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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/627-0.txt b/627-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2486972 --- /dev/null +++ b/627-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6625 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Essays of Travel, by Robert Louis Stevenson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Essays of Travel + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: December 28, 2010 [eBook #627] +[This file was first posted on July 3, 1996] +Last Updated: November 12, 2017 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS OF TRAVEL*** + + +Transcribed from the 1905 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + ESSAYS OF TRAVEL + + + BY + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + [Picture: Decorative image] + + LONDON + CHATTO & WINDUS + 1905 + + SECOND IMPRESSION + + Contents + + PAGE +I. The Amateur Emigrant: From The Clyde To Sandy + Hook— + The Second Cabin 3 + Early Impressions 11 + Steerage Scenes 21 + Steerage Types 30 + The Sick Man 42 + The Stowaways 53 + Personal Experience And Review 69 + New York 81 +II. Cockermouth And Keswick 93 + Cockermouth 94 + An Evangelist 97 + Another 100 + Last Of Smethurst 102 +III. An Autumn Effect 106 +IV. A Winter’s Walk In Carrick And Galloway 131 +V. Forest Notes— + On The Plains 144 + In The Season 149 + Idle Hours 153 + A Pleasure-Party 157 + The Woods In Spring 164 + Morality 169 +VI. A Mountain Town In France 175 +VII. Random Memories: _Rosa Quo Locorum_ 189 +VII. The Ideal House 199 +IX. Davos In Winter 207 +X. Health And Mountains 212 +XI. Alpine Diversion 217 +XII. The Stimulation Of The Alps 222 +XIII. Roads 227 +XIV. On The Enjoyment Of Unpleasant Places 237 + +I. +THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT + + +To +ROBERT 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 continued to the present time. +Although we may not be old in the world, we are old to each 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 +conquer 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. + + R.L.S. + +1879. + + + +THE SECOND CABIN + + +I first encountered my fellow-passengers on the Broomielaw in Glasgow. +Thence we descended the Clyde in no familiar spirit, but looking askance +on each other as on possible enemies. A few Scandinavians, who had +already grown acquainted on the North Sea, were friendly 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 descend the widening estuary; and with the +falling temperature the gloom among the passengers increased. Two of the +women wept. Any one who had come aboard might have supposed we were all +absconding from the law. There was scarce a word interchanged, and no +common sentiment but that of cold united us, until at length, having +touched 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 the land to which she was to bear us. + +I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although anxious to see the +worst of emigrant 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 understand the choice, and +what I gained, some outline of the internal disposition of the ship will +first be necessary. In her very nose is Steerage No. 1, down two pair of +stairs. A little abaft, another companion, labelled Steerage No. 2 and +3, gives admission to three galleries, two running forward towards +Steerage No. 1, and the third aft towards the engines. The starboard +forward gallery is the second 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 heart 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 terrified 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 tea 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 +snuff in the former from a flavour of boiling and dish-cloths in the +second. As a matter of fact, I have seen passengers, 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, boiled 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 thing mere chicken-bones and flakes of fish, neither hot nor +cold. If these were not the scrapings of plates their looks belied them +sorely; yet we were all too hungry to be proud, and fell to these +leavings greedily. These, the bread, which was excellent, and the soup +and porridge which were both good, formed my whole diet throughout the +voyage; so that except for the broken meat and the convenience of a table +I might as well have been in the steerage outright. Had they given me +porridge again in the evening, I should have been perfectly contented +with the fare. As it was, with a few biscuits and some whisky and water +before turning in, I kept my body going and my spirits 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 steerage there are males and females; in the second cabin ladies and +gentlemen. For some time after I came aboard I thought 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 females, 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; everywhere else I was +incognito, moving among my inferiors with simplicity, not so much 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 +steerage fare; eight that by the second cabin; and when you remember that +the steerage passenger must supply bedding and dishes, and, in five cases +out of ten, either brings some dainties with him, or privately pays the +steward for extra rations, 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 for the asking. Two of my fellow-passengers 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 friends, 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 bring +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. There was a mixed +group of Swedes, Danes, 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 speak 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, +known 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 word of condemnation. One of them was Scots; the other +claimed to be American; admitted, after some fencing, that he was born in +England; and ultimately proved to be an Irishman born and nurtured, but +ashamed to own his country. He had a sister on board, whom he faithfully +neglected throughout the voyage, though she was not only sick, but much +his senior, and had nursed and cared for him in childhood. In appearance +he was like 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 they 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 +plain 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 attention 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 should reach New York. They had heard +reports, her husband and she, of some unwarrantable disparity of hours +between these two cities; and with a spirit commendably scientific, had +seized on this occasion to put them to the proof. It was a good thing +for the old lady; for she passed much leisure time in studying the watch. +Once, when prostrated by sickness, she let it run down. It was inscribed +on her harmless mind in 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, she 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 when 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 been the same with the other Scotsmen +present, for we all laughed our fill. + +Last but not least, I come to my excellent friend Mr. Jones. It would be +difficult to say whether I was his right-hand man, or he mine, during the +voyage. Thus at table I carved, while he only scooped gravy; but at our +concerts, of which more anon, he was the president who called up +performers to sing, and I but his messenger who ran his errands and +pleaded 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 undeceive 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 _h_; a word of a dialect is picked +up from another band in the forecastle; until often the result is +undecipherable, and 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 speech 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 and after a fashion a rich man; now the wife was dead +and the money gone. But his was the nature that looks forward, and goes +on from one year to another and through all the extremities of fortune +undismayed; and if the sky were to fall to-morrow, I should look to see +Jones, 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 think 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 cut, there would be Jones +with his bottle. + +If he had one taste more strongly than another, it was to study +character. Many an hour 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; and we could hardly go +to bed in comfort till we had exchanged notes and discussed 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 +angled 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 double detection; but Jones, with a +better civility, broke into a peal of unaffected laughter, and declared, +what was the truth, that there was a pair of us indeed. + + + +EARLY IMPRESSIONS + + +We steamed out of the Clyde on Thursday night, and early on the Friday +forenoon we took in our last batch of emigrants at Lough Foyle, in +Ireland, and said farewell to Europe. The company was now complete, 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, this knowledge grew more clear and melancholy. Emigration, +from a word of the most cheerful import, came to sound most dismally in +my ear. There is nothing more agreeable to picture and nothing more +pathetic to behold. The abstract idea, as conceived at home, is hopeful +and adventurous. A young man, you fancy, scorning restraints and +helpers, issues forth into life, that great 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 heroisms; it stands to +them as the victorious war which subdued an empire stands to the personal +act of bravery which spiked a single cannon and was adequately rewarded +with a medal. For in emigration the young men enter direct and by the +shipload on their heritage of work; empty 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 the men were below +thirty; many were married, and encumbered with families; not a few were +already up in years; and this itself was out of tune with my +imaginations, 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 taking 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 these 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 factories, 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 not 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. Thus 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 circumstances 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, on 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, and 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, and 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 often had my heart in my mouth, watching +them climb into the shrouds or on the rails, 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 composure 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 forward 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 Steerage No. 4 and 5, and who, +wherever he went, was like a strain of music round the ship. He was an +ugly, merry, unbreeched 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 his 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 their midst +and sang aloud in the pleasant heartlessness of infancy. + +Throughout the Friday, intimacy among us men made but a few advances. We +discussed the 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 from in the old; and, above all, we condoled +together over the food and the vileness 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 their heels; and to these all seemed for the best in the best of +possible steamers. 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 speaking 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. But these working men were loud in their +outcries. It was not ‘food for human 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 +better rations from the ship. This marvellously 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 turn 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 heartily 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 others agreed to do so, and I thought we +should have been quite a party. Yet, when I brought up my rug about +seven bells, there was no one to be seen but the watch. That chimerical +terror of good night-air, which makes men close their windows, list their +doors, and seal themselves up with their own poisonous exhalations, had +sent all these healthy workmen down 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 the +starboard bow, and was dry but chilly. I found a shelter near the +fire-hole, and made myself snug for the night. + +The ship moved over the uneven sea with a gentle 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 brass and the beautiful sea-cry, ‘All’s well!’ I know +nothing, whether for poetry or music, that can surpass the effect of +these two syllables in the darkness of a night at sea. + +The day dawned fairly enough, and during the early 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 rose 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 were received with generous applause. +Once or twice, a recitation, very spiritedly 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, they +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 dancers departed under a cloud. Eight +Frenchmen, 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 careful of dignity. He +dares not be comical; his fun must escape from him unprepared, and above +all, it must be unaccompanied 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 triumphed over modesty and even +the inclemencies of sea and sky. On this rough Saturday night, we got +together 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 the 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 measure saved by the vigour and unanimity with which +the chorus was thrown forth into the night. I observed a Platt-Deutsch +mason, entirely innocent of English, adding heartily to the general +effect. And perhaps the German mason 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 Anchor’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 more appropriate moment for +‘Auld Lang Syne’ than now, when the land, the friends, 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 cloudy; 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 the majority of the emigrants. I heard an old woman express +her surprise that ‘the ship didna gae doon,’ as she saw some one pass 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 +their divine. ‘I didna think he was an experienced preacher,’ said one +girl to me. + +Is was a bleak, uncomfortable day; but at night, 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 burning as steadily and sweetly across this +hurly-burly of the winds and waters as ever at home upon the summer +woods. The engine 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, over 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 thing 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 made 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 +one 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 bells, when the lights +were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to roost. + +It had been rumoured since Friday that there was 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 Orpheus 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 eyes. Humanly +speaking, it is a more important matter to play the fiddle, even badly, +than to write huge works upon recondite subjects. What could Mr. Darwin +have 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 understand 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, turning +it over in his Scots head, and then answered with conviction, ‘Yes, a +privilege.’ + +That night I was summoned by ‘Merrily danced the 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 open slide-door we had a +glimpse of a grey night sea, with patches of phosphorescent foam flying, +swift as birds, into the wake, and the horizon rising and falling 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 lighted +by another lamp, lads and lasses danced, not more than three at a time +for lack 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 Irish 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 mouth, 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, ‘Hush!’ with uplifted finger +and glowing, supplicating eyes, ‘he’s going to play “Auld 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. 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 quadrilles, 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 thus +squiring the fiddler into public note. There is nothing more becoming +than a genuine admiration; and it shares this with love, that it does not +become contemptible although misplaced. + +The dancing was but feebly carried on. The space was almost +impracticably small; 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 was the eagerness of the brother to +display all the acquirements of his idol, and such the sleepy +indifference of the performer, that the tune would as often as not 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 +flying and drumming over the forecastle; the companion of Steerage No. 1 +had to be closed, 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 part of the ship, Mr. +Jones and I paid it a late visit. Steerage No. 1 is shaped like an +isosceles triangle, the sides opposite the equal angles bulging outward +with the contour of the ship. It is lined with eight pens of sixteen +bunks apiece, four bunks below and four above on either side. At night +the place is lit with two lanterns, one to each table. As the steamer +beat on her way among the rough billows, the light passed through violent +phases of change, and was thrown to and fro and up and down with +startling swiftness. You were tempted to wonder, as you looked, how so +thin a glimmer could control and disperse such solid blackness. When +Jones and I entered we found a little company of our acquaintances seated +together at the triangular foremost table. A more forlorn party, in more +dismal circumstances, it would be hard to imagine. The motion here in +the ship’s nose was very violent; the uproar of the sea often +overpoweringly loud. The yellow flicker of the lantern spun round and +round and tossed the shadows in masses. The air was hot, but it struck a +chill from its foetor. + +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 mine were keeping up what heart they could in company. Singing was +their refuge from discomfortable thoughts and sensations. One piped, in +feeble tones, ‘Oh why left I my hame?’ which seemed a pertinent question +in the circumstances. 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 dim inferno, to an accompaniment of plunging, +hollow-sounding bows and the rattling spray-showers overhead. + +All seemed unfit for conversation; a certain dizziness had interrupted +the activity of their minds; and except to sing they were tongue-tied. +There was present, however, one tall, powerful fellow of doubtful +nationality, being neither quite Scotsman nor altogether Irish, but 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 another +contribution to our culture. + +‘Just by way of change,’ said he, ‘I’ll ask you 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 settled 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 little 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 steerage to steerage, but at +least not stagnant; and from this couch, as well as the usual sounds of a +rough night at sea, the hateful coughing and retching of the sick and the +sobs of children, I heard a man run wild with terror beseeching his +friend for encouragement. ‘The ship’s going down!’ he cried with a +thrill of agony. ‘The ship’s going down!’ he repeated, now in a blank +whisper, now with his voice rising towards a sob; and his friend might +reassure him, reason with him, joke at him—all was in vain, and the old +cry came back, ‘The ship’s going 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; the 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-board 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 observed, more popular as well as more conspicuously +well done than the former. We had a regular daily competition to guess +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. From the +Clyde to Sandy Hook I never heard a wager offered or taken. We had, +besides, romps in plenty. Puss in the Corner, which we had rebaptized, +in more manly style, Devil and four Corners, was my own favourite game; +but there were many who preferred another, the humour of which was to box +a person’s ears until he found out who had cuffed him. + +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. 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 the 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 about +nothing, which galled me to the quick. 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 people managed to convey by their +presence. They seemed to throw their clothes in our faces. Their eyes +searched us all over for tatters and incongruities. A laugh was ready at +their lips; but they were too well-mannered to indulge it in our hearing. +Wait 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. + + + +STEERAGE TYPES + + +We had a fellow on board, an Irish-American, for all the world like a +beggar in a print by Callot; one-eyed, with great, splay crow’s-feet +round the sockets; a knotty squab nose coming down over his moustache; a +miraculous hat; a shirt that had been white, ay, ages long ago; an alpaca +coat in its last sleeves; and, without hyperbole, no buttons to his +trousers. Even in these rags and tatters, the man twinkled all over with +impudence like a piece of sham jewellery; and I have heard him offer a +situation to one 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 brought 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 lumberingly enough +in broken German, and learned from his own lips that he had been an +apothecary. He carried the photograph 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 barbaric and unhomely cast, the eye +both reassured and touched. It was large and very dark and soft, with 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 one 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; the 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 +with a somewhat indistinct and childish hope. + +We had a father and son who made a pair of Jacks-of-all-trades. It was +the son who sang the ‘Death of Nelson’ under such contrarious +circumstances. He was by trade a shearer of ship plates; but he could +touch the organ, and led two choirs, and played the flute and piccolo 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 silver 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 hostile 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. It was a dreary story. He +would bring home three pounds on Saturday, and on Monday all the clothes +would be in pawn. Sick of the useless struggle, he gave up a paying +contract, and contented himself with small and ill-paid jobs. ‘A bad job +was as good as a good job for me,’ he said; ‘it all went the same way.’ +Once the wife showed signs of amendment; she kept steady for weeks on +end; it was again worth while to labour and to do one’s best. The +husband found a good situation some distance from home, and, to make a +little upon every hand, started the wife in a cook-shop; the children +were here and there, busy as mice; savings began to grow together in the +bank, and the golden age of hope had returned again to that unhappy +family. But one week my old acquaintance, getting earlier through with +his work, came home on the Friday instead of the Saturday, and there was +his wife to receive him reeling drunk. He ‘took and gave her a pair o’ +black eyes,’ for which I pardon him, nailed up the cook-shop door, gave +up his situation, and resigned himself to a life of poverty, with the +workhouse at the end. As the children came to their full age they fled +the house, and established themselves in other countries; some did well, +some not so well; but the father remained at home alone with his drunken +wife, all his sound-hearted pluck and varied accomplishments depressed +and negatived. + +Was she dead now? or, after all these years, had 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 work 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’most anything. You see no craze about me.’ + +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 thriving 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 conclusions, 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 courage 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 stuck 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. You would +have said he recognised a destiny 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 incompetency were the three great +causes of emigration, and for all of them, and drink first 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 that 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-voyage will not give a man the +nerve to put aside cheap pleasure; emigration has to be done before we +climb the vessel; an aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; +and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself. + +Speaking generally, there is no vice of this kind more contemptible than +another; for each is but a result and outward sign of a soul tragically +ship-wrecked. In the majority of cases, cheap pleasure is resorted to by +way of anodyne. The pleasure-seeker sets forth upon life with high and +difficult ambitions; he meant to be nobly good and nobly happy, though 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. Hence the comparative success of the teetotal pledge; because +to a man who had nothing it sets at least a negative aim in life. +Somewhat as prisoners beguile their days by taming a spider, the reformed +drunkard makes an interest out of abstaining from intoxicating drinks, +and may live for that negation. There is something, at least, _not to be +done_ each day; and a cold triumph awaits him every evening. + +We had one on board with us, whom I have already referred to under the +name Mackay, who seemed to me not only a good instance 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 subjects +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, quick, 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 in 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 delighted 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 +damned 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 played 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. 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 +pleasure 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 from the +spring, whereas his ploughs and butter-churns were but means and +mechanisms 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, and 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 conspiracy against the people. Thus, +when I put 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 it up for a bad job. My question is, “Can 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 from 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 larger 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 Mackay had most of the +elements of a liberal education. He had skirted metaphysical and +mathematical 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 among 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 Puritan +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, leads at last directly to material greed? + +Nature is a good guide through life, and the love 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 little 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 eloquent +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 other that had thrown him from situation to situation, and at +length on board the emigrant ship. Barney ate, so to speak, nothing from +the galley; his own tea, butter, and eggs supported him throughout 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. + +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 feet shuffling to the +air, his eyes seeking and bestowing encouragement—and to have enjoyed the +bow, so nicely calculated between jest and earnest, between grace 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 leaned 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 him spin half round in a pirouette and throw an +audacious wink to an old gentleman 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 in a grave, quiet manner, because they supplied no fish +on Friday; for Barney was a conscientious Catholic. He had likewise +strict notions of refinement; and when, late one evening, after the women +had 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. + + + +THE SICK MAN + + +One night Jones, the young O’Reilly, and myself were walking arm-in-arm +and briskly up and down the deck. Six bells had rung; 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 somewhere 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 replied 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 doctor 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 find any one to guide us. It was no time for delicacy; so +we ran once more forward; and I, whipping up a ladder and touching 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 lying 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_ can’t leave the bridge, my man,’ said he. + +‘No, sir; but you can tell me what to do,’ I returned. + +‘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 complaints and alarmist +information from their freight of human creatures; but certainly, 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 immediately +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 would now be in the smoking-room over his pipe. + +One of the stewards was often enough to be found 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 companion, +breathing hurry; and in his shirt-sleeves and perched across the +carpenters bench upon one thigh, found Blackwood; a neat, bright, dapper, +Glasgow-looking 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 comfortable 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 with cramp, and I can’t find +the doctor.’ + +He turned upon me as pert as a sparrow, but with 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 where he sat. The thought of +his cabin civility 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 were anxious to leave a better +impression. + +When we got on deck again, Jones was still beside 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 streaming 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 heart, ‘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 charge, 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 finger. The light, +as it reached the spot, showed us an elderly man, thick-set, and grizzled +with years; but the shifting and coarse 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 indignation. + +‘Nobody said he was a woman,’ said a gruff voice, 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; and we saw him hurry aft in +person. + +Ten minutes after the doctor made his appearance 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 had now come to our +assistance, expressing loud sorrow that such ‘a fine cheery body’ 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 heart 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 yet once +more, with a gasp and a wailing prolongation of the fourth word: ‘I had +no _call_ to come.’ But there he was; and by the doctor’s orders and the +kind force of his 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 seaman, 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 about 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.’ + +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 days, 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 find 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 nothing but themselves. They’re damned +greedy, selfish fellows.’ He would not hear of the decadence of England. +‘They say they send us beef from America,’ he argued; ‘but who pays for +it? All the money in the world’s in England.’ The Royal Navy was the +best of possible services, according to him. ‘Anyway the officers are +gentlemen,’ said 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 forced to make a new choice in life, ‘by +God, he would try Frenchmen!’ For all his looks and rough, cold manners, +I observed that children were never frightened by him; they divined him +at once 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 monkey trick. + +In the morning, my first thought was of the sick man. I was afraid I +should not recognise 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 No. 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 twilight of the bunks. You may guess if I was 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 and intermittent; and to +add to the discomfort, the seamen were just beginning to wash down the +decks. But for a sick man this was heaven compared to the steerage. I +found him standing on the hot-water pipe, just forward of the saloon 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 born in Ireland, +had lived a quarter of a century on the banks of Tyne, and was married to +a Scots wife. A fisherman 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 +spring, he worked as a labourer about chemical furnaces, or along the +wharves unloading vessels. In this comparatively humble 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 warned against the steerage +and the steerage fare, and recommended to bring with him 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 reminded +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-beat, 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 fisher 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 boat 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, when his +appetite was tempted by some excellent pea-soup. We were all much of the +same mind on board, 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 +the passage by saloon. The second cabin, 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 received 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. + +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 rendered 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 Edinburgh, an Irish labourer trudging +homeward from the fields. Our roads lay together, and it was natural +that we should fall into talk. He was covered with mud; an inoffensive, +ignorant creature, who thought the Atlantic Cable was a secret +contrivance of the masters the better to oppress labouring mankind; and I +confess I was astonished to learn that he had nearly three hundred pounds +in the bank. But this 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 and at night; whereas my +fellow-passenger had never quitted Tyneside, and had made all that he +possessed in that same accursed, down-falling England, whence skilled +mechanics, engineers, millwrights, and carpenters were fleeing as from +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. He spoke sharply of the masters, and, when I +led him on, of the men also. The masters had been selfish and +obstructive, the men selfish, silly, and light-headed. He rehearsed to +me the 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 and even the good faith of the Union delegates; and although he +had escaped himself 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 the 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 principles, 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 calm; 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. + + + +THE STOWAWAYS + + +On the Sunday, among a party of men who were talking in our companion, +Steerage No. 2 and 3, we remarked a new figure. He wore tweed clothes, +well enough made if not very fresh, and a plain smoking-cap. His face +was pale, with pale eyes, and spiritedly enough designed; but though not +yet thirty, a sort 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 perfectly 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 something 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 his own stories. They were so swingingly set 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. Company, 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; and of a dozen other sides +of life, each introducing some vigorous thumb-nail portrait. He had the +talk to himself that night, we were all so glad to listen. The best +talkers usually address themselves to some particular society; there they +are kings, elsewhere camp-followers, as a man may know Russian and 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 +circle 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 minds of those who heard +him. This, with a certain added colouring of rhetoric and rodomontade, +must have been the style of Burns, who equally charmed the ears of +duchesses and hostlers. + +Yet freely and personally as he spoke, many points 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 episode in the rakish, +topsy-turvy life of such an one as I had imagined. But then there came +incidents more doubtful, which showed an almost impudent greed after +gratuities, and a truly impudent disregard for truth. And then there 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 +things; 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 very 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, without 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 home 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, appearing again, begrimed and bashful, +upon deck. The career of these sea-tramps partakes largely of the +adventurous. They may be poisoned by coal-gas, or die 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 land, 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 among 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 his forgiveness. After +half an hour with 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 engineer. 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 often 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 their arrival each of the four had found a +comfortable berth. This was the most hopeful tale of emigration 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 delighted 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. Alick, 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, and wasted many +opportunities in life. I have heard him end a story with these words: +‘That was in my golden days, when 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 existence was not +unpleasant to Alick himself, and he might have long continued to enjoy +idleness and a life on tick; but he had a comrade, let us call him Brown, +who 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 another old chum +in Sauchiehall Street. + +‘By the bye, Alick,’ said he, ‘I met a gentleman 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 quartette aboard the _Circassia_. +If that was the way of it in the States, Alick thought it was high time +to follow Brown’s example. He spent his last day, as he put it, +‘reviewing the yeomanry,’ and the next morning says he to his landlady, +‘Mrs. X., I’ll not take porridge to-day, please; I’ll take some eggs.’ + +‘Why, have you found a job?’ she asked, delighted. + +‘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 landlady 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 voyage from the +Broomielaw to Greenock. That night, the ship’s yeoman pulled him out by +the heels and had him before the mate. Two other stowaways had already +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 meal,’ 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 grumbled 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 heard 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 kindness; 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 always +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, smoking 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 already 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 several on board, and even intimate with one of the engineers; but it +was plainly not the etiquette of such occasions for the authorities to +avow their information. 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?’ inquired the captain. + +‘Not much,’ said Alick; ‘but when a man has been 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-fitter 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 captain. + +‘I’ve had a trip on a Clyde steamboat, sir, but 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 his 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 sea 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 Devonian 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 care 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 board a +trading dandy. Somewhere in the Bristol Channel the dandy sprung a leak +and went down; and though the crew were picked 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 Sea, 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 Wednesday: 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 +the look of a street Arab; and captains will have nothing to say to a +ragamuffin; for in that trade, as in all others, it is the coat that +depicts the man. You may hand, reef, and steer like an angel, 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; although, 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 +begging, 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 much instruction; he could ‘read bills on the +street,’ but was ‘main bad at writing’; 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 contemporaneous 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 four times had +been discovered and handed back to starvation. The fifth time was lucky; +and you may judge if he were pleased to be aboard ship again, at his old +work, and with duff twice 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 willing 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 grain, 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 by, 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 the 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. + +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 character 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 neutralised 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 before 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 upon persuasion should learn the persuasive faculty of silence, +above all as to his own misdeeds. It is only in the farce and for +dramatic purposes that Scapin enlarges on his peculiar talents to the +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 guiding 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 unusual 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 suddenly, 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; he’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 other’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 +incongruous 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 find 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 was 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 about 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 might have increased the offer to a whole one, or perhaps a pair of +them, and not lived to regret his liberality. But 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 +charity 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 some 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 Irish 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, until, 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 +ran 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. There are many +relations which go on to marriage and last during a lifetime, in which +less human feeling is engaged than in this scene of five minutes at the +stoke-hole. + +Rigidly speaking, this would end the chapter of the stowaways; but in a +larger sense of the word I have yet more to add. Jones had discovered +and pointed out to me a young woman who was remarkable among her fellows +for a pleasing and interesting air. She was poorly clad, to the verge, +if not over the line, of disrespectability, with a ragged old jacket and +a bit of a sealskin cap no bigger than your fist; but her eyes, her whole +expression, and her manner, even in ordinary moments, told of a true +womanly nature, capable of love, anger, and devotion. She had a look, +too, of refinement, like one who might have been a better lady than most, +had she been allowed the opportunity. When alone she seemed preoccupied +and sad; but she was not often alone; there was usually by her side a +heavy, dull, gross man in rough clothes, chary of speech and gesture—not +from caution, but poverty of disposition; a man like a ditcher, unlovely +and uninteresting; whom she petted and tended and waited on with her eyes +as if he had been Amadis of Gaul. It was strange to see this hulking +fellow dog-sick, and this delicate, sad woman caring for him. He seemed, +from first to last, insensible of her caresses and attentions, and she +seemed unconscious of his insensibility. The Irish husband, who sang his +wife to sleep, and this Scottish girl serving her Orson, were the two +bits of human nature that most appealed to me throughout the voyage. + +On the Thursday before we arrived, the tickets were collected; and soon a +rumour began to go round the vessel; and this girl, with her bit of +sealskin cap, became the centre of whispering and pointed fingers. She +also, it was said, was 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 and children to be hers. The +ship’s officers discouraged the story, which may therefore have been a +story and no more; but it was believed in the steerage, and the poor girl +had to encounter many curious eyes from that day forth. + + + +PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW + + +Travel is of two kinds; and this voyage of mine across the ocean combined +both. ‘Out of my country and myself I go,’ sings the old poet: and I was +not only travelling out of my country in latitude and longitude, but out +of myself in diet, associates, and consideration. Part of the interest +and a great deal of the amusement flowed, at least to me, from this novel +situation in the world. + +I found that I had what they call fallen in life 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 remind 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 accident +by the difference of language and manners between England and France. I +must now take a humbler view; for here I was among my own countrymen, +somewhat roughly clad to be sure, but with every 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 +officers 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. From all +these guesses I drew one conclusion, 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 part 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, took me, like the +transformed monarch in the story, for a mere common, human man. They +gave me a hard, dead look, with the flesh about the eye kept unrelaxed. + +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 then learned for the +first time, and by the exhaustive process, how much attention 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 paid 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 upper 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 +exactly at what stage of toilette a man becomes invisible to the +well-regulated female eye. + +Here on shipboard the matter was put to a more complete test; for, even +with the addition of speech and manner, I passed among the ladies for +precisely the average man of the steerage. It was one afternoon that I +saw this demonstrated. A very plainly dressed woman was taken ill on +deck. I think 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 large 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. Of course I had to reply; and +as the talk went on, I began to discover that the whole group took me for +the husband. I looked upon my new wife, poor creature, with mingled +feelings; and I must own she had not even the appearance of the poorest +class of city servant-maids, but looked more like a country wench who +should have been employed at a roadside inn. Now was the time for me to +go and study the brass plate. + +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 better 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 intention. +Their manner was well calculated to remind me of my fallen fortunes. You +may be sincerely amused by the amateur 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 cabin floor. I was openly +jeered and flouted 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 readiness, +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, as 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. It seemed no disgrace to +be confounded with my company; for I may as well declare at once I found +their manners as gentle and becoming as those of any other class. I do +not mean that my friends could have sat down without embarrassment 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 hope 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 +only no qualification, but a positive disability to move easily and +becomingly in this. When Jones complimented me—because I ‘managed to +behave very pleasantly’ to my fellow-passengers, was how he put it—I +could follow the thought in his mind, and knew his compliment to be such +as we pay foreigners on their proficiency in English. I dare say this +praise was given me immediately on the back of some unpardonable +solecism, which had led him to review my conduct as a whole. We are all +ready to laugh at the ploughman among lords; we should consider also the +case of a lord 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 +parochial rather than universal; that, like a country wine, will not bear +transportation 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 must 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 external acceptation throughout all the others, and this tends to +keep us well satisfied with slight acquirements and the amateurish +accomplishments of a clique. But manners, like art, should be human and +central. + +Some of my fellow-passengers, as I now moved among 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 manners 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 refinement, 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 have 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; but though they may be eager listeners, they have rarely +seemed to me either willing or careful thinkers. Culture is not measured +by the greatness of the field which is covered by our knowledge, but by +the nicety with which we can perceive relations in that field, whether +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 relations, 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 should have +had a definite thought in his head as he said it. Some hated the Church +because they disagreed with it; some hated Lord Beaconsfield because of +war and taxes; all hated the masters, possibly with reason. But these +failings were not at the root of the matter; the true reasoning of their +souls ran thus—I have not got on; I ought to have got on; if there was a +revolution I should get on. How? They had no idea. Why? +Because—because—well, look at America! + +To be politically blind is no distinction; we are all so, if you come to +that. At bottom, as it seems to me, there is but one question in modern +home politics, though 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 their 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 were 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 will 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 confesses to the +failing. It has to me been always something of a relief to find the +poor, as a general rule, so little oppressed with work. I can in +consequence enjoy 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 fatigue by way of relief as satisfied this powerful frontiersman +for the day. He, at least, like all the educated class, 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 from a housetop in the city of Aberdeen, and was brought into +hospital with broken bones. He was asked what was his trade, and replied +that he was a _tapper_. No one had ever heard of such a thing before; +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 slip 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 advertised 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 swell 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 all +established tactics, it appeared. They could see no dishonesty where a +man who is paid for an hour's work gives half an hour’s consistent idling +in its place. Thus the tapper would refuse to watch for the police +during a burglary, 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 begins on his +career of toil. He has never had his fill of holidays in the past, and +his prospect of holidays in the future 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 working 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. They +mark time instead of marching. They think 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 possible 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, and 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 income, +simply from its smallness, than a large one. I never wearied listening +to the details of a workman’s economy, because 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 that a rich man has seven courses a day, ten to one +the half of them remain untasted, 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, soup +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 difficult 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 whether 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 only 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 philosophical, 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 critical +and human life is presented to you naked and verging to its lowest terms. + + + +NEW YORK + + +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 radish in a bed; and if the +worst befell, you would instantly and mysteriously disappear 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 light 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 body; he had visited a robber inn. The public 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. They were a pair of +rattling blades; and, leaving their baggage at the station, passed the +day in beer saloons, and with congenial spirits, until midnight struck. +Then they applied themselves to find a lodging, and walked the streets +till two, knocking at houses of entertainment 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 found themselves in the same street where they had begun +their search, and in front of a French hotel where they had already +sought accommodation. Seeing the house still open, they returned to the +charge. A man in a white cap sat in an office by the door. He seemed to +welcome them more warmly than when they had first presented themselves, +and the charge for the night had somewhat unaccountably fallen from a +dollar to a quarter. They thought him ill-looking, 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 lock 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 +the curtain of the first. He was startlingly disappointed. There was no +picture. The frame surrounded, and the curtain was 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, larger in size than that which +they occupied, where three men sat crouching and silent 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 cap 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 streets 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 through 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 +miraculously; 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 strident 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 us 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 storage 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 going on, in my plain +European fashion, to refuse a cigar, when Mr. Mitchell sternly +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 begun 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 obscurely know; what is to +be yet lies beyond the flight of our imaginations. Greece, Rome, and +Judæa are gone by forever, leaving to generations the legacy of their +accomplished work; China still endures, an old-inhabited house in the +brand-new city of nations; England has already declined, since she has +lost the States; and to these States, therefore, yet undeveloped, full of +dark possibilities, and grown, like another 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 understand 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 +suddenly hears of a family of cousins, all about his own age, who keep +house together 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 English youths turn to the thought of the +American Republic. It seems to them as if, out west, the war 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, +and 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 rather 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 time, 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, +returning with the spring to find thousands camped upon their marshes, +and the lamps burning far and near along populous streets; forests that +disappear like snow; 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 that 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. + +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 were 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 weeks in New York, and neither of them had yet found a +single job or earned a single 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 +should have hesitated; the devil was in it, but Jones and I should dine +like heathen emperors. I set to work, asking after a restaurant; and I +chose the wealthiest and most gastronomical-looking passers-by to ask +from. Yet, although 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 the cost of twenty dinners. I do not +know 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 cooking, +some so-called French wine, and French coffee to conclude the whole. I +never entered into the feelings of Jack 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 upon the floor; he did not sleep until near +morning, and I, for my part, never closed 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 sound 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 growing eerier and eerier, for +I dare say I was a little fevered by my restless night, 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 his 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 also +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 things to do; only the day to do them in, and a journey across +the continent before me 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, booksellers, 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-questioned 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 +answers in silence; and yet when all was over, he shook hands with me up +to the elbows, 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 manager, 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 ground, 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 that +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 up to be the death of him by his insulting +behaviour, he himself would be just upon 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 state 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 toward 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 heart I said +farewell to them as they lay a pulp in the middle of a pool upon the +floor of Mitchell’s kitchen. I wonder if they are dry by now. Mitchell +hired a man 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 safely to Reunion House, where they will get +decent meals and find an honest and obliging landlord. I owed him this +word of thanks, before I enter fairly on the second {92} and far less +agreeable chapter of my emigrant experience. + + + + +II. +COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK +A FRAGMENT +1871 + + +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 itself 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 +gold; allow my memory to choose out what is truly memorable by a process +of natural selection; and I piously believe that in this way I ensure the +Survival of the Fittest. If I make notes for future use, or if I am +obliged to write letters during the course of my little excursion, I so +interfere with the process that I can never again find out what is worthy +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 this +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 some fifty or sixty hours +about the middle remain quite distinct and definite, like 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 minister 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 had 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 situated: ‘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 limbo of forgetfulness. + + + +COCKERMOUTH + + +I was lighting my pipe as I stepped out of the inn at Cockermouth, and +did not raise 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 quarrelsome 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, then a third, several couples out love-making in the spring +evening; and a consequent 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 name of Smethurst, and +the designation of ‘Canadian Felt Hat Manufacturers.’ There was no more +hope of evening fellowship, and I could only stroll on by the river-side, +under the trees. The water was dappled with slanting sunshine, and +dusted all over with a little mist of flying insects. There were some +amorous ducks, also, whose 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 chooses 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 +scenery 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 tobacco, and the company of one or two chosen companions, +to a ball where I feel myself very hot, awkward, and weary, I merely +state these preferences as facts, and 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 plea 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 last, 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 +train in the early evening. + + + +AN EVANGELIST + + +Cockermouth itself, on the same authority, was a Place with ‘nothing to +see’; nevertheless 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. When 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 other on his own head, so that he looked +something like the typical Jew old-clothes man. As I drew near, he came +sidling 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 scarcely 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 where the large trout commonly lay, +underneath an overhanging bank; and he was much 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, trying 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 speaking to the blush; as it is, I can recall only the sense, +and that perhaps imperfectly. He began by saying that 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 died out in +himself, but must at my age be still quite lively and active. Then he +told me that he had a little raft afloat on the river above the dam which +he was going to lend me, in order that 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 this 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 embarkation, 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. + +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 +that as it may, there is no doubt that I soon wearied and came ashore +again, and that it gives me more pleasure to recall the man himself and +his simple, happy conversation, so full of gusto and sympathy, than +anything possibly connected with his crank, insecure embarkation. In +order to avoid seeing him, for I was not a little ashamed of myself for +having failed to enjoy his treat sufficiently, I determined to continue +up the river, 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 wisdom, 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 their 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 gospel of quiet and +contentment. + + + +ANOTHER + + +I was shortly to meet with an evangelist of another stamp. After I had +forced my way through a gentleman’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, with a beautiful little girl by her side, came up to ask +for alms, and gradually fell 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 the little girl upon her hands. She seemed quite hopeful +and cheery, and, though she was unaffectedly sorry for the loss of her +husband’s earnings, she made no pretence of despair at the loss of his +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 all 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 with 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 Catholic 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 some tracts +about Biddy and the Priest, and the Orangeman’s Bible. I was a little +amused at his abrupt manner, for he was still a young man, and had +somewhat the air of a navy officer; but 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 very 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. + + + +LAST OF SMETHURST + + +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 the 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, already 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. I mentioned that I +had seen Mr. Smethurst already, and that he had been very polite to me; +and we fell into a discussion of the hatter’s merits that lasted some +time and left us quite good friends at its conclusion. The topic was +productive of goodwill. We exchanged tobacco and talked about the +season, and agreed at last that we should go to the same hotel at Keswick +and sup in company. As he had some business in the town which would +occupy him some hour or so, on our arrival I was to improve the time and +go down to the lake, that I might see a glimpse of the promised wonders. + +The night had fallen already when I reached the water-side, at a place +where many pleasure-boats are moored and ready for hire; and as I went +along a stony path, between wood and water, a strong wind blew 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 water. 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 sudden 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 +accosted 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 know, and we stood together for a while and had an amusing +little talk. The wind, too, made himself of the party, 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 +the 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 and +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 dark 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 +recitation of these elegant extracts, except perhaps the anecdotes with +which he varied the entertainment. Seeing, I suppose, 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. . . . + + + + +III. +AN AUTUMN EFFECT +1875 + + + ‘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 favourable auspices may leave upon +us a unity of impression that would only be disturbed 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 them for a moment +in going by; we generalise boldly and simply, and are gone before the sun +is overcast, before the rain falls, before the season can steal like 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 expose 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, as +we went by, will have a conception of it far more memorable and +articulate than 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 the 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 enviable 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 which 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 themselves 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 and +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 calling on them to return; and some +passion, some duty, some worthy or unworthy expectation, 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 bright, as +we leave the town behind us, and we shall feel once again (as we have +felt 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 forward 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, dull, 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, the 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 enough, +against the sky. I say foolishly enough, although I have seen the effect +employed cleverly in art, and such long line 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 water and +level land, where it did not jar, as here, with the soft contour of hills +and valleys. The whole scene had an 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 trees on the +horizon that one was forced to think of it all as of a clever French +landscape. For it is rather in nature 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 forms in which we learn +to think of landscape are forms that we have got from painted canvas. +Any man can see and understand a picture; it is reserved for the few to +separate anything out of the confusion of nature, and see that distinctly +and with intelligence. + +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 treading 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 distance I could +see no longer. Overhead there was a wonderful carolling of larks which +seemed to follow me as I went. Indeed, during all the time I was in that +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 take 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 just 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. The 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 have 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 pinholes 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 would have been sad but for the sunshine and the singing of the +larks. And as it was, there came over me at times 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 less 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 there 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 them 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. And if there were a few who had no +particular 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 opinion; 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 danced +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 find quite a bustle on the other side, a great coming and +going of school-children upon by-paths, and, in every second field, lusty +horses and stout country-folk a-ploughing. The way I followed took me +through many fields thus occupied, and through many strips of plantation, +and then over a little space of smooth turf, very pleasant to the feet, +set with tall fir-trees and clamorous with rooks making ready for the +winter, and so back again into the quiet road. I was now 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 hollow; 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 had been washed with water. After +I had crossed the little zone of mist, the path began to remount the +hill; and just 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 donkeys, +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 fit 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 roguish and wanton in his face, a look too like that of a +schoolboy or a street Arab, 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 levity of his +disposition by impudently wagging his ears at me as I drew near. I say +he was somewhat solemnised just then; 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 puzzled, +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 unwound. A humorous sort +of sympathy for the creature took hold upon me. I went up, and, not +without some trouble on my part, and much distrust and resistance on the +part 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 angry, 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, shouting 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 face, that she had already +recommended her spirit most religiously to Heaven, and prepared herself +for the worst. And 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 courtesies, the little old maid +and I went on our respective ways. + +Nor had she misled me. Great Missenden was close at hand, as she 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 about 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 about 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 London 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 +village 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 with 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, +and a virtuous young man with a genius for mechanics, who should love, +and protect, and ultimately marry the girl in the crimson room. +Baudelaire has a few dainty 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 enlarged on the same text. The subject, at least, +is one that I am seldom weary of entertaining. I remember, night after +night, at Brussels, watching a good family sup 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 awake 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 about 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 worst 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 light 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 +behind 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 at the end of it! She could nowise reconcile +this with her moral sense. And, indeed, 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 read 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 driven 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 trend 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 opened out into the plain, was shallow, and a +little bare, perhaps, but full of graceful convolutions. From the level +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 followed the footpath. Wendover lay well down 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 crescents of river, and snatches of +slanting road, and finally melted into the ambiguous cloud-land over the +horizon. The sky was an opal-grey, touched here and there with blue, and +with certain faint russets 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 sentiment 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, that the whole wood looked as dense as a bush of heather. The +prevailing colour was a dull, smouldering 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 through the hedge, I found myself in a dim green +forest atmosphere under eaves of virgin foliage. In places where the +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 considerable 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 would be thrown out flat, the light lying flatly along the top of +it, so that against 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 seemed to be all +attention; the wood listened as I went, and held its breath to number my +footfalls. One could not help feeling that there ought to be some reason +for this stillness; whether, as the bright 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 sight, ever and anon, +of large spaces of the open plain. This happened only where the path lay +much 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 began to grow lighter about me, and I caught sight, through the +trees, of sundry gables and enclosure walls, and something like the tops +of a rickyard. And sure enough, a rickyard it proved to be, and a neat +little farm-steading, with the beech-woods growing almost to the door of +it. Just before me, however, as I came upon the path, the trees drew +back and let in a wide flood of daylight 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 dense 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 each 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 general grace during meat. Every now and again 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 shrilly publish to the world his satisfaction with himself and what +he had to eat. 