other is just as certa=
in
they should hold to the left. And =
now,
suddenly, the heavens open, and the rain falls ‘sheer and strong and loud,’=
as
out of a shower-bath. In a moment =
they
are as wet as shipwrecked sailors. They
cannot see out of their eyes for the drift, and the water churns and gurgle=
s in
their boots. They leave the track and try across country with a gambler’s
desperation, for it seems as if it were impossible to make the situation wo=
rse;
and, for the next hour, go scrambling from boulder to boulder, or plod along
paths that are now no more than rivulets, and across waste clearings where =
the
scattered shells and broken fir-trees tell all too plainly of the cannon in=
the
distance. And meantime the cannon
grumble out responses to the grumbling thunder.
There is such a mixture of melodrama and sheer discomfort about all
this, it is at once so grey and so lurid, that it is far more agreeable to =
read
and write about by the chimney-corner than to suffer in the person. At last they chance on the right path, =
and
make Franchard in the early evening, the sorriest pair of wanderers that ev=
er
welcomed English ale. Thence, by t=
he
Bois d’Hyver, the Ventes-Alexandre, and the Pins Brulés, to the clean hoste=
lry,
dry clothes, and dinner.
I thi=
nk you
will like the forest best in the sharp early springtime, when it is just
beginning to reawaken, and innumerable violets peep from among the fallen
leaves; when two or three people at most sit down to dinner, and, at table,=
you
will do well to keep a rug about your knees, for the nights are chill, and =
the
salle-à-manger opens on the court. There
is less to distract the attention, for one thing, and the forest is more
itself. It is not bedotted with ar=
tists’
sunshades as with unknown mushrooms, nor bestrewn with the remains of Engli=
sh
picnics. The hunting still goes on=
, and
at any moment your heart may be brought into your mouth as you hear far-away
horns; or you may be told by an agitated peasant that the Vicomte has gone =
up
the avenue, not ten minutes since, ‘ à fond de train , monsieur , et avec douze pipuers .’
If you go up to some coign of vantage in the
system of low hills that permeates the forest, you will see many different
tracts of country, each of its own cold and melancholy neutral tint, and all
mixed together and mingled the one into the other at the seams. You will see tracts of leafless beeches=
of a
faint yellowish grey, and leafless oaks a little ruddier in the hue. Then zones of pine of a solemn green; a=
nd,
dotted among the pines, or standing by themselves in rocky clearings, the d=
elicate,
snow-white trunks of birches, spreading out into snow-white branches yet mo=
re
delicate, and crowned and canopied with a purple haze of twigs. And then a long, bare ridge of tumbled
boulders, with bright sand-breaks between them, and wavering sandy roads am=
ong
the bracken and brown heather. It =
is all
rather cold and unhomely. It has n=
ot the
perfect beauty, nor the gem-like colouring, of the wood in the later year, =
when
it is no more than one vast colonnade of verdant shadow, tremulous with
insects, intersected here and there by lanes of sunlight set in purple
heather. The loveliness of the woo=
ds in
March is not, assuredly, of this blowzy rustic type. It is made sharp with a grain of salt, =
with a
touch of ugliness. It has a sting =
like
the sting of bitter ale; you acquire the love of it as men acquire a taste =
for
olives. And the wonderful clear, p=
ure
air wells into your lungs the while by voluptuous inhalations, and makes the
eyes bright, and sets the heart tinkling to a new tune—or, rather, to an old
tune; for you remember in your boyhood something akin to this spirit of
adventure, this thirst for exploration, that now takes you masterfully by t=
he
hand, plunges you into many a deep grove, and drags you over many a stony
crest. It is as if the whole wood =
were
full of friendly voice, calling you farther in, and you turn from one side =
to
another, like Buridan’s donkey, in a maze of pleasure.
Comely beeches send up their white, straight,
clustered branches, barred with green moss, like so many fingers from a
half-clenched hand. Mighty oaks st=
and to
the ankles in a fine tracery of underwood; thence the tall shaft climbs
upwards, and the great forest of stalwart boughs spreads out into the golden
evening sky, where the rooks are flying and calling. On the sward of the Bois d’Hyver the fi=
rs
stand well asunder with outspread arms, like fencers saluting; and the air
smells of resin all around, and the sound of the axe is rarely still. But strangest of all, and in appearance
oldest of all, are the dim and wizard upland districts of young wood. The ground is carpeted with fir-tassel,=
and
strewn with fir-apples and flakes of fallen bark. Rocks lie crouching in the thicket, gut=
tered
with rain, tufted with lichen, white with years and the rigours of the
changeful seasons. Brown and yellow
butterflies are sown and carried away again by the light air—like
thistledown. The loneliness of the=
se
coverts is so excessive, that there are moments when pleasure draws to the
verge of fear. You listen and list=
en for
some noise to break the silence, till you grow half mesmerised by the inten=
sity
of the strain; your sense of your own identity is troubled; your brain reel=
s,
like that of some gymnosophist poring on his own nose in Asiatic jungles; a=
nd
should you see your own outspread feet, you see them, not as anything of yo=
urs,
but as a feature of the scene around you.
Still the forest is always, but the stillness =
is
not always unbroken. You can hear the wind pass in the distance over the
tree-tops; sometimes briefly, like the noise of a train; sometimes with a l=
ong
steady rush, like the breaking of waves.
And sometimes, close at band, the branches move, a moan goes through=
the
thicket, and the wood thrills to its heart. Perhaps you may hear a carriage=
on
the road to Fontainebleau, a bird gives a dry continual chirp, the dead lea=
ves
rustle underfoot, or you may time your steps to the steady recurrent stroke=
s of
the woodman’s axe. From time to time, over the low grounds, a flight of roo=
ks
goes by; and from time to time the cooing of wild doves falls upon the ear,=
not
sweet and rich and near at hand as in England, but a sort of voice of the
woods, thin and far away, as fits these solemn places. Or you hear suddenly the hollow, eager,
violent barking of dogs; scared deer flit past you through the fringes of t=
he
wood; then a man or two running, in green blouse, with gun and game-bag on a
bandoleer; and then, out of the thick of the trees, comes the jar of
rifle-shots. Or perhaps the hounds=
are
out, and horns are blown, and scarlet-coated huntsmen flash through the cle=
arings,
and the solid noise of horses galloping passes below you, where you sit per=
ched
among the rocks and heather. The b=
oar is
afoot, and all over the forest, and in all neighbouring villages, there is a
vague excitement and a vague hope; for who knows whither the chase may lead?
and even to have seen a single piqueur, or spoken to a single sportsman, is=
to
be a man of consequence for the night.
Besides men who shoot and men who ride with the
hounds, there are few people in the forest, in the early spring, save
woodcutters plying their axes steadily, and old women and children gathering
wood for the fire. You may meet such a party coming home in the twilight: t=
he
old woman laden with a fagot of chips, and the little ones hauling a long
branch behind them in her wake. Th=
at is
the worst of what there is to encounter; and if I tell you of what once
happened to a friend of mine, it is by no means to tantalise you with false
hopes; for the adventure was unique. It
was on a very cold, still, sunless morning, with a flat grey sky and a fros=
ty
tingle in the air, that this friend (who shall here be nameless) heard the
notes of a key-bugle played with much hesitation, and saw the smoke of a fi=
re
spread out along the green pine-tops, in a remote uncanny glen, hard by a h=
ill
of naked boulders. He drew near wa=
rily,
and beheld a picnic party seated under a tree in an open. The old father knitted a sock, the moth=
er sat
staring at the fire. The eldest so=
n, in
the uniform of a private of dragoons, was choosing out notes on a
key-bugle. Two or three daughters =
lay in
the neighbourhood picking violets. And
the whole party as grave and silent as the woods around them! My friend watched for a long time, he s=
ays;
but all held their peace; not one spoke or smiled; only the dragoon kept
choosing out single notes upon the bugle, and the father knitted away at his
work and made strange movements the while with his flexible eyebrows. They took no notice whatever of my frie=
nd’s
presence, which was disquieting in itself, and increased the resemblance of=
the
whole party to mechanical waxworks.
Certainly, he affirms, a wax figure might have played the bugle with
more spirit than that strange dragoon. =
span>And
as this hypothesis of his became more certain, the awful insolubility of why
they should be left out there in the woods with nobody to wind them up again
when they ran down, and a growing disquietude as to what might happen next,
became too much for his courage, and he turned tail, and fairly took to his
heels. It might have been a singin=
g in
his ears, but he fancies he was followed as he ran by a peal of Titanic
laughter. Nothing has ever transpi=
red to
clear up the mystery; it may be they were automata; or it may be (and this =
is
the theory to which I lean myself) that this is all another chapter of Hein=
e’s
‘Gods in Exile’; that the upright old man with the eyebrows was no other th=
an
Father Jove, and the young dragoon with the taste for music either Apollo or
Mars.
Stran=
ge
indeed is the attraction of the forest for the minds of men. Not one or two only, but a great chorus=
of
grateful voices have arisen to spread abroad its fame. Half the famous writers of modern Franc=
e have
had their word to say about Fontainebleau.
Chateaubriand, Michelet, Béranger, George Sand, de Senancour, Flaube=
rt,
Murger, the brothers Goncourt, Théodore de Banville, each of these has done
something to the eternal praise and memory of these woods. Even at the very worst of times, even w=
hen
the picturesque was anathema in the eyes of all Persons of Taste, the forest
still preserved a certain reputation for beauty. It was in 1730 that the Abbé Guilbert
published his Historical Descripti=
on of
the Palace , Town , and Forest of Fontainebleau . And very droll it is to see him, as he =
tries
to set forth his admiration in terms of what was then permissible. The monstrous rocks, etc., says the Abbé
‘sont admirées avec surprise des voyageurs qui s’écrient aussitôt avec Hora=
ce:
Ut mihi devio rupee et vacuum nemus mirari libet.’ The good man is not exactly lyrical in =
his
praise; and you see how he sets his back against Horace as against a trusty
oak. Horace, at any rate, was
classical. For the rest, however, =
the
Abbé likes places where many alleys meet; or which, like the Belle-Étoile, =
are
kept up ‘by a special gardener,’ and admires at the Table du Roi the labour=
s of
the Grand Master of Woods and Waters, the Sieur de la Falure, ‘qui a fait f=
aire
ce magnifique endroit.’
But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty t=
hat
the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, t=
hat
quality of the air, that emanation from the old trees, that so wonderfully
changes and renews a weary spirit.
Disappointed men, sick Francis Firsts and vanquished Grand Monarchs,
time out of mind have come here for consolation. Hither perplexed folk have retired out =
of the
press of life, as into a deep bay-window on some night of masquerade, and h=
ere
found quiet and silence, and rest, the mother of wisdom. It is the great moral spa; this forest
without a fountain is itself the great fountain of Juventius. It is the best place in the world to br=
ing an
old sorrow that has been a long while your friend and enemy; and if, like
Béranger’s your gaiety has run away from home and left open the door for so=
rrow
to come in, of all covers in Europe, it is here you may expect to find the
truant hid. With every hour you
change. The air penetrates through=
your
clothes, and nestles to your living body.
You love exercise and slumber, long fasting and full meals. You forget all your scruples and live a=
while
in peace and freedom, and for the moment only.
For here, all is absent that can stimulate to moral feeling. Such people as you see may be old, or
toil-worn, or sorry; but you see them framed in the forest, like figures on=
a
painted canvas; and for you, they are not people in any living and kindly
sense. You forget the grim contrar=
iety
of interests. You forget the narrow lane where all men jostle together in
unchivalrous contention, and the kennel, deep and unclean, that gapes on ei=
ther
hand for the defeated. Life is sim=
ple
enough, it seems, and the very idea of sacrifice becomes like a mad fancy o=
ut
of a last night’s dream.
Your ideal is not perhaps high, but it is plain
and possible. You become enamoured=
of a
life of change and movement and the open air, where the muscles shall be mo=
re
exercised than the affections. Whe=
n you
have had your will of the forest, you may visit the whole round world. You may buckle on your knapsack and tak=
e the
road on foot. You may bestride a g=
ood
nag, and ride forth, with a pair of saddle-bags, into the enchanted East. You may cross the Black Forest, and see
Germany wide-spread before you, like a map, dotted with old cities, walled =
and
spired, that dream all day on their own reflections in the Rhine or
Danube. You may pass the spinal co=
rd of
Europe and go down from Alpine glaciers to where Italy extends her marble m=
oles
and glasses her marble palaces in the midland sea. You may sleep in flying trains or waysi=
de
taverns. You may be awakened at da=
wn by
the scream of the express or the small pipe of the robin in the hedge. For you the rain should allay the dust =
of the
beaten road; the wind dry your clothes upon you as you walked. Autumn should hang out russet pears and
purple grapes along the lane; inn after inn proffer you their cups of raw w=
ine;
river by river receive your body in the sultry noon. Wherever you went warm valleys and high=
trees
and pleasant villages should compass you about; and light fellowships should
take you by the arm, and walk with you an hour upon your way. You may see from afar off what it will =
come
to in the end—the weather-beaten red-nosed vagabond, consumed by a fever of=
the
feet, cut off from all near touch of human sympathy, a waif, an Ishmael, an=
d an
outcast. And yet it will seem well=
—and
yet, in the air of the forest, this will seem the best—to break all the net=
work
bound about your feet by birth and old companionship and loyal love, and be=
ar
your shovelful of phosphates to and fro, in town country, until the hour of=
the
great dissolvent.
Or, perhaps, you will keep to the cover. For the forest is by itself, and forest=
life
owns small kinship with life in the dismal land of labour. Men are so far sophisticated that they =
cannot
take the world as it is given to them by the sight of their eyes. Not only what they see and hear, but wh=
at
they know to be behind, enter into their notion of a place. If the sea, for instance, lie just acro=
ss the
hills, sea-thoughts will come to them at intervals, and the tenor of their
dreams from time to time will suffer a sea-change. And so here, in this forest, a knowledg=
e of
its greatness is for much in the effect produced. You reckon up the miles that lie betwee=
n you
and intrusion. You may walk before=
you
all day long, and not fear to touch the barrier of your Eden, or stumble ou=
t of
fairyland into the land of gin and steam-hammers. And there is an old tale enhances for t=
he
imagination the grandeur of the woods of France, and secures you in the tho=
ught
of your seclusion. When Charles VI.
hunted in the time of his wild boyhood near Senlis, there was captured an o=
ld
stag, having a collar of bronze about his neck, and these words engraved on=
the
collar: ‘Cæsar mihi hoc donavit.’ =
It is
no wonder if the minds of men were moved at this occurrence and they stood
aghast to find themselves thus touching hands with forgotten ages, and
following an antiquity with hound and horn.
And even for you, it is scarcely in an idle curiosity that you ponder
how many centuries this stag had carried its free antlers through the wood,=
and
how many summers and winters had shone and snowed on the imperial badge.
For the forest takes away from you all excuse =
to
die. There is nothing here to cabi=
n or
thwart your free desires. Here all=
the
impudencies of the brawling world reach you no more. You may count your hours, like Endymion=
, by the
strokes of the lone woodcutter, or by the progression of the lights and sha=
dows
and the sun wheeling his wide circuit through the naked heavens. Here shall you see no enemies but winte=
r and
rough weather. And if a pang comes=
to
you at all, it will be a pang of healthful hunger. All the puling sorrows, all the carking
repentance, all this talk of duty that is no duty, in the great peace, in t=
he
pure daylight of these woods, fall away from you like a garment. And if perchance you come forth upon an=
eminence,
where the wind blows upon you large and fresh, and the pines knock their lo=
ng
stems together, like an ungainly sort of puppets, and see far away over the
plain a factory chimney defined against the pale horizon—it is for you, as =
for
the staid and simple peasant when, with his plough, he upturns old arms and
harness from the furrow of the glebe.
Ay, sure enough, there was a battle there in the old times; and, sure
enough, there is a world out yonder where men strive together with a noise =
of
oaths and weeping and clamorous dispute. So much you apprehend by an athlet=
ic
act of the imagination. A faint fa=
r-off
rumour as of Merovingian wars; a legend as of some dead religion.
Originally intended to serve as the open=
ing
chapter of ‘ Travels with a Donkey=
in
the Cevennes .’
Le Monastier is the chief place of a hilly can=
ton
in Haute Loire, the ancient Velay. As
the name betokens, the town is of monastic origin; and it still contains a
towered bulk of monastery and a church of some architectural pretensions, t=
he
seat of an arch-priest and several vicars. It stands on the side of hill ab=
ove
the river Gazeille, about fifteen miles from Le Puy, up a steep road where =
the
wolves sometime pursue the diligence in winter.
The road, which is bound for Vivarais, passes through the town from =
end
to end in a single narrow street; there you may see the fountain where women
fill their pitchers; there also some old houses with carved doors and pedim=
ent
and ornamental work in iron. For
Monastier, like Maybole in Ayrshire, was a sort of country capital, where t=
he
local aristocracy had their town mansions for the winter; and there is a
certain baron still alive and, I am told, extremely penitent, who found mea=
ns
to ruin himself by high living in this village on the hills. He certainly h=
as
claims to be considered the most remarkable spendthrift on record. How he set about it, in a place where t=
here
are no luxuries for sale, and where the board at the best inn comes to litt=
le
more than a shilling a day, is a problem for the wise. His son, ruined as the family was, went=
as
far as Paris to sow his wild oats; and so the cases of father and son mark =
an
epoch in the history of centralisation in France. Not until the latter had =
got
into the train was the work of Richelieu complete.
It is a people of lace-makers. The women sit in the streets by groups =
of
five or six; and the noise of the bobbins is audible from one group to
another. Now and then you will hea=
r one
woman clattering off prayers for the edification of the others at their
work. They wear gaudy shawls, whit=
e caps
with a gay ribbon about the head, and sometimes a black felt brigand hat ab=
ove
the cap; and so they give the street colour and brightness and a foreign ai=
r. A while ago, when England largely suppl=
ied
herself from this district with the lace called torchon , it was not unusual to earn five
francs a day; and five francs in Monastier is worth a pound in London. Now, from a change in the market, it ta=
kes a
clever and industrious work-woman to earn from three to four in the week, or
less than an eighth of what she made easily a few years ago. The tide of prosperity came and went, a=
s with
our northern pitmen, and left nobody the richer. The women bravely squandered their gain=
s,
kept the men in idleness, and gave themselves up, as I was told, to
sweethearting and a merry life. Fr=
om
week’s end to week’s end it was one continuous gala in Monastier; people sp=
ent
the day in the wine-shops, and the drum or the bagpipes led on the bourrées up to ten at night. Now these dancing days are over. ‘ Il n’y a plus de jeunesse ,’ said Vic=
tor
the garçon. I hear of no great adv=
ance
in what are thought the essentials of morality; but the bourrée , with its rambling, sweet,
interminable music, and alert and rustic figures, has fallen into disuse, a=
nd
is mostly remembered as a custom of the past.
Only on the occasion of the fair shall you hear a drum discreetly in=
a
wine-shop or perhaps one of the company singing the measure while the others
dance. I am sorry at the change, a=
nd
marvel once more at the complicated scheme of things upon this earth, and h=
ow a
turn of fashion in England can silence so much mountain merriment in France=
. The lace-makers themselves have not ent=
irely
forgiven our country-women; and I think they take a special pleasure in the
legend of the northern quarter of the town, called L’Anglade, because there=
the
English free-lances were arrested and driven back by the potency of a little
Virgin Mary on the wall.
From time to time a market is held, and the to=
wn
has a season of revival; cattle and pigs are stabled in the streets; and
pickpockets have been known to come all the way from Lyons for the
occasion. Every Sunday the country=
folk
throng in with daylight to buy apples, to attend mass, and to visit one of =
the
wine-shops, of which there are no fewer than fifty in this little town. Sunday wear for the men is a green tail=
coat
of some coarse sort of drugget, and usually a complete suit to match. I have never set eyes on such degrading
raiment. Here it clings, there bul=
ges;
and the human body, with its agreeable and lively lines, is turned into a
mockery and laughing-stock. Another
piece of Sunday business with the peasants is to take their ailments to the
chemist for advice. It is as much a
matter for Sunday as church-going. I
have seen a woman who had been unable to speak since the Monday before,
wheezing, catching her breath, endlessly and painfully coughing; and yet she
had waited upwards of a hundred hours before coming to seek help, and had t=
he
week been twice as long, she would have waited still. There was a canonical day for consultat=
ion;
such was the ancestral habit, to which a respectable lady must study to
conform.
Two conveyances go daily to Le Puy, but they r=
ival
each other in polite concessions rather than in speed. Each will wait an hour or two hours
cheerfully while an old lady does her marketing or a gentleman finishes the
papers in a café. The Courrier (such is the name of one) should leave L=
e Puy
by two in the afternoon and arrive at Monastier in good on the return voyag=
e,
and arrive at Monastier in good time for a six-o’clock dinner. But the driver dares not disoblige his
customers. He will postpone his
departure again and again, hour after hour; and I have known the sun to go =
down
on his delay. These purely personal
favours, this consideration of men’s fancies, rather than the hands of a
mechanical clock, as marking the advance of the abstraction, time, makes a =
more
humorous business of stage-coaching than we are used to see it.
As far as the eye can reach, one swelling line=
of
hill top rises and falls behind another; and if you climb an eminence, it is
only to see new and father ranges behind these.
Many little rivers run from all sides in cliffy valleys; and one of
them, a few miles from Monastier, bears the great name of Loire. The mean level of the country is a litt=
le
more than three thousand feet above the sea, which makes the atmosphere
proportionally brisk and wholesome.
There is little timber except pines, and the greater part of the cou=
ntry
lies in moorland pasture. The coun=
try is
wild and tumbled rather than commanding; an upland rather than a mountain
district; and the most striking as well as the most agreeable scenery lies =
low
beside the rivers. There, indeed, =
you
will find many corners that take the fancy; such as made the English noble
choose his grave by a Swiss streamlet, where nature is at her freshest, and
looks as young as on the seventh morning.
Such a place is the course of the Gazeille, where it waters the comm=
on
of Monastier and thence downwards till it joins the Loire; a place to hear
birds singing; a place for lovers to frequent.
The name of the river was perhaps suggested by the sound of its pass=
age
over the stones; for it is a great warbler, and at night, after I was in be=
d at
Monastier, I could hear it go singing down the valley till I fell asleep.
On the whole, this is a Scottish landscape,
although not so noble as the best in Scotland; and by an odd coincidence, t=
he
population is, in its way, as Scottish as the country. They have abrupt, uncouth, Fifeshire ma=
nners,
and accost you, as if you were trespassing, an ‘Où’st-ce que vous allez?’ o=
nly
translatable into the Lowland ‘Whaur ye gaun?’
They keep the Scottish Sabbath.
There is no labour done on that day but to drive in and out the vari=
ous
pigs and sheep and cattle that make so pleasant a tinkling in the meadows.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The lace-makers have disappeared from t=
he
street. Not to attend mass would i=
nvolve
social degradation; and you may find people reading Sunday books, in partic=
ular
a sort of Catholic Monthly Visitor=
on the doings of Our Lady of Lourdes.
Again, this people is eager to proselytise; and
the postmaster’s daughter used to argue with me by the half-hour about my
heresy, until she grew quite flushed. I
have heard the reverse process going on between a Scotswoman and a French g=
irl;
and the arguments in the two cases were identical. Each apostle based her claim on the sup=
erior
virtue and attainments of her clergy, and clenched the business with a thre=
at
of hell-fire. ‘ Pas bong prêtres i=
ci ,’
said the Presbyterian, ‘ bong prêtres en Ecosse .’ And the postmaster’s daughter, taking u=
p the
same weapon, plied me, so to speak, with the butt of it instead of the
bayonet. We are a hopeful race, it
seems, and easily persuaded for our good.
One cheerful circumstance I note in these guerilla missions, that ea=
ch
side relies on hell, and Protestant and Catholic alike address themselves t=
o a
supposed misgiving in their adversary’s heart.
And I call it cheerful, for faith is a more supporting quality than
imagination.
Here, as in Scotland, many peasant families bo=
ast
a son in holy orders. And here also, the young men have a tendency to
emigrate. It is certainly not pove=
rty
that drives them to the great cities or across the seas, for many peasant
families, I was told, have a fortune of at least 40,000 francs. The lads go forth pricked with the spir=
it of
adventure and the desire to rise in life, and leave their homespun elders
grumbling and wondering over the event.
Once, at a village called Laussonne, I met one of these disappointed
parents: a drake who had fathered a wild swan and seen it take wing and
disappear. The wild swan in questi=
on was
now an apothecary in Brazil. He had
flown by way of Bordeaux, and first landed in America, bareheaded and baref=
oot,
and with a single halfpenny in his pocket.
And now he was an apothecary!
Such a wonderful thing is an adventurous life! I thought he might as well have stayed =
at
home; but you never can tell wherein a man’s life consists, nor in what he =
sets
his pleasure: one to drink, another to marry, a third to write scurrilous
articles and be repeatedly caned in public, and now this fourth, perhaps, t=
o be
an apothecary in Brazil. As for hi=
s old
father, he could conceive no reason for the lad’s behaviour. ‘I had always bread for him,’ he said; =
‘he
ran away to annoy me. He loved to =
annoy
me. He had no gratitude.’ But at heart he was swelling with pride=
over
his travelled offspring, and he produced a letter out of his pocket, where,=
as
he said, it was rotting, a mere lump of paper rags, and waved it gloriously=
in
the air. ‘This comes from America,=
’ he
cried, ‘six thousand leagues away!’ And the wine-shop audience looked upon =
it
with a certain thrill.
I soon became a popular figure, and was known =
for
miles in the country. Où’st que vo=
us
allez ? was changed for me into Qu=
oi , vous rentrez au Monastier and in the town itself every urchin seem=
ed to
know my name, although no living creature could pronounce it. There was one particular group of lace-=
makers
who brought out a chair for me whenever I went by, and detained me from my =
walk
to gossip. They were filled with
curiosity about England, its language, its religion, the dress of the women,
and were never weary of seeing the Queen’s head on English postage-stamps, =
or seeking
for French words in English Journals.
The language, in particular, filled them with surprise.
‘Do they speak patois in England?’
I was once asked; and when I told them not, ‘Ah, then, French?’ said
they.
‘No, no,’ I said, ‘not French.’
‘Then,’ they concluded, ‘they speak patois .’
You must obviously either speak French or patios .