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 just 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 +fabulist not quite so skilful, who made points for the moment without +having a studious enough eye to the complete effect; for I thought these +melting greens and blues 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 like +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 +gradations of living green that had before accompanied my walk. I had +been sorry to leave _Peacock Farm_, but I was not sorry to find myself +once more in the open road, under a pale and somewhat troubled-looking +evening sky, and put my best foot foremost for the inn at Wendover. + +Wendover, in itself, is a straggling, purposeless sort of place. +Everybody seems to have had his own opinion as to how the street 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 along 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 served as rallying-point for these loose +houses, and pulled the township into something 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-windows, 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 that 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 Walter +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 cupboard 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 glass of water. The +furniture was old-fashioned and stiff. Everything was in keeping, down +to the ponderous leaden inkstand on the round table. And you may fancy +how pleasant it looked, 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 +portrait 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 professed +much interest in her dolls, and an impatient desire to see the large one +which was kept locked away for great occasions. And so I had not been +very long in the parlour before the door opened, 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, +with a very serious demeanour, asking many questions about their age and +character. I do not think that Lizzie distrusted my sincerity, but it +was evident that she was both bewildered and 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 gravity and a sort of disquietude, as though she really feared I +must be out of my wits. Sometimes, as when I inquired 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 the parlour wanted to kiss Dolly_. I +fancy 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 knew, who would never suffer the master +of the house to dance, out of an exaggerated 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 without 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 discomforts, 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 upon 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 +graveyard 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 dull sudden fall of a chestnut among the grass—the dog +would bark before the rectory 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 +filled 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 near, was almost +startled to find they lay on the grave a man seventy-two years old when +he died. We are accustomed to strew flowers only over the young, where +love has been cut short untimely, and great 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 little 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 miserably +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 token of love that survived death, as of something yet +more beautiful—of love that had lived a man’s life out to an end with +him, and been faithful and companionable, 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 woods, 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-woods above on the other. The fields were 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 +furrow as ploughman or sower stepped aside for a moment to take a +draught. Over all the brown ploughlands, and under all the leafless +hedgerows, there was a stout piece of labour abroad, and, as it were, a +spirit of picnic. The horses 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 of a +humourist; and his conversation was all in praise of an agricultural +labourer’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 appetite 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-station; 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 usual, 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 came +and carried me back to London. + + + + +IV. +A WINTER’S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY +A FRAGMENT +1876 + + +At the famous bridge of Doon, Kyle, the central district of the shire of +Ayr, marches with Carrick, the most southerly. On the Carrick side of +the river rises a hill of somewhat gentle conformation, cleft 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, like a bay-window in a +plan, and is fortified against the surf behind bold crags. 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 were +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 upon 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 summit 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 distinction of sky and sea. Over the +white shoulders of the headlands, or in the opening of bays, there was +nothing but a great vacancy 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 heathenishly at a cow he was driving. And a little after I +scraped acquaintance with a poor body tramping out to gather cockles. +His face was wrinkled by exposure; it was broken up into flakes and +channels, like mud beginning to dry, and weathered in two colours, an +incongruous pink and grey. He had a faint air of being 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 during the New Year’s festivity. I will +own I was not sorry to think he had had a merry New Year, and been young +again for an evening; but I was sorry to see the mark still there. One +could not expect such an old gentleman 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 fifty 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. Plainly, there was nothing of this in his life, +and years and loneliness hung heavily 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 think he couldn’t do it. ‘And, ’deed,’ he 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 snow. + +He told me I was to turn down beside the school-house for Dunure. And +so, when I found a lone house among the snow, and heard a babble of +childish voices from 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-birds; 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 well 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 better 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. Twelve cockle-shells and a +half-penny china 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 merit 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 own 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 coat, 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 than it takes me to write these words the four quarts +were finished—another round was 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 +from 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 with 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 and gnawed your +fingers! I think it would have come to homicide before the evening—if it +were only for the pleasure of seeing something red! And the masters 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!), +Gilbert, Earl of Cassilis, his chaplain, his baker, his cook, his +pantryman, and another 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 etching 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 +asked 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 much 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 sides, built of +freestone; and it is beautifyed with the situation of two castles, one at +each end of this street. That on 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], and a row of ballesters round it raised from the +top of the staircase, into which they have mounted a fyne clock. There +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 the 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 decayed 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 is 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 here 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 than here in a country place betwixt a +village and a town. I heard a great deal about drinking, and a great +deal about religious revivals: two things in which the Scottish character +is emphatic and most unlovely. In particular, I heard of clergymen who +were employing their time in explaining 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 +figure 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 part 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, and to do so speedily. It was not much +more 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 accuracy 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 harem; and yet these were grown men, and by no +means short of wit. It was hard to suppose they were very eager about +the Second Coming: it seemed as if some elementary notions of temperance +for the men and seemliness for the women would have gone nearer the mark. +And 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 economy, 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 courage, thrift and industry, fought their way upwards to an +assured position. + +Abercrummie has told you enough of the Tolbooth; 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 parish 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 about the top. In a general way this adornment is perched on the +very summit of the chimney-stacks; but there is one corner more elaborate +than the rest. A very 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 look 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 Street, 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 grew hot within her, and her eyes overflowed at the +memory of the past. And even if the tale be not true of this 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 +all of us is the glamour cast. Some resist and sit resolutely by the +fire. Most go 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 evening, we +can catch their voices in the glee. + +By night it was clearer, and Maybole more visible 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 into relief over the gables and the chimney-stacks, and +their shadows over the white 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 +out—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 could 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 bleak 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 also, in the kirkyard, the +original of Tam o’ Shanter sleeps his last sleep. It is worth noticing, +however, that this 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 blown 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 ploughing 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 the shore, among sand-hills +and by wildernesses of tumbled bent. Every here and there a few cottages +stood together beside a bridge. They had one odd feature, not easy to +describe in words: a triangular porch projected from 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 +pipe with comfort. There is one objection 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 Scotland, 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. +. . . + + + + +V. +FOREST NOTES 1875–6 + + +ON THE PLAIN + + +Perhaps 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 disappear; 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 his +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, and not by any means +overworked; but somehow you always see in them the historical +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 taxed beyond possibility of payment, and lived, in Michelet’s +image, like a hare between two furrows. These very people 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 Seigneur 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 +chenue, 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 is, 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 with grain, in the midst +of a close full of cypresses and lilacs, ducks and crowing 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 air, 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, children of the people, +saunter and gambol in the walled court or feed the ducks in the neglected +moat. Plough-horses, mighty of limb, browse in the long stables. The +dial-hand on the clock waits for some better hour. Out on the plain, +where hot sweat trickles 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 upon gay folk at supper, while he and +his hollow-eyed children watched through the 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 my 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 found 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. For the first offence, by the Salic law, +there was a fine of fifteen sols; and should a man be taken more than +once in fault, or circumstances aggravate the colour of his guilt, he +might be whipped, branded, or hanged. There was a hangman over at Melun, +and, I doubt not, a fine tall gibbet hard by the town gate, where Jacques +might see his fellows dangle against the sky as he went to market. + +And then, if he lived near to a cover, there would 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 +decorating 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, while 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 varlets +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 days 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 fastness, or lay over-seas in +an English prison. In these dark days, when the watch on the church +steeple saw the smoke 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 all their household gods, into the wood, whence, +from some high spur, their timid 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 +refuge that the woods afforded, where they must abide all change of +weather and keep 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 demons 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 royal forest, and noble by +old associations. These woods have rung to the horns of all the kings of +France, from Philip Augustus downwards. They have 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 they 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 virtue of the pastime of dead +monarchs. Great events, great revolutions, great cycles in the affairs +of men, have here left their note, here taken shape in some significant +and dramatic situation. It was hence that Gruise and his leaguers led +Charles the Ninth a prisoner to Paris. Here, booted and spurred, and +with all his dogs about him, Napoleon met the Pope beside a woodland +cross. Here, on his way to Elba not so long after, he kissed the eagle +of the Old Guard, and spoke words of passionate farewell to his soldiers. +And here, after Waterloo, rather than yield its ensign to the new power, +one of his faithful regiments burned that memorial of so much toil and +glory on the Grand Master’s table, and drank its dust in brandy, as a +devout priest consumes the remnants of the Host. + + + +IN THE SEASON + + +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, where the cattle browsed between the doorsteps. As you +go up this street, drawing ever nearer the beginning of the wood, 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 +into the court you will find as many more, some in billiard-room over +absinthe and a match of corks some without over a last cigar and a +vermouth. The doves coo and flutter from the dovecot; 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, and +some idle painter, who has stored his canvases and washed his brushes, +jangling a waltz on the crazy, tongue-tied piano in the salle-à-manger. +‘_Edmond_, _encore un vermouth_,’ cries a man in velveteen, adding in a +tone of apologetic afterthought, ‘_un double_, _s’il vous plaît_.’ +‘Where are you working?’ 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 through 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 of the +huntsman winding a horn with a dead boar between his legs, and his +legs—well, 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 English, that it would do your heart good merely to peep +and listen at the door. One man is telling how they all went last 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 table, and is once more +trampling the poor piano under powerful and uncertain fingers. + +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 welcome and a good talk, and perhaps some pickled oysters +and white wine to close the evening. Or a dance is organised in 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 move 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 looking 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 nearly 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 proposed, and a basket made +ready, and a good procession formed in front of the hotel. The two +trumpeters in honour 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 shadow, 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’ haunt, and +shows shapely beards and comely faces and toilettes ranged about the +wall. The bowl is lit, and the punch 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 morning, straggling a good deal among the +birch tufts and the boulders, but ever called 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 finally 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. No surf-bell on forlorn +and perilous shores, no passing knell over the busy market-place, can +speak with a more heavy and disconsolate tongue to human ears. Each +stroke calls up a host of ghostly reverberations in his mind. And as he +stands rooted, it has grown once more so utterly silent that it seems to +him he might hear the church bells ring the hour out all the world over, +not at Chailly only, but in Paris, and away in outlandish cities, and in +the village on the river, where his childhood passed between the sun and +flowers. + + + +IDLE HOURS + + +The woods by night, in all their uncanny effect, are not rightly to be +understood until you can compare them with the woods by day. The +stillness of the medium, the floor of glittering sand, these trees 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 rise betimes. If you have +not been wakened 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, shines 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, stool, 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 all 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 excuse to bathe. With +quick ears, long spines, and bandy legs, or perhaps as tall as a +greyhound and with a bulldog’s head, this 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 notes. 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 roof 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 evil creatures that haunt the forest. +For you may plump into a cave among the rocks, and find yourself face to +face with a wild boar, or see a crooked viper slither 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 go idly by. Your friend at the easel labours +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 the shadow of another tree, and up to his waist in the fern. +You cannot watch your 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 and heather, set in a basin +of low hills, and scattered over with rocks and junipers. All the open +is steeped in pitiless sunlight. Everything stands out as though it were +cut in cardboard, every colour is strained into its highest key. The +boulders are some of them upright and dead like monolithic castles, some +of them prone like sleeping cattle. The junipers—looking, in their +soiled and ragged mourning, like some funeral procession that has gone +seeking the place of sepulchre three hundred years and more in wind and +rain—are daubed 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 there 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 song, 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 the 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 comes 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 kindled 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. + + + +A PLEASURE-PARTY + + +As this 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 from 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 +round 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 exercise; 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 from Fontainebleau, +trudging across on his weekly peddle with a case of merchandise; and it +is ‘Desprez, leave me some malachite green’; ‘Desprez, leave me so much +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 sound +of cannon in our ears; and now, a little past Franchard, we find a +mounted trooper 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 meanwhile 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 dulcet, +his manner dignified and insinuating. It is not for nothing that the +Doctor has voyaged all the world over, and speaks 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 the sergeant, who will send us back. At 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 highly recommended for its +beauty. ‘_Il y a de l’eau_,’ people have said, with an emphasis, as if +that settled the question, 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 lies out of the forest, a cluster of houses, with an old +bridge, an old castle in ruin, and a quaint old church. The inn garden +descends in terraces to the river; stable-yard, kailyard, orchard, and a +space 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 the two lies the river, +clear and deep, and full of reeds and floating lilies. Water-plants +cluster about the starlings 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 ripple following +another over the top of the yellow deal. And you can hear a splashing +and a prattle of voices from the shed under the old kirk, where the +village women wash and wash 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 and 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 smoothly 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. There is a wish for +solitude on all. One hides himself in the arbour with a cigarette; +another goes a walk in the country with Cocardon; a third inspects the +church. And it is not till dinner is on the table, and the inn’s best +wine goes round from glass to glass, that we begin to throw off the +restraint and fuse once more into a jolly fellowship. + +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— + + ‘Nous avons fait la noce, + Rentrons à nos foyers!’ + +And such is the burthen, even after we have come 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, and the faces round the punch are lit +up, with shifting emphasis, against a background 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, +in a jacket of green cord, the great, famous, and redoubtable Blank; and +in a moment the fire kindles again, and the night is witness of our +laughter as he imitates Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen, picture-dealers, +all eccentric ways of speaking and thinking, with a possession, a fury, a +strain of mind and voice, that would rather suggest a nervous crisis than +a desire to please. We are as merry as ever when the trap sets forth +again, and say farewell noisily to all the good folk going farther. +Then, as we are far enough from thoughts of sleep, we visit Blank in his +quaint house, and sit an hour or so in a great tapestried chamber, laid +with furs, littered 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 showers fall steadily, the trees hang limp, and the face of the +stream is spoiled with dimpling raindrops. Yesterday’s lilies encumber +the garden walk, or begin, dismally enough, their voyage towards the +Seine and the salt sea. A sickly shimmer 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 taken 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; and 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, for 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 neither of them French; for, of all English phrases, the +phrase ‘for exercise’ is the least comprehensible across the Straits of +Dover. All goes well for a while with the pedestrians. The wet woods +are full of scents in the noontide. At a certain cross, where there is a +guardhouse, they make a halt, for the forester’s wife 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 wall, and some prints of +love-affairs and the great Napoleon hunting. As they draw near the +Quadrilateral, and 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 am sure we should keep more +to the right,’ says one; and the other is just as certain 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 gurgles 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 worse; 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 ever welcomed English ale. Thence, by the Bois d’Hyver, +the Ventes-Alexandre, and the Pins Brulés, to the clean hostelry, dry +clothes, and dinner. + + + +THE WOODS IN SPRING + + +I think 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 artists’ sunshades as with unknown +mushrooms, nor bestrewn with the remains of English 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; and, dotted +among the pines, or standing by themselves in rocky clearings, the +delicate, snow-white trunks of birches, spreading out into snow-white +branches yet more 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 among the bracken and +brown heather. It is all rather cold and unhomely. It has not 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 woods 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, pure 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 the 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 stand 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 firs 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, guttered 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 these coverts is so excessive, that there are moments when pleasure +draws to the verge of fear. You listen and listen for some noise to +break the silence, till you grow half mesmerised by the intensity of the +strain; your sense of your own identity is troubled; your brain reels, +like that of some gymnosophist poring on his own nose in Asiatic jungles; +and should you see your own outspread feet, you see them, not as anything +of yours, 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 long 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 leaves rustle underfoot, or you may +time your steps to the steady recurrent strokes of the woodman’s axe. +From time to time, over the low grounds, a flight of rooks 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 the 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 clearings, and the solid noise of horses galloping passes below you, +where you sit perched among the rocks and heather. The boar 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: the old woman +laden with a fagot of chips, and the little ones hauling a long branch +behind them in her wake. That 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 frosty 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 fire spread out along the green pine-tops, in a +remote uncanny glen, hard by a hill of naked boulders. He drew near +warily, and beheld a picnic party seated under a tree in an open. The +old father knitted a sock, the mother sat staring at the fire. The +eldest son, 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 says; 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 friend’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. 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 singing in his ears, but he fancies he was +followed as he ran by a peal of Titanic laughter. Nothing has ever +transpired 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 Heine’s ‘Gods in Exile’; that the upright old man with +the eyebrows was no other than Father Jove, and the young dragoon with +the taste for music either Apollo or Mars. + + + +MORALITY + + +Strange 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 France have +had their word to say about Fontainebleau. Chateaubriand, Michelet, +Béranger, George Sand, de Senancour, Flaubert, 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 when 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 Description +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 Horace: +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 labours of the Grand Master of Woods and +Waters, the Sieur de la Falure, ‘qui a fait faire ce magnifique endroit.’ + +But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a +claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that 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 here +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 bring 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 sorrow 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 contrariety of interests. +You forget the narrow lane where all men jostle together in unchivalrous +contention, and the kennel, deep and unclean, that gapes on either hand +for the defeated. Life is simple enough, it seems, and the very idea of +sacrifice becomes like a mad fancy out 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 more exercised than the affections. When you have had +your will of the forest, you may visit the whole round world. You may +buckle on your knapsack and take the road on foot. You may bestride a +good 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 cord of Europe and go down from Alpine glaciers to where Italy +extends her marble moles and glasses her marble palaces in the midland +sea. You may sleep in flying trains or wayside taverns. You may be +awakened at dawn 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 wine; 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, and 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 network bound about your feet by birth and old +companionship and loyal love, and bear 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 what they know to be behind, enter into their notion of a +place. If the sea, for instance, lie just across 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 +knowledge of its greatness is for much in the effect produced. You +reckon up the miles that lie between you and intrusion. You may walk +before you all day long, and not fear to touch the barrier of your Eden, +or stumble out of fairyland into the land of gin and steam-hammers. And +there is an old tale enhances for the imagination the grandeur of the +woods of France, and secures you in the thought of your seclusion. When +Charles VI. hunted in the time of his wild boyhood near Senlis, there was +captured an old 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. If the extent of solemn wood +could thus safeguard a tall stag from the hunter’s hounds and houses, +might not you also play hide-and-seek, in these groves, with all the +pangs and trepidations of man’s life, and elude Death, the mighty hunter, +for more than the span of human years? Here, also, crash his arrows; +here, in the farthest glade, sounds the gallop of the pale horse. But he +does not hunt this cover with all his hounds, for the game is thin and +small: and if you were but alert and wary, if you lodged ever in the +deepest thickets, you too might live on into later generations and +astonish men by your stalwart age and the trophies of an immemorial +success. + +For the forest takes away from you all excuse to die. There is nothing +here to cabin 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 shadows and the sun wheeling his wide circuit through the +naked heavens. Here shall you see no enemies but winter 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 the 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 long 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 athletic act of the imagination. A faint +far-off rumour as of Merovingian wars; a legend as of some dead religion. + + + + +VI. +A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE {175} +A FRAGMENT +1879 + + +_Originally intended to serve as the opening chapter of_ ‘_Travels with a +Donkey in the Cevennes_.’ + +Le Monastier is the chief place of a hilly canton 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, the seat of an arch-priest and several vicars. +It stands on the side of hill above 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 pediment and ornamental work in iron. For +Monastier, like Maybole in Ayrshire, was a sort of country capital, where +the 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 means to ruin himself by high living in this village on the hills. +He certainly has claims to be considered the most remarkable spendthrift +on record. How he set about it, in a place where there are no luxuries +for sale, and where the board at the best inn comes to little 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 hear one woman clattering off prayers for +the edification of the others at their work. They wear gaudy shawls, +white caps with a gay ribbon about the head, and sometimes a black felt +brigand hat above the cap; and so they give the street colour and +brightness and a foreign air. A while ago, when England largely supplied +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 takes 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, as with our northern pitmen, and left nobody +the richer. The women bravely squandered their gains, kept the men in +idleness, and gave themselves up, as I was told, to sweethearting and a +merry life. From week’s end to week’s end it was one continuous gala in +Monastier; people spent 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 Victor the garçon. I +hear of no great advance 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, and 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, and marvel once more at the complicated scheme of things upon +this earth, and how a turn of fashion in England can silence so much +mountain merriment in France. The lace-makers themselves have not +entirely 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 town 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 tailcoat 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 bulges; +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 the week been +twice as long, she would have waited still. There was a canonical day +for consultation; such was the ancestral habit, to which a respectable +lady must study to conform. + +Two conveyances go daily to Le Puy, but they rival 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 Le Puy by two in the afternoon and arrive at Monastier in good on +the return voyage, 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 little 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 country lies in moorland pasture. The +country 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 common 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 passage over the stones; for it is a great warbler, and at +night, after I was in bed 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, the population is, in its +way, as Scottish as the country. They have abrupt, uncouth, Fifeshire +manners, and accost you, as if you were trespassing, an ‘Où’st-ce que +vous allez?’ only 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 various pigs and sheep and cattle that make so +pleasant a tinkling in the meadows. The lace-makers have disappeared +from the street. Not to attend mass would involve social degradation; +and you may find people reading Sunday books, in particular a sort of +Catholic _Monthly Visitor_ on the doings of Our Lady of Lourdes. I +remember one Sunday, when I was walking in the country, that I fell on a +hamlet and found all the inhabitants, from the patriarch to the baby, +gathered in the shadow of a gable at prayer. One strapping lass stood +with her back to the wall and did the solo part, the rest chiming in +devoutly. Not far off, a lad lay flat on his face asleep among some +straw, to represent the worldly element. + +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 girl; and the arguments in the two cases were +identical. Each apostle based her claim on the superior virtue and +attainments of her clergy, and clenched the business with a threat of +hell-fire. ‘_Pas bong prêtres ici_,’ said the Presbyterian, ‘_bong +prêtres en Ecosse_.’ And the postmaster’s daughter, taking up 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 +each side relies on hell, and Protestant and Catholic alike address +themselves to 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 boast a son in holy orders. +And here also, the young men have a tendency to emigrate. It is +certainly not poverty 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 spirit 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 question was now +an apothecary in Brazil. He had flown by way of Bordeaux, and first +landed in America, bareheaded and barefoot, 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, +to be an apothecary in Brazil. As for his 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 vous allez_? was changed for me into _Quoi_, _vous rentrez au +Monastier_ and in the town itself every urchin seemed 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 disagreeable bewilderment. +‘Bread,’ which sounds a commonplace, plain-sailing monosyllable 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 got it carefully by heart, as a stand-by, I presume, for winter +evenings. I have tried it since then with every sort 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 falling towards +decrepitude. One and all were pleasant and natural, ready to laugh and +ready with a certain quiet solemnity when that was called for by the +subject of our talk. Life, since the fall in wages, had begun 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 and 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 but 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 all 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 +sitting in judgment over the last. ‘No, no,’ she would say, ‘that is not +it. I am old, 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 twang +off an oath with Sir Toby Belch in person. There was nothing so high or +so low, in heaven or earth or in the human 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 avoided _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 hulking fellow, visibly the worse for +drink before the day was well begun. But it was strange to hear her +unwearying flow of oaths and obscenities, endless like a river, and now +and then rising to a passionate shrillness, in the clear and silent air +of the morning. In city slums, the thing might have passed unnoticed; +but in a country valley, and from a plain and honest countrywoman, this +beastliness of speech surprised the ear. + +The _Conductor_, as he is called, _of Roads and Bridges_ 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 enthusiasm and special knowledge are the great +social qualities, and what they are about, whether white sauce or +Shakespeare’s plays, an altogether secondary question. + +I used to accompany the Conductor on his professional rounds, and grew to +believe myself an expert in the business. 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 the _Marquis de Villemer_; and I have spoken with +an old man, who was then a child running about the inn kitchen, and who +still 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 pleased her fancy; and it would +be curious to know if she afterwards employed it in her works. The +peasants, who knew nothing of betters and had never so much as heard of +local colour, could not explain her chattering with this backward child; +and to them she seemed a very homely lady 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 up by Crouzials towards +Mount Mezenc and the borders of Ardèche, I began an improving +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 dames 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 +been 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 devil _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 less 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 gauge— + +‘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, when 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 _Conductor_ 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 information in +despair. A tale of old lawlessness 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 equipped he takes +the road with terror. All day the family sits about the fire in a foul +and airless hovel, and equally without work or diversion. The father may +carve a rude piece of furniture, but that is all that will be done until +the spring sets in again, and along with it the labours of the field. It +is not for nothing that you find a clock in the meanest of these mountain +habitations. A clock and an almanac, you would fancy, were indispensable +in such a life . . . + + + + +VII. +RANDOM MEMORIES: _ROSA QUO LOCORUM_ + + +Through 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 volumes in a library. The child is conscious of an +interest, not in literature but in life. A taste for the precise, the +adroit, or the comely in the use of words, 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 negatives 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 loud words, but I believe the words +themselves were what I cherished. I had about the same time, and under +the same influence—that of my dear nurse—a favourite author: it is +possible the reader 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:— + + ‘Behind the hills of Naphtali + The sun went slowly down, + Leaving on mountain, 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 that charmed me in my childhood: + + ‘Jehovah Tschidkenu is nothing to her’;—{190} + +I may say, without flippancy, that he was nothing 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, has 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 picture eloquent beyond +their value. Rummaging 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 banks 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 shrill children. Here, in the fleecy +person 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 greater 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 children 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 accompany 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—that the presence +of these articles afforded me encouragement. The third and last of my +pictures illustrated words:— + + ‘My table Thou hast furnished + In presence of my foes: + My head Thou dost with oil anoint, + And my cup overflows’: + +and this was perhaps the most interesting of the series. I saw myself +seated in a kind of open stone summer-house at table; over my shoulder a +hairy, bearded, and robed 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 white 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 conveyed from Bagster’s _Pilgrim’s +Progress_; the bearded and robed figure from any one of the thousand +Bible pictures; and the 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 +jest, remark; but the serious spirit of infancy adopted it in earnest. +Children are 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 idea 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 appealed to me at the moment as least +contaminate with mean associations. In this string of pictures I believe +the 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 rude psalm the +one lovely verse which dwells in the minds of all, not growing old, 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 unconsciously; I listened for news of the great vacant world upon +whose edge I stood; I listened 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 which 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 picturesque, called _Paul Blake_; these are the three +strongest impressions I remember: _The Swiss Family Robinson_ came next, +_longo intervallo_. At these I played, conjured up their scenes, 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 flash of +colour and a heavenly sweetness in the air. Somehow my play-mate had +vanished, or is out of the story, as the sages say, but I was sent into +the village on an errand; and, taking a book of fairy 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 have never since forgot, and if my mind serves +me to the last, I never shall, for it was then that I knew I loved +reading. + + + +II + + +To pass from hearing literature to reading it is to take a great and +dangerous step. With not a few, I think a large proportion of their +pleasure then comes to an end; ‘the malady of not marking’ overtakes +them; they read thenceforward by the eye alone and hear never again the +chime of fair words or the march of the stately period. _Non ragioniam_ +of these. But to all the step is dangerous; it involves coming of age; +it is even a kind of second weaning. In the past all was at the choice +of others; they chose, they digested, they read aloud for us and sang to +their own tune the books of childhood. In the future 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 choice, and she imposed them on my infancy, +reading the works of others as a poet would scarce dare to read his own; +gloating on the rhythm, dwelling with delight on assonances and +alliterations. I know 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 of my nurse triumphed, and after a long +search, I can find in these earliest volumes of my autobiography no +mention of anything but nursery rhymes, the Bible, and Mr. M’Cheyne. + +I suppose all children agree in looking back with delight on their school +Readers. We might not now find so much pathos in ‘Bingen on the Rhine,’ +‘A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,’ or in ‘The Soldier’s +Funeral,’ in the declamation 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 to my father; who roasted me for years in consequence. I am +sure one should not be so deliciously tickled by the humorous pieces:— + + ‘What, 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 +tawdry too; but on the ‘Address to the Ocean,’ or on ‘The Dying +Gladiator,’ ‘time has writ no wrinkle.’ + + ’Tis 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 Dickens 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 Latin divinity, cyclopædias, physical science, +and, above all, optics, held the chief 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_, _The Female +Bluebeard_, G. Sand’s _Mare au Diable_—(how came it in that grave +assembly!), Ainsworth’s _Tower of London_, and four old volumes of +Punch—these were the chief exceptions. In these latter, which made for +years the chief of my diet, I very early fell in love (almost as soon as +I could spell) with the Snob Papers. I knew them almost by heart, +particularly the visit to the Pontos; and I remember my surprise when I +found, long afterwards, that they were famous, and signed with a famous +name; to me, as I read and admired them, they were the works of Mr. +Punch. Time and again I tried to read _Rob Roy_, with whom of course I +was acquainted from the _Tales of a Grandfather_; time and again the +early part, with Rashleigh and (think of it!) the adorable Diana, choked +me off; and I shall never forget the pleasure and surprise with which, +lying on the floor one summer evening, I struck of a sudden into the +first scene with Andrew Fairservice. ‘The worthy Dr. +Lightfoot’—‘mistrysted with a bogle’—‘a wheen green trash’—‘Jenny, lass, +I think I ha’e her’: from that day to this the phrases have been +unforgotten. I read on, I need scarce say; I came to Glasgow, I bided +tryst on Glasgow Bridge, I met Rob Roy and the Bailie in the Tolbooth, +all with transporting pleasure; and then the clouds gathered once more +about my path; and I dozed and skipped until I stumbled half-asleep into +the clachan of Aberfoyle, and the voices of Iverach and Galbraith +recalled me to myself. With that scene and the defeat of Captain +Thornton the book concluded; Helen and her sons shocked even the little +schoolboy of nine or ten with their unreality; I read no more, or I did +not grasp what I was reading; and years elapsed before I consciously met +Diana and her father among the hills, or saw Rashleigh dying in the +chair. When I think of that novel and that evening, I am impatient with +all others; they seem but shadows and impostors; they cannot satisfy the +appetite which this awakened; and I dare be known to think it the best of +Sir Walter’s by nearly as much as Sir Walter is the best of novelists. +Perhaps Mr. Lang is right, and our first friends in the land of fiction +are always the most real. And yet I had read before this _Guy +Mannering_, and some of _Waverley_, with no such delighted sense of truth +and humour, and I read immediately after the 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 huge gulf, _Ivanhoe_ and _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 has been added to my +admirations in that enchanted world of _Rob Roy_; I think more of the +letters in _Redgauntlet_, and Peter Peebles, that dreadful 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 finished it yet; _Peveril of the Peak_ +dropped half way through from my schoolboy hands, and though I have since +waded to an end in a kind of wager with myself, 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 that 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? . . . + + + + +VIII. +THE IDEAL HOUSE + + +Two things are necessary in any neighbourhood where we propose to spend a +life: a desert 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 desirable, 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 inspiriting than +distant Alps, and the thick fern upon a Surrey heath makes a fine forest +for the imagination, and the dotted yew trees noble mountains. A +Scottish moor with birches and firs grouped here and there upon a knoll, +or one of those rocky seaside deserts of Provence overgrown with rosemary +and thyme and smoking with aroma, are places where the mind is never +weary. Forests, being 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 rabbits, will stand well for the necessary desert. + +The house must be within hail of either a little 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; and 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 should, besides, be narrow enough +to cross, or the burn hard by a bridge, or we are at once shut out of +Eden. The quantity 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 + + ‘Shallow rivers, by whose falls + Melodious birds sing madrigals.’ + +If the sea is to be our ornamental water, choose 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 Teneriffe 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 +variety 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 cut into and cleared at the new owner’s pleasure, are +the qualities to be sought for in your chosen land. Nothing is 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 against 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 +into 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 eager or toilful gardener misbecomes the garden +landscape; a tasteful gardener will be ever meddling, will keep the +borders raw, and take the bloom off nature. Close adjoining, if you are +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 entered through a door in the high fruit-wall; so that you +close the door behind you on your sunny plots, your hedges and evergreen +jungle, when you go down to watch the apples falling in the pool. It is +a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will +take care 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 cages 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 can +tolerate caged, though even then I think it hard, and that is what is +called in France the Bec-d’Argent. I once had 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 worked, 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. In 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 the lane, so +that you must stroll to hear it, and yet a little farther, tree-tops +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. A house of more than two stories is a mere +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 reception 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 +divan: 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 hoc_: 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 one 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 sanctuary 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 Claude or two. +The room is very spacious, and the five tables and two chairs are but as +islands. One table is for actual work, one close by for references in +use; one, very large, for MSS. or proofs 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 wearisome 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, make them of all printed +matter the most fit to stimulate and satisfy the fancy. The chair in +which you write is very low 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 twittering into song. + +Joined along by a passage, you may reach the great, sunny, glass-roofed, +and tiled gymnasium, at the far end of which, lined with bright marble, +is your plunge and swimming bath, fitted with a capacious boiler. + +The whole loft of the house from end to end makes one undivided chamber; +here are set forth tables on which to model imaginary 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 end 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 to 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 winter evenings. This should +be furnished in warm positive colours, and sofas and floor thick with +rich furs. The hearth, where you burn wood of aromatic quality on silver +dogs, tiled round about with Bible pictures; the seats deep and easy; a +single Titian in a gold frame; a white bust or so upon a bracket; a rack +for the journals of the week; a table for the books of the year; and +close 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 _Bible in Spain_, the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, _Guy +Mannering_ and _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 insomnia, 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_. +. . . + + + + +IX. +DAVOS IN WINTER + + +A mountain valley has, at the best, a certain prison-like effect on the +imagination, but 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; +but to these the health-seeker is rigidly confined. There are for him no +cross-cuts over the field, no following of streams, no unguided rambles +in the wood. His 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 each +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 sculpture, fills it, when regarded near at hand, with +wonderful depths of coloured shadow, 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 walk, 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 colours, +and the whisper of the woods. And scents here are as rare as colours. +Unless you get a gust of kitchen in passing some hotel, you shall smell +nothing all day long but the faint and choking odour of frost. Sounds, +too, are absent: not a bird pipes, not a bough waves, in the dead, +windless atmosphere. If a sleigh goes by, the sleigh-bells ring, 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 each 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. Climb 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 the health resort the walks are besieged by single +people walking rapidly with plaids about their shoulders, by sudden +troops of German boys trying to learn 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 walks about. Alas! no muse will suffer this imminence of +interruption—and at the second stampede of jödellers you find your modest +inspiration fled. Or you may 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 public view. Alas! +there is no help for it among the Alps. There are no recesses, 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 they endure, chequer and by +their contrast brighten the sameness of the fair-weather 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 spire of alp hangs suspended in mid-sky among awful glooms +and blackness; or perhaps the edge of some great mountain shoulder will +be designed in living gold, and 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, appearances of sun and air that endure but for a moment +and return no more. Other variations are more lasting, as when, 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 through a forest so disguised, the +tongue-tied torrent struggling silently in the cleft 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 morning; totter down stairs in +a state of somnambulism; take the simulacrum of a meal by the glimmer of +one lamp in the deserted coffee-room; and find yourself by seven o’clock +outside in a belated moonlight and a freezing chill. The mail sleigh +takes you up and carries 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 they +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 western 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 yourself upon the farther side in yet +another Alpine valley, snow white and coal black, 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. + + + + +X. +HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS + + +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 the 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 within earshot +of the interminable and unchanging surf—idle among spiritless idlers; not +perhaps dying, yet hardly living either, and aspiring, sometimes +fiercely, after livelier weather and some vivifying change. These were +certainly beautiful places to 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 was 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 southern sky. It is +among these mountains in 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. Instead 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 health 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. We cannot all of us go +farming in Colorado; and there is yet a middle term, which combines the +medical benefits of the new system with the moral drawbacks of the old. +Again the invalid has to lie aside from life and its wholesome duties; +again he has to be an idler among idlers; but this time at a great +altitude, far among the mountains, with the snow piled before his door +and the frost flowers every morning on his window. The mere fact is +tonic to his nerves. His choice of a place of wintering has somehow to +his own eyes the air of an act of bold contract; and, since he has +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 summits the higher you +climb; a few noble peaks seen even from the valley; a village 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-woods, and covering all the mountains with a dazzling curd; add a +few score invalids marching to and fro upon the snowy road, or skating on +the ice-rinks, possibly 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 curving 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 the snow reverberates the +sunshine; from end to end the air tingles with the light, clear and dry +like crystal. Only along the course of the river, but high above it, +there hangs far into the noon, one waving scarf of vapour. It were hard +to fancy a more engaging feature in a landscape; perhaps it is harder to +believe 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 natural 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 here +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 none 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 crudity, 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 daytime 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 many degrees; the peaks that are no longer shone +upon dwindle into ghosts; and meanwhile, overhead, if the weather be +rightly characteristic of the place, the sky fades 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 homely 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 peer through their windows and foresee no end but +an entire seclusion from Europe, 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, glossy like fur, bright like +daylight, a joy to wallowing dogs and cheerful to the souls of men. Or +perhaps from across 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 recognises the +empire of the Föhn. + + + + +XI. +ALPINE DIVERSIONS + + +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 the 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, +long before Christmas they will have given up the English for a bad job. +There will follow, perhaps, a skirmish between the two races; the German +element seeking, 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-played 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 into our +mountain valley, coming you know not whence, going you cannot imagine +whither, 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 guests at dinner-time with songs and a collection. They +are all of them good to see; they, at least, are moving; they bring 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 +still simmer in our mountain prison. Some of them, too, are welcome as +the flowers in May for their own sake; some of them 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 grinding lilt, with which the blind man, +seeking pence, accompanies the beat of paddle wheels across the ferry, +there is surely a difference rather of kind than of degree to that +unearthly voice of singing that bewails and praises the destiny of man at +the touch of the true virtuoso. Even 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 respect 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 lead 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 +under 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 board, with the front wheels on a pivot, which was called a +_hurlie_; he may remember this contrivance, 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 career of the tobogganist. The +correct position is to sit; but the fantastic will sometimes sit +hind-foremost, or dare the descent 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 the 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 desperate exertion. On a very +steep track, with 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 body, 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 true 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 this 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 landed on +the highroad by the door of your own hotel. This, in an atmosphere +tingling with forty degrees of frost, in a night 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 life of man upon his +planet. + + + + +XII. +THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS + + +To any one who should come from a southern sanitarium to the Alps, the +row of sun-burned 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 five of even the bad cases bears the mark of sickness +on his face. The plump sunshine from above and its strong reverberation +from below colour the skin like an Indian climate; the treatment, which +consists mainly of the open air, exposes even the sickliest to tan, and a +tableful of invalids comes, in a month or two, to resemble a tableful of +hunters. But although he may be thus 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 languishes; 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 certain troubled delight in his +existence which can nowhere else be paralleled. He is perhaps no +happier, but he is stingingly alive. It does not, perhaps, 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 every 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 +strength 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 joy 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 merry 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 stirring 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 land of its nativity +still as a pool, clean as river water, and as heady as verse. It is more +than probable that in its noble natural condition this was the very wine +of Anjou so beloved by Athos in the ‘Musketeers.’ Now, if the reader has +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, than 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 lasts. + +The influence of this giddy air displays itself 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 utter their judgments with a cannonade of +syllables; a big word is as good as a meal 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 without 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 joke, +to be positively offensive in hot weather. He writes it in good faith +and with a sense of inspiration; it is only 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 like 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 somewhat comforts him. Nor is +the ill without 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 send a man to the proper measured level for +the ode, the biography, or the religious 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 congestion, perhaps, that leads the invalid, when all goes well, +to face the new day with such a bubbling cheerfulness. It is certainly +congestion that makes night hideous with visions, all the chambers 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, for 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. + + + + +XIII. +ROADS +1873 + + +No amateur 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 famous picture-gallery. But what is thus +admitted with regard to art is not extended to the (so-called) natural +beauties 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 healthful and +strengthening to the taste; and that the best school for a lover of +nature 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 +harmonious 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 as +this that we find ourselves in the right temper to seek out small +sequestered loveliness. The constant recurrence 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 true pleasure of your ‘rural voluptuary,’—not to +remain awe-stricken before a Mount 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 tranquil 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 much 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 else, it is minute knowledge and long-continued loving +industry that make the true dilettante. A man must have thought much +over scenery before he begins fully to enjoy it. It is no youngling +enthusiasm on hilltops that can possess itself of the last essence of +beauty. Probably most people’s heads are growing bare before they can +see all in a landscape that they have the capability of seeing; 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 windows +begin to be darkened and restrained in sight. Thus the study of nature +should be carried forward thoroughly and with 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 play. +There is a dangerous vice inherent in any such intellectual refining upon +vague 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 that makes the attempt attractive; for any expression, however +imperfect, once given to a cherished feeling, seems a sort of +legitimation of the pleasure we take in it. A common sentiment is one of +those 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 otherwise than we have seen them, will continue +to the end to be one of life’s choicest pleasures. + +Let the reader, then, betake himself in the spirit 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 vista 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 slope, 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 changeful and enlivening that he can +always pleasurably busy his mind about it. He may leave the river-side, +or fall out 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 they 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 swing and wilfulness. You might think for a +whole summer’s day (and not have thought it any nearer an end by evening) +what 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-path across a meadow—in all its +human waywardness and unaccountability, in all the _grata protervitas_ of +its varying direction—will always be more to us than a railroad well +engineered through a difficult country. {231} No reasoned sequence is +thrust upon our attention: we seem to have slipped for one lawless little +moment out of the iron rule of cause and effect; and so we revert at once +to some of the pleasant old heresies of personification, always +poetically orthodox, and attribute a sort of free-will, an active and +spontaneous life, to the white riband of road that lengthens out, and +bends, and cunningly adapts itself to the inequalities of the land before +our eyes. We remember, as we write, some miles of fine wide highway laid +out with conscious æsthetic artifice through a broken and richly +cultivated tract of country. It is said that the engineer had Hogarth’s +line of beauty in his mind as he laid them down. And the result is +striking. One splendid satisfying sweep passes with easy transition into +another, and there is nothing to trouble or dislocate the strong +continuousness of the main line of the road. And yet there is something +wanting. There is here no saving imperfection, none of those secondary +curves and little trepidations of direction that carry, in natural roads, +our curiosity actively along with them. One feels at once that this road +has not has been laboriously grown like a natural road, but made to +pattern; and that, while a model may be academically correct in outline, +it will always be inanimate and cold. The traveller is also aware of a +sympathy of mood between himself and the road he travels. We have all +seen ways that have wandered into heavy sand near the sea-coast, and +trail wearily over the dunes like a trodden serpent. Here we too must +plod forward 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 might perhaps +resolve with a little trouble. We might reflect that the present road +had been developed out of a tract 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. Or we might carry +the reflection further, and remind ourselves that where the air is +invigorating and the ground firm under the traveller’s foot, his eye is +quick to take advantage of small undulations, and he will turn carelessly +aside from the direct way wherever there is anything beautiful to examine +or some promise of a wider view; so that even a bush of wild roses may +permanently bias and deform the straight path over the meadow; whereas, +where the soil is heavy, one is preoccupied with the labour of mere +progression, and goes with a bowed head heavily and unobservantly +forward. Reason, however, will not carry us the whole way; for the +sentiment often recurs in situations where it is very hard to imagine any +possible explanation; and indeed, if we drive briskly along a good, +well-made road in an open vehicle, we shall experience this sympathy +almost at its fullest. We feel the sharp settle of the springs at some +curiously twisted corner; after a steep ascent, the fresh air dances in +our faces as we rattle precipitately down the other side, and we find it +difficult to avoid attributing something headlong, a sort of _abandon_, +to the road itself. + +The mere winding of the path is enough to enliven 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 valleys 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 something new to be seen, +and takes us, like a careful cicerone, to many different points 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 peoples 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 that 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 sound 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 the 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 understood by the dweller in places more populous. We remember +standing beside a countryman once, in the mouth of a quiet by-street in a +city that was more than ordinarily crowded and bustling; he seemed +stunned 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 expression +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 concourse 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 road 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 shining +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 +junction. There is a passionate paragraph in _Werther_ that strikes the +very key. ‘When I came hither,’ he writes, ‘how the 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 themselves 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 before, and we +stand in our indigent and cramped estate, and our soul thirsts after a +still ebbing elixir.’ It is to this wandering and uneasy spirit of +anticipation that roads minister. Every little vista, every little +glimpse that we have of what lies before us, gives the impatient +imagination rein, so that it can outstrip the body and already plunge +into the shadow of the woods, and 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 rear 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 long +miles of march, feel as if he also were within the gates? + + + + +XIV. +ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES +1874 + + +It is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, and we have +much in our own power. Things looked at patiently from one side after +another generally end by showing a side that is beautiful. A few months +ago some words were said in the _Portfolio_ as to an ‘austere regimen in +scenery’; and such a discipline was then recommended as ‘healthful and +strengthening to the taste.’ That is the text, so to speak, of the +present essay. This discipline 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 come to each place in the right spirit. +The traveller, as Brantôme quaintly tells us, ‘_fait des discours en soi +pour soutenir en chemin_’; and into these discourses he weaves something +out of all that he sees and suffers by the way; they take 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 lighter +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 follows 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 beauty, much as a gentle +and sincere character is provocative of sincerity and gentleness in +others. And even where there is no harmony to be elicited by the +quickest and most obedient of spirits, 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 admirable 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 where 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 sort 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 ourselves 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 +together, 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 tempted to put forth the paradox +that any place is good enough to live a life in, while 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 sympathetic 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 seemed, to quicken +and educate my sensibilities than many years in places that jumped 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. A +river, indeed, fell into the sea near the town where I resided; but the +valley of the river was shallow and bald, for as far up as ever I had the +heart to follow it. There were roads, certainly, but roads that had no +beauty or interest; for, as there was no timber, and but little +irregularity of surface, you saw your whole walk exposed to you from the +beginning: there was nothing left to fancy, nothing to expect, nothing to +see by the wayside, save here and there an unhomely-looking homestead, +and here and there a solitary, spectacled stone-breaker; and you were +only accompanied, as you went doggedly forward, by the gaunt +telegraph-posts and the hum of the resonant wires in the keen sea-wind. +To one who had learned to know their song in warm pleasant places by the +Mediterranean, it seemed to taunt the country, and make it still bleaker +by suggested contrast. Even the waste places by the side of the road +were not, as Hawthorne liked to put it, ‘taken back to Nature’ by any +decent covering of vegetation. Wherever the land had the chance, it +seemed to lie fallow. There is a certain tawny nudity of the South, bare +sunburnt plains, coloured like a lion, and hills clothed only in the blue +transparent air; but this was of another description—this was the +nakedness of the North; the earth seemed to know that it was naked, and +was ashamed and cold. + +It seemed to be always blowing on that coast. Indeed, this had passed +into the speech of the inhabitants, and they saluted each other when they +met with ‘Breezy, breezy,’ 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, persistent sort, that interferes with sight and respiration, and +makes the eyes sore. Even such winds as these have their own merit in +proper time and place. It is pleasant 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 gets 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 sort to be +noticed in a country where there were no trees and hardly any shadows, +save the passive shadows of clouds or those of rigid houses and walls. +But the wind 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 the ‘Prelude,’ has used this as a figure for the +feeling struck in us by the quiet 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 + Abruptly into some sequester’d nook, + Still as a shelter’d place when winds blow loud!’ + +I remember meeting a man once, in a train, who told me of what must have +been quite the most perfect instance of this pleasure of escape. He had +gone up, one sunny, 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 long while in dark stairways, he issued +at last into the sunshine, on a platform high above the town. At that +elevation it was quite still and warm; the gale was only in the lower +strata of the air, 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 holding 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 keep 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 tranquil water, and the +sea-birds, screaming and flickering from the ruined crags, alone disturb +the silence and the sunshine. One such place has impressed itself on my +memory beyond all others. On a rock by the water’s edge, old fighting +men of the Norse breed had planted a double castle; the two stood wall to +wall like semi-detached villas; and yet feud had run so high between +their owners, 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, when the sea boomed against the foundations and the wild winter +wind was loose over 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 there 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 trouble the sea within view. The two castles, black and +ruinous as the rocks about them, were still distinguishable from these by +something more insecure and fantastic in the outline, something that the +last storm had left imminent and the next would demolish entirely. It +would be difficult to render in words the sense of peace that took +possession of me on these three afternoons. It was helped out, as I have +said, by the contrast. The shore was battered and bemauled by previous +tempests; I had the memory at heart of the insane strife 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 something transitory and +fretful in the impression of a high wind under a cloudless sky; it seems +to have no root in the constitution of things; it must speedily begin to +faint and wither away like a cut flower. And on those days the thought +of the wind and the thought of human life 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 wind of a butterfly’s wing. The placidity 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 +rock, or swimming leisurely in the sunshine, it seemed to me that they +were enjoying 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 afternoon 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 lines 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— + + ‘Mon cœur est un luth suspendu, + Sitôt qu’on le touche, il résonne.’ + +I can give no reason why these lines came to me at this time; and for +that very cause I repeat them here. For all I know, they may serve to +complete 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 others 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 something 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 +will surely find. + + + + +Footnotes + + +{92} The Second Part here referred to is entitled ‘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 +‘Maybole’ (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 _Marriage of Heaven and Hell_: ‘Improvement +makes straight roads; but the crooked roads, without improvement, are +roads of Genius.’ + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS OF TRAVEL*** + + +******* This file should be named 627-0.txt or 627-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/2/627 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Essays of Travel + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: December 28, 2010 [eBook #627] +[This file was first posted on July 3, 1996] +Last Updated: November 12, 2017 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS OF TRAVEL*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1905 Chatto & Windus edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>ESSAYS OF TRAVEL</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative image" +title= +"Decorative image" +src="images/p0s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center">LONDON<br /> +CHATTO & WINDUS<br /> +1905</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">second +impression</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">Contents</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="smcap">page</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>I.</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Amateur Emigrant: From The Clyde To Sandy +Hook—</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"> </p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> The Second Cabin</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> Early Impressions</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page11">11</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> Steerage Scenes</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page21">21</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> Steerage Types</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page30">30</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> The Sick Man</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page42">42</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> The Stowaways</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page53">53</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> Personal Experience And Review</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page69">69</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> New York</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page81">81</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>II.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Cockermouth And Keswick</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page93">93</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> Cockermouth</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page94">94</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> An Evangelist</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page97">97</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> Another</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page100">100</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> Last Of Smethurst</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page102">102</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>III.</p> +</td> +<td><p>An Autumn Effect</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page106">106</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>IV.</p> +</td> +<td><p>A Winter’s Walk In Carrick And Galloway</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page131">131</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>V.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Forest Notes—</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"> </p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> On The Plains</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page144">144</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> In The Season</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page149">149</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> Idle Hours</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page153">153</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> A Pleasure-Party</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page157">157</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> The Woods In Spring</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page164">164</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p> Morality</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page169">169</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>VI.</p> +</td> +<td><p>A Mountain Town In France</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page175">175</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>VII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Random Memories: <i>Rosa Quo Locorum</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page189">189</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>VII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Ideal House</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page199">199</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>IX.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Davos In Winter</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page207">207</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>X.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Health And Mountains</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page212">212</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>XI.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Alpine Diversion</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page217">217</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>XII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>The Stimulation Of The Alps</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page222">222</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>XIII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>Roads</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page227">227</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>XIV.</p> +</td> +<td><p>On The Enjoyment Of Unpleasant Places</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page237">237</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><!-- page 1--><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>I.<br /> +THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT</h2> +<h3><!-- page 2--><a name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +2</span>To<br /> +ROBERT ALAN MOWBRAY STEVENSON</h3> +<p>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 continued to the present time. Although we may not +be old in the world, we are old to each 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 conquer 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.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">R.L.S.</p> +<p>1879.</p> +<h3><!-- page 3--><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>THE SECOND CABIN</h3> +<p>I first encountered my fellow-passengers on the Broomielaw in +Glasgow. Thence we descended the Clyde in no familiar +spirit, but looking askance on each other as on possible +enemies. A few Scandinavians, who had already grown +acquainted on the North Sea, were friendly 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 descend the widening +estuary; and with the falling temperature the gloom among the +passengers increased. Two of the women wept. Any one +who had come aboard might have supposed we were all absconding +from the law. There was scarce a word interchanged, and no +common sentiment but that of cold united us, until at length, +having touched 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 the +land to which she was to bear us.</p> +<p>I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although +anxious to see the worst of emigrant 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 understand the choice, and what I gained, +some outline of the internal disposition of the ship will first +be necessary. In her very nose is Steerage No. 1, down two +pair of stairs. A little abaft, another companion, labelled +Steerage No. 2 and 3, gives admission to three galleries, two +running forward towards Steerage No. 1, and the third aft towards +the engines. The starboard forward gallery is the second +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 heart 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 terrified by this new experience, or the +clean flat smack of the parental hand in chastisement.</p> +<p>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 tea +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 snuff in the former from a flavour of +boiling and dish-cloths in the second. As a matter of fact, +I have seen passengers, 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, boiled 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 thing mere chicken-bones and flakes of +fish, neither hot nor cold. If these were not the scrapings +of plates their looks belied them sorely; yet we were all too +hungry to be proud, and fell to these leavings greedily. +These, the bread, which was excellent, and the soup and porridge +which were both good, formed my whole diet throughout the voyage; +so that except for the broken meat and the convenience of a table +I might as well have been in the steerage outright. Had +they given me porridge again in the evening, I should have been +perfectly contented with the fare. As it was, with a few +biscuits and some whisky and water before turning in, I kept my +body going and my spirits up to the mark.</p> +<p>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 steerage there are males +and females; in the second cabin ladies and gentlemen. For +some time after I came aboard I thought 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 females, 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; everywhere else I was +incognito, moving among my inferiors with simplicity, not so much +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.</p> +<p>For all these advantages I paid but two guineas. Six +guineas is the steerage fare; eight that by the second cabin; and +when you remember that the steerage passenger must supply bedding +and dishes, and, in five cases out of ten, either brings some +dainties with him, or privately pays the steward for extra +rations, 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 for the asking. Two of my fellow-passengers +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 friends, 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 +bring them by saloon.</p> +<p>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. There was a mixed group of Swedes, Danes, 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 speak +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, +known 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 word of +condemnation. One of them was Scots; the other claimed to +be American; admitted, after some fencing, that he was born in +England; and ultimately proved to be an Irishman born and +nurtured, but ashamed to own his country. He had a sister +on board, whom he faithfully neglected throughout the voyage, +though she was not only sick, but much his senior, and had nursed +and cared for him in childhood. In appearance he was like +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.</p> +<p>Next, to turn to topics more agreeable, we had a newly-married +couple, devoted to each other, with a pleasant story of how they +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 plain 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 attention and a privilege.</p> +<p>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 should reach New York. They had heard reports, her +husband and she, of some unwarrantable disparity of hours between +these two cities; and with a spirit commendably scientific, had +seized on this occasion to put them to the proof. It was a +good thing for the old lady; for she passed much leisure time in +studying the watch. Once, when prostrated by sickness, she +let it run down. It was inscribed on her harmless mind in +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, she 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 when 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 +been the same with the other Scotsmen present, for we all laughed +our fill.</p> +<p>Last but not least, I come to my excellent friend Mr. +Jones. It would be difficult to say whether I was his +right-hand man, or he mine, during the voyage. Thus at +table I carved, while he only scooped gravy; but at our concerts, +of which more anon, he was the president who called up performers +to sing, and I but his messenger who ran his errands and pleaded +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 undeceive me. For as there +is a <i>lingua franca</i> 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 <i>h</i>; a word of a +dialect is picked up from another band in the forecastle; until +often the result is undecipherable, and 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 speech 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 and +after a fashion a rich man; now the wife was dead and the money +gone. But his was the nature that looks forward, and goes +on from one year to another and through all the extremities of +fortune undismayed; and if the sky were to fall to-morrow, I +should look to see Jones, 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 <!-- page 11--><a name="page11"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 11</span>an American pedlar, and sold the +other day for a hundred pounds (I think 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 cut, there would be +Jones with his bottle.</p> +<p>If he had one taste more strongly than another, it was to +study character. Many an hour 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; and we could hardly go to bed in comfort till +we had exchanged notes and discussed 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 angled 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 double detection; but Jones, +with a better civility, broke into a peal of unaffected laughter, +and declared, what was the truth, that there was a pair of us +indeed.</p> +<h3>EARLY IMPRESSIONS</h3> +<p>We steamed out of the Clyde on Thursday night, and early on +the Friday forenoon we took in our last batch of emigrants at +Lough Foyle, in Ireland, and said farewell to Europe. The +company was now complete, 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.</p> +<p>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, this knowledge grew more clear and melancholy. +Emigration, from a word of the most cheerful import, came to +sound most dismally in my ear. There is nothing more +agreeable to picture and nothing more pathetic to behold. +The abstract idea, as conceived at home, is hopeful and +adventurous. A young man, you fancy, scorning restraints +and helpers, issues forth into life, that great 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 heroisms; it stands to them as the +victorious war which subdued an empire stands to the personal act +of bravery which spiked a single cannon and was adequately +rewarded with a medal. For in emigration the young men +enter direct and by the shipload on their heritage of work; empty +continents swarm, as at the bo’s’un’s whistle, +with industrious hands, and whole new empires are domesticated to +the service of man.</p> +<p>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 the men were below thirty; many +were married, and encumbered with families; not a few were +already up in years; and this itself was out of tune with my +imaginations, 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 taking 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.’</p> +<p>Labouring mankind had in the last years, and throughout Great +Britain, sustained a prolonged and crushing series of +defeats. I had heard vaguely of these 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 factories, useless strikes, and starving girls. But +I had never taken them home to me or represented these distresses +livingly to my imagination.</p> +<p>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 not 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. Thus 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 circumstances 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, on 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.</p> +<p>The children found each other out like dogs, and 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, and 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 often had my heart in my mouth, watching them climb into the +shrouds or on the rails, 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 composure 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 forward 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.</p> +<p>And since I am here on the chapter of the children, I must +mention one little fellow, whose family belonged to Steerage No. +4 and 5, and who, wherever he went, was like a strain of music +round the ship. He was an ugly, merry, unbreeched 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 his 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 their midst and sang +aloud in the pleasant heartlessness of infancy.</p> +<p>Throughout the Friday, intimacy among us men made but a few +advances. We discussed the 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 from in +the old; and, above all, we condoled together over the food and +the vileness 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 their heels; and to these all seemed for the best in the best +of possible steamers. 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 speaking 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. But these +working men were loud in their outcries. It was not +‘food for human 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 better rations from the +ship. This marvellously 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 turn 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.</p> +<p>With one of their complaints I could most heartily +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 others agreed to do so, and +I thought we should have been quite a party. Yet, when I +brought up my rug about seven bells, there was no one to be seen +but the watch. That chimerical terror of good night-air, +which makes men close their windows, list their doors, and seal +themselves up with their own poisonous exhalations, had sent all +these healthy workmen down below. One would think we had +been brought up in a fever country; yet in England the most +malarious districts are in the bedchambers.</p> +<p>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 the starboard bow, and was dry but chilly. +I found a shelter near the fire-hole, and made myself snug for +the night.</p> +<p>The ship moved over the uneven sea with a gentle 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 +brass and the beautiful sea-cry, ‘All’s +well!’ I know nothing, whether for poetry or music, +that can surpass the effect of these two syllables in the +darkness of a night at sea.</p> +<p>The day dawned fairly enough, and during the early 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 rose 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 were received +with generous applause. Once or twice, a recitation, very +spiritedly 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, they 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 dancers departed under a cloud. Eight Frenchmen, 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 careful of dignity. He dares not be comical; his fun +must escape from him unprepared, and above all, it must be +unaccompanied by any physical demonstration. I like his +society under most circumstances, but let me never again join +with him in public gambols.</p> +<p>But the impulse to sing was strong, and triumphed over modesty +and even the inclemencies of sea and sky. On this rough +Saturday night, we got together 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 the 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 measure saved +by the vigour and unanimity with which the chorus was thrown +forth into the night. I observed a Platt-Deutsch mason, +entirely innocent of English, adding heartily to the general +effect. And perhaps the German mason 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.</p> +<p>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 Anchor’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 more appropriate +moment for ‘Auld Lang Syne’ than now, when the land, +the friends, 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.</p> +<p>All Sunday the weather remained wild and cloudy; 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 the majority of +the emigrants. I heard an old woman express her surprise +that ‘the ship didna gae doon,’ as she saw some one +pass her with a chess-board on the holy day. Some sang +Scottish psalms. Many went to service, and in <!-- page +21--><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>true +Scottish fashion came back ill pleased with their divine. +‘I didna think he was an experienced preacher,’ said +one girl to me.</p> +<p>Is was a bleak, uncomfortable day; but at night, 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 burning as +steadily and sweetly across this hurly-burly of the winds and +waters as ever at home upon the summer woods. The engine +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, over 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 thing of small account, and that just above the +mast reigned peace unbroken and eternal.</p> +<h3>STEERAGE SCENES</h3> +<p>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 made 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 +one side of the stair; on the other, a no less attractive spot, +the cabin of the indefatigable interpreter.</p> +<p>I have seen people packed into this space like herrings in a +barrel, and many merry evenings prolonged there until five bells, +when the lights were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to +roost.</p> +<p>It had been rumoured since Friday that there was 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 Orpheus 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 +eyes. Humanly speaking, it is a more important matter to +play the fiddle, even badly, than to write huge works upon +recondite subjects. What could Mr. Darwin have 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 understand 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.</p> +<p>‘It is a privilege,’ I said. He thought a +while upon the word, turning it over in his Scots head, and then +answered with conviction, ‘Yes, a privilege.’</p> +<p>That night I was summoned by ‘Merrily danced the +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 open slide-door we had +a glimpse of a grey night sea, with patches of phosphorescent +foam flying, swift as birds, into the wake, and the horizon +rising and falling 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 lighted by another +lamp, lads and lasses danced, not more than three at a time for +lack 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 Irish 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 mouth, drinking +in the general admiration and throwing out remarks to kindle +it.</p> +<p>‘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, +‘Hush!’ with uplifted finger and glowing, +supplicating eyes, ‘he’s going to play “Auld +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. 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 +quadrilles, 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 thus +squiring the fiddler into public note. There is nothing +more becoming than a genuine admiration; and it shares this with +love, that it does not become contemptible although +misplaced.</p> +<p>The dancing was but feebly carried on. The space was +almost impracticably small; 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 was the eagerness of the brother to +display all the acquirements of his idol, and such the sleepy +indifference of the performer, that the tune would as often as +not be changed, and the hornpipe expire into a ballad before the +dancers had cut half a dozen shuffles.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The wind hauled ahead with a head sea. By ten at night +heavy sprays were flying and drumming over the forecastle; the +companion of Steerage No. 1 had to be closed, 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 part of the ship, Mr. +Jones and I paid it a late visit. Steerage No. 1 is shaped +like an isosceles triangle, the sides opposite the equal angles +bulging outward with the contour of the ship. It is lined +with eight pens of sixteen bunks apiece, four bunks below and +four above on either side. At night the place is lit with +two lanterns, one to each table. As the steamer beat on her +way among the rough billows, the light passed through violent +phases of change, and was thrown to and fro and up and down with +startling swiftness. You were tempted to wonder, as you +looked, how so thin a glimmer could control and disperse such +solid blackness. When Jones and I entered we found a little +company of our acquaintances seated together at the triangular +foremost table. A more forlorn party, in more dismal +circumstances, it would be hard to imagine. The motion here +in the ship’s nose was very violent; the uproar of the sea +often overpoweringly loud. The yellow flicker of the +lantern spun round and round and tossed the shadows in +masses. The air was hot, but it struck a chill from its +foetor.</p> +<p>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 mine were keeping up what heart they +could in company. Singing was their refuge from +discomfortable thoughts and sensations. One piped, in +feeble tones, ‘Oh why left I my hame?’ which seemed a +pertinent question in the circumstances. 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 dim +inferno, to an accompaniment of plunging, hollow-sounding bows +and the rattling spray-showers overhead.</p> +<p>All seemed unfit for conversation; a certain dizziness had +interrupted the activity of their minds; and except to sing they +were tongue-tied. There was present, however, one tall, +powerful fellow of doubtful nationality, being neither quite +Scotsman nor altogether Irish, but 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 another contribution to our +culture.</p> +<p>‘Just by way of change,’ said he, +‘I’ll ask you a Scripture riddle. There’s +profit in them too,’ he added ungrammatically.</p> +<p>This was the riddle—</p> +<blockquote><p>C and P<br /> +Did agree<br /> +To cut down C;<br /> +But C and P<br /> +Could not agree<br /> +Without the leave of G;<br /> +All the people cried to see<br /> +The crueltie<br /> +Of C and P.</p> +</blockquote> +<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.</p> +<p>I think it must have been the riddle that settled 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 little +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 steerage to +steerage, but at least not stagnant; and from this couch, as well +as the usual sounds of a rough night at sea, the hateful coughing +and retching of the sick and the sobs of children, I heard a man +run wild with terror beseeching his friend for +encouragement. ‘The ship’s going down!’ +he cried with a thrill of agony. ‘The ship’s +going down!’ he repeated, now in a blank whisper, now with +his voice rising towards a sob; and his friend might reassure +him, reason with him, joke at him—all was in vain, and the +old cry came back, ‘The ship’s going +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!</p> +<p>The next morning when I came on deck I found a new world +indeed. The wind was fair; the 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.</p> +<p>We had many fine-weather diversions to beguile the time. +There was a single chess-board 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 observed, more popular as well as more conspicuously +well done than the former. We had a regular daily +competition to guess 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. From the Clyde to Sandy Hook I never heard a wager +offered or taken. We had, besides, romps in plenty. +Puss in the Corner, which we had rebaptized, in more manly style, +Devil and four Corners, was my own favourite game; but there were +many who preferred another, the humour of which was to box a +person’s ears until he found out who had cuffed him.</p> +<p>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. 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 the air and throw in +the interest of human speech.</p> +<p>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 about nothing, which galled me to the +quick. 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 people managed to convey by +their presence. They seemed to throw their clothes in our +faces. Their eyes searched us all over for tatters and +incongruities. A laugh was ready at their lips; but they +were too well-mannered to indulge it in our hearing. Wait a +bit, till they were all back in the saloon, and then hear how +wittily <!-- page 30--><a name="page30"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 30</span>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.</p> +<h3>STEERAGE TYPES</h3> +<p>We had a fellow on board, an Irish-American, for all the world +like a beggar in a print by Callot; one-eyed, with great, splay +crow’s-feet round the sockets; a knotty squab nose coming +down over his moustache; a miraculous hat; a shirt that had been +white, ay, ages long ago; an alpaca coat in its last sleeves; +and, without hyperbole, no buttons to his trousers. Even in +these rags and tatters, the man twinkled all over with impudence +like a piece of sham jewellery; and I have heard him offer a +situation to one 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 +brought 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.</p> +<p>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 lumberingly enough in broken German, and learned from +his own lips that he had been an apothecary. He carried the +photograph 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 barbaric and unhomely cast, the eye both reassured and +touched. It was large and very dark and soft, with an +expression of dumb endurance, as if it had often looked on +desperate circumstances and never looked on them without +resolution.</p> +<p>He cried out when I used the word. ‘No, no,’ he +said, ‘not resolution.’</p> +<p>‘The resolution to endure,’ I explained.</p> +<p>And then he shrugged his shoulders, and said, +‘<i>Ach</i>, <i>ja</i>,’ 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 one 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; the new +ideas, ‘<i>wie eine feine Violine</i>,’ were audible +among the big empty drum notes of Imperial diplomacy; and he +looked to see a great revival, though with a somewhat indistinct +and childish hope.</p> +<p>We had a father and son who made a pair of +Jacks-of-all-trades. It was the son who sang the +‘Death of Nelson’ under such contrarious +circumstances. He was by trade a shearer of ship plates; +but he could touch the organ, and led two choirs, and played the +flute and piccolo 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.’</p> +<p>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 silver 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 hostile view of matrimony in +consequence. ‘It’s an old saying,’ he +remarked: ‘God made ’em, and the devil he mixed +’em.’</p> +<p>I think he was justified by his experience. It was a +dreary story. He would bring home three pounds on Saturday, +and on Monday all the clothes would be in pawn. Sick of the +useless struggle, he gave up a paying contract, and contented +himself with small and ill-paid jobs. ‘A bad job was +as good as a good job for me,’ he said; ‘it all went +the same way.’ Once the wife showed signs of +amendment; she kept steady for weeks on end; it was again worth +while to labour and to do one’s best. The husband +found a good situation some distance from home, and, to make a +little upon every hand, started the wife in a cook-shop; the +children were here and there, busy as mice; savings began to grow +together in the bank, and the golden age of hope had returned +again to that unhappy family. But one week my old +acquaintance, getting earlier through with his work, came home on +the Friday instead of the Saturday, and there was his wife to +receive him reeling drunk. He ‘took and gave her a +pair o’ black eyes,’ for which I pardon him, nailed +up the cook-shop door, gave up his situation, and resigned +himself to a life of poverty, with the workhouse at the +end. As the children came to their full age they fled the +house, and established themselves in other countries; some did +well, some not so well; but the father remained at home alone +with his drunken wife, all his sound-hearted pluck and varied +accomplishments depressed and negatived.</p> +<p>Was she dead now? or, after all these years, had 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.</p> +<p>‘Now, I suppose, I must put my old bones to work +again,’ said he; ‘but I can do a turn yet.’</p> +<p>And the son to whom he was going, I asked, was he not able to +support him?</p> +<p>‘Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘But I’m +never happy without a job on hand. And I’m stout; I +can eat a’most anything. You see no craze about +me.’</p> +<p>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 thriving 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.</p> +<p>Total abstinence, like all ascetical conclusions, 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 courage 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 +stuck to his work, and kept away from drink.’</p> +<p>‘Ah!’ said he slowly, ‘the drink! You +see, that’s just my trouble.’</p> +<p>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. You would have said he recognised a destiny 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.</p> +<p>As far as I saw, drink, idleness, and incompetency were the +three great causes of emigration, and for all of them, and drink +first 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 that be so, why not now, and where you stand? +<i>Coelum non animam</i>. Change Glenlivet for Bourbon, and +it is still whisky, only not so good. A sea-voyage will not +give a man the nerve to put aside cheap pleasure; emigration has +to be done before we climb the vessel; an aim in life is the only +fortune worth the finding; and it is not to be found in foreign +lands, but in the heart itself.</p> +<p>Speaking generally, there is no vice of this kind more +contemptible than another; for each is but a result and outward +sign of a soul tragically ship-wrecked. In the majority of +cases, cheap pleasure is resorted to by way of anodyne. The +pleasure-seeker sets forth upon life with high and difficult +ambitions; he meant to be nobly good and nobly happy, though 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. Hence the comparative success of +the teetotal pledge; because to a man who had nothing it sets at +least a negative aim in life. Somewhat as prisoners beguile +their days by taming a spider, the reformed drunkard makes an +interest out of abstaining from intoxicating drinks, and may live +for that negation. There is something, at least, <i>not to +be done</i> each day; and a cold triumph awaits him every +evening.</p> +<p>We had one on board with us, whom I have already referred to +under the name Mackay, who seemed to me not only a good instance +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 subjects 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, +quick, 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 in 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 delighted to +receive it, but could pay you back in kind.</p> +<p>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 damned +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 played +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.</p> +<p>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. He produced a mere fancy article. +Mackay’s notion of a book was <i>Hoppus’s +Measurer</i>. 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.</p> +<p>I tried to fight the point with Mackay. I made him own +that he had taken pleasure 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 from the spring, whereas his +ploughs and butter-churns were but means and mechanisms 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, and +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.</p> +<p>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 +conspiracy against the people. Thus, when I put 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 it up for a +bad job. My question is, “Can 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.</p> +<p>It may be argued that these opinions spring from 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 larger 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 Mackay had +most of the elements of a liberal education. He had skirted +metaphysical and mathematical 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 among +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 Puritan 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, leads +at last directly to material greed?</p> +<p>Nature is a good guide through life, and the love 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 little 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 +eloquent 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 other that had thrown him from +situation to situation, and at length on board the emigrant +ship. Barney ate, so to speak, nothing from the galley; his +own tea, butter, and eggs supported him throughout 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.</p> +<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 feet shuffling to the air, his eyes seeking and bestowing +encouragement—and to have enjoyed the bow, so nicely +calculated between jest and earnest, between grace 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 leaned 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 him spin +half round in a pirouette and throw an audacious wink to an old +gentleman above.</p> +<p><!-- page 42--><a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +42</span>This was the more characteristic, as, for all his +daffing, he was a modest and very polite little fellow among +ourselves.</p> +<p>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 in a grave, +quiet manner, because they supplied no fish on Friday; for Barney +was a conscientious Catholic. He had likewise strict +notions of refinement; and when, late one evening, after the +women had 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.</p> +<h3>THE SICK MAN</h3> +<p>One night Jones, the young O’Reilly, and myself were +walking arm-in-arm and briskly up and down the deck. Six +bells had rung; 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 somewhere snugly out of sight.</p> +<p>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 replied 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 doctor twice, and +had walked the deck against fatigue till he was overmastered and +had fallen where we found him.</p> +<p>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 find any +one to guide us. It was no time for delicacy; so we ran +once more forward; and I, whipping up a ladder and touching my +hat to the officer of the watch, addressed him as politely as I +could—</p> +<p>‘I beg your pardon, sir; but there is a man lying bad +with cramp in the lee scuppers; and I can’t find the +doctor.’</p> +<p>He looked at me peeringly in the darkness; and then, somewhat +harshly, ‘Well, <i>I</i> can’t leave the bridge, my +man,’ said he.</p> +<p>‘No, sir; but you can tell me what to do,’ I +returned.</p> +<p>‘Is it one of the crew?’ he asked.</p> +<p>‘I believe him to be a fireman,’ I replied.</p> +<p>I dare say officers are much annoyed by complaints and +alarmist information from their freight of human creatures; but +certainly, 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 immediately 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 would +now be in the smoking-room over his pipe.</p> +<p>One of the stewards was often enough to be found 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 companion, breathing hurry; +and in his shirt-sleeves and perched across the carpenters bench +upon one thigh, found Blackwood; a neat, bright, dapper, +Glasgow-looking 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 comfortable at +that moment; and the truth is, I did not stop to consider his +feelings, but told my story in a breath.</p> +<p>‘Steward,’ said I, ‘there’s a man +lying bad with cramp, and I can’t find the +doctor.’</p> +<p>He turned upon me as pert as a sparrow, but with a black look +that is the prerogative of man; and taking his pipe out of his +mouth—</p> +<p>‘That’s none of my business,’ said he. +‘I don’t care.’</p> +<p>I could have strangled the little ruffian where he sat. +The thought of his cabin civility 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.</p> +<p>‘You will have to make it your business,’ said I, +‘for I am sent to you by the officer on the +bridge.’</p> +<p>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 were anxious to leave a better impression.</p> +<p>When we got on deck again, Jones was still beside 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 streaming 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.</p> +<p>‘O let me lie!’ he pleaded. +‘I’ll no’ get better anyway.’ And +then, with a moan that went to my heart, ‘O why did I come +upon this miserable journey?’</p> +<p>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?’</p> +<p>Meantime Jones, relieved of his immediate charge, 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 finger. The light, as it reached the +spot, showed us an elderly man, thick-set, and grizzled with +years; but the shifting and coarse shadows concealed from us the +expression and even the design of his face.</p> +<p>So soon as the cook set eyes on him he gave a sort of +whistle.</p> +<p>‘<i>It’s only a passenger</i>!’ said he; and +turning about, made, lantern and all, for the galley.</p> +<p>‘He’s a man anyway,’ cried Jones in +indignation.</p> +<p>‘Nobody said he was a woman,’ said a gruff voice, +which I recognised for that of the bo’s’un.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘No?’ he repeated with a breathing of anger; and +we saw him hurry aft in person.</p> +<p>Ten minutes after the doctor made his appearance 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 had now come to our assistance, +expressing loud sorrow that such ‘a fine cheery body’ +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 heart 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 yet once more, with a +gasp and a wailing prolongation of the fourth word: ‘I had +no <i>call</i> to come.’ But there he was; and by the +doctor’s orders and the kind force of his two shipmates +disappeared down the companion of Steerage No. 1 into the den +allotted him.</p> +<p>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 seaman, 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 about the lantern; and now seeing him in conversation +with Jones, and being choked with indignation, I proceeded to +blow off my steam.</p> +<p>‘Well,’ said I, ‘I make you my compliments +upon your steward,’ and furiously narrated what had +happened.</p> +<p>‘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.’</p> +<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 days, 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 <i>Alabama</i>, and praying God we shouldn’t find +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 +nothing but themselves. They’re damned greedy, +selfish fellows.’ He would not hear of the decadence +of England. ‘They say they send us beef from +America,’ he argued; ‘but who pays for it? All +the money in the world’s in England.’ The Royal +Navy was the best of possible services, according to him. +‘Anyway the officers are gentlemen,’ said 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 forced to make a new choice in life, ‘by God, he would +try Frenchmen!’ For all his looks and rough, cold +manners, I observed that children were never frightened by him; +they divined him at once 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 monkey trick.</p> +<p>In the morning, my first thought was of the sick man. I +was afraid I should not recognise 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.</p> +<p>To descend on an empty stomach into Steerage No. 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 twilight of the bunks. You may guess if I was +pleased, not only for him, but for myself also, when I heard that +the sick man was better and had gone on deck.</p> +<p>The morning was raw and foggy, though the sun suffused the fog +with pink and amber; the fog-horn still blew, stertorous and +intermittent; and to add to the discomfort, the seamen were just +beginning to wash down the decks. But for a sick man this +was heaven compared to the steerage. I found him standing +on the hot-water pipe, just forward of the saloon 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 born in Ireland, had lived a quarter of a century on the +banks of Tyne, and was married to a Scots wife. A fisherman +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 spring, he worked as a labourer about chemical furnaces, or +along the wharves unloading vessels. In this comparatively +humble 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.</p> +<p>Ere he started, he informed me, he had been warned against the +steerage and the steerage fare, and recommended to bring with him +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 reminded 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-beat, 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 fisher 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 boat 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, when his appetite was tempted by some excellent +pea-soup. We were all much of the same mind on board, 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 the passage by saloon. The second cabin, +after due inquiry, he scouted as another edition of the +steerage.</p> +<p>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 received 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.</p> +<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 rendered 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 Edinburgh, an Irish labourer trudging +homeward from the fields. Our roads lay together, and it +was natural that we should fall into talk. He was covered +with mud; an inoffensive, ignorant creature, who thought the +Atlantic Cable was a secret contrivance of the masters the better +to oppress labouring mankind; and I confess I was astonished to +learn that he had nearly three hundred pounds in the bank. +But this 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 and at night; whereas my +fellow-passenger had never quitted Tyneside, and had made all +that he possessed in that same accursed, down-falling England, +whence skilled mechanics, engineers, millwrights, and carpenters +were fleeing as from the native country of starvation.</p> +<p>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. He +spoke sharply of the masters, and, when I led him on, of the men +also. The masters had been selfish and obstructive, the men +selfish, silly, and light-headed. He rehearsed to me the +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 and even the good faith of the Union +delegates; and although he had escaped himself 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 the unerring Nemesis of mercantile affairs, that he +<!-- page 53--><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +53</span>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 principles, he said, were growing +‘like a seed.’</p> +<p>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 calm; 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.</p> +<h3>THE STOWAWAYS</h3> +<p>On the Sunday, among a party of men who were talking in our +companion, Steerage No. 2 and 3, we remarked a new figure. +He wore tweed clothes, well enough made if not very fresh, and a +plain smoking-cap. His face was pale, with pale eyes, and +spiritedly enough designed; but though not yet thirty, a sort 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 perfectly +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.’</p> +<p>I was not so sure, for to me there was something 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 his own +stories. They were so swingingly set 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. Company, +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; and of a dozen other sides of life, each +introducing some vigorous thumb-nail portrait. He had the +talk to himself that night, we were all so glad to listen. +The best talkers usually address themselves to some particular +society; there they are kings, elsewhere camp-followers, as a man +may know Russian and 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 circle 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 minds of those who +heard him. This, with a certain added colouring of rhetoric +and rodomontade, must have been the style of Burns, who equally +charmed the ears of duchesses and hostlers.</p> +<p>Yet freely and personally as he spoke, many points 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 episode in the rakish, topsy-turvy +life of such an one as I had imagined. But then there came +incidents more doubtful, which showed an almost impudent greed +after gratuities, and a truly impudent disregard for truth. +And then there 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 things; 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 very trying.</p> +<p>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.’</p> +<p>‘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, +without 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 home 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, +appearing again, begrimed and bashful, upon deck. The +career of these sea-tramps partakes largely of the +adventurous. They may be poisoned by coal-gas, or die 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 land, 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 among the fuel, +uttered but a word or two, and departed for a farther country +than America.</p> +<p>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 +his forgiveness. After half an hour with 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 engineer. 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 often make +a good profit out of his adventure. Four engineers stowed +away last summer on the same ship, the <i>Circassia</i>; and +before two days after their arrival each of the four had found a +comfortable berth. This was the most hopeful tale of +emigration that I heard from first to last; and as you see, the +luck was for stowaways.</p> +<p>My curiosity was much inflamed by what I heard; and the next +morning, as I was making the round of the ship, I was delighted +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. Alick, 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.</p> +<p>Alick had held all sorts of good situations, and wasted many +opportunities in life. I have heard him end a story with +these words: ‘That was in my golden days, when 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 existence +was not unpleasant to Alick himself, and he might have long +continued to enjoy idleness and a life on tick; but he had a +comrade, let us call him Brown, who 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 another old +chum in Sauchiehall Street.</p> +<p>‘By the bye, Alick,’ said he, ‘I met a +gentleman in New York who was asking for you.’</p> +<p>‘Who was that?’ asked Alick.</p> +<p>‘The new second engineer on board the +<i>So-and-so</i>,’ was the reply.</p> +<p>‘Well, and who is he?’</p> +<p>‘Brown, to be sure.’</p> +<p>For Brown had been one of the fortunate quartette aboard the +<i>Circassia</i>. If that was the way of it in the States, +Alick thought it was high time to follow Brown’s +example. He spent his last day, as he put it, +‘reviewing the yeomanry,’ and the next morning says +he to his landlady, ‘Mrs. X., I’ll not take porridge +to-day, please; I’ll take some eggs.’</p> +<p>‘Why, have you found a job?’ she asked, +delighted.</p> +<p>‘Well, yes,’ returned the perfidious Alick; +‘I think I’ll start to-day.’</p> +<p>And so, well lined with eggs, start he did, but for +America. I am afraid that landlady has seen the last of +him.</p> +<p>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 voyage from the Broomielaw to +Greenock. That night, the ship’s yeoman pulled him +out by the heels and had him before the mate. Two other +stowaways had already 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.</p> +<p>‘Take him to the forecastle and give him a meal,’ +said the mate, ‘and see and pack him off the first thing +to-morrow.’</p> +<p>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 grumbled 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 +heard 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 kindness; +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 always 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, smoking 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.</p> +<p>Next day by afternoon, Lough Foyle being already 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 several on +board, and even intimate with one of the engineers; but it was +plainly not the etiquette of such occasions for the authorities +to avow their information. Every one professed surprise and +anger on his appearance, and he was led prison before the +captain.</p> +<p>‘What have you got to say for yourself?’ inquired +the captain.</p> +<p>‘Not much,’ said Alick; ‘but when a man has +been a long time out of a job, he will do things he would not +under other circumstances.’</p> +<p>‘Are you willing to work?’</p> +<p>Alick swore he was burning to be useful.</p> +<p>‘And what can you do?’ asked the captain.</p> +<p>He replied composedly that he was a brass-fitter by trade.</p> +<p>‘I think you will be better at engineering?’ +suggested the officer, with a shrewd look.</p> +<p>‘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.</p> +<p>‘Have you been to sea?’ again asked the +captain.</p> +<p>‘I’ve had a trip on a Clyde steamboat, sir, but no +more,’ replied the unabashed Alick.</p> +<p>‘Well, we must try and find some work for you,’ +concluded the officer.</p> +<p>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 his +deduction. ‘When I get talking to a man, I can get +round him.’</p> +<p>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 sea 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 Devonian 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 care 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 board a trading dandy. Somewhere in +the Bristol Channel the dandy sprung a leak and went down; and +though the crew were picked 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 Sea, that the entire +crew deserted and remained behind upon the quays of Belfast.</p> +<p>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 +Wednesday: 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 the look of a street Arab; and captains will have nothing +to say to a ragamuffin; for in that trade, as in all others, it +is the coat that depicts the man. You may hand, reef, and +steer like an angel, 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; +although, 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 +begging, 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 much instruction; he could ‘read bills on the +street,’ but was ‘main bad at writing’; 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 contemporaneous 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 four times had been discovered and handed +back to starvation. The fifth time was lucky; and you may +judge if he were pleased to be aboard ship again, at his old +work, and with duff twice a week. He was, said Alick, +‘a devil for the duff.’ Or if devil was not the +word, it was one if anything stronger.</p> +<p>The difference in the conduct of the two was remarkable. +The Devonian was as willing 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 grain, +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 by, fell-to languidly for just the necessary time till +they were out of sight. ‘I’m not breaking my heart +with it,’ he remarked.</p> +<p>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 +the 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.</p> +<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 character 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 neutralised 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 before 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 upon persuasion should learn the persuasive +faculty of silence, above all as to his own misdeeds. It is +only in the farce and for dramatic purposes that Scapin enlarges +on his peculiar talents to the world at large.</p> +<p>Scapin is perhaps a good name for this clever, unfortunate +Alick; for at the bottom of all his misconduct there was a +guiding 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 unusual emotion, +like a man thinking of his mistress, ‘I would give up +anything for a lark.’</p> +<p>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 suddenly, 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; +he’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 other’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 incongruous in his +attitude, and was plainly sincere in both characters.</p> +<p>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 find 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 was 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 about 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 might +have increased the offer to a whole one, or perhaps a pair of +them, and not lived to regret his liberality. But 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.’</p> +<p>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 charity 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 some curious admirers.</p> +<p>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 Irish Tommy came past, very neatly attired, as +was her custom.</p> +<p>‘Poor fellow,’ she said, stopping, ‘you +haven’t a vest.’</p> +<p>‘No,’ he said; ‘I wish I +’ad.’</p> +<p>Then she stood and gazed on him in silence, until, 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.</p> +<p>‘Do you want a match?’ she asked. And before +he had time to reply, she ran off and presently returned with +more than one.</p> +<p>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. There are many relations which go on to +marriage and last during a lifetime, in which less human feeling +is engaged than in this scene of five minutes at the +stoke-hole.</p> +<p>Rigidly speaking, this would end the chapter of the stowaways; +but in a larger sense of the word I have yet more to add. +Jones had discovered and pointed out to me a young woman who was +remarkable among her fellows for a pleasing and interesting +air. She was poorly clad, to the verge, if not over the +line, of disrespectability, with a ragged old jacket and a bit of +a sealskin cap no bigger than your fist; but her eyes, her whole +expression, and her manner, even in ordinary moments, told of a +true womanly nature, capable of love, anger, and devotion. +She had a look, too, of refinement, like one who might have been +a better lady than most, had she been allowed the +opportunity. When alone she seemed preoccupied and sad; but +she was not often alone; there was usually by her side a heavy, +dull, gross man in rough clothes, chary of speech and +gesture—not from caution, but poverty of disposition; a man +like a ditcher, unlovely and uninteresting; whom she petted and +tended and waited on with her eyes as if he had been Amadis of +Gaul. It was strange to see this hulking fellow dog-sick, +and this delicate, sad woman caring for him. He seemed, +from first to last, insensible of her caresses and attentions, +and she seemed unconscious of his insensibility. The Irish +husband, who sang his wife to sleep, and this Scottish girl +serving her Orson, were the two bits of human nature that most +appealed to me throughout the voyage.</p> +<p>On the Thursday before we arrived, the tickets were collected; +and soon a rumour began to go round the vessel; and this girl, +with her bit of sealskin cap, became the centre of whispering and +pointed fingers. She also, it was said, was 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 and children to be hers. The ship’s +officers discouraged the story, which may therefore have been a +story and no more; but it was believed in the steerage, and the +poor girl had to encounter many curious eyes from that day +forth.</p> +<h3><!-- page 69--><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +69</span>PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW</h3> +<p>Travel is of two kinds; and this voyage of mine across the +ocean combined both. ‘Out of my country and myself I +go,’ sings the old poet: and I was not only travelling out +of my country in latitude and longitude, but out of myself in +diet, associates, and consideration. Part of the interest +and a great deal of the amusement flowed, at least to me, from +this novel situation in the world.</p> +<p>I found that I had what they call fallen in life 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 remind 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 accident by +the difference of language and manners between England and +France. I must now take a humbler view; for here I was +among my own countrymen, somewhat roughly clad to be sure, but +with every 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 officers 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. From all these guesses I drew one +conclusion, 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.</p> +<p>To the saloon passengers also I sustained my part 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, took me, like the transformed monarch in +the story, for a mere common, human man. They gave me a +hard, dead look, with the flesh about the eye kept unrelaxed.