Talk of the force of logic—here it was in all its weakness. I gave up the point, but proceeding to =
give
illustrations of my native jargon, I was met with a new mortification. Of all patios they declared that mine was the most
preposterous and the most jocose in sound.
At each new word there was a new explosion of laughter, and some of =
the
younger ones were glad to rise from their chairs and stamp about the street=
in
ecstasy; and I looked on upon their mirth in a faint and slightly disagreea=
ble
bewilderment. ‘Bread,’ which sounds a commonplace, plain-sailing monosyllab=
le
in England, was the word that most delighted these good ladies of Monastier=
; it
seemed to them frolicsome and racy, like a page of Pickwick; and they all g=
ot
it carefully by heart, as a stand-by, I presume, for winter evenings. I have tried it since then with every s=
ort of
accent and inflection, but I seem to lack the sense of humour.
They were of all ages: children at their first=
web
of lace, a stripling girl with a bashful but encouraging play of eyes, solid
married women, and grandmothers, some on the top of their age and some fall=
ing
towards decrepitude. One and all w=
ere
pleasant and natural, ready to laugh and ready with a certain quiet solemni=
ty
when that was called for by the subject of our talk. Life, since the fall in wages, had begu=
n to
appear to them with a more serious air.
The stripling girl would sometimes laugh at me in a provocative and =
not
unadmiring manner, if I judge aright; and one of the grandmothers, who was =
my
great friend of the party, gave me many a sharp word of judgment on my
sketches, my heresy, or even my arguments, and gave them with a wry mouth a=
nd a
humorous twinkle in her eye that were eminently Scottish. But the rest used me with a certain
reverence, as something come from afar and not entirely human. Nothing would put them at their ease bu=
t the
irresistible gaiety of my native tongue.
Between the old lady and myself I think there was a real
attachment. She was never weary of
sitting to me for her portrait, in her best cap and brigand hat, and with a=
ll
her wrinkles tidily composed, and though she never failed to repudiate the
result, she would always insist upon another trial. It was as good as a play to see her sit=
ting
in judgment over the last. ‘No, no=
,’ she
would say, ‘that is not it. I am o=
ld, to
be sure, but I am better-looking than that.
We must try again.’ When I =
was
about to leave she bade me good-bye for this life in a somewhat touching
manner. We should not meet again, =
she
said; it was a long farewell, and she was sorry. But life is so full of crooks, old lady=
, that
who knows? I have said good-bye to
people for greater distances and times, and, please God, I mean to see them=
yet
again.
One thing was notable about these women, from =
the
youngest to the oldest, and with hardly an exception. In spite of their piety, they could twa=
ng off
an oath with Sir Toby Belch in person.
There was nothing so high or so low, in heaven or earth or in the hu=
man
body, but a woman of this neighbourhood would whip out the name of it, fair=
and
square, by way of conversational adornment.
My landlady, who was pretty and young, dressed like a lady and avoid=
ed patois like a weakness, commonly addressed her =
child
in the language of a drunken bully. And
of all the swearers that I ever heard, commend me to an old lady in Gondet,=
a
village of the Loire. I was making a sketch, and her curse was not yet ended
when I had finished it and took my departure.
It is true she had a right to be angry; for here was her son, a hulk=
ing
fellow, visibly the worse for drink before the day was well begun. But it was strange to hear her unwearyi=
ng
flow of oaths and obscenities, endless like a river, and now and then risin=
g to
a passionate shrillness, in the clear and silent air of the morning. In city slums, the thing might have pas=
sed
unnoticed; but in a country valley, and from a plain and honest countrywoma=
n,
this beastliness of speech surprised the ear.
The C=
onductor
, as he is called, of Roads and Br=
idges was my principal companion. He was generally intelligent, and could=
have
spoken more or less falsetto on any of the trite topics; but it was his
specially to have a generous taste in eating.
This was what was most indigenous in the man; it was here he was an
artist; and I found in his company what I had long suspected, that enthusia=
sm
and special knowledge are the great social qualities, and what they are abo=
ut,
whether white sauce or Shakespeare’s plays, an altogether secondary questio=
n.
I used to accompany the Conductor on his
professional rounds, and grew to believe myself an expert in the business.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> I thought I could make an entry in a
stone-breaker’s time-book, or order manure off the wayside with any living
engineer in France. Gondet was one=
of
the places we visited together; and Laussonne, where I met the apothecary’s
father, was another. There, at
Laussonne, George Sand spent a day while she was gathering materials for th=
e Marquis de Villemer ; and I have spoken =
with
an old man, who was then a child running about the inn kitchen, and who sti=
ll
remembers her with a sort of reverence.
It appears that he spoke French imperfectly; for this reason George =
Sand
chose him for companion, and whenever he let slip a broad and picturesque
phrase in patois , she would make =
him
repeat it again and again till it was graven in her memory. The word for a frog particularly please=
d her
fancy; and it would be curious to know if she afterwards employed it in her
works. The peasants, who knew noth=
ing of
betters and had never so much as heard of local colour, could not explain h=
er
chattering with this backward child; and to them she seemed a very homely l=
ady
and far from beautiful: the most famous man-killer of the age appealed so
little to Velaisian swine-herds!
On my first engineering excursion, which lay u=
p by
Crouzials towards Mount Mezenc and the borders of Ardèche, I began an impro=
ving
acquaintance with the foreman road-mender.
He was in great glee at having me with him, passed me off among his
subalterns as the supervising engineer, and insisted on what he called ‘the
gallantry’ of paying for my breakfast in a roadside wine-shop. On the whole, he was a man of great
weather-wisdom, some spirits, and a social temper. But I am afraid he was superstitious. When he was nine years old, he had seen=
one
night a company of bourgeois et da=
mes
qui faisaient la manège avec des chaises , and concluded that he was in the
presence of a witches’ Sabbath. I
suppose, but venture with timidity on the suggestion, that this may have be=
en a
romantic and nocturnal picnic party.
Again, coming from Pradelles with his brother, they saw a great empty
cart drawn by six enormous horses before them on the road. The driver cried aloud and filled the
mountains with the cracking of his whip.
He never seemed to go faster than a walk, yet it was impossible to
overtake him; and at length, at the comer of a hill, the whole equipage
disappeared bodily into the night. At the time, people said it was the devi=
l qui s’amusait à faire ca .
I suggested there was nothing more likely, as =
he
must have some amusement.
The foreman said it was odd, but there was les=
s of
that sort of thing than formerly. =
‘ C’est
difficile ,’ he added, ‘ à expliquer .’
When we were well up on the moors and the Conductor was trying some road-metal with the gaug=
e—
‘Hark!’ said the foreman, ‘do you hear nothing=
?’
We listened, and the wind, which was blowing
chilly out of the east, brought a faint, tangled jangling to our ears.
‘It is the flocks of Vivarais,’ said he.
For every summer, the flocks out of all Ardèche
are brought up to pasture on these grassy plateaux.
Here and there a little private flock was being
tended by a girl, one spinning with a distaff, another seated on a wall and
intently making lace. This last, w=
hen we
addressed her, leaped up in a panic and put out her arms, like a person
swimming, to keep us at a distance, and it was some seconds before we could
persuade her of the honesty of our intentions.
The C=
onductor
told me of another herdswoman from=
whom
he had once asked his road while he was yet new to the country, and who fled
from him, driving her beasts before her, until he had given up the informat=
ion
in despair. A tale of old lawlessn=
ess
may yet be read in these uncouth timidities.
The winter in these uplands is a dangerous and
melancholy time. Houses are snowed=
up,
and way-farers lost in a flurry within hail of their own fireside. No man ventures abroad without meat and=
a
bottle of wine, which he replenishes at every wine-shop; and even thus equi=
pped
he takes the road with terror. All=
day
the family sits about the fire in a foul and airless hovel, and equally wit=
hout
work or diversion. The father may =
carve
a rude piece of furniture, but that is all that will be done until the spri=
ng
sets in again, and along with it the labours of the field. It is not for nothing that you find a c=
lock
in the meanest of these mountain habitations.
A clock and an almanac, you would fancy, were indispensable in such a
life . . .
Throu=
gh
what little channels, by what hints and premonitions, the consciousness of =
the
man’s art dawns first upon the child, it should be not only interesting but
instructive to inquire. A matter of
curiosity to-day, it will become the ground of science to-morrow. From the mind of childhood there is more
history and more philosophy to be fished up than from all the printed volum=
es
in a library. The child is conscio=
us of
an interest, not in literature but in life.
A taste for the precise, the adroit, or the comely in the use of wor=
ds,
comes late; but long before that he has enjoyed in books a delightful dress
rehearsal of experience. He is first conscious of this material—I had almost
said this practical—pre-occupation; it does not follow that it really came =
the
first. I have some old fogged nega=
tives
in my collection that would seem to imply a prior stage ‘The Lord is gone up
with a shout, and God with the sound of a trumpet’—memorial version, I know=
not
where to find the text—rings still in my ear from my first childhood, and
perhaps with something of my nurses accent.
There was possibly some sort of image written in my mind by these lo=
ud
words, but I believe the words themselves were what I cherished. I had about the same time, and under th=
e same
influence—that of my dear nurse—a favourite author: it is possible the read=
er
has not heard of him—the Rev. Robert Murray M’Cheyne. My nurse and I admired
his name exceedingly, so that I must have been taught the love of beautiful
sounds before I was breeched; and I remember two specimens of his muse until
this day:—
‘B=
ehind
the hills of Naphtali The su=
n went
slowly down, Leaving on mountai=
n,
tower, and tree, A tinge of =
golden
brown.’
There is imagery here, and I set it on one
side. The other—it is but a verse—=
not
only contains no image, but is quite unintelligible even to my comparatively
instructed mind, and I know not even how to spell the outlandish vocable th=
at
charmed me in my childhood:
‘J=
ehovah
Tschidkenu is nothing to her’;—{190}
I may say, without flippancy, that he was noth=
ing
to me either, since I had no ray of a guess of what he was about; yet the
verse, from then to now, a longer interval than the life of a generation, h=
as
continued to haunt me.
I have said that I should set a passage
distinguished by obvious and pleasing imagery, however faint; for the child
thinks much in images, words are very live to him, phrases that imply a pic=
ture
eloquent beyond their value. Rumma=
ging
in the dusty pigeon-holes of memory, I came once upon a graphic version of =
the
famous Psalm, ‘The Lord is my shepherd’: and from the places employed in its
illustration, which are all in the immediate neighbourhood of a house then
occupied by my father, I am able, to date it before the seventh year of my =
age,
although it was probably earlier in fact.
The ‘pastures green’ were represented by a certain suburban stubble-=
field,
where I had once walked with my nurse, under an autumnal sunset, on the ban=
ks
of the Water of Leith: the place is long ago built up; no pastures now, no
stubble-fields; only a maze of little streets and smoking chimneys and shri=
ll
children. Here, in the fleecy pers=
on of
a sheep, I seemed to myself to follow something unseen, unrealised, and yet
benignant; and close by the sheep in which I was incarnated—as if for great=
er
security—rustled the skirt, of my nurse. ‘Death’s dark vale’ was a certain
archway in the Warriston Cemetery: a formidable yet beloved spot, for child=
ren
love to be afraid,—in measure as they love all experience of vitality. Here I beheld myself some paces ahead (=
seeing
myself, I mean, from behind) utterly alone in that uncanny passage; on the =
one
side of me a rude, knobby, shepherd’s staff, such as cheers the heart of the
cockney tourist, on the other a rod like a billiard cue, appeared to accomp=
any
my progress; the stiff sturdily upright, the billiard cue inclined
confidentially, like one whispering, towards my ear. I was aware—I will never tell you how—t=
hat
the presence of these articles afforded me encouragement. The third and last of my pictures illus=
trated
words:—
‘My
table Thou hast furnished In
presence of my foes: My head Th=
ou
dost with oil anoint, And my=
cup
overflows’:
and this was perhaps the most interesting of t=
he
series. I saw myself seated in a k=
ind of
open stone summer-house at table; over my shoulder a hairy, bearded, and ro=
bed
presence anointed me from an authentic shoe-horn; the summer-house was part=
of
the green court of a ruin, and from the far side of the court black and whi=
te
imps discharged against me ineffectual arrows.
The picture appears arbitrary, but I can trace every detail to its
source, as Mr. Brock analysed the dream of Alan Armadale. The summer-house =
and
court were muddled together out of Billings’ Antiquities of Scotland ; the imps conve=
yed
from Bagster’s Pilgrim’s Progress =
; the
bearded and robed figure from any one of the thousand Bible pictures; and t=
he
shoe-horn was plagiarised from an old illustrated Bible, where it figured in
the hand of Samuel anointing Saul, and had been pointed out to me as a jest=
by
my father. It was shown me for a j=
est,
remark; but the serious spirit of infancy adopted it in earnest. Children a=
re
all classics; a bottle would have seemed an intermediary too trivial—that
divine refreshment of whose meaning I had no guess; and I seized on the ide=
a of
that mystic shoe-horn with delight, even as, a little later, I should have
written flagon, chalice, hanaper, beaker, or any word that might have appea=
led
to me at the moment as least contaminate with mean associations. In this string of pictures I believe th=
e gist
of the psalm to have consisted; I believe it had no more to say to me; and =
the
result was consolatory. I would go=
to
sleep dwelling with restfulness upon these images; they passed before me,
besides, to an appropriate music; for I had already singled out from that r=
ude
psalm the one lovely verse which dwells in the minds of all, not growing ol=
d,
not disgraced by its association with long Sunday tasks, a scarce conscious=
joy
in childhood, in age a companion thought:—
‘In
pastures green Thou leadest me,
The quiet waters by.’
The remainder of my childish recollections are=
all
of the matter of what was read to me, and not of any manner in the words. If these pleased me it was unconsciousl=
y; I
listened for news of the great vacant world upon whose edge I stood; I list=
ened
for delightful plots that I might re-enact in play, and romantic scenes and
circumstances that I might call up before me, with closed eyes, when I was
tired of Scotland, and home, and that weary prison of the sick-chamber in w=
hich
I lay so long in durance. Robinson
Crusoe ; some of the books of that cheerful, ingenious, romantic soul, Mayne
Reid; and a work rather gruesome and bloody for a child, but very picturesq=
ue,
called Paul Blake ; these are the =
three
strongest impressions I remember: =
The
Swiss Family Robinson came next, <=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> longo intervallo . At these I played, conjured up their sc=
enes,
and delighted to hear them rehearsed unto seventy times seven. I am not sure but what Paul Blake came after I could read. It seems connected with a visit to the
country, and an experience unforgettable.
The day had been warm; H--- and I had played together charmingly all=
day
in a sandy wilderness across the road; then came the evening with a great f=
lash
of colour and a heavenly sweetness in the air.
Somehow my play-mate had vanished, or is out of the story, as the sa=
ges
say, but I was sent into the village on an errand; and, taking a book of fa=
iry
tales, went down alone through a fir-wood, reading as I walked. How often since then has it befallen me=
to be
happy even so; but that was the first time: the shock of that pleasure I ha=
ve
never since forgot, and if my mind serves me to the last, I never shall, fo=
r it
was then that I knew I loved reading.
To pa=
ss
from hearing literature to reading it is to take a great and dangerous
step. With not a few, I think a la=
rge
proportion of their pleasure then comes to an end; ‘the malady of not marki=
ng’
overtakes them; they read thenceforward by the eye alone and hear never aga=
in
the chime of fair words or the march of the stately period. Non
ragioniam of these. But to all the step is dangerous; it in=
volves
coming of age; it is even a kind of second weaning. In the past all was at the choice of ot=
hers;
they chose, they digested, they read aloud for us and sang to their own tune
the books of childhood. In the fut=
ure we
are to approach the silent, inexpressive type alone, like pioneers; and the
choice of what we are to read is in our own hands thenceforward. For instance, in the passages already
adduced, I detect and applaud the ear of my old nurse; they were of her cho=
ice,
and she imposed them on my infancy, reading the works of others as a poet w=
ould
scarce dare to read his own; gloating on the rhythm, dwelling with delight =
on
assonances and alliterations. I kn=
ow
very well my mother must have been all the while trying to educate my taste
upon more secular authors; but the vigour and the continual opportunities o=
f my
nurse triumphed, and after a long search, I can find in these earliest volu=
mes
of my autobiography no mention of anything but nursery rhymes, the Bible, a=
nd
Mr. M’Cheyne.
I suppose all children agree in looking back w=
ith
delight on their school Readers. We
might not now find so much pathos in ‘Bingen on the Rhine,’ ‘A soldier of t=
he
Legion lay dying in Algiers,’ or in ‘The Soldier’s Funeral,’ in the declama=
tion
of which I was held to have surpassed myself.
‘Robert’s voice,’ said the master on this memorable occasion, ‘is not
strong, but impressive’: an opinion which I was fool enough to carry home t=
o my
father; who roasted me for years in consequence. I am sure one should not be so deliciou=
sly
tickled by the humorous pieces:—
‘W=
hat,
crusty? cries Will in a taking, Who
would not be crusty with half a year’s baking?’
I think this quip would leave us cold. The ‘Isles of Greece’ seem rather tawdr=
y too;
but on the ‘Address to the Ocean,’ or on ‘The Dying Gladiator,’ ‘time has w=
rit
no wrinkle.’
’T=
is the
morn, but dim and dark, Whither=
flies
the silent lark?’—
does the reader recall the moment when his eye
first fell upon these lines in the Fourth Reader; and ‘surprised with joy,
impatient as the wind,’ he plunged into the sequel? And there was another piece, this time =
in
prose, which none can have forgotten; many like me must have searched Dicke=
ns
with zeal to find it again, and in its proper context, and have perhaps been
conscious of some inconsiderable measure of disappointment, that it was only
Tom Pinch who drove, in such a pomp of poetry, to London.
But in the Reader we are still under guides. What a boy turns out for himself, as he
rummages the bookshelves, is the real test and pleasure. My father’s library
was a spot of some austerity; the proceedings of learned societies, some La=
tin
divinity, cyclopædias, physical science, and, above all, optics, held the c=
hief
place upon the shelves, and it was only in holes and corners that anything
really legible existed as by accident.
The Parent’s Assistant , Rob Roy , Waverley , and Guy Mannering , the Voyages of Captain Woods Rogers , Fuller=
’s and
Bunyan’s Holy Wars , The Reflections of Robinson Crusoe , Guy
Mannering , and some of Waverley ,=
with
no such delighted sense of truth and humour, and I read immediately after t=
he
greater part of the Waverley Novels, and was never moved again in the same =
way
or to the same degree. One circumstance is suspicious: my critical estimate=
of
the Waverley Novels has scarce changed at all since I was ten. Rob
Roy , Guy Mannering , and Redgauntlet first; then, a little lower; The Fortunes of Nigel ; then, after a hu=
ge
gulf, Ivanhoe and =
span>Anne
of Geierstein : the rest nowhere; such was the verdict of the boy. Since then The Antiquary , St. Ronan’s Well , Kenilworth , and The Heart of Midlothian have gone up in the scale; perhaps Ivanhoe and Anne of Geierstein have gone a trifle down; Diana Vernon ha=
s been
added to my admirations in that enchanted world of Rob Roy ; I think more of the letters in=
Redgauntlet , and Peter Peebles, that dr=
eadful
piece of realism, I can now read about with equanimity, interest, and I had
almost said pleasure, while to the childish critic he often caused unmixed
distress. But the rest is the same=
; I
could not finish The Pirate when I was a child, I have never finishe=
d it
yet; Peveril of the Peak dropped half way through from my schoolb=
oy
hands, and though I have since waded to an end in a kind of wager with myse=
lf,
the exercise was quite without enjoyment.
There is something disquieting in these considerations. I still think the visit to Ponto’s the =
best
part of the Book of Snobs : does t=
hat
mean that I was right when I was a child, or does it mean that I have never
grown since then, that the child is not the man’s father, but the man? and =
that
I came into the world with all my faculties complete, and have only learned
sinsyne to be more tolerant of boredom? . .
Two t=
hings
are necessary in any neighbourhood where we propose to spend a life: a dese=
rt
and some living water.
There are many parts of the earth’s face which
offer the necessary combination of a certain wildness with a kindly
variety. A great prospect is desir=
able,
but the want may be otherwise supplied; even greatness can be found on the
small scale; for the mind and the eye measure differently. Bold rocks near hand are more inspiriti=
ng
than distant Alps, and the thick fern upon a Surrey heath makes a fine fore=
st
for the imagination, and the dotted yew trees noble mountains. A Scottish moor with birches and firs g=
rouped
here and there upon a knoll, or one of those rocky seaside deserts of Prove=
nce
overgrown with rosemary and thyme and smoking with aroma, are places where =
the
mind is never weary. Forests, bein=
g more
enclosed, are not at first sight so attractive, but they exercise a spell; =
they
must, however, be diversified with either heath or rock, and are hardly to =
be
considered perfect without conifers.
Even sand-hills, with their intricate plan, and their gulls and rabb=
its,
will stand well for the necessary desert.
The house must be within hail of either a litt=
le
river or the sea. A great river is=
more
fit for poetry than to adorn a neighbourhood; its sweep of waters increases=
the
scale of the scenery and the distance of one notable object from another; a=
nd a
lively burn gives us, in the space of a few yards, a greater variety of
promontory and islet, of cascade, shallow goil, and boiling pool, with
answerable changes both of song and colour, than a navigable stream in many
hundred miles. The fish, too, make=
a
more considerable feature of the brookside, and the trout plumping in the
shadow takes the ear. A stream sho=
uld,
besides, be narrow enough to cross, or the burn hard by a bridge, or we are=
at
once shut out of Eden. The quantit=
y of
water need be of no concern, for the mind sets the scale, and can enjoy a
Niagara Fall of thirty inches. Let=
us
approve the singer of
‘S=
hallow
rivers, by whose falls Melodiou=
s birds
sing madrigals.’
If the sea is to be our ornamental water, choo=
se
an open seaboard with a heavy beat of surf; one much broken in outline, with
small havens and dwarf headlands; if possible a few islets; and as a first
necessity, rocks reaching out into deep water.
Such a rock on a calm day is a better station than the top of Teneri=
ffe
or Chimborazo. In short, both for =
the
desert and the water, the conjunction of many near and bold details is bold
scenery for the imagination and keeps the mind alive.
Given these two prime luxuries, the nature of =
the
country where we are to live is, I had almost said, indifferent; after that
inside the garden, we can construct a country of our own. Several old trees, a considerable varie=
ty of
level, several well-grown hedges to divide our garden into provinces, a good
extent of old well-set turf, and thickets of shrubs and ever-greens to be c=
ut
into and cleared at the new owner’s pleasure, are the qualities to be sought
for in your chosen land. Nothing i=
s more
delightful than a succession of small lawns, opening one out of the other
through tall hedges; these have all the charm of the old bowling-green
repeated, do not require the labour of many trimmers, and afford a series of
changes. You must have much lawn a=
gainst
the early summer, so as to have a great field of daisies, the year’s morning
frost; as you must have a wood of lilacs, to enjoy to the full the period of
their blossoming. Hawthorn is another of the Spring’s ingredients; but it is
even best to have a rough public lane at one side of your enclosure which, =
at
the right season, shall become an avenue of bloom and odour. The old flowers are the best and should=
grow
carelessly in corners. Indeed, the=
ideal
fortune is to find an old garden, once very richly cared for, since sunk in=
to
neglect, and to tend, not repair, that neglect; it will thus have a smack of
nature and wildness which skilful dispositions cannot overtake. The gardener
should be an idler, and have a gross partiality to the kitchen plots: an ea=
ger
or toilful gardener misbecomes the garden landscape; a tasteful gardener wi=
ll
be ever meddling, will keep the borders raw, and take the bloom off
nature. Close adjoining, if you ar=
e in
the south, an olive-yard, if in the north, a swarded apple-orchard reaching=
to
the stream, completes your miniature domain; but this is perhaps best enter=
ed
through a door in the high fruit-wall; so that you close the door behind yo=
u on
your sunny plots, your hedges and evergreen jungle, when you go down to wat=
ch
the apples falling in the pool. It=
is a
golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take c=
are
of themselves. Nor must the ear be
forgotten: without birds a garden is a prison-yard. There is a garden near Marseilles on a =
steep
hill-side, walking by which, upon a sunny morning, your ear will suddenly be
ravished with a burst of small and very cheerful singing: some score of cag=
es
being set out there to sun their occupants.
This is a heavenly surprise to any passer-by; but the price paid, to
keep so many ardent and winged creatures from their liberty, will make the
luxury too dear for any thoughtful pleasure-lover. There is only one sort of bird that I c=
an
tolerate caged, though even then I think it hard, and that is what is calle=
d in
France the Bec-d’Argent. I once ha=
d two
of these pigmies in captivity; and in the quiet, hire house upon a silent
street where I was then living, their song, which was not much louder than a
bee’s, but airily musical, kept me in a perpetual good humour. I put the cage upon my table when I wor=
ked,
carried it with me when I went for meals, and kept it by my head at night: =
the
first thing in the morning, these =
maestrini
would pipe up. But these, even if you can pardon their
imprisonment, are for the house. I=
n the
garden the wild birds must plant a colony, a chorus of the lesser warblers =
that
should be almost deafening, a blackbird in the lilacs, a nightingale down t=
he
lane, so that you must stroll to hear it, and yet a little farther, tree-to=
ps
populous with rooks.
Your house should not command much outlook; it
should be set deep and green, though upon rising ground, or, if possible,
crowning a knoll, for the sake of drainage.
Yet it must be open to the east, or you will miss the sunrise; sunset
occurring so much later, you can go up a few steps and look the other way.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> A house of more than two stories is a m=
ere
barrack; indeed the ideal is of one story, raised upon cellars. If the rooms are large, the house may be
small: a single room, lofty, spacious, and lightsome, is more palatial than=
a
castleful of cabinets and cupboards. Yet
size in a house, and some extent and intricacy of corridor, is certainly
delightful to the flesh. The recep=
tion
room should be, if possible, a place of many recesses, which are ‘petty
retiring places for conference’; but it must have one long wall with a diva=
n:
for a day spent upon a divan, among a world of cushions, is as full of
diversion as to travel. The eating=
-room,
in the French mode, should be ad h=
oc :
unfurnished, but with a buffet, the table, necessary chairs, one or two of
Canaletto’s etchings, and a tile fire-place for the winter. In neither of these public places should
there be anything beyond a shelf or two of books; but the passages may be o=
ne
library from end to end, and the stair, if there be one, lined with volumes=
in
old leather, very brightly carpeted, and leading half-way up, and by way of
landing, to a windowed recess with a fire-place; this window, almost alone =
in
the house, should command a handsome prospect.