</p> +<p>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 then learned for the first time, and by the +exhaustive process, how much attention 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 paid 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 upper 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 exactly at what stage of toilette a man becomes +invisible to the well-regulated female eye.</p> +<p>Here on shipboard the matter was put to a more complete test; +for, even with the addition of speech and manner, I passed among +the ladies for precisely the average man of the steerage. +It was one afternoon that I saw this demonstrated. A very +plainly dressed woman was taken ill on deck. I think 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 +large 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. Of course I had to reply; and as +the talk went on, I began to discover that the whole group took +me for the husband. I looked upon my new wife, poor +creature, with mingled feelings; and I must own she had not even +the appearance of the poorest class of city servant-maids, but +looked more like a country wench who should have been employed at +a roadside inn. Now was the time for me to go and study the +brass plate.</p> +<p>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 better 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 +intention. Their manner was well calculated to remind me of +my fallen fortunes. You may be sincerely amused by the +amateur 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.</p> +<p>Another trick of mine which told against my reputation was my +choice of roosting-place in an active draught upon the cabin +floor. I was openly jeered and flouted 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.</p> +<p>Indeed I may say that, upon the whole, my new position sat +lightly and naturally upon my spirits. I accepted the +consequences with readiness, 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, as 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.</p> +<p>In other ways I was content with my position. It seemed +no disgrace to be confounded with my company; for I may as well +declare at once I found their manners as gentle and becoming as +those of any other class. I do not mean that my friends +could have sat down without embarrassment 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 hope 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 only no qualification, but a +positive disability to move easily and becomingly in this. +When Jones complimented me—because I ‘managed to +behave very pleasantly’ to my fellow-passengers, was how he +put it—I could follow the thought in his mind, and knew his +compliment to be such as we pay foreigners on their proficiency +in English. I dare say this praise was given me immediately +on the back of some unpardonable solecism, which had led him to +review my conduct as a whole. We are all ready to laugh at +the ploughman among lords; we should consider also the case of a +lord 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 parochial rather than universal; that, +like a country wine, will not bear transportation 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 +must 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 external acceptation +throughout all the others, and this tends to keep us well +satisfied with slight acquirements and the amateurish +accomplishments of a clique. But manners, like art, should +be human and central.</p> +<p>Some of my fellow-passengers, as I now moved among 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 manners 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 refinement, 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 have 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; but though they may be eager +listeners, they have rarely seemed to me either willing or +careful thinkers. Culture is not measured by the greatness +of the field which is covered by our knowledge, but by the nicety +with which we can perceive relations in that field, whether 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 relations, 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 should have +had a definite thought in his head as he said it. Some +hated the Church because they disagreed with it; some hated Lord +Beaconsfield because of war and taxes; all hated the masters, +possibly with reason. But these failings were not at the +root of the matter; the true reasoning of their souls ran +thus—I have not got on; I ought to have got on; if there +was a revolution I should get on. How? They had no +idea. Why? Because—because—well, look at +America!</p> +<p>To be politically blind is no distinction; we are all so, if +you come to that. At bottom, as it seems to me, there is +but one question in modern home politics, though 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 their 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 were now about to settle +for themselves, once more they knew not how, by crossing the +Atlantic in a steamship of considerable tonnage.</p> +<p>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 will 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.</p> +<p>Nothing is perhaps more notable in the average workman than +his surprising idleness, and the candour with which he confesses +to the failing. It has to me been always something of a +relief to find the poor, as a general rule, so little oppressed +with work. I can in consequence enjoy 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 fatigue by way of relief as satisfied this powerful +frontiersman for the day. He, at least, like all the +educated class, 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.</p> +<p>I give the story as it was told me, and it was told me for a +fact. A man fell from a housetop in the city of Aberdeen, +and was brought into hospital with broken bones. He was +asked what was his trade, and replied that he was a +<i>tapper</i>. No one had ever heard of such a thing +before; 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 slip 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 advertised 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 swell 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.</p> +<p>I heard nothing on board of the tapper; but I was astonished +at the stories told by my companions. Skulking, shirking, +malingering, were all established tactics, it appeared. +They could see no dishonesty where a man who is paid for an hour's +work gives half an hour’s consistent idling in its +place. Thus the tapper would refuse to watch for the police +during a burglary, 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 begins on his career of +toil. He has never had his fill of holidays in the past, +and his prospect of holidays in the future is both distant and +uncertain. In the circumstances, it would require a high +degree of virtue not to snatch alleviations for the moment.</p> +<p>There were many good talkers on the ship; and I believe good +talking of a certain sort is a common accomplishment among +working 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. They mark time instead of marching. They think +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 possible for premise, and begin +to dispute under an oath to conquer or to die.</p> +<p>But the talk of a workman is apt to be more interesting than +that of a wealthy merchant, because the thoughts, hopes, and +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 income, simply +from its smallness, than a large one. I never wearied +listening to the details of a workman’s economy, because +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 that a +rich man has seven courses a day, ten to one the half of them +remain untasted, and the whole is but misspent money and a +weariness to the flesh.</p> +<p>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 <!-- page 81--><a +name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>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, soup +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 difficult 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 whether 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 +only 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 philosophical, +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 <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>; for every step is critical and +human life is presented to you naked and verging to its lowest +terms.</p> +<h3>NEW YORK</h3> +<p>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 +radish in a bed; and if the worst befell, you would instantly and +mysteriously disappear from the ranks of mankind.</p> +<p>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 light 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 body; he had +visited a robber inn. The public has an old and +well-grounded favour for this class of incident, and shall be +gratified to the best of my power.</p> +<p>My fellow-passenger, whom we shall call M’Naughten, had +come from New York to Boston with a comrade, seeking work. +They were a pair of rattling blades; and, leaving their baggage +at the station, passed the day in beer saloons, and with +congenial spirits, until midnight struck. Then they applied +themselves to find a lodging, and walked the streets till two, +knocking at houses of entertainment 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 found themselves in the same +street where they had begun their search, and in front of a +French hotel where they had already sought accommodation. +Seeing the house still open, they returned to the charge. A +man in a white cap sat in an office by the door. He seemed +to welcome them more warmly than when they had first presented +themselves, and the charge for the night had somewhat +unaccountably fallen from a dollar to a quarter. They +thought him ill-looking, 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.</p> +<p>It was furnished with a bed, a chair, and some +conveniences. The door did not lock 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 the curtain of the +first. He was startlingly disappointed. There was no +picture. The frame surrounded, and the curtain was 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, larger in size than that which they +occupied, where three men sat crouching and silent 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 cap 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 streets of Boston till the morning.</p> +<p>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 through 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 miraculously; 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 strident noise of falling water filled the air; +the restaurants smelt heavily of wet people and wet clothing.</p> +<p>It took us but a few minutes, though it cost us 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 storage +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.</p> +<p>Jones was well known; we were received warmly; and two minutes +afterwards I had refused a drink from the proprietor, and was +going on, in my plain European fashion, to refuse a cigar, when +Mr. Mitchell sternly 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 begun 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.</p> +<p>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 obscurely know; what is to be yet lies beyond the +flight of our imaginations. Greece, Rome, and Judæa +are gone by forever, leaving to generations the legacy of their +accomplished work; China still endures, an old-inhabited house in +the brand-new city of nations; England has already declined, +since she has lost the States; and to these States, therefore, +yet undeveloped, full of dark possibilities, and grown, like +another 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 understand 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 suddenly hears of a family of cousins, all +about his own age, who keep house together 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 English youths turn to the thought of the American +Republic. It seems to them as if, out west, the war 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, and 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 rather 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.</p> +<p>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 time, 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, +returning with the spring to find thousands camped upon their +marshes, and the lamps burning far and near along populous +streets; forests that disappear like snow; 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 that 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.</p> +<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 were 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 weeks in New York, and neither of them had yet found a single +job or earned a single halfpenny. Up to the present they +were exactly out of pocket by the amount of the fare.</p> +<p>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 should have hesitated; the devil was in it, +but Jones and I should dine like heathen emperors. I set to +work, asking after a restaurant; and I chose the wealthiest and +most gastronomical-looking passers-by to ask from. Yet, +although 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 the cost of twenty +dinners. I do not know 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 cooking, some so-called French +wine, and French coffee to conclude the whole. I never +entered into the feelings of Jack on land so completely as when I +tasted that coffee.</p> +<p>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 upon the floor; he did not sleep until near +morning, and I, for my part, never closed an eye.</p> +<p>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 sound 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 growing eerier and eerier, for +I dare say I was a little fevered by my restless night, and +hurried to dress and get downstairs.</p> +<p>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 his 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 also was exactly out of pocket by the +amount of the fare. I began to grow sick at heart for my +fellow-emigrants.</p> +<p>Of my nightmare wanderings in New York I spare to tell. +I had a thousand and one things to do; only the day to do them +in, and a journey across the continent before me 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, booksellers, +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-questioned 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 answers in silence; and yet when all was over, +he shook hands with me up to the elbows, 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 manager, +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 ground, 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 that 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 up to be the +death of him by his insulting behaviour, he himself would be just +upon 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 state 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.</p> +<p>I was so wet when I got back to Mitchell’s toward 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 heart I said farewell to +them as they lay a pulp in the middle of a pool upon the floor of +Mitchell’s kitchen. I wonder if they are dry by +now. Mitchell hired a man 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 safely to Reunion House, where they will +get decent meals and find an honest and obliging landlord. +I owed him this word of thanks, before I enter fairly on the +second <a name="citation92"></a><a href="#footnote92" +class="citation">[92]</a> and far less agreeable chapter of my +emigrant experience.</p> +<h2><!-- page 93--><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>II.<br /> +COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK<br /> +A FRAGMENT<br /> +1871</h2> +<p>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 itself 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 gold; allow my memory to choose out what is truly +memorable by a process of natural selection; and I piously +believe that in this way I ensure the Survival of the +Fittest. If I make notes for future use, or if I am obliged +to write letters during the course of my little excursion, I so +interfere with the process that I can never again find out what +is worthy 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 this <!-- page 94--><a +name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>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 some fifty +or sixty hours about the middle remain quite distinct and +definite, like 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 minister 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 had 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 situated: ‘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 limbo of +forgetfulness.</p> +<h3>COCKERMOUTH</h3> +<p>I was lighting my pipe as I stepped out of the inn at +Cockermouth, and did not raise 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 quarrelsome 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, then a third, several couples +out love-making in the spring evening; and a consequent 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 name of +Smethurst, and the designation of ‘Canadian Felt Hat +Manufacturers.’ There was no more hope of evening +fellowship, and I could only stroll on by the river-side, under +the trees. The water was dappled with slanting sunshine, +and dusted all over with a little mist of flying insects. +There were some amorous ducks, also, whose 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.</p> +<p>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 chooses 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. <!-- page 97--><a name="page97"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 97</span>If I prefer tame scenery 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 tobacco, and the company of one or two chosen +companions, to a ball where I feel myself very hot, awkward, and +weary, I merely state these preferences as facts, and 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 plea 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 last, 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 train in the early evening.</p> +<h3>AN EVANGELIST</h3> +<p>Cockermouth itself, on the same authority, was a Place with +‘nothing to see’; nevertheless 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. When 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 other on his own head, so that he looked +something like the typical Jew old-clothes man. As I drew +near, he came sidling 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 scarcely 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 where the large trout commonly lay, +underneath an overhanging bank; and he was much 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, trying 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 speaking to the blush; as it is, I can +recall only the sense, and that perhaps imperfectly. He +began by saying that 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 died out in himself, but +must at my age be still quite lively and active. Then he +told me that he had a little raft afloat on the river above the +dam which he was going to lend me, in order that 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 this 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 embarkation, 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.</p> +<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 that as it may, there +is no doubt that I soon wearied and came ashore again, and that +it gives me more pleasure to recall the man himself and his +simple, happy <!-- page 100--><a name="page100"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 100</span>conversation, so full of gusto and +sympathy, than anything possibly connected with his crank, +insecure embarkation. In order to avoid seeing him, for I +was not a little ashamed of myself for having failed to enjoy his +treat sufficiently, I determined to continue up the river, 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 wisdom, 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 their 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 +gospel of quiet and contentment.</p> +<h3>ANOTHER</h3> +<p>I was shortly to meet with an evangelist of another +stamp. After I had forced my way through a +gentleman’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, with a beautiful little girl by her side, came up +to ask for alms, and gradually fell 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 the little +girl upon her hands. She seemed quite hopeful and cheery, +and, though she was unaffectedly sorry for the loss of her +husband’s earnings, she made no pretence of despair at the +loss of his 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 all 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 with 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 Catholic 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 some tracts about Biddy and the Priest, and the +Orangeman’s Bible. I was a little amused at his +abrupt manner, for he was still a young man, and had somewhat the +air of a navy officer; but 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 very +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.</p> +<h3><!-- page 102--><a name="page102"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 102</span>LAST OF SMETHURST</h3> +<p>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 the bystanders if they saw <i>him</i> 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. <i>He</i> 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, already 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. I mentioned that I had seen Mr. Smethurst +already, and that he had been very polite to me; and we fell into +a discussion of the hatter’s merits that lasted some time +and left us quite good friends at its conclusion. The topic +was productive of goodwill. We exchanged tobacco and talked +about the season, and agreed at last that we should go to the +same hotel at Keswick and sup in company. As he had some +business in the town which would occupy him some hour or so, on +our arrival I was to improve the time and go down to the lake, +that I might see a glimpse of the promised wonders.</p> +<p>The night had fallen already when I reached the water-side, at +a place where many pleasure-boats are moored and ready for hire; +and as I went along a stony path, between wood and water, a +strong wind blew 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 water. 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 +sudden 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 accosted +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 know, and we stood together for a while +and had an amusing little talk. The wind, too, made himself +of the party, 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 the 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 +and 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 dark 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 recitation of these elegant extracts, +except perhaps the anecdotes with which he varied the +entertainment. Seeing, I suppose, 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. . . .</p> +<h2><!-- page 106--><a name="page106"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 106</span>III.<br /> +AN AUTUMN EFFECT<br /> +1875</h2> +<blockquote><p>‘Nous ne décrivons jamais mieux la +nature que lorsque nous nous efforçons d’exprimer +sobrement et simplement l’impression que nous en avons +reçue.’—<span class="smcap">M. André +Theuriet</span>, ‘L’Automne dans les Bois,’ +Revue des Deux Mondes, 1st Oct. 1874, p.562. <a +name="citation106"></a><a href="#footnote106" +class="citation">[106]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>A country rapidly passed through under favourable auspices may +leave upon us a unity of impression that would only be disturbed +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 them for a moment in going by; we +generalise boldly and simply, and are gone before the sun is +overcast, before the rain falls, before the season can steal like +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 +expose 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, as we went +by, will have a conception of it far more memorable and +articulate than 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 the day after, till at length +the stable characteristics of the country are all blotted out +from him behind the confusion of variable effect.</p> +<p>I begin my little pilgrimage in the most enviable 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 which 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 +themselves 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 and 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 calling on them to return; and +some passion, some duty, some worthy or unworthy expectation, +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 +bright, as we leave the town behind us, and we shall feel once +again (as we have felt 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 forward as a new +creature into a new world.</p> +<p>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, dull, 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, the 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 enough, against the sky. I say foolishly enough, +although I have seen the effect employed cleverly in art, and +such long line 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 water and level land, +where it did not jar, as here, with the soft contour of hills and +valleys. The whole scene had an 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 trees on the horizon that one was forced to think of it +all as of a clever French landscape. For it is rather in +nature 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 +forms in which we learn to think of landscape are forms that we +have got from painted canvas. Any man can see and +understand a picture; it is reserved for the few to separate +anything out of the confusion of nature, and see that distinctly +and with intelligence.</p> +<p>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 +treading 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 distance I could see no +longer. Overhead there was a wonderful carolling of larks +which seemed to follow me as I went. Indeed, during all the +time I was in that 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 take 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 just 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. The 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 have 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 pinholes 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.</p> +<p>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 would have been sad but for the +sunshine and the singing of the larks. And as it was, there +came over me at times 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 less 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 there 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 them 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. And if there were a few who +had no particular 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 opinion; 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 danced 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.</p> +<p>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 find quite a bustle on the +other side, a great coming and going of school-children upon +by-paths, and, in every second field, lusty horses and stout +country-folk a-ploughing. The way I followed took me +through many fields thus occupied, and through many strips of +plantation, and then over a little space of smooth turf, very +pleasant to the feet, set with tall fir-trees and clamorous with +rooks making ready for the winter, and so back again into the +quiet road. I was now 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 hollow; 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 had +been washed with water. After I had crossed the little zone +of mist, the path began to remount the hill; and just 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 +donkeys, 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 fit 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 roguish and wanton in his +face, a look too like that of a schoolboy or a street Arab, 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 levity +of his disposition by impudently wagging his ears at me as I drew +near. I say he was somewhat solemnised just then; 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 puzzled, 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 +unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy for the creature took +hold upon me. I went up, and, not without some trouble on +my part, and much distrust and resistance on the part 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 +angry, 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, shouting 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 face, that she had already recommended her spirit +most religiously to Heaven, and prepared herself for the +worst. And 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 courtesies, the little old maid +and I went on our respective ways.</p> +<p>Nor had she misled me. Great Missenden was close at +hand, as she 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 about +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, <i>sub jove</i>, for the sale of pastry and cheap toys; and a +great number of holiday children thronged about 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 London 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.</p> +<p>Night had fallen before I ventured forth again. It was +pitch-dark in the village 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 <i>genre</i> +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 with 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, and a virtuous young man with a genius for +mechanics, who should love, and protect, and ultimately marry the +girl in the crimson room. Baudelaire has a few dainty +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 enlarged on the same text. The +subject, at least, is one that I am seldom weary of +entertaining. I remember, night after night, at Brussels, +watching a good family sup 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 awake in bed with +all manner of quaint imaginations. Much of the pleasure of +the <i>Arabian Nights</i> hinges upon this Asmodean interest; and +we are not weary of lifting other people’s roofs, and going +about 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 worst 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 light their candle, and +mix their salad, and go orderly to bed.</p> +<p>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 behind 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 at the end of it! +She could nowise reconcile this with her moral sense. And, +indeed, 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 read 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 driven 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.</p> +<p>Wendover (which was my next stage) lies in the same valley +with Great Missenden, but at the foot of it, where the hills +trend 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 opened out into the plain, was shallow, and a little +bare, perhaps, but full of graceful convolutions. From the +level 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 followed the +footpath. Wendover lay well down 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 crescents +of river, and snatches of slanting road, and finally melted into +the ambiguous cloud-land over the horizon. The sky was an +opal-grey, touched here and there with blue, and with certain +faint russets 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 sentiment +of distance and atmosphere about the day and the place.</p> +<p>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, that the +whole wood looked as dense as a bush of heather. The +prevailing colour was a dull, smouldering 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 through the hedge, I +found myself in a dim green forest atmosphere under eaves of +virgin foliage. In places where the 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 considerable 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 would be thrown out flat, the light lying flatly +along the top of it, so that against 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 seemed to be all attention; the wood listened as I went, +and held its breath to number my footfalls. One could not +help feeling that there ought to be some reason for this +stillness; whether, as the bright 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 sight, ever and anon, of large spaces of the +open plain. This happened only where the path lay much 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.</p> +<p>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 began to grow lighter about +me, and I caught sight, through the trees, of sundry gables and +enclosure walls, and something like the tops of a rickyard. +And sure enough, a rickyard it proved to be, and a neat little +farm-steading, with the beech-woods growing almost to the door of +it. Just before me, however, as I came upon the path, the +trees drew back and let in a wide flood of daylight 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 dense 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 each +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 general grace during meat. Every now and +again 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 shrilly publish to the world his +satisfaction with himself and what he had to eat. 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 just 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 fabulist not quite so skilful, who made points for the +moment without having a studious enough eye to the complete +effect; for I thought these melting greens and blues 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 like going three whole +days’ journey to the southward, or a month back into the +summer.</p> +<p>I was sorry to leave <i>Peacock Farm</i>—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 gradations of living green that had before +accompanied my walk. I had been sorry to leave <i>Peacock +Farm</i>, but I was not sorry to find myself once more in the +open road, under a pale and somewhat troubled-looking evening +sky, and put my best foot foremost for the inn at Wendover.</p> +<p>Wendover, in itself, is a straggling, purposeless sort of +place. Everybody seems to have had his own opinion as to +how the street 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 along 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 served as +rallying-point for these loose houses, and pulled the township +into something 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-windows, and three peaked +gables, and many swallows’ nests plastered about the +eaves.</p> +<p>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 that 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 Walter 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 cupboard 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 glass of water. The +furniture was old-fashioned and stiff. Everything was in +keeping, down to the ponderous leaden inkstand on the round +table. And you may fancy how pleasant it looked, 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.</p> +<p>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 +portrait 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 professed much interest in her +dolls, and an impatient desire to see the large one which was +kept locked away for great occasions. And so I had not been +very long in the parlour before the door opened, 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, with a very serious demeanour, asking many +questions about their age and character. I do not think +that Lizzie distrusted my sincerity, but it was evident that she +was both bewildered and 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 gravity and a sort of disquietude, as +though she really feared I must be out of my wits. +Sometimes, as when I inquired 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 <i>the gentleman in the parlour +wanted to kiss Dolly</i>. I fancy 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 knew, who would never suffer the master +of the house to dance, out of an exaggerated sense of the dignity +of that master’s place and carriage.</p> +<p>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 without 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 discomforts, 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 upon an +unworthy hearer.</p> +<p>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 graveyard 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 dull sudden fall of a chestnut among the +grass—the dog would bark before the rectory 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 filled 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 near, was almost startled to find they +lay on the grave a man seventy-two years old when he died. +We are accustomed to strew flowers only over the young, where +love has been cut short untimely, and great 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 little 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 miserably 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 +token of love that survived death, as of something yet more +beautiful—of love that had lived a man’s life out to +an end with him, and been faithful and companionable, and not +weary of loving, throughout all these years.</p> +<p>The morning cleared a little, and the sky was once more the +old stone-coloured vault over the sallow meadows and the russet +woods, 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-woods above +on the other. The fields were 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 +furrow as ploughman or sower stepped aside for a moment to take a +draught. Over all the brown ploughlands, and under all the +leafless hedgerows, there was a stout piece of labour abroad, +and, as it were, a spirit of picnic. The horses 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 of a +humourist; and his conversation was all in praise of an +agricultural labourer’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 appetite 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 <i>O fortunatos agricolas</i>! 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.</p> +<p>Tring was reached, and then Tring railway-station; 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 +usual, 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 came and carried me back to London.</p> +<h2><!-- page 131--><a name="page131"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 131</span>IV.<br /> +A WINTER’S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY<br /> +A FRAGMENT<br /> +1876</h2> +<p>At the famous bridge of Doon, Kyle, the central district of +the shire of Ayr, marches with Carrick, the most southerly. +On the Carrick side of the river rises a hill of somewhat gentle +conformation, cleft 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, like a bay-window in a plan, +and is fortified against the surf behind bold crags. This +hill is known as the Brown Hill of Carrick, or, more shortly, +Brown Carrick.</p> +<p>It had snowed overnight. The fields were all sheeted up; +they were 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 upon 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 summit 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 +distinction of sky and sea. Over the white shoulders of the +headlands, or in the opening of bays, there was nothing but a +great vacancy and blackness; and the road as it drew near the +edge of the cliff seemed to skirt the shores of creation and void +space.</p> +<p>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 +heathenishly at a cow he was driving. And a little after I +scraped acquaintance with a poor body tramping out to gather +cockles. His face was wrinkled by exposure; it was broken +up into flakes and channels, like mud beginning to dry, and +weathered in two colours, an incongruous pink and grey. He +had a faint air of being 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 during the +New Year’s festivity. I will own I was not sorry to +think he had had a merry New Year, and been young again for an +evening; but I was sorry to see the mark still there. One +could not expect such an old gentleman 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 +fifty 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. +Plainly, there was nothing of this in his life, and years and +loneliness hung heavily 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 think he couldn’t do +it. ‘And, ’deed,’ he 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 snow.</p> +<p>He told me I was to turn down beside the school-house for +Dunure. And so, when I found a lone house among the snow, +and heard a babble of childish voices from 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-birds; 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.</p> +<p>It is, perhaps, characteristic of Dunure that none were +brought him.</p> +<p>The people at the public-house did not seem well 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 +better 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. Twelve cockle-shells +and a half-penny china 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 merit 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 own +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 coat, +that had been many a Sunday to church, added something (save the +mark!) of preciousness to the material.</p> +<p>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 than it takes me to write these words the four +quarts were finished—another round was proposed, discussed, +and negatived—and they were creaking out of the village +with their carts.</p> +<p>The ruins drew you towards them. You never saw any place +more desolate from 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 with 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 and gnawed your fingers! +I think it would have come to homicide before the +evening—if it were only for the pleasure of seeing +something red! And the masters 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!), Gilbert, +Earl of Cassilis, his chaplain, his baker, his cook, his +pantryman, and another 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.</p> +<p>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 etching 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 asked 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 +much 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.</p> +<p>‘The toune of Mayboll,’ says the inimitable +Abercrummie, <a name="citation136"></a><a href="#footnote136" +class="citation">[136]</a> ‘stands upon an ascending ground +from east to west, and lyes open to the south. It hath one +principals street, with houses upon both sides, built of +freestone; and it is beautifyed with the situation of two +castles, one at each end of this street. That on 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], and a row of ballesters round it raised from the top of +the staircase, into which they have mounted a fyne clock. +There 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 the 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 decayed +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 is 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 here 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 than here in a country place +betwixt a village and a town. I heard a great deal about +drinking, and a great deal about religious revivals: two things +in which the Scottish character is emphatic and most +unlovely. In particular, I heard of clergymen who were +employing their time in explaining 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 figure 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 part 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, and +to do so speedily. It was not much more 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 accuracy of which I can vouch—</p> +<p>‘Ye had a spree here last Tuesday?’</p> +<p>‘We had that!’</p> +<p>‘I wasna able to be oot o’ my bed. Man, I +was awful bad on Wednesday.’</p> +<p>‘Ay, ye were gey bad.’</p> +<p>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 harem; and yet these were grown men, and by no means +short of wit. It was hard to suppose they were very eager +about the Second Coming: it seemed as if some elementary notions +of temperance for the men and seemliness for the women would have +gone nearer the mark. And 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 economy, 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 courage, thrift and industry, fought their way +upwards to an assured position.</p> +<p>Abercrummie has told you enough of the Tolbooth; 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 parish 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 about the top. In a general way this +adornment is perched on the very summit of the chimney-stacks; +but there is one corner more elaborate than the rest. A +very 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 look 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 Street, 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 grew hot within her, and her eyes +overflowed at the memory of the past. And even if the tale +be not true of this 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 all of us is the +glamour cast. Some resist and sit resolutely by the +fire. Most go 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 evening, we can catch their voices +in the glee.</p> +<p>By night it was clearer, and Maybole more visible 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 into relief over the gables and +the chimney-stacks, and their shadows over the white 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 +out—a compatriot of Burns, again!—‘The saut +tear blin’s my e’e.’</p> +<p>Next morning there was sun and a flapping wind. From the +street corners of Maybole I could 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 bleak 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 also, in the kirkyard, the original of Tam o’ +Shanter sleeps his last sleep. It is worth noticing, +however, that this 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 blown 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 ploughing lea; a +cart foal, all in a field by himself, capered and whinnied as if +the spring were in him.</p> +<p>The road from Turnberry to Girvan lies along the shore, among +sand-hills and by wildernesses of tumbled bent. Every here +and there a few cottages stood together beside a bridge. +They had one odd feature, not easy to describe in words: a +triangular porch projected from 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 pipe with comfort. There is one objection 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 Scotland, 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. . . .</p> +<h2><!-- page 144--><a name="page144"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 144</span>V.<br /> +FOREST NOTES 1875–6</h2> +<h3>ON THE PLAIN</h3> +<p>Perhaps 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 disappear; 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 his 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.</p> +<p>These peasant farmers are well off nowadays, and not by any +means overworked; but somehow you always see in them the +historical 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 taxed beyond possibility of +payment, and lived, in Michelet’s image, like a hare +between two furrows. These very people 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 Seigneur 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 +chenue, 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 is, 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 with grain, in the midst of a close full of +cypresses and lilacs, ducks and crowing 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 air, 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, children of the people, saunter and gambol +in the walled court or feed the ducks in the neglected +moat. Plough-horses, mighty of limb, browse in the long +stables. The dial-hand on the clock waits for some better +hour. Out on the plain, where hot sweat trickles 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 upon gay folk at supper, while he +and his hollow-eyed children watched through the 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.</p> +<p>If the château was my lord’s, the forest was my +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 +found 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. For the +first offence, by the Salic law, there was a fine of fifteen +sols; and should a man be taken more than once in fault, or +circumstances aggravate the colour of his guilt, he might be +whipped, branded, or hanged. There was a hangman over at +Melun, and, I doubt not, a fine tall gibbet hard by the town +gate, where Jacques might see his fellows dangle against the sky +as he went to market.</p> +<p>And then, if he lived near to a cover, there would 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 decorating 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 +<i>bien-aller</i> with all your lungs. Jacques must stand +by, hat in hand, while 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 +varlets who get no wages and sleep at night among the hounds? <a +name="citation147"></a><a href="#footnote147" +class="citation">[147]</a></p> +<p>For all that, the forest has been of use to Jacques, not only +warming him with fallen wood, but giving him shelter in days 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 fastness, or lay over-seas in an English +prison. In these dark days, when the watch on the church +steeple saw the smoke 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 all their household +gods, into the wood, whence, from some high spur, their timid +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 refuge +that the woods afforded, where they must abide all change of +weather and keep 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 demons like himself, +even in these caves and thickets there were glad hearts and +grateful prayers.</p> +<p>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 royal +forest, and noble by old associations. These woods have +rung to the horns of all the kings of France, from Philip +Augustus downwards. They have 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 they 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 virtue of the pastime of dead monarchs. <!-- page +149--><a name="page149"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +149</span>Great events, great revolutions, great cycles in the +affairs of men, have here left their note, here taken shape in +some significant and dramatic situation. It was hence that +Gruise and his leaguers led Charles the Ninth a prisoner to +Paris. Here, booted and spurred, and with all his dogs +about him, Napoleon met the Pope beside a woodland cross. +Here, on his way to Elba not so long after, he kissed the eagle +of the Old Guard, and spoke words of passionate farewell to his +soldiers. And here, after Waterloo, rather than yield its +ensign to the new power, one of his faithful regiments burned +that memorial of so much toil and glory on the Grand +Master’s table, and drank its dust in brandy, as a devout +priest consumes the remnants of the Host.</p> +<h3>IN THE SEASON</h3> +<p>Close into the edge of the forest, so close that the trees of +the <i>bornage</i> 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, where the +cattle browsed between the doorsteps. As you go up this +street, drawing ever nearer the beginning of the wood, 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 into the +court you will find as many more, some in billiard-room over +absinthe and a match of corks some without over a last cigar and +a vermouth. The doves coo and flutter from the dovecot; +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, and some idle painter, who has stored his +canvases and washed his brushes, jangling a waltz on the crazy, +tongue-tied piano in the salle-à-manger. +‘<i>Edmond</i>, <i>encore un vermouth</i>,’ cries a +man in velveteen, adding in a tone of apologetic afterthought, +‘<i>un double</i>, <i>s’il vous +plaît</i>.’ ‘Where are you +working?’ 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.</p> +<p>‘<i>À table</i>, <i>Messieurs</i>!’ cries +M. Siron, bearing through 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 of the huntsman winding a horn with a dead boar +between his legs, and his legs—well, 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 English, that it would +do your heart good merely to peep and listen at the door. +One man is telling how they all went last 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 table, and is +once more trampling the poor piano under powerful and uncertain +fingers.</p> +<p>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 welcome and a good talk, +and perhaps some pickled oysters and white wine to close the +evening. Or a dance is organised in 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 move 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 looking 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 nearly 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 proposed, and a basket made +ready, and a good procession formed in front of the hotel. +The two trumpeters in honour 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 shadow, +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’ +haunt, and shows shapely beards and comely faces and toilettes +ranged about the wall. The bowl is lit, and the punch 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 morning, straggling a good deal among the +birch tufts and the boulders, but ever called 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 +finally 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. No surf-bell +on forlorn and perilous shores, no passing knell over the busy +market-place, can speak with a more heavy and disconsolate tongue +to human ears. Each stroke calls up a host of ghostly +reverberations in his mind. And as he stands rooted, it has +grown once more so utterly silent that it seems to him he might +hear the church bells ring the hour out all the world over, not +at Chailly only, but in Paris, and <!-- page 153--><a +name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 153</span>away in +outlandish cities, and in the village on the river, where his +childhood passed between the sun and flowers.</p> +<h3>IDLE HOURS</h3> +<p>The woods by night, in all their uncanny effect, are not +rightly to be understood until you can compare them with the +woods by day. The stillness of the medium, the floor of +glittering sand, these trees 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.</p> +<p>And on the first morning you will doubtless rise +betimes. If you have not been wakened 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, shines 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, stool, 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 all +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 +excuse to bathe. With quick ears, long spines, and bandy +legs, or perhaps as tall as a greyhound and with a +bulldog’s head, this 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.</p> +<p>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 notes. +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 roof 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 +evil creatures that haunt the forest. For you may plump +into a cave among the rocks, and find yourself face to face with +a wild boar, or see a crooked viper slither across the road.</p> +<p>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 go idly by. +Your friend at the easel labours 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 the shadow +of another tree, and up to his waist in the fern. You +cannot watch your 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.</p> +<p>Your tree stands in a hollow paved with fern and heather, set +in a basin of low hills, and scattered over with rocks and +junipers. All the open is steeped in pitiless +sunlight. Everything stands out as though it were cut in +cardboard, every colour is strained into its highest key. +The boulders are some of them upright and dead like monolithic +castles, some of them prone like sleeping cattle. The +junipers—looking, in their soiled and ragged mourning, like +some funeral procession that has gone seeking the place of +sepulchre three hundred years and more in wind and rain—are +daubed 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 +there 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.</p> +<p>Meanwhile at your elbow some one tunes up a song, 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 <!-- page 157--><a +name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 157</span>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.</p> +<p>‘You can get up now,’ says the painter; +‘I’m at the background.’</p> +<p>And so up you get, stretching yourself, and go your way into +the wood, the daylight becoming richer and more golden, and the +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 comes +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 kindled 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.</p> +<h3>A PLEASURE-PARTY</h3> +<p>As this 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 from +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 round 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 exercise; 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 from Fontainebleau, trudging across on his +weekly peddle with a case of merchandise; and it is +‘Desprez, leave me some malachite green’; +‘Desprez, leave me so much 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 sound of cannon in our ears; and now, a little +past Franchard, we find a mounted trooper 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 meanwhile +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 +dulcet, his manner dignified and insinuating. It is not for +nothing that the Doctor has voyaged all the world over, and +speaks 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. ‘<i>En +voiture</i>, <i>Messieurs</i>, <i>Mesdames</i>,’ 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 the sergeant, who will send us back. At any +moment we may encounter a flying shell, which will send us +somewhere farther off than Grez.</p> +<p>Grez—for that is our destination—has been highly +recommended for its beauty. ‘<i>Il y a de +l’eau</i>,’ people have said, with an emphasis, as if +that settled the question, 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 lies out of the +forest, a cluster of houses, with an old bridge, an old castle in +ruin, and a quaint old church. The inn garden descends in +terraces to the river; stable-yard, kailyard, orchard, and a +space 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 the two lies the river, clear and +deep, and full of reeds and floating lilies. Water-plants +cluster about the starlings 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 +ripple following another over the top of the yellow deal. +And you can hear a splashing and a prattle of voices from the +shed under the old kirk, where the village women wash and wash +all day among the fish and water-lilies. It seems as if +linen washed there should be specially cool and sweet.</p> +<p>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 and 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 smoothly 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. There is a wish for solitude on +all. One hides himself in the arbour with a cigarette; +another goes a walk in the country with Cocardon; a third +inspects the church. And it is not till dinner is on the +table, and the inn’s best wine goes round from glass to +glass, that we begin to throw off the restraint and fuse once +more into a jolly fellowship.</p> +<p>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—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Nous avons fait la noce,<br /> +Rentrons à nos foyers!’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And such is the burthen, even after we have come 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, and the faces round the punch +are lit up, with shifting emphasis, against a background 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, in a jacket of green cord, the great, +famous, and redoubtable Blank; and in a moment the fire kindles +again, and the night is witness of our laughter as he imitates +Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen, picture-dealers, all eccentric +ways of speaking and thinking, with a possession, a fury, a +strain of mind and voice, that would rather suggest a nervous +crisis than a desire to please. We are as merry as ever +when the trap sets forth again, and say farewell noisily to all +the good folk going farther. Then, as we are far enough +from thoughts of sleep, we visit Blank in his quaint house, and +sit an hour or so in a great tapestried chamber, laid with furs, +littered 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.</p> +<p>How quick bright things come to confusion! When we arise +next morning, the grey showers fall steadily, the trees hang +limp, and the face of the stream is spoiled with dimpling +raindrops. Yesterday’s lilies encumber the garden +walk, or begin, dismally enough, their voyage towards the Seine +and the salt sea. A sickly shimmer 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 +taken 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; and 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, for a match at +corks and by one consent a messenger is sent over for the +wagonette—Grez shall be left to-morrow.</p> +<p>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 neither of them French; +for, of all English phrases, the phrase ‘for +exercise’ is the least comprehensible across the Straits of +Dover. All goes well for a while with the +pedestrians. The wet woods are full of scents in the +noontide. At a certain cross, where there is a guardhouse, +they make a halt, for the forester’s wife 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 wall, and some prints of love-affairs and the great +Napoleon hunting. As they draw near the Quadrilateral, and +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 am sure we should keep more to the +right,’ says one; and the other is just as certain 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 gurgles 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 <!-- page 164--><a name="page164"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 164</span>the situation worse; 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 ever welcomed English ale. Thence, by the +Bois d’Hyver, the Ventes-Alexandre, and the Pins +Brulés, to the clean hostelry, dry clothes, and +dinner.</p> +<h3>THE WOODS IN SPRING</h3> +<p>I think 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 +artists’ sunshades as with unknown mushrooms, nor bestrewn +with the remains of English 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, ‘<i>à fond de train</i>, <i>monsieur</i>, +<i>et avec douze pipuers</i>.’</p> +<p>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; and, dotted +among the pines, or standing by themselves in rocky clearings, +the delicate, snow-white trunks of birches, spreading out into +snow-white branches yet more 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 among the bracken and brown heather. +It is all rather cold and unhomely. It has not 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 woods 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, pure 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 the 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.</p> +<p>Comely beeches send up their white, straight, clustered +branches, barred with green moss, like so many fingers from a +half-clenched hand. Mighty oaks stand 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 firs 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, guttered 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 these +coverts is so excessive, that there are moments when pleasure +draws to the verge of fear. You listen and listen for some +noise to break the silence, till you grow half mesmerised by the +intensity of the strain; your sense of your own identity is +troubled; your brain reels, like that of some gymnosophist poring +on his own nose in Asiatic jungles; and should you see your own +outspread feet, you see them, not as anything of yours, but as a +feature of the scene around you.</p> +<p>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 long 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 +leaves rustle underfoot, or you may time your steps to the steady +recurrent strokes of the woodman’s axe. From time to +time, over the low grounds, a flight of rooks 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 +the 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 clearings, and the solid noise of horses galloping +passes below you, where you sit perched among the rocks and +heather. The boar 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.</p> +<p>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: the old woman laden with a +fagot of chips, and the little ones hauling a long branch behind +them in her wake. That 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 frosty 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 fire spread out along the green pine-tops, in a remote +uncanny glen, hard by a hill of naked boulders. He drew +near warily, and beheld a picnic party seated under a tree in an +open. The old father knitted a sock, the mother sat staring +at the fire. The eldest son, 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 says; 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 <!-- page 169--><a +name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 169</span>whatever of +my friend’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. 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 singing in his ears, but he +fancies he was followed as he ran by a peal of Titanic +laughter. Nothing has ever transpired 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 Heine’s ‘Gods in Exile’; that the +upright old man with the eyebrows was no other than Father Jove, +and the young dragoon with the taste for music either Apollo or +Mars.</p> +<h3>MORALITY</h3> +<p>Strange 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 France have had their word to say about +Fontainebleau. Chateaubriand, Michelet, Béranger, +George Sand, de Senancour, Flaubert, 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 when 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 <i>Historical +Description of the Palace</i>, <i>Town</i>, <i>and Forest of +Fontainebleau</i>. 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 Horace: +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 labours of the Grand Master of Woods and Waters, the +Sieur de la Falure, ‘qui a fait faire ce magnifique +endroit.’</p> +<p>But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that the forest +makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle +something, that 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 here 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 bring 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 sorrow 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 contrariety of interests. You forget the narrow lane +where all men jostle together in unchivalrous contention, and the +kennel, deep and unclean, that gapes on either hand for the +defeated. Life is simple enough, it seems, and the very +idea of sacrifice becomes like a mad fancy out of a last +night’s dream.</p> +<p>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 more +exercised than the affections. When you have had your will +of the forest, you may visit the whole round world. You may +buckle on your knapsack and take the road on foot. You may +bestride a good 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 +cord of Europe and go down from Alpine glaciers to where Italy +extends her marble moles and glasses her marble palaces in the +midland sea. You may sleep in flying trains or wayside +taverns. You may be awakened at dawn 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 wine; 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, and 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 +network bound about your feet by birth and old companionship and +loyal love, and bear your shovelful of phosphates to and fro, in +town country, until the hour of the great dissolvent.</p> +<p>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 what they +know to be behind, enter into their notion of a place. If +the sea, for instance, lie just across 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 knowledge of its greatness is for much in the +effect produced. You reckon up the miles that lie between +you and intrusion. You may walk before you all day long, +and not fear to touch the barrier of your Eden, or stumble out of +fairyland into the land of gin and steam-hammers. And there +is an old tale enhances for the imagination the grandeur of the +woods of France, and secures you in the thought of your +seclusion. When Charles VI. hunted in the time of his wild +boyhood near Senlis, there was captured an old 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. If the extent of +solemn wood could thus safeguard a tall stag from the +hunter’s hounds and houses, might not you also play +hide-and-seek, in these groves, with all the pangs and +trepidations of man’s life, and elude Death, the mighty +hunter, for more than the span of human years? Here, also, +crash his arrows; here, in the farthest glade, sounds the gallop +of the pale horse. But he does not hunt this cover with all +his hounds, for the game is thin and small: and if you were but +alert and wary, if you lodged ever in the deepest thickets, you +too might live on into later generations and astonish men by your +stalwart age and the trophies of an immemorial success.</p> +<p>For the forest takes away from you all excuse to die. +There is nothing here to cabin 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 shadows and the sun wheeling his wide circuit through +the naked heavens. Here shall you see no enemies but winter +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 the 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 long 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 athletic act of the +imagination. A faint far-off rumour as of Merovingian wars; +a legend as of some dead religion.</p> +<h2><!-- page 175--><a name="page175"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 175</span>VI.<br /> +A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE <a name="citation175"></a><a +href="#footnote175" class="citation">[175]</a><br /> +A FRAGMENT<br /> +1879</h2> +<p class="gutsumm"><i>Originally intended to serve as the opening +chapter of</i> ‘<i>Travels with a Donkey in the +Cevennes</i>.’</p> +<p>Le Monastier is the chief place of a hilly canton 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, the +seat of an arch-priest and several vicars. It stands on the +side of hill above 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 +pediment and ornamental work in iron. For Monastier, like +Maybole in Ayrshire, was a sort of country capital, where the +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 means to ruin himself by high living in this +village on the hills. He certainly has claims to be +considered the most remarkable spendthrift on record. How +he set about it, in a place where there are no luxuries for sale, +and where the board at the best inn comes to little 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.