Husband and wife must each possess a studio; on the woman’s sanctuar=
y I
hesitate to dwell, and turn to the man’s.
The walls are shelved waist-high for books, and the top thus forms a
continuous table running round the wall.
Above are prints, a large map of the neighbourhood, a Corot and a Cl=
aude
or two. The room is very spacious, and the five tables and two chairs are b=
ut
as islands. One table is for actual
work, one close by for references in use; one, very large, for MSS. or proo=
fs
that wait their turn; one kept clear for an occasion; and the fifth is the =
map
table, groaning under a collection of large-scale maps and charts. Of all books these are the least wearis=
ome to
read and the richest in matter; the course of roads and rivers, the contour=
lines
and the forests in the maps—the reefs, soundings, anchors, sailing marks and
little pilot-pictures in the charts—and, in both, the bead-roll of names, m=
ake
them of all printed matter the most fit to stimulate and satisfy the fancy.=
The chair in which you write is very lo=
w and
easy, and backed into a corner; at one elbow the fire twinkles; close at the
other, if you are a little inhumane, your cage of silver-bills are twitteri=
ng
into song.
Joined along by a passage, you may reach the
great, sunny, glass-roofed, and tiled gymnasium, at the far end of which, l=
ined
with bright marble, is your plunge and swimming bath, fitted with a capacio=
us
boiler.
The whole loft of the house from end to end ma=
kes
one undivided chamber; here are set forth tables on which to model imaginar=
y or
actual countries in putty or plaster, with tools and hardy pigments; a
carpenter’s bench; and a spared corner for photography, while at the far en=
d a
space is kept clear for playing soldiers.
Two boxes contain the two armies of some five hundred horse and foot;
two others the ammunition of each side, and a fifth the foot-rules and the
three colours of chalk, with which you lay down, or, after a day’s play,
refresh the outlines of the country; red or white for the two kinds of road=
(according
as they are suitable or not for the passage of ordnance), and blue for the
course of the obstructing rivers. =
Here I
foresee that you may pass much happy time; against a good adversary a game =
may
well continue for a month; for with armies so considerable three moves will
occupy an hour. It will be found t=
o set
an excellent edge on this diversion if one of the players shall, every day =
or
so, write a report of the operations in the character of army correspondent=
.
I have left to the last the little room for wi=
nter
evenings. This should be furnished=
in
warm positive colours, and sofas and floor thick with rich furs. The hearth, where you burn wood of arom=
atic
quality on silver dogs, tiled round about with Bible pictures; the seats de=
ep
and easy; a single Titian in a gold frame; a white bust or so upon a bracke=
t; a
rack for the journals of the week; a table for the books of the year; and c=
lose
in a corner the three shelves full of eternal books that never weary:
Shakespeare, Molière, Montaigne, Lamb, Sterne, De Musset’s comedies (the one
volume open at Carmosine and the other at Fantasio ); the Arabian Nights , and kindred stories, in
Weber’s solemn volumes; Borrow’s B=
ible
in Spain , the Pilgrim’s Progress =
, Guy Mannering and =
span>Rob
Roy , Monte Cristo and the Vicomte de Bragelonne , immortal Boswell=
sole
among biographers, Chaucer, Herrick, and the State Trials .
The bedrooms are large, airy, with almost no
furniture, floors of varnished wood, and at the bed-head, in case of insomn=
ia,
one shelf of books of a particular and dippable order, such as Pepys , the Paston Letters , Burt’s Letters from the Highlands , or the Newgate Calendar . . . .
A mou=
ntain
valley has, at the best, a certain prison-like effect on the imagination, b=
ut a
mountain valley, an Alpine winter, and an invalid’s weakness make up among =
them
a prison of the most effective kind. The
roads indeed are cleared, and at least one footpath dodging up the hill; bu=
t to
these the health-seeker is rigidly confined.
There are for him no cross-cuts over the field, no following of stre=
ams,
no unguided rambles in the wood. H=
is
walks are cut and dry. In five or =
six
different directions he can push as far, and no farther, than his strength
permits; never deviating from the line laid down for him and beholding at e=
ach
repetition the same field of wood and snow from the same corner of the
road. This, of itself, would be a =
little
trying to the patience in the course of months; but to this is added, by the
heaped mantle of the snow, an almost utter absence of detail and an almost
unbroken identity of colour. Snow,=
it is
true, is not merely white. The sun
touches it with roseate and golden lights.
Its own crushed infinity of crystals, its own richness of tiny sculp=
ture,
fills it, when regarded near at hand, with wonderful depths of coloured sha=
dow,
and, though wintrily transformed, it is still water, and has watery tones of
blue. But, when all is said, these
fields of white and blots of crude black forest are but a trite and staring
substitute for the infinite variety and pleasantness of the earth’s face. Even a boulder, whose front is too
precipitous to have retained the snow, seems, if you come upon it in your w=
alk,
a perfect gem of colour, reminds you almost painfully of other places, and
brings into your head the delights of more Arcadian days—the path across the
meadow, the hazel dell, the lilies on the stream, and the scents, the colou=
rs,
and the whisper of the woods. And =
scents
here are as rare as colours. Unless you get a gust of kitchen in passing so=
me
hotel, you shall smell nothing all day long but the faint and choking odour=
of
frost. Sounds, too, are absent: no=
t a
bird pipes, not a bough waves, in the dead, windless atmosphere. If a sleigh goes by, the sleigh-bells r=
ing,
and that is all; you work all winter through to no other accompaniment but =
the
crunching of your steps upon the frozen snow.
It is the curse of the Alpine valleys to be ea=
ch
one village from one end to the other.
Go where you please, houses will still be in sight, before and behind
you, and to the right and left. Cl=
imb as
high as an invalid is able, and it is only to spy new habitations nested in=
the
wood. Nor is that all; for about t=
he
health resort the walks are besieged by single people walking rapidly with
plaids about their shoulders, by sudden troops of German boys trying to lea=
rn
to jödel, and by German couples silently and, as you venture to fancy, not
quite happily, pursuing love’s young dream.
You may perhaps be an invalid who likes to make bad verses as he wal=
ks
about. Alas! no muse will suffer t=
his
imminence of interruption—and at the second stampede of jödellers you find =
your
modest inspiration fled. Or you ma=
y only
have a taste for solitude; it may try your nerves to have some one always in
front whom you are visibly overtaking, and some one always behind who is
audibly overtaking you, to say nothing of a score or so who brush past you =
in
an opposite direction. It may annoy you to take your walks and seats in pub=
lic
view. Alas! there is no help for it
among the Alps. There are no reces=
ses,
as in Gorbio Valley by the oil-mill; no sacred solitude of olive gardens on=
the
Roccabruna-road; no nook upon Saint Martin’s Cape, haunted by the voice of
breakers, and fragrant with the threefold sweetness of the rosemary and the
sea-pines and the sea.
For this publicity there is no cure, and no
alleviation; but the storms of which you will complain so bitterly while th=
ey
endure, chequer and by their contrast brighten the sameness of the fair-wea=
ther
scenes. When sun and storm contend
together—when the thick clouds are broken up and pierced by arrows of golden
daylight—there will be startling rearrangements and transfigurations of the
mountain summits. A sun-dazzling s=
pire
of alp hangs suspended in mid-sky among awful glooms and blackness; or perh=
aps
the edge of some great mountain shoulder will be designed in living gold, a=
nd
appear for the duration of a glance bright like a constellation, and alone =
‘in
the unapparent.’ You may think you=
know
the figure of these hills; but when they are thus revealed, they belong no
longer to the things of earth—meteors we should rather call them, appearanc=
es
of sun and air that endure but for a moment and return no more. Other variations are more lasting, as w=
hen,
for instance, heavy and wet snow has fallen through some windless hours, and
the thin, spiry, mountain pine trees stand each stock-still and loaded with=
a
shining burthen. You may drive thr=
ough a
forest so disguised, the tongue-tied torrent struggling silently in the cle=
ft
of the ravine, and all still except the jingle of the sleigh bells, and you
shall fancy yourself in some untrodden northern territory—Lapland, Labrador=
, or
Alaska.
Or, possibly, you arise very early in the morn=
ing;
totter down stairs in a state of somnambulism; take the simulacrum of a mea=
l by
the glimmer of one lamp in the deserted coffee-room; and find yourself by s=
even
o’clock outside in a belated moonlight and a freezing chill. The mail sleigh takes you up and carrie=
s you
on, and you reach the top of the ascent in the first hour of the day. To trace the fires of the sunrise as th=
ey
pass from peak to peak, to see the unlit tree-tops stand out soberly against
the lighted sky, to be for twenty minutes in a wonderland of clear, fading
shadows, disappearing vapours, solemn blooms of dawn, hills half glorified
already with the day and still half confounded with the greyness of the wes=
tern
heaven—these will seem to repay you for the discomforts of that early start;
but as the hour proceeds, and these enchantments vanish, you will find your=
self
upon the farther side in yet another Alpine valley, snow white and coal bla=
ck,
with such another long-drawn congeries of hamlets and such another senseless
watercourse bickering along the foot.
You have had your moment; but you have not changed the scene. The mountains are about you like a trap=
; you
cannot foot it up a hillside and behold the sea as a great plain, but live =
in
holes and corners, and can change only one for another.
There=
has
come a change in medical opinion, and a change has followed in the lives of
sick folk. A year or two ago and t=
he
wounded soldiery of mankind were all shut up together in some basking angle=
of
the Riviera, walking a dusty promenade or sitting in dusty olive-yards with=
in
earshot of the interminable and unchanging surf—idle among spiritless idler=
s;
not perhaps dying, yet hardly living either, and aspiring, sometimes fierce=
ly,
after livelier weather and some vivifying change. These were certainly beautiful places t=
o live
in, and the climate was wooing in its softness.
Yet there was a later shiver in the sunshine; you were not certain
whether you were being wooed; and these mild shores would sometimes seem to=
you
to be the shores of death. There w=
as a
lack of a manly element; the air was not reactive; you might write bits of
poetry and practise resignation, but you did not feel that here was a good =
spot
to repair your tissue or regain your nerve.
And it appears, after all, that there was something just in these
appreciations. The invalid is now =
asked
to lodge on wintry Alps; a ruder air shall medicine him; the demon of cold =
is
no longer to be fled from, but bearded in his den. For even Winter has his ‘dear domestic =
cave,’
and in those places where he may be said to dwell for ever tempers his
austerities.
Any one who has travelled westward by the great
transcontinental railroad of America must remember the joy with which he
perceived, after the tedious prairies of Nebraska and across the vast and
dismal moorlands of Wyoming, a few snowy mountain summits alone, the southe=
rn
sky. It is among these mountains i=
n the
new State of Colorado that the sick man may find, not merely an alleviation=
of
his ailments, but the possibility of an active life and an honest
livelihood. There, no longer as a
lounger in a plaid, but as a working farmer, sweating at his work, he may
prolong and begin anew his life. I=
nstead
of the bath-chair, the spade; instead of the regulated walk, rough journeys=
in
the forest, and the pure, rare air of the open mountains for the miasma of =
the
sick-room—these are the changes offered him, with what promise of pleasure =
and
of self-respect, with what a revolution in all his hopes and terrors, none =
but
an invalid can know. Resignation, =
the
cowardice that apes a kind of courage and that lives in the very air of hea=
lth
resorts, is cast aside at a breath of such a prospect. The man can open the door; he can be up=
and
doing; he can be a kind of a man after all and not merely an invalid.
But it is a far cry to the Rocky Mountains. His choice of a place of wintering has
somehow to his own eyes the air of an act of bold contract; and, since he h=
as
wilfully sought low temperatures, he is not so apt to shudder at a touch of=
chill. He came for that, he looked for it, and=
he
throws it from him with the thought.
A long straight reach of valley, wall-like
mountains upon either hand that rise higher and higher and shoot up new sum=
mits
the higher you climb; a few noble peaks seen even from the valley; a villag=
e of
hotels; a world of black and white—black pine-woods, clinging to the sides =
of
the valley, and white snow flouring it, and papering it between the pine-wo=
ods,
and covering all the mountains with a dazzling curd; add a few score invali=
ds
marching to and fro upon the snowy road, or skating on the ice-rinks, possi=
bly
to music, or sitting under sunshades by the door of the hotel—and you have =
the
larger features of a mountain sanatorium. A certain furious river runs curv=
ing
down the valley; its pace never varies, it has not a pool for as far as you=
can
follow it; and its unchanging, senseless hurry is strangely tedious to
witness. It is a river that a man =
could
grow to hate. Day after day breaks=
with
the rarest gold upon the mountain spires, and creeps, growing and glowing, =
down
into the valley. From end to end t=
he
snow reverberates the sunshine; from end to end the air tingles with the li=
ght,
clear and dry like crystal. Only a=
long
the course of the river, but high above it, there hangs far into the noon, =
one
waving scarf of vapour. It were ha=
rd to
fancy a more engaging feature in a landscape; perhaps it is harder to belie=
ve
that delicate, long-lasting phantom of the atmosphere, a creature of the
incontinent stream whose course it follows.
By noon the sky is arrayed in an unrivalled pomp of colour—mild and =
pale
and melting in the north, but towards the zenith, dark with an intensity of
purple blue. What with this darkness of heaven and the intolerable lustre of
the snow, space is reduced again to chaos.
An English painter, coming to France late in life, declared with nat=
ural
anger that ‘the values were all wrong.’
Had he got among the Alps on a bright day he might have lost his
reason. And even to any one who has
looked at landscape with any care, and in any way through the spectacles of
representative art, the scene has a character of insanity. The distant shining mountain peak is he=
re
beside your eye; the neighbouring dull-coloured house in comparison is miles
away; the summit, which is all of splendid snow, is close at hand; the nigh
slopes, which are black with pine trees, bear it no relation, and might be =
in
another sphere. Here there are non=
e of
those delicate gradations, those intimate, misty joinings-on and spreadings=
-out
into the distance, nothing of that art of air and light by which the face of
nature explains and veils itself in climes which we may be allowed to think
more lovely. A glaring piece of cr=
udity,
where everything that is not white is a solecism and defies the judgment of=
the
eyesight; a scene of blinding definition; a parade of daylight, almost
scenically vulgar, more than scenically trying, and yet hearty and healthy,
making the nerves to tighten and the mouth to smile: such is the winter day=
time
in the Alps.
With the approach of evening all is changed. A mountain will suddenly intercept the =
sun; a
shadow fall upon the valley; in ten minutes the thermometer will drop as ma=
ny
degrees; the peaks that are no longer shone upon dwindle into ghosts; and m=
eanwhile,
overhead, if the weather be rightly characteristic of the place, the sky fa=
des
towards night through a surprising key of colours. The latest gold leaps from the last
mountain. Soon, perhaps, the moon =
shall
rise, and in her gentler light the valley shall be mellowed and misted, and
here and there a wisp of silver cloud upon a hilltop, and here and there a
warmly glowing window in a house, between fire and starlight, kind and home=
ly
in the fields of snow.
But the valley is not seated so high among the
clouds to be eternally exempt from changes.
The clouds gather, black as ink; the wind bursts rudely in; day after
day the mists drive overhead, the snow-flakes flutter down in blinding
disarray; daily the mail comes in later from the top of the pass; people pe=
er
through their windows and foresee no end but an entire seclusion from Europ=
e,
and death by gradual dry-rot, each in his indifferent inn; and when at last=
the
storm goes, and the sun comes again, behold a world of unpolluted snow, glo=
ssy
like fur, bright like daylight, a joy to wallowing dogs and cheerful to the
souls of men. Or perhaps from acro=
ss
storied and malarious Italy, a wind cunningly winds about the mountains and
breaks, warm and unclean, upon our mountain valley. Every nerve is set ajar; the conscience
recognises, at a gust, a load of sins and negligences hitherto unknown; and=
the
whole invalid world huddles into its private chambers, and silently recogni=
ses
the empire of the Föhn.
There=
will
be no lack of diversion in an Alpine sanitarium. The place is half English, to be sure, =
the
local sheet appearing in double column, text and translation; but it still
remains half German; and hence we have a band which is able to play, and a
company of actors able, as you will be told, to act. This last you will take on trust, for t=
he
players, unlike the local sheet, confine themselves to German and though at=
the
beginning of winter they come with their wig-boxes to each hotel in turn, l=
ong
before Christmas they will have given up the English for a bad job. There w=
ill
follow, perhaps, a skirmish between the two races; the German element seeki=
ng,
in the interest of their actors, to raise a mysterious item, the Kur-taxe , which figures heavily enough
already in the weekly bills, the English element stoutly resisting. Meantime in the English hotels home-pla=
yed
farces, tableaux-vivants , and even
balls enliven the evenings; a charity bazaar sheds genial consternation;
Christmas and New Year are solemnised with Pantagruelian dinners, and from =
time
to time the young folks carol and revolve untunefully enough through the
figures of a singing quadrille.
A magazine club supplies you with everything, =
from
the Quarterly to the =
Sunday
at Home . Grand tournaments are
organised at chess, draughts, billiards and whist. Once and again wandering artists drop in=
to our
mountain valley, coming you know not whence, going you cannot imagine whith=
er,
and belonging to every degree in the hierarchy of musical art, from the
recognised performer who announces a concert for the evening, to the comic
German family or solitary long-haired German baritone, who surprises the gu=
ests
at dinner-time with songs and a collection.
They are all of them good to see; they, at least, are moving; they b=
ring
with them the sentiment of the open road; yesterday, perhaps, they were in
Tyrol, and next week they will be far in Lombardy, while all we sick folk s=
till
simmer in our mountain prison. Som=
e of
them, too, are welcome as the flowers in May for their own sake; some of th=
em
may have a human voice; some may have that magic which transforms a wooden =
box
into a song-bird, and what we jeeringly call a fiddle into what we mention =
with
respect as a violin. From that gri=
nding
lilt, with which the blind man, seeking pence, accompanies the beat of padd=
le wheels
across the ferry, there is surely a difference rather of kind than of degre=
e to
that unearthly voice of singing that bewails and praises the destiny of man=
at
the touch of the true virtuoso. Ev=
en
that you may perhaps enjoy; and if you do so you will own it impossible to
enjoy it more keenly than here, im
Schnee der Alpen . A hyacinth in a=
pot,
a handful of primroses packed in moss, or a piece of music by some one who
knows the way to the heart of a violin, are things that, in this invariable
sameness of the snows and frosty air, surprise you like an adventure. It is droll, moreover, to compare the r=
espect
with which the invalids attend a concert, and the ready contempt with which
they greet the dinner-time performers.
Singing which they would hear with real enthusiasm—possibly with
tears—from a corner of a drawing-room, is listened to with laughter when it=
is
offered by an unknown professional and no money has been taken at the door.=
Of skating little need be said; in so snowy a
climate the rinks must be intelligently managed; their mismanagement will l=
ead
to many days of vexation and some petty quarrelling, but when all goes well=
, it
is certainly curious, and perhaps rather unsafe, for the invalid to skate u=
nder
a burning sun, and walk back to his hotel in a sweat, through long tracts of
glare and passages of freezing shadow.
But the peculiar outdoor sport of this district is tobogganing. A Scotchman may remember the low flat b=
oard,
with the front wheels on a pivot, which was called a hurlie ; he may remember this contrivanc=
e,
laden with boys, as, laboriously started, it ran rattling down the brae, and
was, now successfully, now unsuccessfully, steered round the corner at the
foot; he may remember scented summer evenings passed in this diversion, and
many a grazed skin, bloody cockscomb, and neglected lesson. The toboggan is to the hurlie what the =
sled
is to the carriage; it is a hurlie upon runners; and if for a grating road =
you
substitute a long declivity of beaten snow, you can imagine the giddy caree=
r of
the tobogganist. The correct posit=
ion is
to sit; but the fantastic will sometimes sit hind-foremost, or dare the des=
cent
upon their belly or their back. A =
few
steer with a pair of pointed sticks, but it is more classical to use the
feet. If the weight be heavy and t=
he
track smooth, the toboggan takes the bit between its teeth; and to steer a
couple of full-sized friends in safety requires not only judgment but despe=
rate
exertion. On a very steep track, w=
ith a
keen evening frost, you may have moments almost too appalling to be called
enjoyment; the head goes, the world vanishes; your blind steed bounds below
your weight; you reach the foot, with all the breath knocked out of your bo=
dy,
jarred and bewildered as though you had just been subjected to a railway
accident. Another element of joyful
horror is added by the formation of a train; one toboggan being tied to
another, perhaps to the number of half a dozen, only the first rider being
allowed to steer, and all the rest pledged to put up their feet and follow
their leader, with heart in mouth, down the mad descent. This, particularly if the track begins =
with a
headlong plunge, is one of the most exhilarating follies in the world, and =
the
tobogganing invalid is early reconciled to somersaults.
There is all manner of variety in the nature of
the tracks, some miles in length, others but a few yards, and yet like some
short rivers, furious in their brevity.
All degrees of skill and courage and taste may be suited in your
neighbourhood. But perhaps the tru=
e way
to toboggan is alone and at night. First
comes the tedious climb, dragging your instrument behind you. Next a long breathing-space, alone with=
snow
and pinewoods, cold, silent and solemn to the heart. Then you push of; the toboggan fetches =
way;
she begins to feel the hill, to glide, to, swim, to gallop. In a breath you are out from under the =
pine
trees, and a whole heavenful of stars reels and flashes overhead. Then comes a vicious effort; for by thi=
s time
your wooden steed is speeding like the wind, and you are spinning round a
corner, and the whole glittering valley and all the lights in all the great
hotels lie for a moment at your feet; and the next you are racing once more=
in
the shadow of the night with close-shut teeth and beating heart. Yet a little while and you will be land=
ed on
the highroad by the door of your own hotel.
This, in an atmosphere tingling with forty degrees of frost, in a ni=
ght
made luminous with stars and snow, and girt with strange white mountains,
teaches the pulse an unaccustomed tune and adds a new excitement to the lif=
e of
man upon his planet.
To an=
y one
who should come from a southern sanitarium to the Alps, the row of sun-burn=
ed
faces round the table would present the first surprise. He would begin by
looking for the invalids, and he would lose his pains, for not one out of f=
ive
of even the bad cases bears the mark of sickness on his face. The plump sunshine from above and its s=
trong
reverberation from below colour the skin like an Indian climate; the treatm=
ent,
which consists mainly of the open air, exposes even the sickliest to tan, a=
nd a
tableful of invalids comes, in a month or two, to resemble a tableful of
hunters. But although he may be th=
us
surprised at the first glance, his astonishment will grow greater, as he
experiences the effects of the climate on himself. In many ways it is a trying business to
reside upon the Alps: the stomach is exercised, the appetite often languish=
es;
the liver may at times rebel; and because you have come so far from
metropolitan advantages, it does not follow that you shall recover. But one thing is undeniable—that in the=
rare
air, clear, cold, and blinding light of Alpine winters, a man takes a certa=
in
troubled delight in his existence which can nowhere else be paralleled. He is perhaps no happier, but he is
stingingly alive. It does not, per=
haps,
come out of him in work or exercise, yet he feels an enthusiasm of the blood
unknown in more temperate climates. It
may not be health, but it is fun.
There is nothing more difficult to communicate=
on
paper than this baseless ardour, this stimulation of the brain, this sterile
joyousness of spirits. You wake ev=
ery
morning, see the gold upon the snow-peaks, become filled with courage, and
bless God for your prolonged existence. The valleys are but a stride to you;
you cast your shoe over the hilltops; your ears and your heart sing; in the
words of an unverified quotation from the Scotch psalms, you feel yourself =
fit
‘on the wings of all the winds’ to ‘come flying all abroad.’ Europe and your mind are too narrow for=
that
flood of energy. Yet it is notable=
that
you are hard to root out of your bed; that you start forth, singing, indeed=
, on
your walk, yet are unusually ready to turn home again; that the best of you=
is
volatile; and that although the restlessness remains till night, the streng=
th
is early at an end. With all these=
heady
jollities, you are half conscious of an underlying languor in the body; you
prove not to be so well as you had fancied; you weary before you have well
begun; and though you mount at morning with the lark, that is not precisely=
a
song-bird’s heart that you bring back with you when you return with aching
limbs and peevish temper to your inn.
It is hard to say wherein it lies, but this jo=
y of
Alpine winters is its own reward.
Baseless, in a sense, it is more than worth more permanent
improvements. The dream of health =
is
perfect while it lasts; and if, in trying to realise it, you speedily wear =
out
the dear hallucination, still every day, and many times a day, you are
conscious of a strength you scarce possess, and a delight in living as merr=
y as
it proves to be transient.
The brightness—heaven and earth conspiring to =
be
bright—the levity and quiet of the air; the odd stirring silence—more stirr=
ing
than a tumult; the snow, the frost, the enchanted landscape: all have their
part in the effect and on the memory, ‘ tous vous tapent sur la téte ’; and=
yet
when you have enumerated all, you have gone no nearer to explain or even to
qualify the delicate exhilaration that you feel—delicate, you may say, and =
yet
excessive, greater than can be said in prose, almost greater than an invalid
can bear. There is a certain wine =
of
France known in England in some gaseous disguise, but when drunk in the lan=
d of
its nativity still as a pool, clean as river water, and as heady as verse.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> It is more than probable that in its no=
ble
natural condition this was the very wine of Anjou so beloved by Athos in the
‘Musketeers.’ Now, if the reader h=
as
ever washed down a liberal second breakfast with the wine in question, and =
gone
forth, on the back of these dilutions, into a sultry, sparkling noontide, he
will have felt an influence almost as genial, although strangely grosser, t=
han
this fairy titillation of the nerves among the snow and sunshine of the
Alps. That also is a mode, we need=
not
say of intoxication, but of insobriety.
Thus also a man walks in a strong sunshine of the mind, and follows
smiling, insubstantial meditations. And whether he be really so clever or so
strong as he supposes, in either case he will enjoy his chimera while it la=
sts.
The influence of this giddy air displays itsel=
f in
many secondary ways. A certain sort of laboured pleasantry has already been
recognised, and may perhaps have been remarked in these papers, as a sort
peculiar to that climate. People u=
tter
their judgments with a cannonade of syllables; a big word is as good as a m=
eal
to them; and the turn of a phrase goes further than humour or wisdom. By the professional writer many sad
vicissitudes have to be undergone. At
first he cannot write at all. The =
heart,
it appears, is unequal to the pressure of business, and the brain, left wit=
hout
nourishment, goes into a mild decline.