</p> +<p>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 +hear one woman clattering off prayers for the edification of the +others at their work. They wear gaudy shawls, white caps +with a gay ribbon about the head, and sometimes a black felt +brigand hat above the cap; and so they give the street colour and +brightness and a foreign air. A while ago, when England +largely supplied herself from this district with the lace called +<i>torchon</i>, 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 takes 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, as with our northern pitmen, and +left nobody the richer. The women bravely squandered their +gains, kept the men in idleness, and gave themselves up, as I was +told, to sweethearting and a merry life. From week’s +end to week’s end it was one continuous gala in Monastier; +people spent the day in the wine-shops, and the drum or the +bagpipes led on the <i>bourrées</i> up to ten at +night. Now these dancing days are over. ‘<i>Il +n’y a plus de jeunesse</i>,’ said Victor the +garçon. I hear of no great advance in what are +thought the essentials of morality; but the +<i>bourrée</i>, with its rambling, sweet, interminable +music, and alert and rustic figures, has fallen into disuse, and +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, and marvel once +more at the complicated scheme of things upon this earth, and how +a turn of fashion in England can silence so much mountain +merriment in France. The lace-makers themselves have not +entirely 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.</p> +<p>From time to time a market is held, and the town 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 tailcoat 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 bulges; 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 the week +been twice as long, she would have waited still. There was +a canonical day for consultation; such was the ancestral habit, +to which a respectable lady must study to conform.</p> +<p>Two conveyances go daily to Le Puy, but they rival 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 <i>Courrier</i> (such is the name of one) +should leave Le Puy by two in the afternoon and arrive at +Monastier in good on the return voyage, 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.</p> +<p>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 little 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 country lies in +moorland pasture. The country 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 +common 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 passage over the stones; for it is a great +warbler, and at night, after I was in bed at Monastier, I could +hear it go singing down the valley till I fell asleep.</p> +<p>On the whole, this is a Scottish landscape, although not so +noble as the best in Scotland; and by an odd coincidence, the +population is, in its way, as Scottish as the country. They +have abrupt, uncouth, Fifeshire manners, and accost you, as if +you were trespassing, an ‘Où’st-ce que vous +allez?’ only 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 various +pigs and sheep and cattle that make so pleasant a tinkling in the +meadows. The lace-makers have disappeared from the +street. Not to attend mass would involve social +degradation; and you may find people reading Sunday books, in +particular a sort of Catholic <i>Monthly Visitor</i> on the +doings of Our Lady of Lourdes. I remember one Sunday, when +I was walking in the country, that I fell on a hamlet and found +all the inhabitants, from the patriarch to the baby, gathered in +the shadow of a gable at prayer. One strapping lass stood +with her back to the wall and did the solo part, the rest chiming +in devoutly. Not far off, a lad lay flat on his face asleep +among some straw, to represent the worldly element.</p> +<p>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 girl; and the arguments in the two cases were +identical. Each apostle based her claim on the superior +virtue and attainments of her clergy, and clenched the business +with a threat of hell-fire. ‘<i>Pas bong +prêtres ici</i>,’ said the Presbyterian, +‘<i>bong prêtres en Ecosse</i>.’ And the +postmaster’s daughter, taking up 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 each side relies on hell, and Protestant and +Catholic alike address themselves to a supposed misgiving in +their adversary’s heart. And I call it cheerful, for +faith is a more supporting quality than imagination.</p> +<p>Here, as in Scotland, many peasant families boast a son in +holy orders. And here also, the young men have a tendency +to emigrate. It is certainly not poverty 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 spirit 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 question +was now an apothecary in Brazil. He had flown by way of +Bordeaux, and first landed in America, bareheaded and barefoot, +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, to be an apothecary in +Brazil. As for his 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.</p> +<p>I soon became a popular figure, and was known for miles in the +country. <i>Où’st que vous allez</i>? was +changed for me into <i>Quoi</i>, <i>vous rentrez au Monastier</i> +and in the town itself every urchin seemed 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.</p> +<p>‘Do they speak <i>patois</i> in England?’ I +was once asked; and when I told them not, ‘Ah, then, +French?’ said they.</p> +<p>‘No, no,’ I said, ‘not French.’</p> +<p>‘Then,’ they concluded, ‘they speak +<i>patois</i>.’</p> +<p>You must obviously either speak French or <i>patios</i>. +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 <i>patios</i> 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 disagreeable bewilderment. +‘Bread,’ which sounds a commonplace, plain-sailing +monosyllable 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 got it carefully by heart, +as a stand-by, I presume, for winter evenings. I have tried +it since then with every sort of accent and inflection, but I +seem to lack the sense of humour.</p> +<p>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 falling towards decrepitude. One and all were pleasant +and natural, ready to laugh and ready with a certain quiet +solemnity when that was called for by the subject of our +talk. Life, since the fall in wages, had begun 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 and 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 but 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 +all 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 sitting in +judgment over the last. ‘No, no,’ she would +say, ‘that is not it. I am old, 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.</p> +<p>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 twang off an oath with Sir Toby Belch in +person. There was nothing so high or so low, in heaven or +earth or in the human 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 avoided <i>patois</i> 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 hulking +fellow, visibly the worse for drink before the day was well +begun. But it was strange to hear her unwearying flow of +oaths and obscenities, endless like a river, and now and then +rising to a passionate shrillness, in the clear and silent air of +the morning. In city slums, the thing might have passed +unnoticed; but in a country valley, and from a plain and honest +countrywoman, this beastliness of speech surprised the ear.</p> +<p>The <i>Conductor</i>, as he is called, <i>of Roads and +Bridges</i> 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 enthusiasm and special knowledge +are the great social qualities, and what they are about, whether +white sauce or Shakespeare’s plays, an altogether secondary +question.</p> +<p>I used to accompany the Conductor on his professional rounds, +and grew to believe myself an expert in the business. 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 the <i>Marquis de +Villemer</i>; and I have spoken with an old man, who was then a +child running about the inn kitchen, and who still 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 +<i>patois</i>, she would make him repeat it again and again till +it was graven in her memory. The word for a frog +particularly pleased her fancy; and it would be curious to know +if she afterwards employed it in her works. The peasants, +who knew nothing of betters and had never so much as heard of +local colour, could not explain her chattering with this backward +child; and to them she seemed a very homely lady and far from +beautiful: the most famous man-killer of the age appealed so +little to Velaisian swine-herds!</p> +<p>On my first engineering excursion, which lay up by Crouzials +towards Mount Mezenc and the borders of Ardèche, I began +an improving 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 <i>bourgeois et dames qui +faisaient la manège avec des chaises</i>, 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 been 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 devil <i>qui +s’amusait à faire ca</i>.</p> +<p>I suggested there was nothing more likely, as he must have +some amusement.</p> +<p>The foreman said it was odd, but there was less of that sort +of thing than formerly. ‘<i>C’est +difficile</i>,’ he added, ‘<i>à +expliquer</i>.’</p> +<p>When we were well up on the moors and the <i>Conductor</i> was +trying some road-metal with the gauge—</p> +<p>‘Hark!’ said the foreman, ‘do you hear +nothing?’</p> +<p>We listened, and the wind, which was blowing chilly out of the +east, brought a faint, tangled jangling to our ears.</p> +<p>‘It is the flocks of Vivarais,’ said he.</p> +<p>For every summer, the flocks out of all Ardèche are +brought up to pasture on these grassy plateaux.</p> +<p>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, when 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.</p> +<p>The <i>Conductor</i> 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 information in despair. A tale of old +lawlessness may yet be read in these uncouth timidities.</p> +<p>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 equipped he takes the road with +terror. All day the family sits about the fire in a foul +and airless hovel, and equally without work or diversion. +The father may carve a rude piece of furniture, but that is all +that will be done until the spring sets in again, and along with +it the labours of the field. It is not for nothing that you +find a clock in the meanest of these mountain habitations. +A clock and an almanac, you would fancy, were indispensable in +such a life . . .</p> +<h2><!-- page 189--><a name="page189"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 189</span>VII.<br /> +RANDOM MEMORIES: <i>ROSA QUO LOCORUM</i></h2> +<p>Through 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 volumes in a library. The child is +conscious of an interest, not in literature but in life. A +taste for the precise, the adroit, or the comely in the use of +words, 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 negatives 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 loud +words, but I believe the words themselves were what I +cherished. I had about the same time, and under the same +influence—that of my dear nurse—a favourite author: +it is possible the reader 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:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Behind the hills of Naphtali<br /> + The sun went slowly down,<br /> +Leaving on mountain, tower, and tree,<br /> + A tinge of golden brown.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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 +that charmed me in my childhood:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Jehovah Tschidkenu is nothing to +her’;—<a name="citation190"></a><a +href="#footnote190" class="citation">[190]</a></p> +</blockquote> +<p>I may say, without flippancy, that he was nothing 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, has continued to haunt me.</p> +<p>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 +picture eloquent beyond their value. Rummaging 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 banks 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 shrill +children. Here, in the fleecy person 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 greater 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 children 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 accompany 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—that the presence of these articles afforded me +encouragement. The third and last of my pictures +illustrated words:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘My table Thou hast furnished<br /> + In presence of my foes:<br /> +My head Thou dost with oil anoint,<br /> + And my cup overflows’:</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and this was perhaps the most interesting of the series. +I saw myself seated in a kind of open stone summer-house at +table; over my shoulder a hairy, bearded, and robed 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 white 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’ <i>Antiquities of Scotland</i>; +the imps conveyed from Bagster’s <i>Pilgrim’s +Progress</i>; the bearded and robed figure from any one of the +thousand Bible pictures; and the 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 jest, remark; but the serious +spirit of infancy adopted it in earnest. Children are 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 idea 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 appealed to +me at the moment as least contaminate with mean +associations. In this string of pictures I believe the 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 rude psalm the one lovely verse which dwells in the +minds of all, not growing old, not disgraced by its association +with long Sunday tasks, a scarce conscious joy in childhood, in +age a companion thought:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘In pastures green Thou leadest me,<br /> + The quiet waters by.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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 unconsciously; I listened +for news of the great vacant world upon whose edge I stood; I +listened 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 which I lay so long in +durance. <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>; some of the books of that +cheerful, ingenious, romantic soul, Mayne Reid; and a work rather +gruesome and bloody for a child, but very picturesque, called +<i>Paul Blake</i>; these are the three strongest impressions I +remember: <i>The Swiss Family Robinson</i> came next, <i>longo +intervallo</i>. At these I played, conjured up their +scenes, and delighted to hear them rehearsed unto seventy times +seven. I am not sure but what <i>Paul Blake</i> 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 <!-- page +194--><a name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +194</span>all day in a sandy wilderness across the road; then +came the evening with a great flash of colour and a heavenly +sweetness in the air. Somehow my play-mate had vanished, or +is out of the story, as the sages say, but I was sent into the +village on an errand; and, taking a book of fairy 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 have never since +forgot, and if my mind serves me to the last, I never shall, for +it was then that I knew I loved reading.</p> +<h3>II</h3> +<p>To pass from hearing literature to reading it is to take a +great and dangerous step. With not a few, I think a large +proportion of their pleasure then comes to an end; ‘the +malady of not marking’ overtakes them; they read +thenceforward by the eye alone and hear never again the chime of +fair words or the march of the stately period. <i>Non +ragioniam</i> of these. But to all the step is dangerous; +it involves coming of age; it is even a kind of second +weaning. In the past all was at the choice of others; they +chose, they digested, they read aloud for us and sang to their +own tune the books of childhood. In the future 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 choice, and she imposed them on my infancy, reading the +works of others as a poet would scarce dare to read his own; +gloating on the rhythm, dwelling with delight on assonances and +alliterations. I know 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 of my +nurse triumphed, and after a long search, I can find in these +earliest volumes of my autobiography no mention of anything but +nursery rhymes, the Bible, and Mr. M’Cheyne.</p> +<p>I suppose all children agree in looking back with delight on +their school Readers. We might not now find so much pathos +in ‘Bingen on the Rhine,’ ‘A soldier of the +Legion lay dying in Algiers,’ or in ‘The +Soldier’s Funeral,’ in the declamation 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 to my father; who roasted me for +years in consequence. I am sure one should not be so +deliciously tickled by the humorous pieces:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘What, crusty? cries Will in a taking,<br /> +Who would not be crusty with half a year’s +baking?’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I think this quip would leave us cold. The ‘Isles +of Greece’ seem rather tawdry too; but on the +‘Address to the Ocean,’ or on ‘The Dying +Gladiator,’ ‘time has writ no wrinkle.’</p> +<blockquote><p>’Tis the morn, but dim and dark,<br /> +Whither flies the silent lark?’—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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 Dickens 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.</p> +<p>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 Latin divinity, cyclopædias, physical science, and, +above all, optics, held the chief place upon the shelves, and it +was only in holes and corners that anything really legible +existed as by accident. The <i>Parent’s +Assistant</i>, <i>Rob Roy</i>, <i>Waverley</i>, and <i>Guy +Mannering</i>, the <i>Voyages of Captain Woods Rogers</i>, +Fuller’s and Bunyan’s <i>Holy Wars</i>,<i> The +Reflections of Robinson Crusoe</i>, <i>The Female Bluebeard</i>, +G. Sand’s <i>Mare au Diable</i>—(how came it in that +grave assembly!), Ainsworth’s <i>Tower of London</i>, and +four old volumes of Punch—these were the chief +exceptions. In these latter, which made for years the chief +of my diet, I very early fell in love (almost as soon as I could +spell) with the Snob Papers. I knew them almost by heart, +particularly the visit to the Pontos; and I remember my surprise +when I found, long afterwards, that they were famous, and signed +with a famous name; to me, as I read and admired them, they were +the works of Mr. Punch. Time and again I tried to read +<i>Rob Roy</i>, with whom of course I was acquainted from the +<i>Tales of a Grandfather</i>; time and again the early part, +with Rashleigh and (think of it!) the adorable Diana, choked me +off; and I shall never forget the pleasure and surprise with +which, lying on the floor one summer evening, I struck of a +sudden into the first scene with Andrew Fairservice. +‘The worthy Dr. Lightfoot’—‘mistrysted +with a bogle’—‘a wheen green +trash’—‘Jenny, lass, I think I ha’e +her’: from that day to this the phrases have been +unforgotten. I read on, I need scarce say; I came to +Glasgow, I bided tryst on Glasgow Bridge, I met Rob Roy and the +Bailie in the Tolbooth, all with transporting pleasure; and then +the clouds gathered once more about my path; and I dozed and +skipped until I stumbled half-asleep into the clachan of +Aberfoyle, and the voices of Iverach and Galbraith recalled me to +myself. With that scene and the defeat of Captain Thornton +the book concluded; Helen and her sons shocked even the little +schoolboy of nine or ten with their unreality; I read no more, or +I did not grasp what I was reading; and years elapsed before I +consciously met Diana and her father among the hills, or saw +Rashleigh dying in the chair. When I think of that novel +and that evening, I am impatient with all others; they seem but +shadows and impostors; they cannot satisfy the appetite which +this awakened; and I dare be known to think it the best of Sir +Walter’s by nearly as much as Sir Walter is the best of +novelists. Perhaps Mr. Lang is right, and our first friends +in the land of fiction are always the most real. And yet I +had read before this <i>Guy Mannering</i>, and some of +<i>Waverley</i>, with no such delighted sense of truth and +humour, and I read immediately after the 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. <i>Rob Roy</i>, <i>Guy Mannering</i>, +and <i>Redgauntlet</i> first; then, a little lower; <i>The +Fortunes of Nigel</i>; then, after a huge gulf, <i>Ivanhoe</i> +and <i>Anne of Geierstein</i>: the rest nowhere; such was the +verdict of the boy. Since then <i>The Antiquary</i>, <i>St. +Ronan’s Well</i>, <i>Kenilworth</i>, and <i>The Heart of +Midlothian</i> have gone up in the scale; perhaps <i>Ivanhoe and +Anne of Geierstein</i> have gone a trifle down; Diana Vernon has +been added to my admirations in that enchanted world of <i>Rob +Roy</i>; I think more of the letters in <i>Redgauntlet</i>, and +Peter Peebles, that dreadful 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 +<i>The Pirate</i> when I was a child, I have never finished it +yet; <i>Peveril of the Peak</i> dropped half way through from my +schoolboy hands, and though I have since waded to an end in a +kind of wager with myself, 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 <i>Book of Snobs</i>: does that 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? . . .</p> +<h2><!-- page 199--><a name="page199"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 199</span>VIII.<br /> +THE IDEAL HOUSE</h2> +<p>Two things are necessary in any neighbourhood where we propose +to spend a life: a desert and some living water.</p> +<p>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 desirable, 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 inspiriting than distant Alps, and the +thick fern upon a Surrey heath makes a fine forest for the +imagination, and the dotted yew trees noble mountains. A +Scottish moor with birches and firs grouped here and there upon a +knoll, or one of those rocky seaside deserts of Provence +overgrown with rosemary and thyme and smoking with aroma, are +places where the mind is never weary. Forests, being 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 rabbits, will stand well for the necessary +desert.</p> +<p>The house must be within hail of either a little 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; and +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 +should, besides, be narrow enough to cross, or the burn hard by a +bridge, or we are at once shut out of Eden. The quantity 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</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Shallow rivers, by whose falls<br /> +Melodious birds sing madrigals.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>If the sea is to be our ornamental water, choose 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 Teneriffe 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.</p> +<p>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 variety 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 cut into and cleared at the new owner’s +pleasure, are the qualities to be sought for in your chosen +land. Nothing is 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 against 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 into 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 eager or toilful gardener misbecomes the garden +landscape; a tasteful gardener will be ever meddling, will keep +the borders raw, and take the bloom off nature. Close +adjoining, if you are 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 entered through a +door in the high fruit-wall; so that you close the door behind +you on your sunny plots, your hedges and evergreen jungle, when +you go down to watch the apples falling in the pool. It is +a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes +will take care 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 +cages 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 can tolerate caged, though +even then I think it hard, and that is what is called in France +the Bec-d’Argent. I once had 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 worked, +carried it with me when I went for meals, and kept it by my head +at night: the first thing in the morning, these <i>maestrini</i> +would pipe up. But these, even if you can pardon their +imprisonment, are for the house. In 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 the lane, so that you must stroll to hear it, +and yet a little farther, tree-tops populous with rooks.</p> +<p>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. A house of more than two stories is a mere 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 reception 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 divan: +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 <i>ad hoc</i>: 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 +one 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 sanctuary 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 Claude or two. The room is +very spacious, and the five tables and two chairs are but as +islands. One table is for actual work, one close by for +references in use; one, very large, for MSS. or proofs 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 wearisome 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, make them +of all printed matter the most fit to stimulate and satisfy the +fancy. The chair in which you write is very low 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 twittering into song.</p> +<p>Joined along by a passage, you may reach the great, sunny, +glass-roofed, and tiled gymnasium, at the far end of which, lined +with bright marble, is your plunge and swimming bath, fitted with +a capacious boiler.</p> +<p>The whole loft of the house from end to end makes one +undivided chamber; here are set forth tables on which to model +imaginary 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 end 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 to 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.</p> +<p>I have left to the last the little room for winter +evenings. This should be furnished in warm positive +colours, and sofas and floor thick with rich furs. The +hearth, where you burn wood of aromatic quality on silver dogs, +tiled round about with Bible pictures; the seats deep and easy; a +single Titian in a gold frame; a white bust or so upon a bracket; +a rack for the journals of the week; a table for the books of the +year; and close 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 +<i>Carmosine</i> and the other at <i>Fantasio</i>); the +<i>Arabian Nights</i>, and kindred stories, in Weber’s +solemn volumes; Borrow’s <i>Bible in Spain</i>, the +<i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, <i>Guy Mannering</i> and <i>Rob +Roy</i>, <i>Monte Cristo</i> and the <i>Vicomte de +Bragelonne</i>, immortal Boswell sole among biographers, Chaucer, +Herrick, and the <i>State Trials</i>.</p> +<p>The bedrooms are large, airy, with almost no furniture, floors +of varnished wood, and at the bed-head, in case of insomnia, one +shelf of books of a particular and dippable order, such as +<i>Pepys</i>, the <i>Paston Letters</i>, Burt’s <i>Letters +from the Highlands</i>, or the <i>Newgate Calendar</i>. . . .</p> +<h2><!-- page 207--><a name="page207"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 207</span>IX.<br /> +DAVOS IN WINTER</h2> +<p>A mountain valley has, at the best, a certain prison-like +effect on the imagination, but 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; but to +these the health-seeker is rigidly confined. There are for +him no cross-cuts over the field, no following of streams, no +unguided rambles in the wood. His 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 each 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 sculpture, fills it, when regarded near at +hand, with wonderful depths of coloured shadow, 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 walk, 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 colours, and +the whisper of the woods. And scents here are as rare as +colours. Unless you get a gust of kitchen in passing some +hotel, you shall smell nothing all day long but the faint and +choking odour of frost. Sounds, too, are absent: not a bird +pipes, not a bough waves, in the dead, windless atmosphere. +If a sleigh goes by, the sleigh-bells ring, and that is all; you +work all winter through to no other accompaniment but the +crunching of your steps upon the frozen snow.</p> +<p>It is the curse of the Alpine valleys to be each 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. Climb 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 the health resort the walks are besieged by single +people walking rapidly with plaids about their shoulders, by +sudden troops of German boys trying to learn 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 walks +about. Alas! no muse will suffer this imminence of +interruption—and at the second stampede of jödellers +you find your modest inspiration fled. Or you may 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 public view. +Alas! there is no help for it among the Alps. There are no +recesses, 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.</p> +<p>For this publicity there is no cure, and no alleviation; but +the storms of which you will complain so bitterly while they +endure, chequer and by their contrast brighten the sameness of +the fair-weather 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 spire of alp hangs suspended in +mid-sky among awful glooms and blackness; or perhaps the edge of +some great mountain shoulder will be designed in living gold, and +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, appearances of +sun and air that endure but for a moment and return no +more. Other variations are more lasting, as when, 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 through a forest so disguised, the tongue-tied torrent +struggling silently in the cleft 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.</p> +<p>Or, possibly, you arise very early in the morning; totter down +stairs in a state of somnambulism; take the simulacrum of a meal +by the glimmer of one lamp in the deserted coffee-room; and find +yourself by seven o’clock outside in a belated moonlight +and a freezing chill. The mail sleigh takes you up and +carries 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 they +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 western +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 yourself upon the farther side +in yet another Alpine valley, snow white and coal black, 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.</p> +<h2><!-- page 212--><a name="page212"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 212</span>X.<br /> +HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS</h2> +<p>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 +the 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 within earshot of the interminable +and unchanging surf—idle among spiritless idlers; not +perhaps dying, yet hardly living either, and aspiring, sometimes +fiercely, after livelier weather and some vivifying change. +These were certainly beautiful places to 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 was 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.</p> +<p>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 southern sky. It is among these +mountains in 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. Instead 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 health 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.</p> +<p>But it is a far cry to the Rocky Mountains. We cannot +all of us go farming in Colorado; and there is yet a middle term, +which combines the medical benefits of the new system with the +moral drawbacks of the old. Again the invalid has to lie +aside from life and its wholesome duties; again he has to be an +idler among idlers; but this time at a great altitude, far among +the mountains, with the snow piled before his door and the frost +flowers every morning on his window. The mere fact is tonic +to his nerves. His choice of a place of wintering has +somehow to his own eyes the air of an act of bold contract; and, +since he has 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.</p> +<p>A long straight reach of valley, wall-like mountains upon +either hand that rise higher and higher and shoot up new summits +the higher you climb; a few noble peaks seen even from the +valley; a village 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-woods, and covering all the mountains with a dazzling curd; +add a few score invalids marching to and fro upon the snowy road, +or skating on the ice-rinks, possibly 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 curving 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 +the snow reverberates the sunshine; from end to end the air +tingles with the light, clear and dry like crystal. Only +along the course of the river, but high above it, there hangs far +into the noon, one waving scarf of vapour. It were hard to +fancy a more engaging feature in a landscape; perhaps it is +harder to believe 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 natural +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 here 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 none 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 crudity, 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 daytime in the Alps.</p> +<p>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 many degrees; the +peaks that are no longer shone upon dwindle into ghosts; and +meanwhile, overhead, if the weather be rightly characteristic of +the place, the sky fades 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 homely in the fields of snow.</p> +<p>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 +peer through their windows and foresee no end but an entire +seclusion from Europe, 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, glossy like fur, +bright like daylight, a joy to wallowing dogs and cheerful to the +souls of men. Or perhaps from across 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 recognises the +empire of the Föhn.</p> +<h2><!-- page 217--><a name="page217"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 217</span>XI.<br /> +ALPINE DIVERSIONS</h2> +<p>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 the 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, long before Christmas they will have given up the +English for a bad job. There will follow, perhaps, a +skirmish between the two races; the German element seeking, in +the interest of their actors, to raise a mysterious item, the +<i>Kur-taxe</i>, which figures heavily enough already in the +weekly bills, the English element stoutly resisting. +Meantime in the English hotels home-played farces, +<i>tableaux-vivants</i>, 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.</p> +<p>A magazine club supplies you with everything, from the +<i>Quarterly</i> to the <i>Sunday at Home</i>. Grand +tournaments are organised at chess, draughts, billiards and +whist. Once and again wandering artists drop into our +mountain valley, coming you know not whence, going you cannot +imagine whither, 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 guests at +dinner-time with songs and a collection. They are all of +them good to see; they, at least, are moving; they bring 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 still simmer in our mountain prison. Some +of them, too, are welcome as the flowers in May for their own +sake; some of them 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 grinding lilt, with which the blind man, +seeking pence, accompanies the beat of paddle wheels across the +ferry, there is surely a difference rather of kind than of degree +to that unearthly voice of singing that bewails and praises the +destiny of man at the touch of the true virtuoso. Even that +you may perhaps enjoy; and if you do so you will own it +impossible to enjoy it more keenly than here, <i>im Schnee der +Alpen</i>. 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 respect +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.</p> +<p>Of skating little need be said; in so snowy a climate the +rinks must be intelligently managed; their mismanagement will +lead 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 under 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 board, with the front wheels on a pivot, which was +called a <i>hurlie</i>; he may remember this contrivance, 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 career of the +tobogganist. The correct position is to sit; but the +fantastic will sometimes sit hind-foremost, or dare the descent +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 the 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 desperate +exertion. On a very steep track, with 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 body, 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.</p> +<p>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 true 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 this 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 landed on the +highroad by the door of your own hotel. This, in an +atmosphere tingling with forty degrees of frost, in a night 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 life of man upon his planet.</p> +<h2><!-- page 222--><a name="page222"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 222</span>XII.<br /> +THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS</h2> +<p>To any one who should come from a southern sanitarium to the +Alps, the row of sun-burned 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 five of +even the bad cases bears the mark of sickness on his face. +The plump sunshine from above and its strong reverberation from +below colour the skin like an Indian climate; the treatment, +which consists mainly of the open air, exposes even the sickliest +to tan, and a tableful of invalids comes, in a month or two, to +resemble a tableful of hunters. But although he may be thus +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 +languishes; 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 certain troubled delight in his existence +which can nowhere else be paralleled. He is perhaps no +happier, but he is stingingly alive. It does not, perhaps, +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.</p> +<p>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 every 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 strength 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.</p> +<p>It is hard to say wherein it lies, but this joy 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 merry as it proves to be +transient.</p> +<p>The brightness—heaven and earth conspiring to be +bright—the levity and quiet of the air; the odd stirring +silence—more stirring than a tumult; the snow, the frost, +the enchanted landscape: all have their part in the effect and on +the memory, ‘<i>tous vous tapent sur la +téte</i>’; 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 +land of its nativity still as a pool, clean as river water, and +as heady as verse. It is more than probable that in its +noble natural condition this was the very wine of Anjou so +beloved by Athos in the ‘Musketeers.’ Now, if +the reader has 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, than +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 lasts.</p> +<p>The influence of this giddy air displays itself 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 +utter their judgments with a cannonade of syllables; a big word +is as good as a meal 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 without +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 joke, to be positively offensive in hot weather. +He writes it in good faith and with a sense of inspiration; it is +only 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 like 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 somewhat comforts him. Nor is the ill without 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 send a man to +the proper measured level for the ode, the biography, or the +religious 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.</p> +<p>Is it a return of youth, or is it a congestion of the +brain? It is a sort of congestion, perhaps, that leads the +invalid, when all goes well, to face the new day with such a +bubbling cheerfulness. It is certainly congestion that +makes night hideous with visions, all the chambers 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, for +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.</p> +<h2><!-- page 227--><a name="page227"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 227</span>XIII.<br /> +ROADS<br /> +1873</h2> +<p>No amateur 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 +famous picture-gallery. But what is thus admitted with +regard to art is not extended to the (so-called) natural beauties +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 healthful and strengthening to the taste; and that the best +school for a lover of nature 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 harmonious 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 as +this that we find ourselves in the right temper to seek out small +sequestered loveliness. The constant recurrence 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 true pleasure of your ‘rural +voluptuary,’—not to remain awe-stricken before a +Mount 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 tranquil 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 much 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 else, it is minute knowledge and long-continued +loving industry that make the true dilettante. A man must +have thought much over scenery before he begins fully to enjoy +it. It is no youngling enthusiasm on hilltops that can +possess itself of the last essence of beauty. Probably most +people’s heads are growing bare before they can see all in +a landscape that they have the capability of seeing; 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 windows begin to be darkened and restrained in +sight. Thus the study of nature should be carried forward +thoroughly and with 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 play. There is a dangerous vice inherent in any +such intellectual refining upon vague 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 that makes the attempt +attractive; for any expression, however imperfect, once given to +a cherished feeling, seems a sort of legitimation of the pleasure +we take in it. A common sentiment is one of those 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 otherwise than we have seen +them, will continue to the end to be one of life’s choicest +pleasures.</p> +<p>Let the reader, then, betake himself in the spirit 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 vista +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 slope, 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 changeful and enlivening that +he can always pleasurably busy his mind about it. He may +leave the river-side, or fall out 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 +they 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 swing and wilfulness. +You might think for a whole summer’s day (and not have +thought it any nearer an end by evening) what 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-path across a +meadow—in all its human waywardness and unaccountability, +in all the <i>grata protervitas</i> of its varying +direction—will always be more to us than a railroad well +engineered through a difficult country. <a +name="citation231"></a><a href="#footnote231" +class="citation">[231]</a> No reasoned sequence is thrust +upon our attention: we seem to have slipped for one lawless +little moment out of the iron rule of cause and effect; and so we +revert at once to some of the pleasant old heresies of +personification, always poetically orthodox, and attribute a sort +of free-will, an active and spontaneous life, to the white riband +of road that lengthens out, and bends, and cunningly adapts +itself to the inequalities of the land before our eyes. We +remember, as we write, some miles of fine wide highway laid out +with conscious æsthetic artifice through a broken and +richly cultivated tract of country. It is said that the +engineer had Hogarth’s line of beauty in his mind as he +laid them down. And the result is striking. One +splendid satisfying sweep passes with easy transition into +another, and there is nothing to trouble or dislocate the strong +continuousness of the main line of the road. And yet there +is something wanting. There is here no saving imperfection, +none of those secondary curves and little trepidations of +direction that carry, in natural roads, our curiosity actively +along with them. One feels at once that this road has not +has been laboriously grown like a natural road, but made to +pattern; and that, while a model may be academically correct in +outline, it will always be inanimate and cold. The +traveller is also aware of a sympathy of mood between himself and +the road he travels. We have all seen ways that have +wandered into heavy sand near the sea-coast, and trail wearily +over the dunes like a trodden serpent. Here we too must +plod forward 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 might perhaps resolve with a little +trouble. We might reflect that the present road had been +developed out of a tract 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. Or we might carry the reflection further, and +remind ourselves that where the air is invigorating and the +ground firm under the traveller’s foot, his eye is quick to +take advantage of small undulations, and he will turn carelessly +aside from the direct way wherever there is anything beautiful to +examine or some promise of a wider view; so that even a bush of +wild roses may permanently bias and deform the straight path over +the meadow; whereas, where the soil is heavy, one is preoccupied +with the labour of mere progression, and goes with a bowed head +heavily and unobservantly forward. Reason, however, will +not carry us the whole way; for the sentiment often recurs in +situations where it is very hard to imagine any possible +explanation; and indeed, if we drive briskly along a good, +well-made road in an open vehicle, we shall experience this +sympathy almost at its fullest. We feel the sharp settle of +the springs at some curiously twisted corner; after a steep +ascent, the fresh air dances in our faces as we rattle +precipitately down the other side, and we find it difficult to +avoid attributing something headlong, a sort of <i>abandon</i>, +to the road itself.</p> +<p>The mere winding of the path is enough to enliven 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 valleys 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 something +new to be seen, and takes us, like a careful cicerone, to many +different points of distant view before it allows us finally to +approach the hoped-for destination.</p> +<p>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 peoples 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 that 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 sound 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 the 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 understood by the dweller in +places more populous. We remember standing beside a +countryman once, in the mouth of a quiet by-street in a city that +was more than ordinarily crowded and bustling; he seemed stunned +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 +<i>great deal of meeting thereabouts</i>. The phrase is +significant. It is the expression 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 concourse of the +streets was in his eyes only an extraordinary multiplication of +such ‘meetings.’</p> +<p>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 +road 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. <i>Sehnsucht</i>—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 shining 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 +junction. There is a passionate paragraph in <i>Werther</i> +that strikes the very key. ‘When I came +hither,’ he writes, ‘how the 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 themselves 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 +<i>there</i> is changed to <i>here</i>, all is afterwards as it +was before, and we stand in our indigent and cramped estate, and +our soul thirsts after a still ebbing elixir.’ It is +to this wandering and uneasy spirit of anticipation that roads +minister. Every little vista, every little glimpse that we +have of what lies before us, gives the impatient imagination +rein, so that it can outstrip the body and already plunge into +the shadow of the woods, and 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 rear 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 +long miles of march, feel as if he also were within the +gates?</p> +<h2><!-- page 237--><a name="page237"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 237</span>XIV.<br /> +ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES<br /> +1874</h2> +<p>It is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, +and we have much in our own power. Things looked at +patiently from one side after another generally end by showing a +side that is beautiful. A few months ago some words were +said in the <i>Portfolio</i> as to an ‘austere regimen in +scenery’; and such a discipline was then recommended as +‘healthful and strengthening to the taste.’ +That is the text, so to speak, of the present essay. This +discipline 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 come to each +place in the right spirit. The traveller, as Brantôme +quaintly tells us, ‘<i>fait des discours en soi pour +soutenir en chemin</i>’; and into these discourses he +weaves something out of all that he sees and suffers by the way; +they take 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 lighter 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 follows +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 +beauty, much as a gentle and sincere character is provocative of +sincerity and gentleness in others. And even where there is +no harmony to be elicited by the quickest and most obedient of +spirits, 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 admirable 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 +where 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 sort 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 ourselves 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 together, 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 <i>Wuthering Heights</i>—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.</p> +<p>With all this in mind, I have often been tempted to put forth +the paradox that any place is good enough to live a life in, +while 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 sympathetic 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 seemed, to quicken and +educate my sensibilities than many years in places that jumped +more nearly with my inclination.</p> +<p>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. A river, indeed, fell into the +sea near the town where I resided; but the valley of the river +was shallow and bald, for as far up as ever I had the heart to +follow it. There were roads, certainly, but roads that had +no beauty or interest; for, as there was no timber, and but +little irregularity of surface, you saw your whole walk exposed +to you from the beginning: there was nothing left to fancy, +nothing to expect, nothing to see by the wayside, save here and +there an unhomely-looking homestead, and here and there a +solitary, spectacled stone-breaker; and you were only +accompanied, as you went doggedly forward, by the gaunt +telegraph-posts and the hum of the resonant wires in the keen +sea-wind. To one who had learned to know their song in warm +pleasant places by the Mediterranean, it seemed to taunt the +country, and make it still bleaker by suggested contrast. +Even the waste places by the side of the road were not, as +Hawthorne liked to put it, ‘taken back to Nature’ by +any decent covering of vegetation. Wherever the land had +the chance, it seemed to lie fallow. There is a certain +tawny nudity of the South, bare sunburnt plains, coloured like a +lion, and hills clothed only in the blue transparent air; but +this was of another description—this was the nakedness of +the North; the earth seemed to know that it was naked, and was +ashamed and cold.</p> +<p>It seemed to be always blowing on that coast. Indeed, +this had passed into the speech of the inhabitants, and they +saluted each other when they met with ‘Breezy, +breezy,’ 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, +persistent sort, that interferes with sight and respiration, and +makes the eyes sore. Even such winds as these have their +own merit in proper time and place. It is pleasant 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 gets 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 sort to be +noticed in a country where there were no trees and hardly any +shadows, save the passive shadows of clouds or those of rigid +houses and walls. But the wind 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 the +‘Prelude,’ has used this as a figure for the feeling +struck in us by the quiet by-streets of London after the uproar +of the great thoroughfares; and the comparison may be turned the +other way with as good effect:—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Meanwhile the roar continues, till at +length,<br /> +Escaped as from an enemy, we turn<br /> +Abruptly into some sequester’d nook,<br /> +Still as a shelter’d place when winds blow loud!’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I remember meeting a man once, in a train, who told me of what +must have been quite the most perfect instance of this pleasure +of escape. He had gone up, one sunny, 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 +long while in dark stairways, he issued at last into the +sunshine, on a platform high above the town. At that +elevation it was quite still and warm; the gale was only in the +lower strata of the air, 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 <i>Place</i> far below him, +he saw the good people holding 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!</p> +<p>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 +keep 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 +tranquil water, and the sea-birds, screaming and flickering from +the ruined crags, alone disturb the silence and the +sunshine. One such place has impressed itself on my memory +beyond all others. On a rock by the water’s edge, old +fighting men of the Norse breed had planted a double castle; the +two stood wall to wall like semi-detached villas; and yet feud +had run so high between their owners, 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, when the sea boomed against the foundations +and the wild winter wind was loose over 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 there 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 trouble the sea within view. +The two castles, black and ruinous as the rocks about them, were +still distinguishable from these by something more insecure and +fantastic in the outline, something that the last storm had left +imminent and the next would demolish entirely. It would be +difficult to render in words the sense of peace that took +possession of me on these three afternoons. It was helped +out, as I have said, by the contrast. The shore was +battered and bemauled by previous tempests; I had the memory at +heart of the insane strife 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 +something transitory and fretful in the impression of a high wind +under a cloudless sky; it seems to have no root in the +constitution of things; it must speedily begin to faint and +wither away like a cut flower. And on those days the +thought of the wind and the thought of human life 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 wind of a +butterfly’s wing. The placidity 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 rock, or swimming +leisurely in the sunshine, it seemed to me that they were +enjoying 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.</p> +<p>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 afternoon 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 lines 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—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Mon cœur est un luth suspendu,<br /> +Sitôt qu’on le touche, il résonne.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I can give no reason why these lines came to me at this time; +and for that very cause I repeat them here. For all I know, +they may serve to complete the impression in the mind of the +reader, as they were certainly a part of it for me.</p> +<p>And this happened to me in the place of all others 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 something 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 will surely find.</p> +<h2>Footnotes</h2> +<p><a name="footnote92"></a><a href="#citation92" +class="footnote">[92]</a> The Second Part here referred to +is entitled ‘<span class="smcap">Across the +Plains</span>,’ and is printed in the volume so entitled, +together with other Memories and Essays.</p> +<p><a name="footnote106"></a><a href="#citation106" +class="footnote">[106]</a> 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.</p> +<p><a name="footnote136"></a><a href="#citation136" +class="footnote">[136]</a> William Abercrombie. See +<i>Fasti Ecclesia Scoticanæ</i>, under +‘Maybole’ (Part iii.).</p> +<p><a name="footnote147"></a><a href="#citation147" +class="footnote">[147]</a> ‘Duex poures varlez qui +n’ont nulz gages et qui gissoient la nuit avec les +chiens.’ See Champollion—Figeac’s +<i>Louis et Charles d’Orléans</i>, i. 63, and for my +lord’s English horn, <i>ibid.</i> 96.</p> +<p><a name="footnote175"></a><a href="#citation175" +class="footnote">[175]</a> Reprinted by permission of John +Lane.</p> +<p><a name="footnote190"></a><a href="#citation190" +class="footnote">[190]</a> ‘Jehovah Tsidkenu,’ +translated in the Authorised Version as ‘The Lord our +Righteousness’ (Jeremiah xxiii. 6 and xxxiii. 16).</p> +<p><a name="footnote231"></a><a href="#citation231" +class="footnote">[231]</a> Compare Blake, in the +<i>Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i>: ‘Improvement makes +straight roads; but the crooked roads, without improvement, are +roads of Genius.’</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS OF TRAVEL***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 627-h.htm or 627-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/2/627 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Essays of Travel + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: December 28, 2010 [eBook #627] +[This file was first posted on July 3, 1996] +Last Updated: November 12, 2017 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS OF TRAVEL*** + + +Transcribed from the 1905 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + ESSAYS OF TRAVEL + + + BY + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + [Picture: Decorative image] + + LONDON + CHATTO & WINDUS + 1905 + + SECOND IMPRESSION + + Contents + + PAGE +I. The Amateur Emigrant: From The Clyde To Sandy + Hook-- + The Second Cabin 3 + Early Impressions 11 + Steerage Scenes 21 + Steerage Types 30 + The Sick Man 42 + The Stowaways 53 + Personal Experience And Review 69 + New York 81 +II. Cockermouth And Keswick 93 + Cockermouth 94 + An Evangelist 97 + Another 100 + Last Of Smethurst 102 +III. An Autumn Effect 106 +IV. A Winter's Walk In Carrick And Galloway 131 +V. Forest Notes-- + On The Plains 144 + In The Season 149 + Idle Hours 153 + A Pleasure-Party 157 + The Woods In Spring 164 + Morality 169 +VI. A Mountain Town In France 175 +VII. Random Memories: _Rosa Quo Locorum_ 189 +VII. The Ideal House 199 +IX. Davos In Winter 207 +X. Health And Mountains 212 +XI. Alpine Diversion 217 +XII. The Stimulation Of The Alps 222 +XIII. Roads 227 +XIV. On The Enjoyment Of Unpleasant Places 237 + + + +I. +THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT + + +To +ROBERT 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 continued to the present time. +Although we may not be old in the world, we are old to each 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 +conquer 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. + + R.L.S. + +1879. + + + +THE SECOND CABIN + + +I first encountered my fellow-passengers on the Broomielaw in Glasgow. +Thence we descended the Clyde in no familiar spirit, but looking askance +on each other as on possible enemies. A few Scandinavians, who had +already grown acquainted on the North Sea, were friendly 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 descend the widening estuary; and with the +falling temperature the gloom among the passengers increased. Two of the +women wept. Any one who had come aboard might have supposed we were all +absconding from the law. There was scarce a word interchanged, and no +common sentiment but that of cold united us, until at length, having +touched 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 the land to which she was to bear us. + +I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although anxious to see the +worst of emigrant 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 understand the choice, and +what I gained, some outline of the internal disposition of the ship will +first be necessary. In her very nose is Steerage No. 1, down two pair of +stairs. A little abaft, another companion, labelled Steerage No. 2 and +3, gives admission to three galleries, two running forward towards +Steerage No. 1, and the third aft towards the engines. The starboard +forward gallery is the second 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 heart 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 terrified 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 tea 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 +snuff in the former from a flavour of boiling and dish-cloths in the +second. As a matter of fact, I have seen passengers, 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, boiled 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 thing mere chicken-bones and flakes of fish, neither hot nor +cold. If these were not the scrapings of plates their looks belied them +sorely; yet we were all too hungry to be proud, and fell to these +leavings greedily. These, the bread, which was excellent, and the soup +and porridge which were both good, formed my whole diet throughout the +voyage; so that except for the broken meat and the convenience of a table +I might as well have been in the steerage outright. Had they given me +porridge again in the evening, I should have been perfectly contented +with the fare. As it was, with a few biscuits and some whisky and water +before turning in, I kept my body going and my spirits 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 steerage there are males and females; in the second cabin ladies and +gentlemen. For some time after I came aboard I thought 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 females, 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; everywhere else I was +incognito, moving among my inferiors with simplicity, not so much 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 +steerage fare; eight that by the second cabin; and when you remember that +the steerage passenger must supply bedding and dishes, and, in five cases +out of ten, either brings some dainties with him, or privately pays the +steward for extra rations, 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 for the asking. Two of my fellow-passengers 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 friends, 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 bring +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. There was a mixed +group of Swedes, Danes, 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 speak 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, +known 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 word of condemnation. One of them was Scots; the other +claimed to be American; admitted, after some fencing, that he was born in +England; and ultimately proved to be an Irishman born and nurtured, but +ashamed to own his country. He had a sister on board, whom he faithfully +neglected throughout the voyage, though she was not only sick, but much +his senior, and had nursed and cared for him in childhood. In appearance +he was like 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 they 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 +plain 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 attention 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 should reach New York. They had heard +reports, her husband and she, of some unwarrantable disparity of hours +between these two cities; and with a spirit commendably scientific, had +seized on this occasion to put them to the proof. It was a good thing +for the old lady; for she passed much leisure time in studying the watch. +Once, when prostrated by sickness, she let it run down. It was inscribed +on her harmless mind in 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, she 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 when 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 been the same with the other Scotsmen +present, for we all laughed our fill. + +Last but not least, I come to my excellent friend Mr. Jones. It would be +difficult to say whether I was his right-hand man, or he mine, during the +voyage. Thus at table I carved, while he only scooped gravy; but at our +concerts, of which more anon, he was the president who called up +performers to sing, and I but his messenger who ran his errands and +pleaded 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 undeceive 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 _h_; a word of a dialect is picked +up from another band in the forecastle; until often the result is +undecipherable, and 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 speech 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 and after a fashion a rich man; now the wife was dead +and the money gone. But his was the nature that looks forward, and goes +on from one year to another and through all the extremities of fortune +undismayed; and if the sky were to fall to-morrow, I should look to see +Jones, 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 think 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 cut, there would be Jones +with his bottle. + +If he had one taste more strongly than another, it was to study +character. Many an hour 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; and we could hardly go +to bed in comfort till we had exchanged notes and discussed 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 +angled 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 double detection; but Jones, with a +better civility, broke into a peal of unaffected laughter, and declared, +what was the truth, that there was a pair of us indeed. + + + +EARLY IMPRESSIONS + + +We steamed out of the Clyde on Thursday night, and early on the Friday +forenoon we took in our last batch of emigrants at Lough Foyle, in +Ireland, and said farewell to Europe. The company was now complete, 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, this knowledge grew more clear and melancholy. Emigration, +from a word of the most cheerful import, came to sound most dismally in +my ear. There is nothing more agreeable to picture and nothing more +pathetic to behold. The abstract idea, as conceived at home, is hopeful +and adventurous. A young man, you fancy, scorning restraints and +helpers, issues forth into life, that great 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 heroisms; it stands to +them as the victorious war which subdued an empire stands to the personal +act of bravery which spiked a single cannon and was adequately rewarded +with a medal. For in emigration the young men enter direct and by the +shipload on their heritage of work; empty 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 the men were below +thirty; many were married, and encumbered with families; not a few were +already up in years; and this itself was out of tune with my +imaginations, 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 taking 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 these 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 factories, 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 not 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. Thus 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 circumstances 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, on 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, and 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 manoeuvring on the +outskirts of acquaintance. The sea, the ship, and 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 often had my heart in my mouth, watching +them climb into the shrouds or on the rails, 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 composure 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 forward 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 Steerage No. 4 and 5, and who, +wherever he went, was like a strain of music round the ship. He was an +ugly, merry, unbreeched 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 his 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 their midst +and sang aloud in the pleasant heartlessness of infancy. + +Throughout the Friday, intimacy among us men made but a few advances. We +discussed the 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 from in the old; and, above all, we condoled +together over the food and the vileness 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 their heels; and to these all seemed for the best in the best of +possible steamers. 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 speaking 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. But these working men were loud in their +outcries. It was not 'food for human 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 +better rations from the ship. This marvellously 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 turn 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 heartily 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 others agreed to do so, and I thought we +should have been quite a party. Yet, when I brought up my rug about +seven bells, there was no one to be seen but the watch. That chimerical +terror of good night-air, which makes men close their windows, list their +doors, and seal themselves up with their own poisonous exhalations, had +sent all these healthy workmen down 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 the +starboard bow, and was dry but chilly. I found a shelter near the +fire-hole, and made myself snug for the night. + +The ship moved over the uneven sea with a gentle 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 brass and the beautiful sea-cry, 'All's well!' I know +nothing, whether for poetry or music, that can surpass the effect of +these two syllables in the darkness of a night at sea. + +The day dawned fairly enough, and during the early 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 rose 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 were received with generous +applause. Once or twice, a recitation, very spiritedly 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, they 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 dancers departed under a cloud. +Eight Frenchmen, 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 careful of +dignity. He dares not be comical; his fun must escape from him +unprepared, and above all, it must be unaccompanied 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 triumphed over modesty and even +the inclemencies of sea and sky. On this rough Saturday night, we got +together 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 the 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 measure saved by the vigour and unanimity with which +the chorus was thrown forth into the night. I observed a Platt-Deutsch +mason, entirely innocent of English, adding heartily to the general +effect. And perhaps the German mason 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 Anchor'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 more appropriate moment for +'Auld Lang Syne' than now, when the land, the friends, 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 cloudy; 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 the majority of the emigrants. I heard an old woman express +her surprise that 'the ship didna gae doon,' as she saw some one pass 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 +their divine. 'I didna think he was an experienced preacher,' said one +girl to me. + +Is was a bleak, uncomfortable day; but at night, 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 burning as steadily and sweetly across this +hurly-burly of the winds and waters as ever at home upon the summer +woods. The engine 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, over 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 thing 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 made 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 +one 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 bells, when the lights +were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to roost. + +It had been rumoured since Friday that there was 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 Orpheus 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 eyes. Humanly +speaking, it is a more important matter to play the fiddle, even badly, +than to write huge works upon recondite subjects. What could Mr. Darwin +have 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 understand 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, turning +it over in his Scots head, and then answered with conviction, 'Yes, a +privilege.' + +That night I was summoned by 'Merrily danced the 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 open slide-door we had a +glimpse of a grey night sea, with patches of phosphorescent foam flying, +swift as birds, into the wake, and the horizon rising and falling 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 lighted +by another lamp, lads and lasses danced, not more than three at a time +for lack 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 Irish 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 mouth, 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, 'Hush!' with uplifted finger +and glowing, supplicating eyes, 'he's going to play "Auld 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. 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 quadrilles, 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 thus +squiring the fiddler into public note. There is nothing more becoming +than a genuine admiration; and it shares this with love, that it does not +become contemptible although misplaced. + +The dancing was but feebly carried on. The space was almost +impracticably small; 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 was the eagerness of the brother to +display all the acquirements of his idol, and such the sleepy +indifference of the performer, that the tune would as often as not 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 +flying and drumming over the forecastle; the companion of Steerage No. 1 +had to be closed, 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 part of the ship, Mr. +Jones and I paid it a late visit. Steerage No. 1 is shaped like an +isosceles triangle, the sides opposite the equal angles bulging outward +with the contour of the ship. It is lined with eight pens of sixteen +bunks apiece, four bunks below and four above on either side. At night +the place is lit with two lanterns, one to each table. As the steamer +beat on her way among the rough billows, the light passed through violent +phases of change, and was thrown to and fro and up and down with +startling swiftness. You were tempted to wonder, as you looked, how so +thin a glimmer could control and disperse such solid blackness. When +Jones and I entered we found a little company of our acquaintances seated +together at the triangular foremost table. A more forlorn party, in more +dismal circumstances, it would be hard to imagine. The motion here in +the ship's nose was very violent; the uproar of the sea often +overpoweringly loud. The yellow flicker of the lantern spun round and +round and tossed the shadows in masses. The air was hot, but it struck a +chill from its foetor. + +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 mine were keeping up what heart they could in company. Singing was +their refuge from discomfortable thoughts and sensations. One piped, in +feeble tones, 'Oh why left I my hame?' which seemed a pertinent question +in the circumstances. 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 dim inferno, to an accompaniment of plunging, +hollow-sounding bows and the rattling spray-showers overhead. + +All seemed unfit for conversation; a certain dizziness had interrupted +the activity of their minds; and except to sing they were tongue-tied. +There was present, however, one tall, powerful fellow of doubtful +nationality, being neither quite Scotsman nor altogether Irish, but 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 another +contribution to our culture. + +'Just by way of change,' said he, 'I'll ask you 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 settled 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 little 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 steerage to steerage, but at +least not stagnant; and from this couch, as well as the usual sounds of a +rough night at sea, the hateful coughing and retching of the sick and the +sobs of children, I heard a man run wild with terror beseeching his +friend for encouragement. 'The ship's going down!' he cried with a +thrill of agony. 'The ship's going down!' he repeated, now in a blank +whisper, now with his voice rising towards a sob; and his friend might +reassure him, reason with him, joke at him--all was in vain, and the old +cry came back, 'The ship's going 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; the 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-board 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 observed, more popular as well as more conspicuously +well done than the former. We had a regular daily competition to guess +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. From the +Clyde to Sandy Hook I never heard a wager offered or taken. We had, +besides, romps in plenty. Puss in the Corner, which we had rebaptized, +in more manly style, Devil and four Corners, was my own favourite game; +but there were many who preferred another, the humour of which was to box +a person's ears until he found out who had cuffed him. + +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. 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 the 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 about +nothing, which galled me to the quick. 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 people managed to convey by their +presence. They seemed to throw their clothes in our faces. Their eyes +searched us all over for tatters and incongruities. A laugh was ready at +their lips; but they were too well-mannered to indulge it in our hearing. +Wait 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. + + + +STEERAGE TYPES + + +We had a fellow on board, an Irish-American, for all the world like a +beggar in a print by Callot; one-eyed, with great, splay crow's-feet +round the sockets; a knotty squab nose coming down over his moustache; a +miraculous hat; a shirt that had been white, ay, ages long ago; an alpaca +coat in its last sleeves; and, without hyperbole, no buttons to his +trousers. Even in these rags and tatters, the man twinkled all over with +impudence like a piece of sham jewellery; and I have heard him offer a +situation to one 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 brought 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 lumberingly enough +in broken German, and learned from his own lips that he had been an +apothecary. He carried the photograph 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 barbaric and unhomely cast, the eye +both reassured and touched. It was large and very dark and soft, with 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 one 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; the 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 +with a somewhat indistinct and childish hope. + +We had a father and son who made a pair of Jacks-of-all-trades. It was +the son who sang the 'Death of Nelson' under such contrarious +circumstances. He was by trade a shearer of ship plates; but he could +touch the organ, and led two choirs, and played the flute and piccolo 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 silver 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 hostile 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. It was a dreary story. He +would bring home three pounds on Saturday, and on Monday all the clothes +would be in pawn. Sick of the useless struggle, he gave up a paying +contract, and contented himself with small and ill-paid jobs. 'A bad job +was as good as a good job for me,' he said; 'it all went the same way.' +Once the wife showed signs of amendment; she kept steady for weeks on +end; it was again worth while to labour and to do one's best. The +husband found a good situation some distance from home, and, to make a +little upon every hand, started the wife in a cook-shop; the children +were here and there, busy as mice; savings began to grow together in the +bank, and the golden age of hope had returned again to that unhappy +family. But one week my old acquaintance, getting earlier through with +his work, came home on the Friday instead of the Saturday, and there was +his wife to receive him reeling drunk. He 'took and gave her a pair o' +black eyes,' for which I pardon him, nailed up the cook-shop door, gave +up his situation, and resigned himself to a life of poverty, with the +workhouse at the end. As the children came to their full age they fled +the house, and established themselves in other countries; some did well, +some not so well; but the father remained at home alone with his drunken +wife, all his sound-hearted pluck and varied accomplishments depressed +and negatived. + +Was she dead now? or, after all these years, had 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 work 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'most anything. You see no craze about me.' + +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 thriving 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 conclusions, 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 courage 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 stuck 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. You would +have said he recognised a destiny 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 incompetency were the three great +causes of emigration, and for all of them, and drink first 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 that 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-voyage will not give a man the +nerve to put aside cheap pleasure; emigration has to be done before we +climb the vessel; an aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; +and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself. + +Speaking generally, there is no vice of this kind more contemptible than +another; for each is but a result and outward sign of a soul tragically +ship-wrecked. In the majority of cases, cheap pleasure is resorted to by +way of anodyne. The pleasure-seeker sets forth upon life with high and +difficult ambitions; he meant to be nobly good and nobly happy, though 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. Hence the comparative success of the teetotal pledge; because +to a man who had nothing it sets at least a negative aim in life. +Somewhat as prisoners beguile their days by taming a spider, the reformed +drunkard makes an interest out of abstaining from intoxicating drinks, +and may live for that negation. There is something, at least, _not to be +done_ each day; and a cold triumph awaits him every evening. + +We had one on board with us, whom I have already referred to under the +name Mackay, who seemed to me not only a good instance 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 subjects +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, quick, 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 in 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 delighted 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 +damned 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 played 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. 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 +pleasure 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 from the +spring, whereas his ploughs and butter-churns were but means and +mechanisms 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, and 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 conspiracy against the people. Thus, +when I put 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 it up for a bad job. My question is, "Can 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 from 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 larger 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 Mackay had most of the +elements of a liberal education. He had skirted metaphysical and +mathematical 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 among 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 Puritan +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, leads at last directly to material greed? + +Nature is a good guide through life, and the love 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 little 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 eloquent +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 other that had thrown him from situation to situation, and at +length on board the emigrant ship. Barney ate, so to speak, nothing from +the galley; his own tea, butter, and eggs supported him throughout 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. + +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 feet shuffling to the +air, his eyes seeking and bestowing encouragement--and to have enjoyed +the bow, so nicely calculated between jest and earnest, between grace 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 leaned 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 him spin half round in a pirouette and throw an +audacious wink to an old gentleman 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 in a grave, quiet manner, because they supplied no fish +on Friday; for Barney was a conscientious Catholic. He had likewise +strict notions of refinement; and when, late one evening, after the women +had 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. + + + +THE SICK MAN + + +One night Jones, the young O'Reilly, and myself were walking arm-in-arm +and briskly up and down the deck. Six bells had rung; 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 somewhere 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 replied 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 doctor 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 find any one to guide us. It was no time for delicacy; so +we ran once more forward; and I, whipping up a ladder and touching 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 lying 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_ can't leave the bridge, my man,' said he. + +'No, sir; but you can tell me what to do,' I returned. + +'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 complaints and alarmist +information from their freight of human creatures; but certainly, 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 immediately +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 would now be in the smoking-room over his pipe. + +One of the stewards was often enough to be found 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 companion, +breathing hurry; and in his shirt-sleeves and perched across the +carpenters bench upon one thigh, found Blackwood; a neat, bright, dapper, +Glasgow-looking 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 comfortable 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 with cramp, and I can't find +the doctor.' + +He turned upon me as pert as a sparrow, but with 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 where he sat. The thought of +his cabin civility 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 were anxious to leave a better +impression. + +When we got on deck again, Jones was still beside 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 streaming 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 heart, '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 charge, 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 finger. The light, +as it reached the spot, showed us an elderly man, thick-set, and grizzled +with years; but the shifting and coarse 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 indignation. + +'Nobody said he was a woman,' said a gruff voice, 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; and we saw him hurry aft in +person. + +Ten minutes after the doctor made his appearance 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 had now come to our +assistance, expressing loud sorrow that such 'a fine cheery body' 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 heart 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 yet once +more, with a gasp and a wailing prolongation of the fourth word: 'I had +no _call_ to come.' But there he was; and by the doctor's orders and the +kind force of his 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 seaman, 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 about 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.' + +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 days, 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 find 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 nothing but themselves. They're damned +greedy, selfish fellows.' He would not hear of the decadence of England. +'They say they send us beef from America,' he argued; 'but who pays for +it? All the money in the world's in England.' The Royal Navy was the +best of possible services, according to him. 'Anyway the officers are +gentlemen,' said 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 forced to make a new choice in life, 'by +God, he would try Frenchmen!' For all his looks and rough, cold manners, +I observed that children were never frightened by him; they divined him +at once 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 monkey trick. + +In the morning, my first thought was of the sick man. I was afraid I +should not recognise 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 No. 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 twilight of the bunks. You may guess if I was 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 and intermittent; and to +add to the discomfort, the seamen were just beginning to wash down the +decks. But for a sick man this was heaven compared to the steerage. I +found him standing on the hot-water pipe, just forward of the saloon 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 born in Ireland, +had lived a quarter of a century on the banks of Tyne, and was married to +a Scots wife. A fisherman 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 +spring, he worked as a labourer about chemical furnaces, or along the +wharves unloading vessels. In this comparatively humble 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 warned against the steerage +and the steerage fare, and recommended to bring with him 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 reminded +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-beat, 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 fisher 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 boat 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, when his +appetite was tempted by some excellent pea-soup. We were all much of the +same mind on board, 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 +the passage by saloon. The second cabin, 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 received 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. + +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 rendered 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 Edinburgh, an Irish labourer trudging +homeward from the fields. Our roads lay together, and it was natural +that we should fall into talk. He was covered with mud; an inoffensive, +ignorant creature, who thought the Atlantic Cable was a secret +contrivance of the masters the better to oppress labouring mankind; and I +confess I was astonished to learn that he had nearly three hundred pounds +in the bank. But this 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 and at night; whereas my +fellow-passenger had never quitted Tyneside, and had made all that he +possessed in that same accursed, down-falling England, whence skilled +mechanics, engineers, millwrights, and carpenters were fleeing as from +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. He spoke sharply of the masters, and, when I +led him on, of the men also. The masters had been selfish and +obstructive, the men selfish, silly, and light-headed. He rehearsed to +me the 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 and even the good faith of the Union delegates; and although he +had escaped himself 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 the 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 principles, 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 calm; 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. + + + +THE STOWAWAYS + + +On the Sunday, among a party of men who were talking in our companion, +Steerage No. 2 and 3, we remarked a new figure. He wore tweed clothes, +well enough made if not very fresh, and a plain smoking-cap. His face +was pale, with pale eyes, and spiritedly enough designed; but though not +yet thirty, a sort 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 perfectly 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 something 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 his own stories. They were so swingingly set 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. Company, 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; and of a dozen other sides +of life, each introducing some vigorous thumb-nail portrait. He had the +talk to himself that night, we were all so glad to listen. The best +talkers usually address themselves to some particular society; there they +are kings, elsewhere camp-followers, as a man may know Russian and 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 +circle 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 minds of those who heard +him. This, with a certain added colouring of rhetoric and rodomontade, +must have been the style of Burns, who equally charmed the ears of +duchesses and hostlers. + +Yet freely and personally as he spoke, many points 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 episode in the rakish, +topsy-turvy life of such an one as I had imagined. But then there came +incidents more doubtful, which showed an almost impudent greed after +gratuities, and a truly impudent disregard for truth. And then there 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 +things; 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 very 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, without 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 home 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, appearing again, begrimed and bashful, +upon deck. The career of these sea-tramps partakes largely of the +adventurous. They may be poisoned by coal-gas, or die 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 land, 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 among 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 his forgiveness. After +half an hour with 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 engineer. 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 often 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 their arrival each of the four had found a +comfortable berth. This was the most hopeful tale of emigration 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 delighted 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. Alick, 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, and wasted many +opportunities in life. I have heard him end a story with these words: +'That was in my golden days, when 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 existence was not +unpleasant to Alick himself, and he might have long continued to enjoy +idleness and a life on tick; but he had a comrade, let us call him Brown, +who 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 another old chum +in Sauchiehall Street. + +'By the bye, Alick,' said he, 'I met a gentleman 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 quartette aboard the _Circassia_. +If that was the way of it in the States, Alick thought it was high time +to follow Brown's example. He spent his last day, as he put it, +'reviewing the yeomanry,' and the next morning says he to his landlady, +'Mrs. X., I'll not take porridge to-day, please; I'll take some eggs.' + +'Why, have you found a job?' she asked, delighted. + +'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 landlady 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 voyage from the +Broomielaw to Greenock. That night, the ship's yeoman pulled him out by +the heels and had him before the mate. Two other stowaways had already +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 meal,' 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 grumbled 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 heard 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 kindness; 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 always +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, smoking 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 already 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 several on board, and even intimate with one of the engineers; but it +was plainly not the etiquette of such occasions for the authorities to +avow their information. 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?' inquired the captain. + +'Not much,' said Alick; 'but when a man has been 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-fitter 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 captain. + +'I've had a trip on a Clyde steamboat, sir, but 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 his 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 sea 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 Devonian 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 care +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 board a trading dandy. Somewhere in the Bristol Channel the dandy +sprung a leak and went down; and though the crew were picked 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 Sea, 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 Wednesday: 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 +the look of a street Arab; and captains will have nothing to say to a +ragamuffin; for in that trade, as in all others, it is the coat that +depicts the man. You may hand, reef, and steer like an angel, 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; although, 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 +begging, 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 much instruction; he could 'read bills on the +street,' but was 'main bad at writing'; 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 contemporaneous 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 four times had +been discovered and handed back to starvation. The fifth time was lucky; +and you may judge if he were pleased to be aboard ship again, at his old +work, and with duff twice 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 willing 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 grain, 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 by, 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 the 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. + +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 character 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 neutralised 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 before 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 upon persuasion should learn the persuasive faculty of silence, +above all as to his own misdeeds. It is only in the farce and for +dramatic purposes that Scapin enlarges on his peculiar talents to the +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 guiding 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 unusual 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 suddenly, 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; he'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 other'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 +incongruous 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 find 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 was 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 about 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 might have increased the offer to a whole one, or perhaps a pair of +them, and not lived to regret his liberality. But 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 +charity 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 some 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 Irish 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, until, 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 +ran 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. There are many +relations which go on to marriage and last during a lifetime, in which +less human feeling is engaged than in this scene of five minutes at the +stoke-hole. + +Rigidly speaking, this would end the chapter of the stowaways; but in a +larger sense of the word I have yet more to add. Jones had discovered +and pointed out to me a young woman who was remarkable among her fellows +for a pleasing and interesting air. She was poorly clad, to the verge, +if not over the line, of disrespectability, with a ragged old jacket and +a bit of a sealskin cap no bigger than your fist; but her eyes, her whole +expression, and her manner, even in ordinary moments, told of a true +womanly nature, capable of love, anger, and devotion. She had a look, +too, of refinement, like one who might have been a better lady than most, +had she been allowed the opportunity. When alone she seemed preoccupied +and sad; but she was not often alone; there was usually by her side a +heavy, dull, gross man in rough clothes, chary of speech and gesture--not +from caution, but poverty of disposition; a man like a ditcher, unlovely +and uninteresting; whom she petted and tended and waited on with her eyes +as if he had been Amadis of Gaul. It was strange to see this hulking +fellow dog-sick, and this delicate, sad woman caring for him. He seemed, +from first to last, insensible of her caresses and attentions, and she +seemed unconscious of his insensibility. The Irish husband, who sang his +wife to sleep, and this Scottish girl serving her Orson, were the two +bits of human nature that most appealed to me throughout the voyage. + +On the Thursday before we arrived, the tickets were collected; and soon a +rumour began to go round the vessel; and this girl, with her bit of +sealskin cap, became the centre of whispering and pointed fingers. She +also, it was said, was 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 and children to be hers. The +ship's officers discouraged the story, which may therefore have been a +story and no more; but it was believed in the steerage, and the poor girl +had to encounter many curious eyes from that day forth. + + + +PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW + + +Travel is of two kinds; and this voyage of mine across the ocean combined +both. 'Out of my country and myself I go,' sings the old poet: and I was +not only travelling out of my country in latitude and longitude, but out +of myself in diet, associates, and consideration. Part of the interest +and a great deal of the amusement flowed, at least to me, from this novel +situation in the world. + +I found that I had what they call fallen in life 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 remind 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 accident +by the difference of language and manners between England and France. I +must now take a humbler view; for here I was among my own countrymen, +somewhat roughly clad to be sure, but with every 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 +officers 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. From all +these guesses I drew one conclusion, 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 part 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, took me, like the +transformed monarch in the story, for a mere common, human man. They +gave me a hard, dead look, with the flesh about the eye kept unrelaxed. + +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 then learned for the +first time, and by the exhaustive process, how much attention 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 paid 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 upper 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 +exactly at what stage of toilette a man becomes invisible to the +well-regulated female eye. + +Here on shipboard the matter was put to a more complete test; for, even +with the addition of speech and manner, I passed among the ladies for +precisely the average man of the steerage. It was one afternoon that I +saw this demonstrated. A very plainly dressed woman was taken ill on +deck. I think 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 large 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. Of course I had to reply; and +as the talk went on, I began to discover that the whole group took me for +the husband. I looked upon my new wife, poor creature, with mingled +feelings; and I must own she had not even the appearance of the poorest +class of city servant-maids, but looked more like a country wench who +should have been employed at a roadside inn. Now was the time for me to +go and study the brass plate. + +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 better 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 intention. +Their manner was well calculated to remind me of my fallen fortunes. You +may be sincerely amused by the amateur 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 cabin floor. I was openly +jeered and flouted 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 readiness, +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, as 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. It seemed no disgrace to +be confounded with my company; for I may as well declare at once I found +their manners as gentle and becoming as those of any other class. I do +not mean that my friends could have sat down without embarrassment 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 hope 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 +only no qualification, but a positive disability to move easily and +becomingly in this. When Jones complimented me--because I 'managed to +behave very pleasantly' to my fellow-passengers, was how he put it--I +could follow the thought in his mind, and knew his compliment to be such +as we pay foreigners on their proficiency in English. I dare say this +praise was given me immediately on the back of some unpardonable +solecism, which had led him to review my conduct as a whole. We are all +ready to laugh at the ploughman among lords; we should consider also the +case of a lord 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 +parochial rather than universal; that, like a country wine, will not bear +transportation 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 must 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 external acceptation throughout all the others, and this tends to +keep us well satisfied with slight acquirements and the amateurish +accomplishments of a clique. But manners, like art, should be human and +central. + +Some of my fellow-passengers, as I now moved among 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 manners 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 refinement, 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 have 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; but though they may be eager listeners, they have rarely +seemed to me either willing or careful thinkers. Culture is not measured +by the greatness of the field which is covered by our knowledge, but by +the nicety with which we can perceive relations in that field, whether +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 relations, 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 should have +had a definite thought in his head as he said it. Some hated the Church +because they disagreed with it; some hated Lord Beaconsfield because of +war and taxes; all hated the masters, possibly with reason. But these +failings were not at the root of the matter; the true reasoning of their +souls ran thus--I have not got on; I ought to have got on; if there was a +revolution I should get on. How? They had no idea. Why? +Because--because--well, look at America! + +To be politically blind is no distinction; we are all so, if you come to +that. At bottom, as it seems to me, there is but one question in modern +home politics, though 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 their 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 were 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 will 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 confesses to the +failing. It has to me been always something of a relief to find the +poor, as a general rule, so little oppressed with work. I can in +consequence enjoy 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 fatigue by way of relief as satisfied this powerful frontiersman +for the day. He, at least, like all the educated class, 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 from a housetop in the city of Aberdeen, and was brought into +hospital with broken bones. He was asked what was his trade, and replied +that he was a _tapper_. No one had ever heard of such a thing before; +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 slip 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 advertised 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 swell 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 all +established tactics, it appeared. They could see no dishonesty where a +man who is paid for an hour's work gives half an hour's consistent idling +in its place. Thus the tapper would refuse to watch for the police +during a burglary, 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 begins on his +career of toil. He has never had his fill of holidays in the past, and +his prospect of holidays in the future 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 working 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. They +mark time instead of marching. They think 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 possible 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, and 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 income, +simply from its smallness, than a large one. I never wearied listening +to the details of a workman's economy, because 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 that a rich man has seven courses a day, ten to one +the half of them remain untasted, 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, soup +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 difficult 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 whether Croesus 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 only directs the manoeuvres 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 philosophical, 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 critical +and human life is presented to you naked and verging to its lowest terms. + + + +NEW YORK + + +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 radish in a bed; and if the +worst befell, you would instantly and mysteriously disappear 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 +Cevennes, 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 light 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 body; he had visited a robber inn. The public 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. They were a pair of +rattling blades; and, leaving their baggage at the station, passed the +day in beer saloons, and with congenial spirits, until midnight struck. +Then they applied themselves to find a lodging, and walked the streets +till two, knocking at houses of entertainment 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 found themselves in the same street where they had begun +their search, and in front of a French hotel where they had already +sought accommodation. Seeing the house still open, they returned to the +charge. A man in a white cap sat in an office by the door. He seemed to +welcome them more warmly than when they had first presented themselves, +and the charge for the night had somewhat unaccountably fallen from a +dollar to a quarter. They thought him ill-looking, 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 lock 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 +the curtain of the first. He was startlingly disappointed. There was no +picture. The frame surrounded, and the curtain was 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, larger in size than that which +they occupied, where three men sat crouching and silent 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 cap 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 streets 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 through 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 +miraculously; 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 strident 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 us 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 storage 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 going on, in my plain +European fashion, to refuse a cigar, when Mr. Mitchell sternly +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 begun 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 obscurely know; what is to +be yet lies beyond the flight of our imaginations. Greece, Rome, and +Judaea are gone by forever, leaving to generations the legacy of their +accomplished work; China still endures, an old-inhabited house in the +brand-new city of nations; England has already declined, since she has +lost the States; and to these States, therefore, yet undeveloped, full of +dark possibilities, and grown, like another 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 understand 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 +suddenly hears of a family of cousins, all about his own age, who keep +house together 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 English youths turn to the thought of the +American Republic. It seems to them as if, out west, the war 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, +and 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 rather 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 time, 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, +returning with the spring to find thousands camped upon their marshes, +and the lamps burning far and near along populous streets; forests that +disappear like snow; 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 that 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. + +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 were 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 weeks in New York, and neither of them had yet found a +single job or earned a single 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 +should have hesitated; the devil was in it, but Jones and I should dine +like heathen emperors. I set to work, asking after a restaurant; and I +chose the wealthiest and most gastronomical-looking passers-by to ask +from. Yet, although 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 the cost of twenty dinners. I do not +know 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 cooking, +some so-called French wine, and French coffee to conclude the whole. I +never entered into the feelings of Jack 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 upon the floor; he did not sleep until near +morning, and I, for my part, never closed 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 sound 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 growing eerier and eerier, for +I dare say I was a little fevered by my restless night, 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 his 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 also +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 things to do; only the day to do them in, and a journey across +the continent before me 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, booksellers, 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-questioned 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 +answers in silence; and yet when all was over, he shook hands with me up +to the elbows, 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 manager, 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 ground, 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 that +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 up to be the death of him by his insulting +behaviour, he himself would be just upon 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 state 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 toward 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 heart I said +farewell to them as they lay a pulp in the middle of a pool upon the +floor of Mitchell's kitchen. I wonder if they are dry by now. Mitchell +hired a man 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 safely to Reunion House, where they will get +decent meals and find an honest and obliging landlord. I owed him this +word of thanks, before I enter fairly on the second {92} and far less +agreeable chapter of my emigrant experience. + + + + +II. +COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK +A FRAGMENT +1871 + + +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 itself 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 +gold; allow my memory to choose out what is truly memorable by a process +of natural selection; and I piously believe that in this way I ensure the +Survival of the Fittest. If I make notes for future use, or if I am +obliged to write letters during the course of my little excursion, I so +interfere with the process that I can never again find out what is worthy +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 this +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 some fifty or sixty hours +about the middle remain quite distinct and definite, like 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 minister 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 had 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 situated: '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 limbo of forgetfulness. + + + +COCKERMOUTH + + +I was lighting my pipe as I stepped out of the inn at Cockermouth, and +did not raise 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 quarrelsome 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, then a third, several couples out love-making in the spring +evening; and a consequent 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 name of +Smethurst, and the designation of 'Canadian Felt Hat Manufacturers.' +There was no more hope of evening fellowship, and I could only stroll on +by the river-side, under the trees. The water was dappled with slanting +sunshine, and dusted all over with a little mist of flying insects. +There were some amorous ducks, also, whose 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 chooses 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 +scenery 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 tobacco, and the company of one or two chosen companions, +to a ball where I feel myself very hot, awkward, and weary, I merely +state these preferences as facts, and 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 plea 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 last, 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 +train in the early evening. + + + +AN EVANGELIST + + +Cockermouth itself, on the same authority, was a Place with 'nothing to +see'; nevertheless 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. When 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 other on his own head, so that he looked +something like the typical Jew old-clothes man. As I drew near, he came +sidling 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 scarcely 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 where the large trout commonly lay, +underneath an overhanging bank; and he was much 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, trying 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 speaking to the blush; as it is, I can recall only the sense, +and that perhaps imperfectly. He began by saying that 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 died out in +himself, but must at my age be still quite lively and active. Then he +told me that he had a little raft afloat on the river above the dam which +he was going to lend me, in order that 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 this 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 embarkation, 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. + +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 +that as it may, there is no doubt that I soon wearied and came ashore +again, and that it gives me more pleasure to recall the man himself and +his simple, happy conversation, so full of gusto and sympathy, than +anything possibly connected with his crank, insecure embarkation. In +order to avoid seeing him, for I was not a little ashamed of myself for +having failed to enjoy his treat sufficiently, I determined to continue +up the river, 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 wisdom, 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 their 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 gospel of quiet and +contentment. + + + +ANOTHER + + +I was shortly to meet with an evangelist of another stamp. After I had +forced my way through a gentleman'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, with a beautiful little girl by her side, came up to ask +for alms, and gradually fell 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 the little girl upon her hands. She seemed quite hopeful +and cheery, and, though she was unaffectedly sorry for the loss of her +husband's earnings, she made no pretence of despair at the loss of his +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 all 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 with 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 Catholic 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 some tracts +about Biddy and the Priest, and the Orangeman's Bible. I was a little +amused at his abrupt manner, for he was still a young man, and had +somewhat the air of a navy officer; but 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 very 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. + + + +LAST OF SMETHURST + + +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 the 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, already 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. I mentioned that I +had seen Mr. Smethurst already, and that he had been very polite to me; +and we fell into a discussion of the hatter's merits that lasted some +time and left us quite good friends at its conclusion. The topic was +productive of goodwill. We exchanged tobacco and talked about the +season, and agreed at last that we should go to the same hotel at Keswick +and sup in company. As he had some business in the town which would +occupy him some hour or so, on our arrival I was to improve the time and +go down to the lake, that I might see a glimpse of the promised wonders. + +The night had fallen already when I reached the water-side, at a place +where many pleasure-boats are moored and ready for hire; and as I went +along a stony path, between wood and water, a strong wind blew 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 water. 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 sudden 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 +accosted 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 know, and we stood together for a while and had an amusing +little talk. The wind, too, made himself of the party, 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 +the 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 and +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 dark 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 +recitation of these elegant extracts, except perhaps the anecdotes with +which he varied the entertainment. Seeing, I suppose, 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. . . . + + + + +III. +AN AUTUMN EFFECT +1875 + + + 'Nous ne decrivons jamais mieux la nature que lorsque nous nous + efforcons d'exprimer sobrement et simplement l'impression que nous en + avons recue.'--M. ANDRE THEURIET, 'L'Automne dans les Bois,' Revue + des Deux Mondes, 1st Oct. 1874, p.562. {106} + +A country rapidly passed through under favourable auspices may leave upon +us a unity of impression that would only be disturbed 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 them for a moment +in going by; we generalise boldly and simply, and are gone before the sun +is overcast, before the rain falls, before the season can steal like 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 expose 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, as +we went by, will have a conception of it far more memorable and +articulate than 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 the 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 enviable 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 which 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 themselves 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 and +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 calling on them to return; and some +passion, some duty, some worthy or unworthy expectation, 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 bright, as +we leave the town behind us, and we shall feel once again (as we have +felt 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 forward 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, dull, 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, the 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 enough, +against the sky. I say foolishly enough, although I have seen the effect +employed cleverly in art, and such long line 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 water and +level land, where it did not jar, as here, with the soft contour of hills +and valleys. The whole scene had an 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 trees on the +horizon that one was forced to think of it all as of a clever French +landscape. For it is rather in nature 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 forms in which we learn +to think of landscape are forms that we have got from painted canvas. +Any man can see and understand a picture; it is reserved for the few to +separate anything out of the confusion of nature, and see that distinctly +and with intelligence. + +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 treading 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 distance I could +see no longer. Overhead there was a wonderful carolling of larks which +seemed to follow me as I went. Indeed, during all the time I was in that +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 take 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 just 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. The 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 have 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 pinholes 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 would have been sad but for the sunshine and the singing of the +larks. And as it was, there came over me at times 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 less 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 there 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 them 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. And if there were a few who had no +particular 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 opinion; 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 danced +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 find quite a bustle on the other side, a great coming and +going of school-children upon by-paths, and, in every second field, lusty +horses and stout country-folk a-ploughing. The way I followed took me +through many fields thus occupied, and through many strips of plantation, +and then over a little space of smooth turf, very pleasant to the feet, +set with tall fir-trees and clamorous with rooks making ready for the +winter, and so back again into the quiet road. I was now 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 hollow; 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 had been washed with water. After +I had crossed the little zone of mist, the path began to remount the +hill; and just 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 donkeys, +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 fit 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 roguish and wanton in his face, a look too like that of a +schoolboy or a street Arab, 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 levity of his +disposition by impudently wagging his ears at me as I drew near. I say +he was somewhat solemnised just then; 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 puzzled, +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 unwound. A humorous sort +of sympathy for the creature took hold upon me. I went up, and, not +without some trouble on my part, and much distrust and resistance on the +part 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 angry, 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, shouting 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 face, that she had already +recommended her spirit most religiously to Heaven, and prepared herself +for the worst. And 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 courtesies, the little old maid +and I went on our respective ways. + +Nor had she misled me. Great Missenden was close at hand, as she 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 about 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 about 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 London 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 +village 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 with 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, +and a virtuous young man with a genius for mechanics, who should love, +and protect, and ultimately marry the girl in the crimson room. +Baudelaire has a few dainty 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 enlarged on the same text. The subject, at least, +is one that I am seldom weary of entertaining. I remember, night after +night, at Brussels, watching a good family sup 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 awake 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 about 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 worst 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 light 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 +behind 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 at the end of it! She could nowise reconcile +this with her moral sense. And, indeed, 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 read 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 driven 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 trend 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 opened out into the plain, was shallow, and a +little bare, perhaps, but full of graceful convolutions. From the level +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 followed the footpath. Wendover lay well down 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 crescents of river, and snatches of +slanting road, and finally melted into the ambiguous cloud-land over the +horizon. The sky was an opal-grey, touched here and there with blue, and +with certain faint russets 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 sentiment 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, that the whole wood looked as dense as a bush of heather. The +prevailing colour was a dull, smouldering 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 through the hedge, I found myself in a dim green +forest atmosphere under eaves of virgin foliage. In places where the +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 considerable 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 would be thrown out flat, the light lying flatly along the top of +it, so that against 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 seemed to be all +attention; the wood listened as I went, and held its breath to number my +footfalls. One could not help feeling that there ought to be some reason +for this stillness; whether, as the bright 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 sight, ever and anon, +of large spaces of the open plain. This happened only where the path lay +much 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 began to grow lighter about me, and I caught sight, through the +trees, of sundry gables and enclosure walls, and something like the tops +of a rickyard. And sure enough, a rickyard it proved to be, and a neat +little farm-steading, with the beech-woods growing almost to the door of +it. Just before me, however, as I came upon the path, the trees drew +back and let in a wide flood of daylight 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 dense 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 each 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 general grace during meat. Every now and again 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 shrilly publish to the world his satisfaction with himself and what +he had to eat. 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 just 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 +fabulist not quite so skilful, who made points for the moment without +having a studious enough eye to the complete effect; for I thought these +melting greens and blues 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 like +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 gradations of living green that had before accompanied my walk. +I had been sorry to leave _Peacock Farm_, but I was not sorry to find +myself once more in the open road, under a pale and somewhat +troubled-looking evening sky, and put my best foot foremost for the inn +at Wendover. + +Wendover, in itself, is a straggling, purposeless sort of place. +Everybody seems to have had his own opinion as to how the street 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 along 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 served as rallying-point for these loose +houses, and pulled the township into something 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-windows, 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 that 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 Walter +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 cupboard 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 glass of water. The +furniture was old-fashioned and stiff. Everything was in keeping, down +to the ponderous leaden inkstand on the round table. And you may fancy +how pleasant it looked, 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 +portrait 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 professed +much interest in her dolls, and an impatient desire to see the large one +which was kept locked away for great occasions. And so I had not been +very long in the parlour before the door opened, 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, +with a very serious demeanour, asking many questions about their age and +character. I do not think that Lizzie distrusted my sincerity, but it +was evident that she was both bewildered and 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 gravity and a sort of disquietude, as though she really feared I +must be out of my wits. Sometimes, as when I inquired 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 the parlour wanted to kiss Dolly_. I +fancy 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 knew, who would never suffer the master +of the house to dance, out of an exaggerated 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 without 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 discomforts, 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 upon 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 +graveyard 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 dull sudden fall of a chestnut among the grass--the dog +would bark before the rectory 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 +filled 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 near, was almost +startled to find they lay on the grave a man seventy-two years old when +he died. We are accustomed to strew flowers only over the young, where +love has been cut short untimely, and great 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 little 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 miserably +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 token of love that survived death, as of something yet +more beautiful--of love that had lived a man's life out to an end with +him, and been faithful and companionable, 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 woods, 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-woods above on the other. The fields were 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 +furrow as ploughman or sower stepped aside for a moment to take a +draught. Over all the brown ploughlands, and under all the leafless +hedgerows, there was a stout piece of labour abroad, and, as it were, a +spirit of picnic. The horses 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 of a +humourist; and his conversation was all in praise of an agricultural +labourer'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 appetite 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-station; 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 usual, 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 came +and carried me back to London. + + + + +IV. +A WINTER'S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY +A FRAGMENT +1876 + + +At the famous bridge of Doon, Kyle, the central district of the shire of +Ayr, marches with Carrick, the most southerly. On the Carrick side of +the river rises a hill of somewhat gentle conformation, cleft 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, like a bay-window in a +plan, and is fortified against the surf behind bold crags. 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 were +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 upon 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 summit 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 distinction of sky and sea. Over the +white shoulders of the headlands, or in the opening of bays, there was +nothing but a great vacancy 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 heathenishly at a cow he was driving. And a little after I +scraped acquaintance with a poor body tramping out to gather cockles. +His face was wrinkled by exposure; it was broken up into flakes and +channels, like mud beginning to dry, and weathered in two colours, an +incongruous pink and grey. He had a faint air of being 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 during the New Year's festivity. I will +own I was not sorry to think he had had a merry New Year, and been young +again for an evening; but I was sorry to see the mark still there. One +could not expect such an old gentleman 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 fifty 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. Plainly, there was nothing of this in his life, +and years and loneliness hung heavily 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 think he couldn't do it. 'And, 'deed,' he 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 snow. + +He told me I was to turn down beside the school-house for Dunure. And +so, when I found a lone house among the snow, and heard a babble of +childish voices from 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-birds; 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 well 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 aesthetic 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 better 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. Twelve cockle-shells and a +half-penny china 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 merit 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 own 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 coat, 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 than it takes me to write these words the four quarts +were finished--another round was 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 +from 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 with 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 and gnawed your +fingers! I think it would have come to homicide before the evening--if +it were only for the pleasure of seeing something red! And the masters +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!), +Gilbert, Earl of Cassilis, his chaplain, his baker, his cook, his +pantryman, and another 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 etching 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 +asked 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 much 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 sides, built of +freestone; and it is beautifyed with the situation of two castles, one at +each end of this street. That on 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], and a row of ballesters round it raised from the +top of the staircase, into which they have mounted a fyne clock. There +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 the 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 decayed 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 is 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 here 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 than here in a country place betwixt a +village and a town. I heard a great deal about drinking, and a great +deal about religious revivals: two things in which the Scottish character +is emphatic and most unlovely. In particular, I heard of clergymen who +were employing their time in explaining 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 +figure 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 part 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, and to do so speedily. It was not much +more 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 accuracy 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 harem; and yet these were grown men, and by no +means short of wit. It was hard to suppose they were very eager about +the Second Coming: it seemed as if some elementary notions of temperance +for the men and seemliness for the women would have gone nearer the mark. +And 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 economy, 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 courage, thrift and industry, fought their way upwards to an +assured position. + +Abercrummie has told you enough of the Tolbooth; 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 parish 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 about the top. In a general way this adornment is perched on the +very summit of the chimney-stacks; but there is one corner more elaborate +than the rest. A very 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 look 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 Street, 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 grew hot within her, and her eyes overflowed at the +memory of the past. And even if the tale be not true of this 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 +all of us is the glamour cast. Some resist and sit resolutely by the +fire. Most go 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 evening, we +can catch their voices in the glee. + +By night it was clearer, and Maybole more visible 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 into relief over the gables and the chimney-stacks, and +their shadows over the white 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 +out--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 could 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 bleak 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 also, in the kirkyard, the +original of Tam o' Shanter sleeps his last sleep. It is worth noticing, +however, that this 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 blown 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 ploughing 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 the shore, among sand-hills +and by wildernesses of tumbled bent. Every here and there a few cottages +stood together beside a bridge. They had one odd feature, not easy to +describe in words: a triangular porch projected from 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 +pipe with comfort. There is one objection 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 Scotland, 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. +. . . + + + + +V. +FOREST NOTES 1875-6 + + +ON THE PLAIN + + +Perhaps the reader knows already the aspect of the great levels of the +Gatinais, 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 disappear; 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 his +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, and not by any means +overworked; but somehow you always see in them the historical +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 taxed beyond possibility of payment, and lived, in Michelet's +image, like a hare between two furrows. These very people 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 Seigneur ruled and +profited. 