Next, some power of work returns to him, accompanied by jumping
headaches. Last, the spring is opened, and there pours at once from his pen=
a
world of blatant, hustling polysyllables, and talk so high as, in the old j=
oke,
to be positively offensive in hot weather.
He writes it in good faith and with a sense of inspiration; it is on=
ly
when he comes to read what he has written that surprise and disquiet seize =
upon
his mind. What is he to do, poor
man? All his little fishes talk li=
ke
whales. This yeasty inflation, this
stiff and strutting architecture of the sentence has come upon him while he
slept; and it is not he, it is the Alps, who are to blame. He is not, perhaps, alone, which somewh=
at
comforts him. Nor is the ill witho=
ut a
remedy. Some day, when the spring
returns, he shall go down a little lower in this world, and remember quieter
inflections and more modest language.
But here, in the meantime, there seems to swim up some outline of a =
new
cerebral hygiene and a good time coming, when experienced advisers shall se=
nd a
man to the proper measured level for the ode, the biography, or the religio=
us
tract; and a nook may be found between the sea and Chimborazo, where Mr.
Swinburne shall be able to write more continently, and Mr. Browning somewhat
slower.
Is it a return of youth, or is it a congestion=
of
the brain? It is a sort of congest=
ion,
perhaps, that leads the invalid, when all goes well, to face the new day wi=
th
such a bubbling cheerfulness. It is
certainly congestion that makes night hideous with visions, all the chamber=
s of
a many-storeyed caravanserai, haunted with vociferous nightmares, and many
wakeful people come down late for breakfast in the morning. Upon that theory the cynic may explain =
the
whole affair—exhilaration, nightmares, pomp of tongue and all. But, on the other hand, the peculiar
blessedness of boyhood may itself be but a symptom of the same complaint, f=
or
the two effects are strangely similar; and the frame of mind of the invalid
upon the Alps is a sort of intermittent youth, with periods of lassitude. The fountain of Juventus does not play
steadily in these parts; but there it plays, and possibly nowhere else.
No am=
ateur
will deny that he can find more pleasure in a single drawing, over which he=
can
sit a whole quiet forenoon, and so gradually study himself into humour with=
the
artist, than he can ever extract from the dazzle and accumulation of
incongruous impressions that send him, weary and stupefied, out of some fam=
ous
picture-gallery. But what is thus
admitted with regard to art is not extended to the (so-called) natural beau=
ties
no amount of excess in sublime mountain outline or the graces of cultivated
lowland can do anything, it is supposed, to weaken or degrade the palate. We are not at all sure, however, that
moderation, and a regimen tolerably austere, even in scenery, are not healt=
hful
and strengthening to the taste; and that the best school for a lover of nat=
ure
is not to the found in one of those countries where there is no stage
effect—nothing salient or sudden,—but a quiet spirit of orderly and harmoni=
ous
beauty pervades all the details, so that we can patiently attend to each of=
the
little touches that strike in us, all of them together, the subdued note of=
the
landscape. It is in scenery such a=
s this
that we find ourselves in the right temper to seek out small sequestered
loveliness. The constant recurrenc=
e of
similar combinations of colour and outline gradually forces upon us a sense=
of
how the harmony has been built up, and we become familiar with something of
nature’s mannerism. This is the tr=
ue
pleasure of your ‘rural voluptuary,’—not to remain awe-stricken before a Mo=
unt
Chimborazo; not to sit deafened over the big drum in the orchestra, but day=
by
day to teach himself some new beauty—to experience some new vague and tranq=
uil
sensation that has before evaded him. It
is not the people who ‘have pined and hungered after nature many a year, in=
the
great city pent,’ as Coleridge said in the poem that made Charles Lamb so m=
uch
ashamed of himself; it is not those who make the greatest progress in this
intimacy with her, or who are most quick to see and have the greatest gusto=
to
enjoy. In this, as in everything e=
lse,
it is minute knowledge and long-continued loving industry that make the true
dilettante. A man must have though=
t much
over scenery before he begins fully to enjoy it. It is no youngling enthusiasm on hillto=
ps
that can possess itself of the last essence of beauty. Probably most people’s heads are growin=
g bare
before they can see all in a landscape that they have the capability of see=
ing;
and, even then, it will be only for one little moment of consummation before
the faculties are again on the decline, and they that look out of the windo=
ws
begin to be darkened and restrained in sight.
Thus the study of nature should be carried forward thoroughly and wi=
th
system. Every gratification should=
be
rolled long under the tongue, and we should be always eager to analyse and
compare, in order that we may be able to give some plausible reason for our
admirations. True, it is difficult=
to
put even approximately into words the kind of feelings thus called into pla=
y.
There is a dangerous vice inherent in any such intellectual refining upon v=
ague
sensation. The analysis of such
satisfactions lends itself very readily to literary affectations; and we can
all think of instances where it has shown itself apt to exercise a morbid
influence, even upon an author’s choice of language and the turn of his
sentences. And yet there is much t=
hat
makes the attempt attractive; for any expression, however imperfect, once g=
iven
to a cherished feeling, seems a sort of legitimation of the pleasure we tak=
e in
it. A common sentiment is one of t=
hose
great goods that make life palatable and ever new. The knowledge that another has felt as =
we
have felt, and seen things, even if they are little things, not much otherw=
ise
than we have seen them, will continue to the end to be one of life’s choice=
st
pleasures.
Let the reader, then, betake himself in the sp=
irit
we have recommended to some of the quieter kinds of English landscape. In those homely and placid agricultural
districts, familiarity will bring into relief many things worthy of notice,=
and
urge them pleasantly home to him by a sort of loving repetition; such as the
wonderful life-giving speed of windmill sails above the stationary country;=
the
occurrence and recurrence of the same church tower at the end of one long v=
ista
after another: and, conspicuous among these sources of quiet pleasure, the
character and variety of the road itself, along which he takes his way. Not only near at hand, in the lithe
contortions with which it adapts itself to the interchanges of level and sl=
ope,
but far away also, when he sees a few hundred feet of it upheaved against a
hill and shining in the afternoon sun, he will find it an object so changef=
ul
and enlivening that he can always pleasurably busy his mind about it. He may leave the river-side, or fall ou=
t of
the way of villages, but the road he has always with him; and, in the true
humour of observation, will find in that sufficient company. From its subtle windings and changes of=
level
there arises a keen and continuous interest, that keeps the attention ever
alert and cheerful. Every sensitive
adjustment to the contour of the ground, every little dip and swerve, seems
instinct with life and an exquisite sense of balance and beauty. The road rolls upon the easy slopes of =
the
country, like a long ship in the hollows of the sea. The very margins of waste ground, as th=
ey
trench a little farther on the beaten way, or recede again to the shelter of
the hedge, have something of the same free delicacy of line—of the same swi=
ng
and wilfulness. You might think fo=
r a
whole summer’s day (and not have thought it any nearer an end by evening) w=
hat
concourse and succession of circumstances has produced the least of these
deflections; and it is, perhaps, just in this that we should look for the
secret of their interest. A foot-p=
ath
across a meadow—in all its human waywardness and unaccountability, in all t=
he grata protervitas of its varying direction—will always be =
more
to us than a railroad well engineered through a difficult country. {231} We have all seen ways that have wandere=
d into
heavy sand near the sea-coast, and trail wearily over the dunes like a trod=
den
serpent. Here we too must plod for=
ward
at a dull, laborious pace; and so a sympathy is preserved between our frame=
of
mind and the expression of the relaxed, heavy curves of the roadway. Such a phenomenon, indeed, our reason m=
ight
perhaps resolve with a little trouble.
We might reflect that the present road had been developed out of a t=
ract
spontaneously followed by generations of primitive wayfarers; and might see=
in
its expression a testimony that those generations had been affected at the =
same
ground, one after another, in the same manner as we are affected to-day.
The mere winding of the path is enough to enli=
ven
a long day’s walk in even a commonplace or dreary country-side. Something that we have seen from miles =
back,
upon an eminence, is so long hid from us, as we wander through folded valle=
ys
or among woods, that our expectation of seeing it again is sharpened into a
violent appetite, and as we draw nearer we impatiently quicken our steps and
turn every corner with a beating heart. It is through these prolongations of
expectancy, this succession of one hope to another, that we live out long
seasons of pleasure in a few hours’ walk.
It is in following these capricious sinuosities that we learn, only =
bit
by bit and through one coquettish reticence after another, much as we learn=
the
heart of a friend, the whole loveliness of the country. This disposition always preserves somet=
hing
new to be seen, and takes us, like a careful cicerone, to many different po=
ints
of distant view before it allows us finally to approach the hoped-for
destination.
In its connection with the traffic, and whole
friendly intercourse with the country, there is something very pleasant in =
that
succession of saunterers and brisk and business-like passers-by, that peopl=
es
our ways and helps to build up what Walt Whitman calls ‘the cheerful voice =
of
the public road, the gay, fresh sentiment of the road.’ But out of the great network of ways th=
at
binds all life together from the hill-farm to the city, there is something
individual to most, and, on the whole, nearly as much choice on the score of
company as on the score of beauty or easy travel. On some we are never long without the s=
ound of
wheels, and folk pass us by so thickly that we lose the sense of their
number. But on others, about
little-frequented districts, a meeting is an affair of moment; we have the
sight far off of some one coming towards us, the growing definiteness of th=
e person,
and then the brief passage and salutation, and the road left empty in front=
of
us for perhaps a great while to come.
Such encounters have a wistful interest that can hardly be understoo=
d by
the dweller in places more populous. We
remember standing beside a countryman once, in the mouth of a quiet by-stre=
et
in a city that was more than ordinarily crowded and bustling; he seemed stu=
nned
and bewildered by the continual passage of different faces; and after a long
pause, during which he appeared to search for some suitable expression, he =
said
timidly that there seemed to be a =
great
deal of meeting thereabouts . The =
phrase
is significant. It is the expressi=
on of
town-life in the language of the long, solitary country highways. A meeting of one with one was what this=
man
had been used to in the pastoral uplands from which he came; and the concou=
rse
of the streets was in his eyes only an extraordinary multiplication of such
‘meetings.’
And now we come to that last and most subtle
quality of all, to that sense of prospect, of outlook, that is brought so
powerfully to our minds by a road. In
real nature, as well as in old landscapes, beneath that impartial daylight =
in
which a whole variegated plain is plunged and saturated, the line of the ro=
ad
leads the eye forth with the vague sense of desire up to the green limit of=
the
horizon. Travel is brought home to=
us,
and we visit in spirit every grove and hamlet that tempts us in the
distance. Sehnsucht —the passion for what is ever
beyond—is livingly expressed in that white riband of possible travel that
severs the uneven country; not a ploughman following his plough up the shin=
ing
furrow, not the blue smoke of any cottage in a hollow, but is brought to us
with a sense of nearness and attainability by this wavering line of junctio=
n. There is a passionate paragraph in Werther that strikes the very key. ‘When I came hither,’ he writes, ‘how t=
he
beautiful valley invited me on every side, as I gazed down into it from the
hill-top! There the wood—ah, that I might mingle in its shadows! there the =
mountain
summits—ah, that I might look down from them over the broad country! the
interlinked hills! the secret valleys!
Oh to lose myself among their mysteries!
I hurried into the midst, and came back without finding aught I hoped
for. Alas! the distance is like the
future. A vast whole lies in the
twilight before our spirit; sight and feeling alike plunge and lose themsel=
ves
in the prospect, and we yearn to surrender our whole being, and let it be
filled full with all the rapture of one single glorious sensation; and alas!
when we hasten to the fruition, when there
is changed to here , all is afterwards as it was befor=
e, and
we stand in our indigent and cramped estate, and our soul thirsts after a s=
till
ebbing elixir.’ It is to this wand=
ering
and uneasy spirit of anticipation that roads minister. Every little vista, every little glimps=
e that
we have of what lies before us, gives the impatient imagination rein, so th=
at
it can outstrip the body and already plunge into the shadow of the woods, a=
nd
overlook from the hill-top the plain beyond it, and wander in the windings =
of
the valleys that are still far in front.
The road is already there—we shall not be long behind. It is as if we were marching with the r=
ear of
a great army, and, from far before, heard the acclamation of the people as =
the
vanguard entered some friendly and jubilant city. Would not every man, through all the lo=
ng
miles of march, feel as if he also were within the gates?
<=
span
style=3D'font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:16.0pt;line-height:115%;mso-fa=
reast-font-family:
Calibri'>XIV. ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES 1874<=
span
class=3DHeading1Char>
It is=
a
difficult matter to make the most of any given place, and we have much in o=
ur
own power. Things looked at patien=
tly
from one side after another generally end by showing a side that is beautif=
ul. A few months ago some words were said i=
n the Portfolio as to an ‘austere regimen in scenery’; a=
nd
such a discipline was then recommended as ‘healthful and strengthening to t=
he
taste.’ That is the text, so to sp=
eak,
of the present essay. This discipl=
ine in
scenery, it must be understood, is something more than a mere walk before
breakfast to whet the appetite. For when we are put down in some unsightly
neighbourhood, and especially if we have come to be more or less dependent =
on
what we see, we must set ourselves to hunt out beautiful things with all the
ardour and patience of a botanist after a rye plant. Day by day we perfect ourselves in the =
art of
seeing nature more favourably. We =
learn
to live with her, as people learn to live with fretful or violent spouses: =
to
dwell lovingly on what is good, and shut our eyes against all that is bleak=
or
inharmonious. We learn, also, to c=
ome to
each place in the right spirit. The traveller, as Brantôme quaintly tells u=
s, ‘
fait des discours en soi pour soutenir en chemin ’; and into these discours=
es
he weaves something out of all that he sees and suffers by the way; they ta=
ke
their tone greatly from the varying character of the scene; a sharp ascent
brings different thoughts from a level road; and the man’s fancies grow lig=
hter
as he comes out of the wood into a clearing.