'Le Seigneur,' says the old formula, 'enferme ses manants +comme sous porte et gonds, du ciel a la terre. Tout est a lui, foret +chenue, oiseau dans l'air, poisson dans l'eau, bete 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 is, 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 with grain, in the midst +of a close full of cypresses and lilacs, ducks and crowing chanticleers +and droning bees, the old chateau lifts its red chimneys and peaked roofs +and turning vanes into the wind and sun. There is a glad spring bustle +in the air, 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, children of the people, +saunter and gambol in the walled court or feed the ducks in the neglected +moat. Plough-horses, mighty of limb, browse in the long stables. The +dial-hand on the clock waits for some better hour. Out on the plain, +where hot sweat trickles 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 upon gay folk at supper, while he and +his hollow-eyed children watched through the 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 chateau hold no unsimilar place in his affections. + +If the chateau was my lord's, the forest was my 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 found 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. For the first offence, by the Salic law, +there was a fine of fifteen sols; and should a man be taken more than +once in fault, or circumstances aggravate the colour of his guilt, he +might be whipped, branded, or hanged. There was a hangman over at Melun, +and, I doubt not, a fine tall gibbet hard by the town gate, where Jacques +might see his fellows dangle against the sky as he went to market. + +And then, if he lived near to a cover, there would 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 +decorating 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, while 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 varlets +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 days of sore trouble, when my +lord of the chateau, with all his troopers and trumpets, had been beaten +from field after field into some ultimate fastness, or lay over-seas in +an English prison. In these dark days, when the watch on the church +steeple saw the smoke 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 all their household gods, into the wood, whence, +from some high spur, their timid 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 +refuge that the woods afforded, where they must abide all change of +weather and keep 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 demons 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 royal forest, and noble by +old associations. These woods have rung to the horns of all the kings of +France, from Philip Augustus downwards. They have 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 they 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 virtue of the pastime of dead +monarchs. Great events, great revolutions, great cycles in the affairs +of men, have here left their note, here taken shape in some significant +and dramatic situation. It was hence that Gruise and his leaguers led +Charles the Ninth a prisoner to Paris. Here, booted and spurred, and +with all his dogs about him, Napoleon met the Pope beside a woodland +cross. Here, on his way to Elba not so long after, he kissed the eagle +of the Old Guard, and spoke words of passionate farewell to his soldiers. +And here, after Waterloo, rather than yield its ensign to the new power, +one of his faithful regiments burned that memorial of so much toil and +glory on the Grand Master's table, and drank its dust in brandy, as a +devout priest consumes the remnants of the Host. + + + +IN THE SEASON + + +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, where the cattle browsed between the doorsteps. As you +go up this street, drawing ever nearer the beginning of the wood, 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 +into the court you will find as many more, some in billiard-room over +absinthe and a match of corks some without over a last cigar and a +vermouth. The doves coo and flutter from the dovecot; 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, and +some idle painter, who has stored his canvases and washed his brushes, +jangling a waltz on the crazy, tongue-tied piano in the salle-a-manger. +'_Edmond_, _encore un vermouth_,' cries a man in velveteen, adding in a +tone of apologetic afterthought, '_un double_, _s'il vous plait_.' +'Where are you working?' asks one in pure white linen from top to toe. +'At the Carrefour de l'Epine,' 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. + +'_A table_, _Messieurs_!' cries M. Siron, bearing through 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 of the +huntsman winding a horn with a dead boar between his legs, and his +legs--well, 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 English, that it would do your heart good merely to peep +and listen at the door. One man is telling how they all went last year +to the fete 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 table, and is once more +trampling the poor piano under powerful and uncertain fingers. + +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 welcome and a good talk, and perhaps some pickled oysters +and white wine to close the evening. Or a dance is organised in 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 move 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 looking 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 nearly 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 proposed, and a basket made +ready, and a good procession formed in front of the hotel. The two +trumpeters in honour 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 shadow, 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' haunt, and +shows shapely beards and comely faces and toilettes ranged about the +wall. The bowl is lit, and the punch 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 morning, straggling a good deal among the +birch tufts and the boulders, but ever called 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 finally 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. No surf-bell on forlorn +and perilous shores, no passing knell over the busy market-place, can +speak with a more heavy and disconsolate tongue to human ears. Each +stroke calls up a host of ghostly reverberations in his mind. And as he +stands rooted, it has grown once more so utterly silent that it seems to +him he might hear the church bells ring the hour out all the world over, +not at Chailly only, but in Paris, and away in outlandish cities, and in +the village on the river, where his childhood passed between the sun and +flowers. + + + +IDLE HOURS + + +The woods by night, in all their uncanny effect, are not rightly to be +understood until you can compare them with the woods by day. The +stillness of the medium, the floor of glittering sand, these trees 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 rise betimes. If you have +not been wakened 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, shines 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-a-manger for +coffee, and then shoulders easel, sunshade, stool, 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 all 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 excuse to bathe. With +quick ears, long spines, and bandy legs, or perhaps as tall as a +greyhound and with a bulldog's head, this 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 +notes. 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 roof 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 evil creatures that +haunt the forest. For you may plump into a cave among the rocks, and +find yourself face to face with a wild boar, or see a crooked viper +slither 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 go idly by. Your friend at the easel labours +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 the shadow of another tree, and up to his waist in the fern. +You cannot watch your 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 and heather, set in a basin +of low hills, and scattered over with rocks and junipers. All the open +is steeped in pitiless sunlight. Everything stands out as though it were +cut in cardboard, every colour is strained into its highest key. The +boulders are some of them upright and dead like monolithic castles, some +of them prone like sleeping cattle. The junipers--looking, in their +soiled and ragged mourning, like some funeral procession that has gone +seeking the place of sepulchre three hundred years and more in wind and +rain--are daubed 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 there 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 song, 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 the 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 comes 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 kindled 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. + + + +A PLEASURE-PARTY + + +As this 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 from 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 +round 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 exercise; 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 from Fontainebleau, +trudging across on his weekly peddle with a case of merchandise; and it +is 'Desprez, leave me some malachite green'; 'Desprez, leave me so much +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 sound +of cannon in our ears; and now, a little past Franchard, we find a +mounted trooper 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 meanwhile 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 dulcet, +his manner dignified and insinuating. It is not for nothing that the +Doctor has voyaged all the world over, and speaks 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 the sergeant, who will send us back. At 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 highly recommended for its +beauty. '_Il y a de l'eau_,' people have said, with an emphasis, as if +that settled the question, 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 lies out of the forest, a cluster of houses, with an old +bridge, an old castle in ruin, and a quaint old church. The inn garden +descends in terraces to the river; stable-yard, kailyard, orchard, and a +space 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 the two lies the river, +clear and deep, and full of reeds and floating lilies. Water-plants +cluster about the starlings of the long low bridge, and stand half-way up +upon the piers in green luxuriance. They catch the dipped oar with long +antennae, 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 ripple following +another over the top of the yellow deal. And you can hear a splashing +and a prattle of voices from the shed under the old kirk, where the +village women wash and wash 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 and 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 smoothly 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. There is a wish for +solitude on all. One hides himself in the arbour with a cigarette; +another goes a walk in the country with Cocardon; a third inspects the +church. And it is not till dinner is on the table, and the inn's best +wine goes round from glass to glass, that we begin to throw off the +restraint and fuse once more into a jolly fellowship. + +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-- + + 'Nous avons fait la noce, + Rentrons a nos foyers!' + +And such is the burthen, even after we have come 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, and the faces round the punch are lit +up, with shifting emphasis, against a background 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, +in a jacket of green cord, the great, famous, and redoubtable Blank; and +in a moment the fire kindles again, and the night is witness of our +laughter as he imitates Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen, picture-dealers, +all eccentric ways of speaking and thinking, with a possession, a fury, a +strain of mind and voice, that would rather suggest a nervous crisis than +a desire to please. We are as merry as ever when the trap sets forth +again, and say farewell noisily to all the good folk going farther. +Then, as we are far enough from thoughts of sleep, we visit Blank in his +quaint house, and sit an hour or so in a great tapestried chamber, laid +with furs, littered with sleeping hounds, and lit up, in fantastic shadow +and shine, by a wood fire in a mediaeval 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 showers fall steadily, the trees hang limp, and the face of the +stream is spoiled with dimpling raindrops. Yesterday's lilies encumber +the garden walk, or begin, dismally enough, their voyage towards the +Seine and the salt sea. A sickly shimmer 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 taken 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; and 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, for 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 neither of them French; for, of all English phrases, the +phrase 'for exercise' is the least comprehensible across the Straits of +Dover. All goes well for a while with the pedestrians. The wet woods +are full of scents in the noontide. At a certain cross, where there is a +guardhouse, they make a halt, for the forester's wife 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 wall, and some prints of +love-affairs and the great Napoleon hunting. As they draw near the +Quadrilateral, and 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 am sure we should keep more +to the right,' says one; and the other is just as certain 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 gurgles 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 worse; 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 ever welcomed English ale. Thence, by the Bois d'Hyver, +the Ventes-Alexandre, and the Pins Brules, to the clean hostelry, dry +clothes, and dinner. + + + +THE WOODS IN SPRING + + +I think 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-a-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 artists' sunshades as with unknown +mushrooms, nor bestrewn with the remains of English 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, +'_a 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; and, dotted +among the pines, or standing by themselves in rocky clearings, the +delicate, snow-white trunks of birches, spreading out into snow-white +branches yet more 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 among the bracken and +brown heather. It is all rather cold and unhomely. It has not 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 woods 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, pure 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 the 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 stand 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 firs 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, guttered 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 these coverts is so excessive, that there are moments when +pleasure draws to the verge of fear. You listen and listen for some +noise to break the silence, till you grow half mesmerised by the +intensity of the strain; your sense of your own identity is troubled; +your brain reels, like that of some gymnosophist poring on his own nose +in Asiatic jungles; and should you see your own outspread feet, you see +them, not as anything of yours, 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 long 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 leaves rustle underfoot, or you may +time your steps to the steady recurrent strokes of the woodman's axe. +From time to time, over the low grounds, a flight of rooks 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 the 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 clearings, and the solid noise of horses galloping passes below you, +where you sit perched among the rocks and heather. The boar 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: the old woman +laden with a fagot of chips, and the little ones hauling a long branch +behind them in her wake. That 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 frosty 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 fire spread out along the green pine-tops, in a +remote uncanny glen, hard by a hill of naked boulders. He drew near +warily, and beheld a picnic party seated under a tree in an open. The +old father knitted a sock, the mother sat staring at the fire. The +eldest son, 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 says; 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 friend'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. 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 singing in his ears, but he fancies he was +followed as he ran by a peal of Titanic laughter. Nothing has ever +transpired 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 Heine's 'Gods in Exile'; that the upright old man with +the eyebrows was no other than Father Jove, and the young dragoon with +the taste for music either Apollo or Mars. + + + +MORALITY + + +Strange 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 France have +had their word to say about Fontainebleau. Chateaubriand, Michelet, +Beranger, George Sand, de Senancour, Flaubert, Murger, the brothers +Goncourt, Theodore 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 when 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 Abbe Guilbert published his _Historical Description +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 Abbe 'sont +admirees avec surprise des voyageurs qui s'ecrient aussitot avec Horace: +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 Abbe likes places where many alleys meet; or +which, like the Belle-Etoile, are kept up 'by a special gardener,' and +admires at the Table du Roi the labours of the Grand Master of Woods and +Waters, the Sieur de la Falure, 'qui a fait faire ce magnifique endroit.' + +But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a +claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that 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 here +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 bring an old sorrow that +has been a long while your friend and enemy; and if, like Beranger's your +gaiety has run away from home and left open the door for sorrow 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 contrariety of interests. +You forget the narrow lane where all men jostle together in unchivalrous +contention, and the kennel, deep and unclean, that gapes on either hand +for the defeated. Life is simple enough, it seems, and the very idea of +sacrifice becomes like a mad fancy out 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 more exercised than the affections. When you have had +your will of the forest, you may visit the whole round world. You may +buckle on your knapsack and take the road on foot. You may bestride a +good 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 cord of Europe and go down from Alpine glaciers to where Italy +extends her marble moles and glasses her marble palaces in the midland +sea. You may sleep in flying trains or wayside taverns. You may be +awakened at dawn 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 wine; 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, and 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 network bound about your feet by birth and old +companionship and loyal love, and bear 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 what they know to be behind, enter into their notion of a +place. If the sea, for instance, lie just across 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 +knowledge of its greatness is for much in the effect produced. You +reckon up the miles that lie between you and intrusion. You may walk +before you all day long, and not fear to touch the barrier of your Eden, +or stumble out of fairyland into the land of gin and steam-hammers. And +there is an old tale enhances for the imagination the grandeur of the +woods of France, and secures you in the thought of your seclusion. When +Charles VI. hunted in the time of his wild boyhood near Senlis, there was +captured an old stag, having a collar of bronze about his neck, and these +words engraved on the collar: 'Caesar 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. If the extent of solemn wood +could thus safeguard a tall stag from the hunter's hounds and houses, +might not you also play hide-and-seek, in these groves, with all the +pangs and trepidations of man's life, and elude Death, the mighty hunter, +for more than the span of human years? Here, also, crash his arrows; +here, in the farthest glade, sounds the gallop of the pale horse. But he +does not hunt this cover with all his hounds, for the game is thin and +small: and if you were but alert and wary, if you lodged ever in the +deepest thickets, you too might live on into later generations and +astonish men by your stalwart age and the trophies of an immemorial +success. + +For the forest takes away from you all excuse to die. There is nothing +here to cabin 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 shadows and the sun wheeling his wide circuit through the +naked heavens. Here shall you see no enemies but winter 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 the 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 long 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 athletic act of the imagination. A faint +far-off rumour as of Merovingian wars; a legend as of some dead religion. + + + + +VI. +A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE {175} +A FRAGMENT +1879 + + +_Originally intended to serve as the opening chapter of_ '_Travels with a +Donkey in the Cevennes_.' + +Le Monastier is the chief place of a hilly canton 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, the seat of an arch-priest and several vicars. +It stands on the side of hill above 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 pediment and ornamental work in iron. For +Monastier, like Maybole in Ayrshire, was a sort of country capital, where +the 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 means to ruin himself by high living in this village on the hills. +He certainly has claims to be considered the most remarkable spendthrift +on record. How he set about it, in a place where there are no luxuries +for sale, and where the board at the best inn comes to little 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 hear one woman clattering off prayers for +the edification of the others at their work. They wear gaudy shawls, +white caps with a gay ribbon about the head, and sometimes a black felt +brigand hat above the cap; and so they give the street colour and +brightness and a foreign air. A while ago, when England largely supplied +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 takes 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, as with our northern pitmen, and left nobody +the richer. The women bravely squandered their gains, kept the men in +idleness, and gave themselves up, as I was told, to sweethearting and a +merry life. From week's end to week's end it was one continuous gala in +Monastier; people spent the day in the wine-shops, and the drum or the +bagpipes led on the _bourrees_ up to ten at night. Now these dancing +days are over. '_Il n'y a plus de jeunesse_,' said Victor the garcon. I +hear of no great advance in what are thought the essentials of morality; +but the _bourree_, with its rambling, sweet, interminable music, and +alert and rustic figures, has fallen into disuse, and 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, and marvel once more at the complicated scheme of things upon +this earth, and how a turn of fashion in England can silence so much +mountain merriment in France. The lace-makers themselves have not +entirely 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 town 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 tailcoat 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 bulges; +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 the week been +twice as long, she would have waited still. There was a canonical day +for consultation; such was the ancestral habit, to which a respectable +lady must study to conform. + +Two conveyances go daily to Le Puy, but they rival 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 cafe. The _Courrier_ (such is the name of one) should +leave Le Puy by two in the afternoon and arrive at Monastier in good on +the return voyage, 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 little 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 country lies in moorland pasture. The +country 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 common 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 passage over the stones; for it is a great warbler, and at +night, after I was in bed 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, the population is, in its +way, as Scottish as the country. They have abrupt, uncouth, Fifeshire +manners, and accost you, as if you were trespassing, an 'Ou'st-ce que +vous allez?' only 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 various pigs and sheep and cattle that make so +pleasant a tinkling in the meadows. The lace-makers have disappeared +from the street. Not to attend mass would involve social degradation; +and you may find people reading Sunday books, in particular a sort of +Catholic _Monthly Visitor_ on the doings of Our Lady of Lourdes. I +remember one Sunday, when I was walking in the country, that I fell on a +hamlet and found all the inhabitants, from the patriarch to the baby, +gathered in the shadow of a gable at prayer. One strapping lass stood +with her back to the wall and did the solo part, the rest chiming in +devoutly. Not far off, a lad lay flat on his face asleep among some +straw, to represent the worldly element. + +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 girl; and the arguments in the two cases were +identical. Each apostle based her claim on the superior virtue and +attainments of her clergy, and clenched the business with a threat of +hell-fire. '_Pas bong pretres ici_,' said the Presbyterian, '_bong +pretres en Ecosse_.' And the postmaster's daughter, taking up 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 +each side relies on hell, and Protestant and Catholic alike address +themselves to 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 boast a son in holy orders. +And here also, the young men have a tendency to emigrate. It is +certainly not poverty 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 spirit 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 question was now +an apothecary in Brazil. He had flown by way of Bordeaux, and first +landed in America, bareheaded and barefoot, 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, +to be an apothecary in Brazil. As for his 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. +_Ou'st que vous allez_? was changed for me into _Quoi_, _vous rentrez au +Monastier_ and in the town itself every urchin seemed 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 disagreeable bewilderment. +'Bread,' which sounds a commonplace, plain-sailing monosyllable 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 got it carefully by heart, as a stand-by, I presume, for winter +evenings. I have tried it since then with every sort 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 falling towards +decrepitude. One and all were pleasant and natural, ready to laugh and +ready with a certain quiet solemnity when that was called for by the +subject of our talk. Life, since the fall in wages, had begun 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 and 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 but 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 all 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 +sitting in judgment over the last. 'No, no,' she would say, 'that is not +it. I am old, 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 twang +off an oath with Sir Toby Belch in person. There was nothing so high or +so low, in heaven or earth or in the human 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 avoided _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 hulking fellow, visibly the worse for +drink before the day was well begun. But it was strange to hear her +unwearying flow of oaths and obscenities, endless like a river, and now +and then rising to a passionate shrillness, in the clear and silent air +of the morning. In city slums, the thing might have passed unnoticed; +but in a country valley, and from a plain and honest countrywoman, this +beastliness of speech surprised the ear. + +The _Conductor_, as he is called, _of Roads and Bridges_ 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 enthusiasm and special knowledge are the great +social qualities, and what they are about, whether white sauce or +Shakespeare's plays, an altogether secondary question. + +I used to accompany the Conductor on his professional rounds, and grew to +believe myself an expert in the business. 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 the _Marquis de Villemer_; and I have spoken with +an old man, who was then a child running about the inn kitchen, and who +still 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 pleased her fancy; and it would +be curious to know if she afterwards employed it in her works. The +peasants, who knew nothing of betters and had never so much as heard of +local colour, could not explain her chattering with this backward child; +and to them she seemed a very homely lady 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 up by Crouzials towards +Mount Mezenc and the borders of Ardeche, I began an improving +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 dames qui faisaient la manege 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 +been 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 devil _qui s'amusait a faire ca_. + +I suggested there was nothing more likely, as he must have some +amusement. + +The foreman said it was odd, but there was less of that sort of thing +than formerly. '_C'est difficile_,' he added, '_a expliquer_.' + +When we were well up on the moors and the _Conductor_ was trying some +road-metal with the gauge-- + +'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 Ardeche 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, when 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 _Conductor_ 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 information in +despair. A tale of old lawlessness 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 equipped he takes +the road with terror. All day the family sits about the fire in a foul +and airless hovel, and equally without work or diversion. The father may +carve a rude piece of furniture, but that is all that will be done until +the spring sets in again, and along with it the labours of the field. It +is not for nothing that you find a clock in the meanest of these mountain +habitations. A clock and an almanac, you would fancy, were indispensable +in such a life . . . + + + + +VII. +RANDOM MEMORIES: _ROSA QUO LOCORUM_ + + +Through 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 volumes in a library. The child is conscious of an +interest, not in literature but in life. A taste for the precise, the +adroit, or the comely in the use of words, 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 negatives 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 loud words, but I believe the words +themselves were what I cherished. I had about the same time, and under +the same influence--that of my dear nurse--a favourite author: it is +possible the reader 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:-- + + 'Behind the hills of Naphtali + The sun went slowly down, + Leaving on mountain, 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 that charmed me in my childhood: + + 'Jehovah Tschidkenu is nothing to her';--{190} + +I may say, without flippancy, that he was nothing 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, has 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 picture eloquent beyond +their value. Rummaging 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 banks 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 shrill children. Here, in the fleecy +person 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 greater 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 children 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 accompany 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--that the +presence of these articles afforded me encouragement. The third and last +of my pictures illustrated words:-- + + 'My table Thou hast furnished + In presence of my foes: + My head Thou dost with oil anoint, + And my cup overflows': + +and this was perhaps the most interesting of the series. I saw myself +seated in a kind of open stone summer-house at table; over my shoulder a +hairy, bearded, and robed 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 white 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 conveyed from Bagster's _Pilgrim's +Progress_; the bearded and robed figure from any one of the thousand +Bible pictures; and the 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 +jest, remark; but the serious spirit of infancy adopted it in earnest. +Children are 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 idea 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 appealed to me at the moment as least +contaminate with mean associations. In this string of pictures I believe +the 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 rude psalm the +one lovely verse which dwells in the minds of all, not growing old, 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 unconsciously; I listened for news of the great vacant world upon +whose edge I stood; I listened 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 which 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 picturesque, called _Paul Blake_; these are the three +strongest impressions I remember: _The Swiss Family Robinson_ came next, +_longo intervallo_. At these I played, conjured up their scenes, 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 flash of +colour and a heavenly sweetness in the air. Somehow my play-mate had +vanished, or is out of the story, as the sages say, but I was sent into +the village on an errand; and, taking a book of fairy 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 have never since forgot, and if my mind serves +me to the last, I never shall, for it was then that I knew I loved +reading. + + + +II + + +To pass from hearing literature to reading it is to take a great and +dangerous step. With not a few, I think a large proportion of their +pleasure then comes to an end; 'the malady of not marking' overtakes +them; they read thenceforward by the eye alone and hear never again the +chime of fair words or the march of the stately period. _Non ragioniam_ +of these. But to all the step is dangerous; it involves coming of age; +it is even a kind of second weaning. In the past all was at the choice +of others; they chose, they digested, they read aloud for us and sang to +their own tune the books of childhood. In the future 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 choice, and she imposed them on my infancy, +reading the works of others as a poet would scarce dare to read his own; +gloating on the rhythm, dwelling with delight on assonances and +alliterations. I know 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 of my nurse triumphed, and after a long +search, I can find in these earliest volumes of my autobiography no +mention of anything but nursery rhymes, the Bible, and Mr. M'Cheyne. + +I suppose all children agree in looking back with delight on their school +Readers. We might not now find so much pathos in 'Bingen on the Rhine,' +'A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,' or in 'The Soldier's +Funeral,' in the declamation 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 to my father; who roasted me for years in consequence. I am +sure one should not be so deliciously tickled by the humorous pieces:-- + + 'What, 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 +tawdry too; but on the 'Address to the Ocean,' or on 'The Dying +Gladiator,' 'time has writ no wrinkle.' + + 'Tis 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 Dickens 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 Latin divinity, cyclopaedias, physical science, +and, above all, optics, held the chief 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_, _The Female +Bluebeard_, G. Sand's _Mare au Diable_--(how came it in that grave +assembly!), Ainsworth's _Tower of London_, and four old volumes of +Punch--these were the chief exceptions. In these latter, which made for +years the chief of my diet, I very early fell in love (almost as soon as +I could spell) with the Snob Papers. I knew them almost by heart, +particularly the visit to the Pontos; and I remember my surprise when I +found, long afterwards, that they were famous, and signed with a famous +name; to me, as I read and admired them, they were the works of Mr. +Punch. Time and again I tried to read _Rob Roy_, with whom of course I +was acquainted from the _Tales of a Grandfather_; time and again the +early part, with Rashleigh and (think of it!) the adorable Diana, choked +me off; and I shall never forget the pleasure and surprise with which, +lying on the floor one summer evening, I struck of a sudden into the +first scene with Andrew Fairservice. 'The worthy Dr. +Lightfoot'--'mistrysted with a bogle'--'a wheen green trash'--'Jenny, +lass, I think I ha'e her': from that day to this the phrases have been +unforgotten. I read on, I need scarce say; I came to Glasgow, I bided +tryst on Glasgow Bridge, I met Rob Roy and the Bailie in the Tolbooth, +all with transporting pleasure; and then the clouds gathered once more +about my path; and I dozed and skipped until I stumbled half-asleep into +the clachan of Aberfoyle, and the voices of Iverach and Galbraith +recalled me to myself. With that scene and the defeat of Captain +Thornton the book concluded; Helen and her sons shocked even the little +schoolboy of nine or ten with their unreality; I read no more, or I did +not grasp what I was reading; and years elapsed before I consciously met +Diana and her father among the hills, or saw Rashleigh dying in the +chair. When I think of that novel and that evening, I am impatient with +all others; they seem but shadows and impostors; they cannot satisfy the +appetite which this awakened; and I dare be known to think it the best of +Sir Walter's by nearly as much as Sir Walter is the best of novelists. +Perhaps Mr. Lang is right, and our first friends in the land of fiction +are always the most real. And yet I had read before this _Guy +Mannering_, and some of _Waverley_, with no such delighted sense of truth +and humour, and I read immediately after the 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 huge gulf, _Ivanhoe_ and _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 has been added to my +admirations in that enchanted world of _Rob Roy_; I think more of the +letters in _Redgauntlet_, and Peter Peebles, that dreadful 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 finished it yet; _Peveril of the Peak_ +dropped half way through from my schoolboy hands, and though I have since +waded to an end in a kind of wager with myself, 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 that 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? . . . + + + + +VIII. +THE IDEAL HOUSE + + +Two things are necessary in any neighbourhood where we propose to spend a +life: a desert 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 desirable, 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 inspiriting than +distant Alps, and the thick fern upon a Surrey heath makes a fine forest +for the imagination, and the dotted yew trees noble mountains. A +Scottish moor with birches and firs grouped here and there upon a knoll, +or one of those rocky seaside deserts of Provence overgrown with rosemary +and thyme and smoking with aroma, are places where the mind is never +weary. Forests, being 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 rabbits, will stand well for the necessary desert. + +The house must be within hail of either a little 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; and 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 should, besides, be narrow enough +to cross, or the burn hard by a bridge, or we are at once shut out of +Eden. The quantity 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 + + 'Shallow rivers, by whose falls + Melodious birds sing madrigals.' + +If the sea is to be our ornamental water, choose 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 Teneriffe 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 +variety 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 cut into and cleared at the new owner's pleasure, are +the qualities to be sought for in your chosen land. Nothing is 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 against 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 +into 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 eager or toilful gardener misbecomes the garden +landscape; a tasteful gardener will be ever meddling, will keep the +borders raw, and take the bloom off nature. Close adjoining, if you are +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 entered through a door in the high fruit-wall; so that you +close the door behind you on your sunny plots, your hedges and evergreen +jungle, when you go down to watch the apples falling in the pool. It is +a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will +take care 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 cages 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 can +tolerate caged, though even then I think it hard, and that is what is +called in France the Bec-d'Argent. I once had 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 worked, 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. In 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 the lane, so +that you must stroll to hear it, and yet a little farther, tree-tops +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. A house of more than two stories is a mere +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 reception 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 +divan: 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 hoc_: 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 one 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 sanctuary 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 Claude or two. +The room is very spacious, and the five tables and two chairs are but as +islands. One table is for actual work, one close by for references in +use; one, very large, for MSS. or proofs 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 wearisome 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, make them of all printed +matter the most fit to stimulate and satisfy the fancy. The chair in +which you write is very low 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 twittering into song. + +Joined along by a passage, you may reach the great, sunny, glass-roofed, +and tiled gymnasium, at the far end of which, lined with bright marble, +is your plunge and swimming bath, fitted with a capacious boiler. + +The whole loft of the house from end to end makes one undivided chamber; +here are set forth tables on which to model imaginary 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 end 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 to 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 winter evenings. This should +be furnished in warm positive colours, and sofas and floor thick with +rich furs. The hearth, where you burn wood of aromatic quality on silver +dogs, tiled round about with Bible pictures; the seats deep and easy; a +single Titian in a gold frame; a white bust or so upon a bracket; a rack +for the journals of the week; a table for the books of the year; and +close in a corner the three shelves full of eternal books that never +weary: Shakespeare, Moliere, 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 _Bible in Spain_, the _Pilgrim's Progress_, _Guy +Mannering_ and _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 insomnia, 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_. +. . . + + + + +IX. +DAVOS IN WINTER + + +A mountain valley has, at the best, a certain prison-like effect on the +imagination, but 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; +but to these the health-seeker is rigidly confined. There are for him no +cross-cuts over the field, no following of streams, no unguided rambles +in the wood. His 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 each +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 sculpture, fills it, when regarded near at hand, with +wonderful depths of coloured shadow, 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 walk, 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 colours, +and the whisper of the woods. And scents here are as rare as colours. +Unless you get a gust of kitchen in passing some hotel, you shall smell +nothing all day long but the faint and choking odour of frost. Sounds, +too, are absent: not a bird pipes, not a bough waves, in the dead, +windless atmosphere. If a sleigh goes by, the sleigh-bells ring, 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 each 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. Climb 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 the health resort the walks are besieged by single +people walking rapidly with plaids about their shoulders, by sudden +troops of German boys trying to learn to jodel, 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 walks about. Alas! no muse will suffer this imminence of +interruption--and at the second stampede of jodellers you find your +modest inspiration fled. Or you may 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 public view. Alas! +there is no help for it among the Alps. There are no recesses, 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 they endure, chequer and by +their contrast brighten the sameness of the fair-weather 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 spire of alp hangs suspended in mid-sky among awful glooms +and blackness; or perhaps the edge of some great mountain shoulder will +be designed in living gold, and 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, appearances of sun and air that endure but for a moment +and return no more. Other variations are more lasting, as when, 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 through a forest so disguised, the +tongue-tied torrent struggling silently in the cleft 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 morning; totter down stairs in +a state of somnambulism; take the simulacrum of a meal by the glimmer of +one lamp in the deserted coffee-room; and find yourself by seven o'clock +outside in a belated moonlight and a freezing chill. The mail sleigh +takes you up and carries 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 they +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 western 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 yourself upon the farther side in yet +another Alpine valley, snow white and coal black, 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. + + + + +X. +HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS + + +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 the 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 within earshot +of the interminable and unchanging surf--idle among spiritless idlers; +not perhaps dying, yet hardly living either, and aspiring, sometimes +fiercely, after livelier weather and some vivifying change. These were +certainly beautiful places to 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 was 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 southern sky. It is +among these mountains in 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. Instead 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 health 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. We cannot all of us go +farming in Colorado; and there is yet a middle term, which combines the +medical benefits of the new system with the moral drawbacks of the old. +Again the invalid has to lie aside from life and its wholesome duties; +again he has to be an idler among idlers; but this time at a great +altitude, far among the mountains, with the snow piled before his door +and the frost flowers every morning on his window. The mere fact is +tonic to his nerves. His choice of a place of wintering has somehow to +his own eyes the air of an act of bold contract; and, since he has +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 summits the higher you +climb; a few noble peaks seen even from the valley; a village 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-woods, and covering all the mountains with a dazzling curd; add a +few score invalids marching to and fro upon the snowy road, or skating on +the ice-rinks, possibly 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 curving 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 the snow reverberates the +sunshine; from end to end the air tingles with the light, clear and dry +like crystal. Only along the course of the river, but high above it, +there hangs far into the noon, one waving scarf of vapour. It were hard +to fancy a more engaging feature in a landscape; perhaps it is harder to +believe 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 natural 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 here +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 none 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 crudity, 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 daytime 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 many degrees; the peaks that are no longer shone +upon dwindle into ghosts; and meanwhile, overhead, if the weather be +rightly characteristic of the place, the sky fades 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 homely 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 peer through their windows and foresee no end but +an entire seclusion from Europe, 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, glossy like fur, bright like +daylight, a joy to wallowing dogs and cheerful to the souls of men. Or +perhaps from across 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 recognises the +empire of the Fohn. + + + + +XI. +ALPINE DIVERSIONS + + +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 the 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, +long before Christmas they will have given up the English for a bad job. +There will follow, perhaps, a skirmish between the two races; the German +element seeking, 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-played 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 into our +mountain valley, coming you know not whence, going you cannot imagine +whither, 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 guests at dinner-time with songs and a collection. They +are all of them good to see; they, at least, are moving; they bring 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 +still simmer in our mountain prison. Some of them, too, are welcome as +the flowers in May for their own sake; some of them 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 grinding lilt, with which the blind man, +seeking pence, accompanies the beat of paddle wheels across the ferry, +there is surely a difference rather of kind than of degree to that +unearthly voice of singing that bewails and praises the destiny of man at +the touch of the true virtuoso. Even 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 respect 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 lead 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 +under 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 board, with the front wheels on a pivot, which was called a +_hurlie_; he may remember this contrivance, 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 career of the tobogganist. The +correct position is to sit; but the fantastic will sometimes sit +hind-foremost, or dare the descent 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 the 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 desperate exertion. On a very +steep track, with 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 body, 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 true 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 this 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 landed on +the highroad by the door of your own hotel. This, in an atmosphere +tingling with forty degrees of frost, in a night 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 life of man upon his +planet. + + + + +XII. +THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS + + +To any one who should come from a southern sanitarium to the Alps, the +row of sun-burned 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 five of even the bad cases bears the mark of sickness +on his face. The plump sunshine from above and its strong reverberation +from below colour the skin like an Indian climate; the treatment, which +consists mainly of the open air, exposes even the sickliest to tan, and a +tableful of invalids comes, in a month or two, to resemble a tableful of +hunters. But although he may be thus 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 languishes; 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 certain troubled delight in his +existence which can nowhere else be paralleled. He is perhaps no +happier, but he is stingingly alive. It does not, perhaps, 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 every 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 +strength 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 joy 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 merry 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 stirring 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 tete_'; 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 land of its nativity +still as a pool, clean as river water, and as heady as verse. It is more +than probable that in its noble natural condition this was the very wine +of Anjou so beloved by Athos in the 'Musketeers.' Now, if the reader has +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, than 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 lasts. + +The influence of this giddy air displays itself 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 utter their judgments with a cannonade of +syllables; a big word is as good as a meal 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 without 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 joke, +to be positively offensive in hot weather. He writes it in good faith +and with a sense of inspiration; it is only 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 like 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 somewhat comforts him. Nor is +the ill without 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 send a man to the proper measured level for +the ode, the biography, or the religious 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 congestion, perhaps, that leads the invalid, when all goes well, +to face the new day with such a bubbling cheerfulness. It is certainly +congestion that makes night hideous with visions, all the chambers 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, for 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. + + + + +XIII. +ROADS +1873 + + +No amateur 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 famous picture-gallery. But what is thus +admitted with regard to art is not extended to the (so-called) natural +beauties 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 healthful and +strengthening to the taste; and that the best school for a lover of +nature 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 harmonious 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 as +this that we find ourselves in the right temper to seek out small +sequestered loveliness. The constant recurrence 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 true pleasure of your 'rural voluptuary,'--not to +remain awe-stricken before a Mount 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 tranquil 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 much 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 else, it is minute knowledge and long-continued loving +industry that make the true dilettante. A man must have thought much +over scenery before he begins fully to enjoy it. It is no youngling +enthusiasm on hilltops that can possess itself of the last essence of +beauty. Probably most people's heads are growing bare before they can +see all in a landscape that they have the capability of seeing; 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 windows +begin to be darkened and restrained in sight. Thus the study of nature +should be carried forward thoroughly and with 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 play. +There is a dangerous vice inherent in any such intellectual refining upon +vague 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 that makes the attempt attractive; for any expression, however +imperfect, once given to a cherished feeling, seems a sort of +legitimation of the pleasure we take in it. A common sentiment is one of +those 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 otherwise than we have seen them, will continue +to the end to be one of life's choicest pleasures. + +Let the reader, then, betake himself in the spirit 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 vista 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 slope, 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 changeful and enlivening that he can +always pleasurably busy his mind about it. He may leave the river-side, +or fall out 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 they 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 swing and wilfulness. You might think for +a whole summer's day (and not have thought it any nearer an end by +evening) what 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-path across a +meadow--in all its human waywardness and unaccountability, in all the +_grata protervitas_ of its varying direction--will always be more to us +than a railroad well engineered through a difficult country. {231} No +reasoned sequence is thrust upon our attention: we seem to have slipped +for one lawless little moment out of the iron rule of cause and effect; +and so we revert at once to some of the pleasant old heresies of +personification, always poetically orthodox, and attribute a sort of +free-will, an active and spontaneous life, to the white riband of road +that lengthens out, and bends, and cunningly adapts itself to the +inequalities of the land before our eyes. We remember, as we write, some +miles of fine wide highway laid out with conscious aesthetic artifice +through a broken and richly cultivated tract of country. It is said that +the engineer had Hogarth's line of beauty in his mind as he laid them +down. And the result is striking. One splendid satisfying sweep passes +with easy transition into another, and there is nothing to trouble or +dislocate the strong continuousness of the main line of the road. And +yet there is something wanting. There is here no saving imperfection, +none of those secondary curves and little trepidations of direction that +carry, in natural roads, our curiosity actively along with them. One +feels at once that this road has not has been laboriously grown like a +natural road, but made to pattern; and that, while a model may be +academically correct in outline, it will always be inanimate and cold. +The traveller is also aware of a sympathy of mood between himself and the +road he travels. We have all seen ways that have wandered into heavy +sand near the sea-coast, and trail wearily over the dunes like a trodden +serpent. Here we too must plod forward 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 might perhaps resolve with a little trouble. We might reflect +that the present road had been developed out of a tract 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. Or we might carry the reflection further, and remind ourselves +that where the air is invigorating and the ground firm under the +traveller's foot, his eye is quick to take advantage of small +undulations, and he will turn carelessly aside from the direct way +wherever there is anything beautiful to examine or some promise of a +wider view; so that even a bush of wild roses may permanently bias and +deform the straight path over the meadow; whereas, where the soil is +heavy, one is preoccupied with the labour of mere progression, and goes +with a bowed head heavily and unobservantly forward. Reason, however, +will not carry us the whole way; for the sentiment often recurs in +situations where it is very hard to imagine any possible explanation; and +indeed, if we drive briskly along a good, well-made road in an open +vehicle, we shall experience this sympathy almost at its fullest. We +feel the sharp settle of the springs at some curiously twisted corner; +after a steep ascent, the fresh air dances in our faces as we rattle +precipitately down the other side, and we find it difficult to avoid +attributing something headlong, a sort of _abandon_, to the road itself. + +The mere winding of the path is enough to enliven 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 valleys 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 something new to be seen, +and takes us, like a careful cicerone, to many different points 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 peoples 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 that 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 sound 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 the 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 understood by the dweller in places more populous. We remember +standing beside a countryman once, in the mouth of a quiet by-street in a +city that was more than ordinarily crowded and bustling; he seemed +stunned 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 expression +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 concourse 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 road 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 shining +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 +junction. There is a passionate paragraph in _Werther_ that strikes the +very key. 'When I came hither,' he writes, 'how the 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 themselves 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 +before, and we stand in our indigent and cramped estate, and our soul +thirsts after a still ebbing elixir.' It is to this wandering and uneasy +spirit of anticipation that roads minister. Every little vista, every +little glimpse that we have of what lies before us, gives the impatient +imagination rein, so that it can outstrip the body and already plunge +into the shadow of the woods, and 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 rear 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 long +miles of march, feel as if he also were within the gates? + + + + +XIV. +ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES +1874 + + +It is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, and we have +much in our own power. Things looked at patiently from one side after +another generally end by showing a side that is beautiful. A few months +ago some words were said in the _Portfolio_ as to an 'austere regimen in +scenery'; and such a discipline was then recommended as 'healthful and +strengthening to the taste.' That is the text, so to speak, of the +present essay. This discipline 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 come to each place in the right spirit. +The traveller, as Brantome quaintly tells us, '_fait des discours en soi +pour soutenir en chemin_'; and into these discourses he weaves something +out of all that he sees and suffers by the way; they take 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 lighter +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 follows 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 beauty, much as a gentle +and sincere character is provocative of sincerity and gentleness in +others. And even where there is no harmony to be elicited by the +quickest and most obedient of spirits, 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 admirable 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 where 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 sort 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 ourselves 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 +together, 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 tempted to put forth the paradox +that any place is good enough to live a life in, while 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 sympathetic 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 seemed, to quicken +and educate my sensibilities than many years in places that jumped 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. A +river, indeed, fell into the sea near the town where I resided; but the +valley of the river was shallow and bald, for as far up as ever I had the +heart to follow it. There were roads, certainly, but roads that had no +beauty or interest; for, as there was no timber, and but little +irregularity of surface, you saw your whole walk exposed to you from the +beginning: there was nothing left to fancy, nothing to expect, nothing to +see by the wayside, save here and there an unhomely-looking homestead, +and here and there a solitary, spectacled stone-breaker; and you were +only accompanied, as you went doggedly forward, by the gaunt +telegraph-posts and the hum of the resonant wires in the keen sea-wind. +To one who had learned to know their song in warm pleasant places by the +Mediterranean, it seemed to taunt the country, and make it still bleaker +by suggested contrast. Even the waste places by the side of the road +were not, as Hawthorne liked to put it, 'taken back to Nature' by any +decent covering of vegetation. Wherever the land had the chance, it +seemed to lie fallow. There is a certain tawny nudity of the South, bare +sunburnt plains, coloured like a lion, and hills clothed only in the blue +transparent air; but this was of another description--this was the +nakedness of the North; the earth seemed to know that it was naked, and +was ashamed and cold. + +It seemed to be always blowing on that coast. Indeed, this had passed +into the speech of the inhabitants, and they saluted each other when they +met with 'Breezy, breezy,' 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, persistent sort, that interferes with sight and respiration, and +makes the eyes sore. Even such winds as these have their own merit in +proper time and place. It is pleasant 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 gets 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 sort to be +noticed in a country where there were no trees and hardly any shadows, +save the passive shadows of clouds or those of rigid houses and walls. +But the wind 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 the 'Prelude,' has used this as a figure for the +feeling struck in us by the quiet 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 + Abruptly into some sequester'd nook, + Still as a shelter'd place when winds blow loud!' + +I remember meeting a man once, in a train, who told me of what must have +been quite the most perfect instance of this pleasure of escape. He had +gone up, one sunny, 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 long while in dark stairways, he issued +at last into the sunshine, on a platform high above the town. At that +elevation it was quite still and warm; the gale was only in the lower +strata of the air, 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 holding 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 keep 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 tranquil water, and the +sea-birds, screaming and flickering from the ruined crags, alone disturb +the silence and the sunshine. One such place has impressed itself on my +memory beyond all others. On a rock by the water's edge, old fighting +men of the Norse breed had planted a double castle; the two stood wall to +wall like semi-detached villas; and yet feud had run so high between +their owners, 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, when the sea boomed against the foundations and the wild winter +wind was loose over 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 there 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 trouble the sea within view. The two castles, black and +ruinous as the rocks about them, were still distinguishable from these by +something more insecure and fantastic in the outline, something that the +last storm had left imminent and the next would demolish entirely. It +would be difficult to render in words the sense of peace that took +possession of me on these three afternoons. It was helped out, as I have +said, by the contrast. The shore was battered and bemauled by previous +tempests; I had the memory at heart of the insane strife 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 something transitory and +fretful in the impression of a high wind under a cloudless sky; it seems +to have no root in the constitution of things; it must speedily begin to +faint and wither away like a cut flower. And on those days the thought +of the wind and the thought of human life 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 wind of a butterfly's wing. The placidity 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 +rock, or swimming leisurely in the sunshine, it seemed to me that they +were enjoying 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 afternoon 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 lines 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-- + + 'Mon coeur est un luth suspendu, + Sitot qu'on le touche, il resonne.' + +I can give no reason why these lines came to me at this time; and for +that very cause I repeat them here. For all I know, they may serve to +complete 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 others 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 something 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 will surely find. + + + + +Footnotes + + +{92} The Second Part here referred to is entitled '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 Scoticanae_, under +'Maybole' (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'Orleans_, 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 _Marriage of Heaven and Hell_: 'Improvement +makes straight roads; but the crooked roads, without improvement, are +roads of Genius.' + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS OF TRAVEL*** + + +******* This file should be named 627.txt or 627.