Nor does the scenery any more affect the thoughts than the thoughts
affect the scenery. We see places
through our humours as through differently coloured glasses. We are ourselves a term in the equation=
, a
note of the chord, and make discord or harmony almost at will. There is no fear for the result, if we =
can
but surrender ourselves sufficiently to the country that surrounds and foll=
ows
us, so that we are ever thinking suitable thoughts or telling ourselves some
suitable sort of story as we go. We
become thus, in some sense, a centre of beauty; we are provocative of beaut=
y,
much as a gentle and sincere character is provocative of sincerity and
gentleness in others. And even whe=
re
there is no harmony to be elicited by the quickest and most obedient of spi=
rits,
we may still embellish a place with some attraction of romance. We may learn to go far afield for
associations, and handle them lightly when we have found them. Sometimes an old print comes to our aid=
; I
have seen many a spot lit up at once with picturesque imaginations, by a
reminiscence of Callot, or Sadeler, or Paul Brill. Dick Turpin has been my lay figure for =
many
an English lane. And I suppose the
Trossachs would hardly be the Trossachs for most tourists if a man of admir=
able
romantic instinct had not peopled it for them with harmonious figures, and
brought them thither with minds rightly prepared for the impression. There is half the battle in this
preparation. For instance: I have =
rarely
been able to visit, in the proper spirit, the wild and inhospitable places =
of
our own Highlands. I am happier wh=
ere it
is tame and fertile, and not readily pleased without trees. I understand that there are some phases=
of
mental trouble that harmonise well with such surroundings, and that some
persons, by the dispensing power of the imagination, can go back several
centuries in spirit, and put themselves into sympathy with the hunted,
houseless, unsociable way of life that was in its place upon these savage
hills. Now, when I am sad, I like nature to charm me out of my sadness, like
David before Saul; and the thought of these past ages strikes nothing in me=
but
an unpleasant pity; so that I can never hit on the right humour for this so=
rt
of landscape, and lose much pleasure in consequence. Still, even here, if I
were only let alone, and time enough were given, I should have all manner of
pleasures, and take many clear and beautiful images away with me when I
left. When we cannot think ourselv=
es
into sympathy with the great features of a country, we learn to ignore them,
and put our head among the grass for flowers, or pore, for long times toget=
her,
over the changeful current of a stream.
We come down to the sermon in stones, when we are shut out from any =
poem
in the spread landscape. We begin =
to
peep and botanise, we take an interest in birds and insects, we find many
things beautiful in miniature. The
reader will recollect the little summer scene in Wuthering Heights —the one warm scene,
perhaps, in all that powerful, miserable novel—and the great feature that is
made therein by grasses and flowers and a little sunshine: this is in the
spirit of which I now speak. And,
lastly, we can go indoors; interiors are sometimes as beautiful, often more
picturesque, than the shows of the open air, and they have that quality of
shelter of which I shall presently have more to say.
With all this in mind, I have often been tempt=
ed
to put forth the paradox that any place is good enough to live a life in, w=
hile
it is only in a few, and those highly favoured, that we can pass a few hours
agreeably. For, if we only stay long enough we become at home in the
neighbourhood. Reminiscences spring up, like flowers, about uninteresting
corners. We forget to some degree =
the
superior loveliness of other places, and fall into a tolerant and sympathet=
ic
spirit which is its own reward and justification. Looking back the other day on some
recollections of my own, I was astonished to find how much I owed to such a
residence; six weeks in one unpleasant country-side had done more, it seeme=
d,
to quicken and educate my sensibilities than many years in places that jump=
ed
more nearly with my inclination.
The country to which I refer was a level and
tree-less plateau, over which the winds cut like a whip. For miles and miles it was the same.
It seemed to be always blowing on that coast.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Indeed, this had passed into the speech=
of
the inhabitants, and they saluted each other when they met with ‘Breezy, br=
eezy,’
instead of the customary ‘Fine day’ of farther south. These continual winds were not like the
harvest breeze, that just keeps an equable pressure against your face as you
walk, and serves to set all the trees talking over your head, or bring round
you the smell of the wet surface of the country after a shower. They were of the bitter, hard, persiste=
nt
sort, that interferes with sight and respiration, and makes the eyes sore.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Even such winds as these have their own=
merit
in proper time and place. It is pl=
easant
to see them brandish great masses of shadow.
And what a power they have over the colour of the world! How they ruffle the solid woodlands in =
their
passage, and make them shudder and whiten like a single willow! There is nothing more vertiginous than =
a wind
like this among the woods, with all its sights and noises; and the effect g=
ets
between some painters and their sober eyesight, so that, even when the rest=
of
their picture is calm, the foliage is coloured like foliage in a gale. There was nothing, however, of this sor=
t to
be noticed in a country where there were no trees and hardly any shadows, s=
ave
the passive shadows of clouds or those of rigid houses and walls. But the w=
ind
was nevertheless an occasion of pleasure; for nowhere could you taste more
fully the pleasure of a sudden lull, or a place of opportune shelter. The reader knows what I mean; he must
remember how, when he has sat himself down behind a dyke on a hillside, he
delighted to hear the wind hiss vainly through the crannies at his back; how
his body tingled all over with warmth, and it began to dawn upon him, with a
sort of slow surprise, that the country was beautiful, the heather purple, =
and
the far-away hills all marbled with sun and shadow. Wordsworth, in a beautiful passage of t=
he
‘Prelude,’ has used this as a figure for the feeling struck in us by the qu=
iet
by-streets of London after the uproar of the great thoroughfares; and the
comparison may be turned the other way with as good effect:—
‘Meanwhile the roar continues, till at length, Escaped as from an enemy, we turn
I remember meeting a man once, in a train, who
told me of what must have been quite the most perfect instance of this plea=
sure
of escape. He had gone up, one sun=
ny,
windy morning, to the top of a great cathedral somewhere abroad; I think it=
was
Cologne Cathedral, the great unfinished marvel by the Rhine; and after a lo=
ng
while in dark stairways, he issued at last into the sunshine, on a platform
high above the town. At that eleva=
tion
it was quite still and warm; the gale was only in the lower strata of the a=
ir,
and he had forgotten it in the quiet interior of the church and during his =
long
ascent; and so you may judge of his surprise when, resting his arms on the
sunlit balustrade and looking over into the Place far below him, he saw the good people ho=
lding
on their hats and leaning hard against the wind as they walked. There is something, to my fancy, quite
perfect in this little experience of my fellow-traveller’s. The ways of men
seem always very trivial to us when we find ourselves alone on a church-top,
with the blue sky and a few tall pinnacles, and see far below us the steep
roofs and foreshortened buttresses, and the silent activity of the city
streets; but how much more must they not have seemed so to him as he stood,=
not
only above other men’s business, but above other men’s climate, in a golden
zone like Apollo’s!
This was the sort of pleasure I found in the
country of which I write. The pleasure was to be out of the wind, and to ke=
ep
it in memory all the time, and hug oneself upon the shelter. And it was only by the sea that any such
sheltered places were to be found.
Between the black worm-eaten head-lands there are little bights and
havens, well screened from the wind and the commotion of the external sea,
where the sand and weeds look up into the gazer’s face from a depth of tran=
quil
water, and the sea-birds, screaming and flickering from the ruined crags, a=
lone
disturb the silence and the sunshine.
One such place has impressed itself on my memory beyond all others.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> On a rock by the water’s edge, old figh=
ting
men of the Norse breed had planted a double castle; the two stood wall to w=
all
like semi-detached villas; and yet feud had run so high between their owner=
s,
that one, from out of a window, shot the other as he stood in his own
doorway. There is something in the
juxtaposition of these two enemies full of tragic irony. It is grim to think of bearded men and =
bitter
women taking hateful counsel together about the two hall-fires at night, wh=
en
the sea boomed against the foundations and the wild winter wind was loose o=
ver
the battlements. And in the study =
we may
reconstruct for ourselves some pale figure of what life then was. Not so when we are there; when we are t=
here
such thoughts come to us only to intensify a contrary impression, and
association is turned against itself. I
remember walking thither three afternoons in succession, my eyes weary with
being set against the wind, and how, dropping suddenly over the edge of the
down, I found myself in a new world of warmth and shelter. The wind, from which I had escaped, ‘as=
from
an enemy,’ was seemingly quite local. It
carried no clouds with it, and came from such a quarter that it did not tro=
uble
the sea within view. The two castl=
es,
black and ruinous as the rocks about them, were still distinguishable from
these by something more insecure and fantastic in the outline, something th=
at
the last storm had left imminent and the next would demolish entirely. It would be difficult to render in word=
s the
sense of peace that took possession of me on these three afternoons. It was helped out, as I have said, by t=
he
contrast. The shore was battered a=
nd
bemauled by previous tempests; I had the memory at heart of the insane stri=
fe
of the pigmies who had erected these two castles and lived in them in mutual
distrust and enmity, and knew I had only to put my head out of this little =
cup
of shelter to find the hard wind blowing in my eyes; and yet there were the=
two
great tracts of motionless blue air and peaceful sea looking on, unconcerned
and apart, at the turmoil of the present moment and the memorials of the
precarious past. There is ever som=
ething
transitory and fretful in the impression of a high wind under a cloudless s=
ky;
it seems to have no root in the constitution of things; it must speedily be=
gin
to faint and wither away like a cut flower.
And on those days the thought of the wind and the thought of human l=
ife
came very near together in my mind. Our
noisy years did indeed seem moments in the being of the eternal silence; and
the wind, in the face of that great field of stationary blue, was as the wi=
nd
of a butterfly’s wing. The placidi=
ty of
the sea was a thing likewise to be remembered.
Shelley speaks of the sea as ‘hungering for calm,’ and in this place=
one
learned to understand the phrase.
Looking down into these green waters from the broken edge of the roc=
k,
or swimming leisurely in the sunshine, it seemed to me that they were enjoy=
ing
their own tranquillity; and when now and again it was disturbed by a wind
ripple on the surface, or the quick black passage of a fish far below, they
settled back again (one could fancy) with relief.
On shore too, in the little nook of shelter,
everything was so subdued and still that the least particular struck in me a
pleasurable surprise. The desultory crackling of the whin-pods in the after=
noon
sun usurped the ear. The hot, sweet
breath of the bank, that had been saturated all day long with sunshine, and=
now
exhaled it into my face, was like the breath of a fellow-creature. I remember that I was haunted by two li=
nes of
French verse; in some dumb way they seemed to fit my surroundings and give =
expression
to the contentment that was in me, and I kept repeating to myself—
‘M=
on
cœur est un luth suspendu, Sitôt
qu’on le touche, il résonne.’
I can give no reason why these lines came to m=
e at
this time; and for that very cause I repeat them here. For all I know, they may serve to compl=
ete
the impression in the mind of the reader, as they were certainly a part of =
it
for me.
And this happened to me in the place of all ot=
hers
where I liked least to stay. When I
think of it I grow ashamed of my own ingratitude. ‘Out of the strong came forth
sweetness.’ There, in the bleak and
gusty North, I received, perhaps, my strongest impression of peace. I saw the sea to be great and calm; and=
the
earth, in that little corner, was all alive and friendly to me. So, wherever a man is, he will find som=
ething
to please and pacify him: in the town he will meet pleasant faces of men and
women, and see beautiful flowers at a window, or hear a cage-bird singing at
the corner of the gloomiest street; and for the country, there is no country
without some amenity—let him only look for it in the right spirit, and he w=
ill
surely find.
{92}<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The Second Part here referred to is ent=
itled
‘ACROSS THE PLAINS,’ and is printed in the volume so entitled, together with
other Memories and Essays.
{106} I had
nearly finished the transcription of the following pages when I saw on a
friend’s table the number containing the piece from which this sentence is
extracted, and, struck with a similarity of title, took it home with me and
read it with indescribable satisfaction.
I do not know whether I more envy M. Theuriet the pleasure of having
written this delightful article, or the reader the pleasure, which I hope he
has still before him, of reading it once and again, and lingering over the
passages that please him most.
{136}
William Abercrombie. See Fasti Ecclesia Scoticanæ , under ‘Maybol=
e’
(Part iii.).
{147} ‘Duex
poures varlez qui n’ont nulz gages et qui gissoient la nuit avec les
chiens.’ See Champollion—Figeac’s =
Louis et Charles d’Orléans , i. 63, and =
for my
lord’s English horn, ibid. 96.
{175}
Reprinted by permission of John Lane.
{190}
‘Jehovah Tsidkenu,’ translated in the Authorised Version as ‘The Lord
our Righteousness’ (Jeremiah xxiii. 6 and xxxiii. 16).
{231}
Compare Blake, in the Marri=
age of
Heaven and Hell : ‘Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads,
without improvement, are roads of Genius.’