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/2/627 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Essays of Travel + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Release Date: August, 1996 [EBook #627] +[This file was first posted on July 3, 1996] +[Most recently updated: September 2, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ESSAYS OF TRAVEL *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1905 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +ESSAYS OF TRAVEL + + + + +Contents + +THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT: FROM THE CLYDE TO SANDY HOOK + THE SECOND CABIN + EARLY IMPRESSION + STEERAGE IMPRESSIONS + STEERAGE TYPES + THE SICK MAN + THE STOWAWAYS + PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW + NEW YORK +COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK + COCKERMOUTH + AN EVANGELIST + ANOTHER + LAST OF SMETHURST +AN AUTUMN EFFECT +A WINTER'S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY +FOREST NOTES - + ON THE PLAINS + IN THE SEASON + IDLE HOURS + A PLEASURE-PARTY + THE WOODS IN SPRING + MORALITY +A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE +RANDOM MEMORIES: ROSA QUO LOCORUM +THE IDEAL HOUSE +DAVOS IN WINTER +HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS +ALPINE DIVERSION +THE STUMULATION OF THE ALPS +ROADS +ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES + + + +CHAPTER I--THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT + + + +THE SECOND CABIN + + +I first encountered my fellow-passengers on the Broomielaw in +Glasgow. Thence we descended the Clyde in no familiar spirit, but +looking askance on each other as on possible enemies. A few +Scandinavians, who had already grown acquainted on the North Sea, +were friendly 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 +descend the widening estuary; and with the falling temperature the +gloom among the passengers increased. Two of the women wept. Any +one who had come aboard might have supposed we were all absconding +from the law. There was scarce a word interchanged, and no common +sentiment but that of cold united us, until at length, having +touched 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 the land to which she was to bear us. + +I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although anxious to see +the worst of emigrant 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 +understand the choice, and what I gained, some outline of the +internal disposition of the ship will first be necessary. In her +very nose is Steerage No. 1, down two pair of stairs. A little +abaft, another companion, labelled Steerage No. 2 and 3, gives +admission to three galleries, two running forward towards Steerage +No. 1, and the third aft towards the engines. The starboard +forward gallery is the second 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 heart +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 terrified 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 tea 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 snuff in the former from a flavour of +boiling and dish-cloths in the second. As a matter of fact, I have +seen passengers, 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, boiled 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 thing mere chicken- +bones and flakes of fish, neither hot nor cold. If these were not +the scrapings of plates their looks belied them sorely; yet we were +all too hungry to be proud, and fell to these leavings greedily. +These, the bread, which was excellent, and the soup and porridge +which were both good, formed my whole diet throughout the voyage; +so that except for the broken meat and the convenience of a table I +might as well have been in the steerage outright. Had they given +me porridge again in the evening, I should have been perfectly +contented with the fare. As it was, with a few biscuits and some +whisky and water before turning in, I kept my body going and my +spirits 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 steerage there are males and females; in the +second cabin ladies and gentlemen. For some time after I came +aboard I thought 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 females, 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; everywhere else I +was incognito, moving among my inferiors with simplicity, not so +much 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 steerage fare; eight that by the second cabin; and when you +remember that the steerage passenger must supply bedding and +dishes, and, in five cases out of ten, either brings some dainties +with him, or privately pays the steward for extra rations, 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 for the +asking. Two of my fellow-passengers 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 friends, 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 bring 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. There was a +mixed group of Swedes, Danes, 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 speak +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, known 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 word of condemnation. One of them was Scots; the other +claimed to be American; admitted, after some fencing, that he was +born in England; and ultimately proved to be an Irishman born and +nurtured, but ashamed to own his country. He had a sister on +board, whom he faithfully neglected throughout the voyage, though +she was not only sick, but much his senior, and had nursed and +cared for him in childhood. In appearance he was like 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 they +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 plain 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 attention +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 should reach New York. They had heard reports, her +husband and she, of some unwarrantable disparity of hours between +these two cities; and with a spirit commendably scientific, had +seized on this occasion to put them to the proof. It was a good +thing for the old lady; for she passed much leisure time in +studying the watch. Once, when prostrated by sickness, she let it +run down. It was inscribed on her harmless mind in 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, she 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 when 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 been the same with the +other Scotsmen present, for we all laughed our fill. + +Last but not least, I come to my excellent friend Mr. Jones. It +would be difficult to say whether I was his right-hand man, or he +mine, during the voyage. Thus at table I carved, while he only +scooped gravy; but at our concerts, of which more anon, he was the +president who called up performers to sing, and I but his messenger +who ran his errands and pleaded 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 undeceive 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 h; a word of a dialect is picked up +from another band in the forecastle; until often the result is +undecipherable, and 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 speech +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 and +after a fashion a rich man; now the wife was dead and the money +gone. But his was the nature that looks forward, and goes on from +one year to another and through all the extremities of fortune +undismayed; and if the sky were to fall to-morrow, I should look to +see Jones, 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 think 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 cut, there would be Jones with +his bottle. + +If he had one taste more strongly than another, it was to study +character. Many an hour 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; and we could hardly go to bed in comfort till +we had exchanged notes and discussed 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 angled 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 double detection; but +Jones, with a better civility, broke into a peal of unaffected +laughter, and declared, what was the truth, that there was a pair +of us indeed. + + +EARLY IMPRESSIONS + + +We steamed out of the Clyde on Thursday night, and early on the +Friday forenoon we took in our last batch of emigrants at Lough +Foyle, in Ireland, and said farewell to Europe. The company was +now complete, 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, this knowledge grew more clear +and melancholy. Emigration, from a word of the most cheerful +import, came to sound most dismally in my ear. There is nothing +more agreeable to picture and nothing more pathetic to behold. The +abstract idea, as conceived at home, is hopeful and adventurous. A +young man, you fancy, scorning restraints and helpers, issues forth +into life, that great 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 heroisms; it stands to +them as the victorious war which subdued an empire stands to the +personal act of bravery which spiked a single cannon and was +adequately rewarded with a medal. For in emigration the young men +enter direct and by the shipload on their heritage of work; empty +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 the +men were below thirty; many were married, and encumbered with +families; not a few were already up in years; and this itself was +out of tune with my imaginations, 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 taking 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 these 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 factories, 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 not 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. Thus 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 circumstances 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, on 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, and 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 manoeuvring +on the outskirts of acquaintance. The sea, the ship, and 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 often had +my heart in my mouth, watching them climb into the shrouds or on +the rails, 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 composure 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 forward 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 Steerage No. 4 and 5, +and who, wherever he went, was like a strain of music round the +ship. He was an ugly, merry, unbreeched 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 his 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 their midst +and sang aloud in the pleasant heartlessness of infancy. + +Throughout the Friday, intimacy among us men made but a few +advances. We discussed the 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 from in the old; +and, above all, we condoled together over the food and the vileness +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 their heels; and +to these all seemed for the best in the best of possible steamers. +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 speaking 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. But these +working men were loud in their outcries. It was not 'food for +human 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 better rations from +the ship. This marvellously 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 turn 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 heartily 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 others +agreed to do so, and I thought we should have been quite a party. +Yet, when I brought up my rug about seven bells, there was no one +to be seen but the watch. That chimerical terror of good night- +air, which makes men close their windows, list their doors, and +seal themselves up with their own poisonous exhalations, had sent +all these healthy workmen down 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 +the starboard bow, and was dry but chilly. I found a shelter near +the fire-hole, and made myself snug for the night. + +The ship moved over the uneven sea with a gentle 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 brass and the +beautiful sea-cry, 'All's well!' I know nothing, whether for +poetry or music, that can surpass the effect of these two syllables +in the darkness of a night at sea. + +The day dawned fairly enough, and during the early 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 +rose 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 were received with generous applause. Once or twice, a +recitation, very spiritedly 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, they 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 dancers +departed under a cloud. Eight Frenchmen, 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 careful of dignity. He dares +not be comical; his fun must escape from him unprepared, and above +all, it must be unaccompanied 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 triumphed over modesty and +even the inclemencies of sea and sky. On this rough Saturday +night, we got together 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 the +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 measure saved by the vigour and unanimity with +which the chorus was thrown forth into the night. I observed a +Platt-Deutsch mason, entirely innocent of English, adding heartily +to the general effect. And perhaps the German mason 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 +Anchor'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 more appropriate moment for 'Auld Lang Syne' than +now, when the land, the friends, 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 cloudy; 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 the majority of the +emigrants. I heard an old woman express her surprise that 'the +ship didna gae doon,' as she saw some one pass 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 +their divine. 'I didna think he was an experienced preacher,' said +one girl to me. + +Is was a bleak, uncomfortable day; but at night, 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 burning as steadily and +sweetly across this hurly-burly of the winds and waters as ever at +home upon the summer woods. The engine 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, over 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 thing 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 made 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 one 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 bells, +when the lights were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to +roost. + +It had been rumoured since Friday that there was 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 Orpheus 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 eyes. Humanly speaking, it is a more important +matter to play the fiddle, even badly, than to write huge works +upon recondite subjects. What could Mr. Darwin have 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 +understand 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, +turning it over in his Scots head, and then answered with +conviction, 'Yes, a privilege.' + +That night I was summoned by 'Merrily danced the 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 +open slide-door we had a glimpse of a grey night sea, with patches +of phosphorescent foam flying, swift as birds, into the wake, and +the horizon rising and falling 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 lighted by another +lamp, lads and lasses danced, not more than three at a time for +lack 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 Irish 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 mouth, 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, +'Hush!' with uplifted finger and glowing, supplicating eyes, 'he's +going to play "Auld 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. 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 quadrilles, 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 thus squiring the +fiddler into public note. There is nothing more becoming than a +genuine admiration; and it shares this with love, that it does not +become contemptible although misplaced. + +The dancing was but feebly carried on. The space was almost +impracticably small; 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 was the eagerness of +the brother to display all the acquirements of his idol, and such +the sleepy indifference of the performer, that the tune would as +often as not 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 flying and drumming over the forecastle; the companion +of Steerage No. 1 had to be closed, 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 part of the ship, Mr. Jones and I paid it a +late visit. Steerage No. 1 is shaped like an isosceles triangle, +the sides opposite the equal angles bulging outward with the +contour of the ship. It is lined with eight pens of sixteen bunks +apiece, four bunks below and four above on either side. At night +the place is lit with two lanterns, one to each table. As the +steamer beat on her way among the rough billows, the light passed +through violent phases of change, and was thrown to and fro and up +and down with startling swiftness. You were tempted to wonder, as +you looked, how so thin a glimmer could control and disperse such +solid blackness. When Jones and I entered we found a little +company of our acquaintances seated together at the triangular +foremost table. A more forlorn party, in more dismal +circumstances, it would be hard to imagine. The motion here in the +ship's nose was very violent; the uproar of the sea often +overpoweringly loud. The yellow flicker of the lantern spun round +and round and tossed the shadows in masses. The air was hot, but +it struck a chill from its foetor. + +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 mine were keeping up what heart they could in +company. Singing was their refuge from discomfortable thoughts and +sensations. One piped, in feeble tones, 'Oh why left I my hame?' +which seemed a pertinent question in the circumstances. 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 dim inferno, to an accompaniment of +plunging, hollow-sounding bows and the rattling spray-showers +overhead. + +All seemed unfit for conversation; a certain dizziness had +interrupted the activity of their minds; and except to sing they +were tongue-tied. There was present, however, one tall, powerful +fellow of doubtful nationality, being neither quite Scotsman nor +altogether Irish, but 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 another contribution to our +culture. + +'Just by way of change,' said he, 'I'll ask you 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 settled 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 little 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 steerage to steerage, but at least +not stagnant; and from this couch, as well as the usual sounds of a +rough night at sea, the hateful coughing and retching of the sick +and the sobs of children, I heard a man run wild with terror +beseeching his friend for encouragement. 'The ship 's going down!' +he cried with a thrill of agony. 'The ship's going down!' he +repeated, now in a blank whisper, now with his voice rising towards +a sob; and his friend might reassure him, reason with him, joke at +him--all was in vain, and the old cry came back, 'The ship's going +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; the 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-board 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 observed, more popular as +well as more conspicuously well done than the former. We had a +regular daily competition to guess 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. From the Clyde to +Sandy Hook I never heard a wager offered or taken. We had, +besides, romps in plenty. Puss in the Corner, which we had +rebaptized, in more manly style, Devil and four Corners, was my own +favourite game; but there were many who preferred another, the +humour of which was to box a person's ears until he found out who +had cuffed him. + +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. 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 the 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 about nothing, which galled me to the quick. 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 people +managed to convey by their presence. They seemed to throw their +clothes in our faces. Their eyes searched us all over for tatters +and incongruities. A laugh was ready at their lips; but they were +too well-mannered to indulge it in our hearing. Wait 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. + + +STEERAGE TYPES + + +We had a fellow on board, an Irish-American, for all the world like +a beggar in a print by Callot; one-eyed, with great, splay crow's- +feet round the sockets; a knotty squab nose coming down over his +moustache; a miraculous hat; a shirt that had been white, ay, ages +long ago; an alpaca coat in its last sleeves; and, without +hyperbole, no buttons to his trousers. Even in these rags and +tatters, the man twinkled all over with impudence like a piece of +sham jewellery; and I have heard him offer a situation to one 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 brought 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 lumberingly enough in broken German, +and learned from his own lips that he had been an apothecary. He +carried the photograph 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 barbaric and +unhomely cast, the eye both reassured and touched. It was large +and very dark and soft, with 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 one 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; the 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 with a somewhat indistinct and +childish hope. + +We had a father and son who made a pair of Jacks-of-all-trades. It +was the son who sang the 'Death of Nelson' under such contrarious +circumstances. He was by trade a shearer of ship plates; but he +could touch the organ, and led two choirs, and played the flute and +piccolo 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 silver 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 hostile 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. It was a dreary story. +He would bring home three pounds on Saturday, and on Monday all the +clothes would be in pawn. Sick of the useless struggle, he gave up +a paying contract, and contented himself with small and ill-paid +jobs. 'A bad job was as good as a good job for me,' he said; 'it +all went the same way.' Once the wife showed signs of amendment; +she kept steady for weeks on end; it was again worth while to +labour and to do one's best. The husband found a good situation +some distance from home, and, to make a little upon every hand, +started the wife in a cook-shop; the children were here and there, +busy as mice; savings began to grow together in the bank, and the +golden age of hope had returned again to that unhappy family. But +one week my old acquaintance, getting earlier through with his +work, came home on the Friday instead of the Saturday, and there +was his wife to receive him reeling drunk. He 'took and gave her a +pair o' black eyes,' for which I pardon him, nailed up the cook- +shop door, gave up his situation, and resigned himself to a life of +poverty, with the workhouse at the end. As the children came to +their full age they fled the house, and established themselves in +other countries; some did well, some not so well; but the father +remained at home alone with his drunken wife, all his sound-hearted +pluck and varied accomplishments depressed and negatived. + +Was she dead now? or, after all these years, had 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 work 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'most anything. You see no craze about +me.' + +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 thriving 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 conclusions, 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 courage 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 stuck 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. You would have said he recognised a destiny 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 incompetency were the three +great causes of emigration, and for all of them, and drink first +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 that 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-voyage will not give a man the nerve to put aside cheap +pleasure; emigration has to be done before we climb the vessel; an +aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is not to +be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself. + +Speaking generally, there is no vice of this kind more contemptible +than another; for each is but a result and outward sign of a soul +tragically ship-wrecked. In the majority of cases, cheap pleasure +is resorted to by way of anodyne. The pleasure-seeker sets forth +upon life with high and difficult ambitions; he meant to be nobly +good and nobly happy, though 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. Hence +the comparative success of the teetotal pledge; because to a man +who had nothing it sets at least a negative aim in life. Somewhat +as prisoners beguile their days by taming a spider, the reformed +drunkard makes an interest out of abstaining from intoxicating +drinks, and may live for that negation. There is something, at +least, NOT TO BE DONE each day; and a cold triumph awaits him every +evening. + +We had one on board with us, whom I have already referred to under +the name Mackay, who seemed to me not only a good instance 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 subjects 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, quick, 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 in 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 delighted 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 damned 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 played 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. 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 pleasure 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 from the spring, whereas his ploughs and +butter-churns were but means and mechanisms 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, and 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 +conspiracy against the people. Thus, when I put 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 it up for a bad job. My question is, "Can 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 from 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 larger 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 Mackay had most of the +elements of a liberal education. He had skirted metaphysical and +mathematical 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 among 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 Puritan 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, leads at last directly to material greed? + +Nature is a good guide through life, and the love 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 little 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 eloquent 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 other that had thrown him from situation to +situation, and at length on board the emigrant ship. Barney ate, +so to speak, nothing from the galley; his own tea, butter, and eggs +supported him throughout 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. + +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 feet +shuffling to the air, his eyes seeking and bestowing encouragement- +-and to have enjoyed the bow, so nicely calculated between jest and +earnest, between grace 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 leaned 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 him spin half round in a pirouette and throw an +audacious wink to an old gentleman 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 in a grave, quiet manner, because +they supplied no fish on Friday; for Barney was a conscientious +Catholic. He had likewise strict notions of refinement; and when, +late one evening, after the women had 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. + + +THE SICK MAN + + +One night Jones, the young O'Reilly, and myself were walking arm- +in-arm and briskly up and down the deck. Six bells had rung; 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 +somewhere 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 replied 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 doctor 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 find any one to guide us. It was no +time for delicacy; so we ran once more forward; and I, whipping up +a ladder and touching 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 lying 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_ can't leave the bridge, my man,' said he. + +'No, sir; but you can tell me what to do,' I returned. + +'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 complaints and alarmist +information from their freight of human creatures; but certainly, +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 immediately 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 would now be in the +smoking-room over his pipe. + +One of the stewards was often enough to be found 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 companion, breathing hurry; and in his shirt-sleeves and +perched across the carpenters bench upon one thigh, found +Blackwood; a neat, bright, dapper, Glasgow-looking 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 +comfortable 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 with cramp, and I can't +find the doctor.' + +He turned upon me as pert as a sparrow, but with 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 where he sat. The +thought of his cabin civility 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 were +anxious to leave a better impression. + +When we got on deck again, Jones was still beside 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 +streaming 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 heart, '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 charge, 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 finger. The light, as it reached the +spot, showed us an elderly man, thick-set, and grizzled with years; +but the shifting and coarse 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 indignation. + +'Nobody said he was a woman,' said a gruff voice, 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; and we saw him hurry +aft in person. + +Ten minutes after the doctor made his appearance 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 had now come to our assistance, expressing loud sorrow +that such 'a fine cheery body' 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 heart +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 yet once +more, with a gasp and a wailing prolongation of the fourth word: +'I had no CALL to come.' But there he was; and by the doctor's +orders and the kind force of his 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 seaman, 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 about 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.' + +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 days, 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 find 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 nothing but themselves. They're damned greedy, selfish +fellows.' He would not hear of the decadence of England. 'They +say they send us beef from America,' he argued; 'but who pays for +it? All the money in the world's in England.' The Royal Navy was +the best of possible services, according to him. 'Anyway the +officers are gentlemen,' said 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 forced to +make a new choice in life, 'by God, he would try Frenchmen!' For +all his looks and rough, cold manners, I observed that children +were never frightened by him; they divined him at once 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 monkey trick. + +In the morning, my first thought was of the sick man. I was afraid +I should not recognise 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 No. 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 twilight of the +bunks. You may guess if I was 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 and +intermittent; and to add to the discomfort, the seamen were just +beginning to wash down the decks. But for a sick man this was +heaven compared to the steerage. I found him standing on the hot- +water pipe, just forward of the saloon 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 born in Ireland, had lived a quarter of a century on the +banks of Tyne, and was married to a Scots wife. A fisherman 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 spring, he worked +as a labourer about chemical furnaces, or along the wharves +unloading vessels. In this comparatively humble 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 warned against the +steerage and the steerage fare, and recommended to bring with him 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 reminded 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-beat, 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 fisher 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 boat 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, when his appetite was tempted by some excellent +pea-soup. We were all much of the same mind on board, 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 the passage by saloon. The second cabin, 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 +received 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. + +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 rendered 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 Edinburgh, an Irish labourer trudging homeward from the +fields. Our roads lay together, and it was natural that we should +fall into talk. He was covered with mud; an inoffensive, ignorant +creature, who thought the Atlantic Cable was a secret contrivance +of the masters the better to oppress labouring mankind; and I +confess I was astonished to learn that he had nearly three hundred +pounds in the bank. But this 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 and at +night; whereas my fellow-passenger had never quitted Tyneside, and +had made all that he possessed in that same accursed, down-falling +England, whence skilled mechanics, engineers, millwrights, and +carpenters were fleeing as from 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. He spoke sharply of the +masters, and, when I led him on, of the men also. The masters had +been selfish and obstructive, the men selfish, silly, and light- +headed. He rehearsed to me the 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 and even the good +faith of the Union delegates; and although he had escaped himself +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 the 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 principles, +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 +calm; 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. + + +THE STOWAWAYS + + +On the Sunday, among a party of men who were talking in our +companion, Steerage No. 2 and 3, we remarked a new figure. He wore +tweed clothes, well enough made if not very fresh, and a plain +smoking-cap. His face was pale, with pale eyes, and spiritedly +enough designed; but though not yet thirty, a sort 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 +perfectly 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 something 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 hin, tell his own stories. They were so +swingingly set 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. +Company, 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; and of a dozen other sides of life, +each introducing some vigorous thumb-nail portrait. He had the +talk to himself that night, we were all so glad to listen. The +best talkers usually address themselves to some particular society; +there they are kings, elsewhere camp-followers, as a man may know +Russian and 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 circle 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 minds of those who heard him. +This, with a certain added colouring of rhetoric and rodomontade, +must have been the style of Burns, who equally charmed the ears of +duchesses and hostlers. + +Yet freely and personally as he spoke, many points 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 episode in the rakish, topsy-turvy life of such an one as I had +imagined. But then there came incidents more doubtful, which +showed an almost impudent greed after gratuities, and a truly +impudent disregard for truth. And then there 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 things; 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 very 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, without 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 home 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, +appearing again, begrimed and bashful, upon deck. The career of +these sea-tramps partakes largely of the adventurous. They may be +poisoned by coal-gas, or die 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 +land, 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 among 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 his +forgiveness. After half an hour with 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 engineer. 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 often 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 their arrival each of the four +had found a comfortable berth. This was the most hopeful tale of +emigration 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 delighted 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. Alick, 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, and wasted many +opportunities in life. I have heard him end a story with these +words: 'That was in my golden days, when 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 existence was not unpleasant to Alick himself, and he +might have long continued to enjoy idleness and a life on tick; but +he had a comrade, let us call him Brown, who 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 another old chum in +Sauchiehall Street. + +'By the bye, Alick,' said he, 'I met a gentleman 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 quartette aboard the +Circassia. If that was the way of it in the States, Alick thought +it was high time to follow Brown's example. He spent his last day, +as he put it, 'reviewing the yeomanry,' and the next morning says +he to his landlady, 'Mrs. X., I'll not take porridge to-day, +please; I'll take some eggs.' + +'Why, have you found a job?' she asked, delighted. + +'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 landlady 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 voyage +from the Broomielaw to Greenock. That night, the ship's yeoman +pulled him out by the heels and had him before the mate. Two other +stowaways had already 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 meal,' 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 grumbled 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 heard 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 kindness; +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 always 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, smoking 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 already 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 several on board, and even intimate with +one of the engineers; but it was plainly not the etiquette of such +occasions for the authorities to avow their information. 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?' inquired the captain. + +'Not much,' said Alick; 'but when a man has been 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-fitter 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 captain. + +'I've had a trip on a Clyde steamboat, sir, but 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 his 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 sea 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 Devonian 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 care 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 board a trading dandy. +Somewhere in the Bristol Channel the dandy sprung a leak and went +down; and though the crew were picked 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 Sea, 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 Wednesday: 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 the look of a street +Arab; and captains will have nothing to say to a ragamuffin; for in +that trade, as in all others, it is the coat that depicts the man. +You may hand, reef, and steer like an angel, 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; although, 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 begging, 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 much instruction; he could 'read bills on the +street,' but was 'main bad at writing'; 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 contemporaneous 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 four times had been discovered and handed +back to starvation. The fifth time was lucky; and you may judge if +he were pleased to be aboard ship again, at his old work, and with +duff twice 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 willing 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 by, 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 the 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. + +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 character 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 neutralised 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 before 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 upon persuasion should learn the persuasive faculty of +silence, above all as to his own misdeeds. It is only in the farce +and for dramatic purposes that Scapin enlarges on his peculiar +talents to the 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 guiding 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 unusual 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 suddenly, 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; he'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 other'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 incongruous 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 find 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 was 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 about 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 +might have increased the offer to a whole one, or perhaps a pair of +them, and not lived to regret his liberality. But 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 charity 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 some 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 Irish 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, until, 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 ran 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. +There are many relations which go on to marriage and last during a +lifetime, in which less human feeling is engaged than in this scene +of five minutes at the stoke-hole. + +Rigidly speaking, this would end the chapter of the stowaways; but +in a larger sense of the word I have yet more to add. Jones had +discovered and pointed out to me a young woman who was remarkable +among her fellows for a pleasing and interesting air. She was +poorly clad, to the verge, if not over the line, of +disrespectability, with a ragged old jacket and a bit of a sealskin +cap no bigger than your fist; but her eyes, her whole expression, +and her manner, even in ordinary moments, told of a true womanly +nature, capable of love, anger, and devotion. She had a look, too, +of refinement, like one who might have been a better lady than +most, had she been allowed the opportunity. When alone she seemed +preoccupied and sad; but she was not often alone; there was usually +by her side a heavy, dull, gross man in rough clothes, chary of +speech and gesture--not from caution, but poverty of disposition; a +man like a ditcher, unlovely and uninteresting; whom she petted and +tended and waited on with her eyes as if he had been Amadis of +Gaul. It was strange to see this hulking fellow dog-sick, and this +delicate, sad woman caring for him. He seemed, from first to last, +insensible of her caresses and attentions, and she seemed +unconscious of his insensibility. The Irish husband, who sang his +wife to sleep, and this Scottish girl serving her Orson, were the +two bits of human nature that most appealed to me throughout the +voyage. + +On the Thursday before we arrived, the tickets were collected; and +soon a rumour began to go round the vessel; and this girl, with her +bit of sealskin cap, became the centre of whispering and pointed +fingers. She also, it was said, was 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 and +children to be hers. The ship's officers discouraged the story, +which may therefore have been a story and no more; but it was +believed in the steerage, and the poor girl had to encounter many +curious eyes from that day forth. + + +PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW + + +Travel is of two kinds; and this voyage of mine across the ocean +combined both. 'Out of my country and myself I go,' sings the old +poet: and I was not only travelling out of my country in latitude +and longitude, but out of myself in diet, associates, and +consideration. Part of the interest and a great deal of the +amusement flowed, at least to me, from this novel situation in the +world. + +I found that I had what they call fallen in life 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 remind 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 accident by the difference of +language and manners between England and France. I must now take a +humbler view; for here I was among my own countrymen, somewhat +roughly clad to be sure, but with every 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 officers 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. From all these guesses I drew +one conclusion, 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 part 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, took me, like the transformed monarch in the story, for a +mere common, human man. They gave me a hard, dead look, with the +flesh about the eye kept unrelaxed. + +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 then learned for the first time, and by the exhaustive +process, how much attention 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 paid 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 upper 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 exactly at what stage of +toilette a man becomes invisible to the well-regulated female eye. + +Here on shipboard the matter was put to a more complete test; for, +even with the addition of speech and manner, I passed among the +ladies for precisely the average man of the steerage. It was one +afternoon that I saw this demonstrated. A very plainly dressed +woman was taken ill on deck. I think 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 large 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. Of course I had to reply; and as the talk +went on, I began to discover that the whole group took me for the +husband. I looked upon my new wife, poor creature, with mingled +feelings; and I must own she had not even the appearance of the +poorest class of city servant-maids, but looked more like a country +wench who should have been employed at a roadside inn. Now was the +time for me to go and study the brass plate. + +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 better 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 intention. Their manner was well +calculated to remind me of my fallen fortunes. You may be +sincerely amused by the amateur 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 cabin floor. +I was openly jeered and flouted 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 +readiness, 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, as 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. It seemed no +disgrace to be confounded with my company; for I may as well +declare at once I found their manners as gentle and becoming as +those of any other class. I do not mean that my friends could have +sat down without embarrassment 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 hope 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 only no +qualification, but a positive disability to move easily and +becomingly in this. When Jones complimented me--because I 'managed +to behave very pleasantly' to my fellow-passengers, was how he put +it--I could follow the thought in his mind, and knew his compliment +to be such as we pay foreigners on their proficiency in English. I +dare say this praise was given me immediately on the back of some +unpardonable solecism, which had led him to review my conduct as a +whole. We are all ready to laugh at the ploughman among lords; we +should consider also the case of a lord 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 parochial rather than +universal; that, like a country wine, will not bear transportation +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 must +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 external acceptation throughout +all the others, and this tends to keep us well satisfied with +slight acquirements and the amateurish accomplishments of a clique. +But manners, like art, should be human and central. + +Some of my fellow-passengers, as I now moved among 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 manners 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 refinement, 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 have 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; but though they may +be eager listeners, they have rarely seemed to me either willing or +careful thinkers. Culture is not measured by the greatness of the +field which is covered by our knowledge, but by the nicety with +which we can perceive relations in that field, whether 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 relations, 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 should have had a definite thought in his head +as he said it. Some hated the Church because they disagreed with +it; some hated Lord Beaconsfield because of war and taxes; all +hated the masters, possibly with reason. But these failings were +not at the root of the matter; the true reasoning of their souls +ran thus--I have not got on; I ought to have got on; if there was a +revolution I should get on. How? They had no idea. Why? +Because--because--well, look at America! + +To be politically blind is no distinction; we are all so, if you +come to that. At bottom, as it seems to me, there is but one +question in modern home politics, though 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 +their 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 were 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 will 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 confesses to the +failing. It has to me been always something of a relief to find +the poor, as a general rule, so little oppressed with work. I can +in consequence enjoy 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 +fatigue by way of relief as satisfied this powerful frontiersman +for the day. He, at least, like all the educated class, 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 from a housetop in the city of Aberdeen, and was brought +into hospital with broken bones. He was asked what was his trade, +and replied that he was a TAPPER. No one had ever heard of such a +thing before; 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 +slip 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 advertised 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 swell 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 all established tactics, it appeared. They could see no +dishonesty where a man who is paid for an bones work gives half an +hour's consistent idling in its place. Thus the tapper would +refuse to watch for the police during a burglary, 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 begins on his career of +toil. He has never had his fill of holidays in the past, and his +prospect of holidays in the future 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 working +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. They mark time instead of marching. They think 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 possible 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, and 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 income, simply from its +smallness, than a large one. I never wearied listening to the +details of a workman's economy, because 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 that a rich man has seven courses a day, +ten to one the half of them remain untasted, 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, soup 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 difficult 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 whether Croesus 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 only directs the manoeuvres 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 philosophical, 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 critical and human life is presented to you naked and +verging to its lowest terms. + + +NEW YORK + + +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 radish in a bed; and if the worst befell, +you would instantly and mysteriously disappear 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 Cevennes, 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 light 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 body; he +had visited a robber inn. The public 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. They were a pair +of rattling blades; and, leaving their baggage at the station, +passed the day in beer saloons, and with congenial spirits, until +midnight struck. Then they applied themselves to find a lodging, +and walked the streets till two, knocking at houses of +entertainment 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 +found themselves in the same street where they had begun their +search, and in front of a French hotel where they had already +sought accommodation. Seeing the house still open, they returned +to the charge. A man in a white cap sat in an office by the door. +He seemed to welcome them more warmly than when they had first +presented themselves, and the charge for the night had somewhat +unaccountably fallen from a dollar to a quarter. They thought him +ill-looking, 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 lock 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 the curtain of the first. +He was startlingly disappointed. There was no picture. The frame +surrounded, and the curtain was 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, larger +in size than that which they occupied, where three men sat +crouching and silent 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 cap 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 +streets 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 through 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 miraculously; 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 strident 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 us 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 storage 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 going +on, in my plain European fashion, to refuse a cigar, when Mr. +Mitchell sternly 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 begun 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 obscurely +know; what is to be yet lies beyond the flight of our imaginations. +Greece, Rome, and Judaea are gone by forever, leaving to +generations the legacy of their accomplished work; China still +endures, an old-inhabited house in the brand-new city of nations; +England has already declined, since she has lost the States; and to +these States, therefore, yet undeveloped, full of dark +possibilities, and grown, like another 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 understand 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 suddenly hears of a family of cousins, all +about his own age, who keep house together 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 +English youths turn to the thought of the American Republic. It +seems to them as if, out west, the war 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, and 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 rather 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 time, 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, returning with the spring to find +thousands camped upon their marshes, and the lamps burning far and +near along populous streets; forests that disappear like snow; +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 that 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. + +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 were 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 weeks in +New York, and neither of them had yet found a single job or earned +a single 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 should have hesitated; the devil was in it, but Jones and I +should dine like heathen emperors. I set to work, asking after a +restaurant; and I chose the wealthiest and most gastronomical- +looking passers-by to ask from. Yet, although 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 the cost of twenty dinners. I do not know 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 cooking, some so-called +French wine, and French coffee to conclude the whole. I never +entered into the feelings of Jack 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 upon the floor; he did not sleep until near morning, and I, +for my part, never closed 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 sound 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 +growing eerier and eerier, for I dare say I was a little fevered by +my restless night, 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 his 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 also 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 things to do; only the day to do them in, and a +journey across the continent before me 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, booksellers, 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-questioned 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 answers in silence; and yet when all was over, he +shook hands with me up to the elbows, 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 manager, 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 +ground, 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 that 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 up to be the death of him by his insulting +behaviour, he himself would be just upon 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 state 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 toward 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 heart I said farewell to them as they lay a pulp in +the middle of a pool upon the floor of Mitchell's kitchen. I +wonder if they are dry by now. Mitchell hired a man 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 safely to Reunion House, where they will get decent +meals and find an honest and obliging landlord. I owed him this +word of thanks, before I enter fairly on the second {1} and far +less agreeable chapter of my emigrant experience. + + + +CHAPTER II--COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK--A FRAGMENT--1871 + + + +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 itself 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 gold; allow my memory to +choose out what is truly memorable by a process of natural +selection; and I piously believe that in this way I ensure the +Survival of the Fittest. If I make notes for future use, or if I +am obliged to write letters during the course of my little +excursion, I so interfere with the process that I can never again +find out what is worthy 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 this 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 some fifty or sixty hours +about the middle remain quite distinct and definite, like 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 minister 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 had 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 situated: '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 limbo of forgetfulness. + + +COCKERMOUTH + + +I was lighting my pipe as I stepped out of the inn at Cockermouth, +and did not raise 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 quarrelsome 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, then a third, several couples out love- +making in the spring evening; and a consequent 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 name of Smethurst, and the designation of 'Canadian Felt Hat +Manufacturers.' There was no more hope of evening fellowship, and +I could only stroll on by the river-side, under the trees. The +water was dappled with slanting sunshine, and dusted all over with +a little mist of flying insects. There were some amorous ducks, +also, whose 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 chooses 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 scenery 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 tobacco, and the company of +one or two chosen companions, to a ball where I feel myself very +hot, awkward, and weary, I merely state these preferences as facts, +and 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 plea 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 last, 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 train in the early evening. + + +AN EVANGELIST + + +Cockermouth itself, on the same authority, was a Place with +'nothing to see'; nevertheless 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. When 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 other on his own head, so that he +looked something like the typical Jew old-clothes man. As I drew +near, he came sidling 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 scarcely 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 where the large trout +commonly lay, underneath an overhanging bank; and he was much +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, trying 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 speaking to the blush; as it is, I can recall only +the sense, and that perhaps imperfectly. He began by saying that +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 died out in himself, but must at my age be +still quite lively and active. Then he told me that he had a +little raft afloat on the river above the dam which he was going to +lend me, in order that 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 this 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 +embarkation, 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. + +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 that as it may, there is no doubt that I soon +wearied and came ashore again, and that it gives me more pleasure +to recall the man himself and his simple, happy conversation, so +full of gusto and sympathy, than anything possibly connected with +his crank, insecure embarkation. In order to avoid seeing him, for +I was not a little ashamed of myself for having failed to enjoy his +treat sufficiently, I determined to continue up the river, 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 wisdom, 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 +their 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 gospel of quiet and contentment. + + +ANOTHER + + +I was shortly to meet with an evangelist of another stamp. After I +had forced my way through a gentleman'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, with a beautiful little girl by her side, +came up to ask for alms, and gradually fell 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 the little girl upon +her hands. She seemed quite hopeful and cheery, and, though she +was unaffectedly sorry for the loss of her husband's earnings, she +made no pretence of despair at the loss of his 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 all 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 with 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 Catholic 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 some tracts about Biddy and the Priest, +and the Orangeman's Bible. I was a little amused at his abrupt +manner, for he was still a young man, and had somewhat the air of a +navy officer; but 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 very 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. + + +LAST OF SMETHURST + + +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 +the 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, already 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. I +mentioned that I had seen Mr. Smethurst already, and that he had +been very polite to me; and we fell into a discussion of the +hatter's merits that lasted some time and left us quite good +friends at its conclusion. The topic was productive of goodwill. +We exchanged tobacco and talked about the season, and agreed at +last that we should go to the same hotel at Keswick and sup in +company. As he had some business in the town which would occupy +him some hour or so, on our arrival I was to improve the time and +go down to the lake, that I might see a glimpse of the promised +wonders. + +The night had fallen already when I reached the water-side, at a +place where many pleasure-boats are moored and ready for hire; and +as I went along a stony path, between wood and water, a strong wind +blew 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 +water. 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 sudden 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 accosted +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 know, and we stood together for a while and had an +amusing little talk. The wind, too, made himself of the party, +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 the 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 and +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 dark 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 recitation of these elegant extracts, +except perhaps the anecdotes with which he varied the +entertainment. Seeing, I suppose, 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. . . . + + + +CHAPTER III--AN AUTUMN EFFECT--1875 + + + +'Nous ne decrivons jamais mieux la nature que lorsque nous nous +efforcons d'exprimer sobrement et simplement l'impression que nous +en avons recue.'--M. ANDRE THEURIET, 'L'Automne dans les Bois,' +Revue des Deux Mondes, 1st Oct. 1874, p.562. {2} + + +A country rapidly passed through under favourable auspices may +leave upon us a unity of impression that would only be disturbed +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 them for a moment in going by; we generalise boldly and +simply, and are gone before the sun is overcast, before the rain +falls, before the season can steal like 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 expose 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, as we went by, will +have a conception of it far more memorable and articulate than 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 the 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 enviable 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 which +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 themselves 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 +and 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 calling on +them to return; and some passion, some duty, some worthy or +unworthy expectation, 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 bright, as +we leave the town behind us, and we shall feel once again (as we +have felt 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 forward 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, dull, +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, the 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 +enough, against the sky. I say foolishly enough, although I have +seen the effect employed cleverly in art, and such long line 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 water and level land, where it did not +jar, as here, with the soft contour of hills and valleys. The +whole scene had an 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 trees on the horizon +that one was forced to think of it all as of a clever French +landscape. For it is rather in nature 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 forms in +which we learn to think of landscape are forms that we have got +from painted canvas. Any man can see and understand a picture; it +is reserved for the few to separate anything out of the confusion +of nature, and see that distinctly and with intelligence. + +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 treading 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 distance I could see no longer. Overhead there +was a wonderful carolling of larks which seemed to follow me as I +went. Indeed, during all the time I was in that 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 take 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 just 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. The 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 have 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 pinholes 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 would have been sad but for the sunshine +and the singing of the larks. And as it was, there came over me at +times 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 less 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 there 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 them 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. And if there were a few +who had no particular 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 opinion; 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 danced 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 find quite a bustle on the other side, a +great coming and going of school-children upon by-paths, and, in +every second field, lusty horses and stout country-folk a- +ploughing. The way I followed took me through many fields thus +occupied, and through many strips of plantation, and then over a +little space of smooth turf, very pleasant to the feet, set with +tall fir-trees and clamorous with rooks making ready for the +winter, and so back again into the quiet road. I was now 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 hollow; 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 had been washed with water. After I +had crossed the little zone of mist, the path began to remount the +hill; and just 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 donkeys, 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 fit 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 roguish and wanton in his face, a look too like that +of a schoolboy or a street Arab, 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 levity of his disposition by impudently wagging +his ears at me as I drew near. I say he was somewhat solemnised +just then; 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 puzzled, +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 +unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy for the creature took hold +upon me. I went up, and, not without some trouble on my part, and +much distrust and resistance on the part 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 angry, 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, shouting 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 face, that she had already recommended her spirit most +religiously to Heaven, and prepared herself for the worst. And 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 courtesies, +the little old maid and I went on our respective ways. + +Nor had she misled me. Great Missenden was close at hand, as she +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 about 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 about 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 London 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 village 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 with 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, +and a virtuous young man with a genius for mechanics, who should +love, and protect, and ultimately marry the girl in the crimson +room. Baudelaire has a few dainty 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 enlarged on the same text. +The subject, at least, is one that I am seldom weary of +entertaining. I remember, night after night, at Brussels, watching +a good family sup 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 awake 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 about 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 worst 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 light 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 behind 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 at the end of it! +She could nowise reconcile this with her moral sense. And, indeed, +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 read 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 driven 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 trend 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 opened out into the +plain, was shallow, and a little bare, perhaps, but full of +graceful convolutions. From the level 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 followed the footpath. Wendover lay well down 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 crescents of river, +and snatches of slanting road, and finally melted into the +ambiguous cloud-land over the horizon. The sky was an opal-grey, +touched here and there with blue, and with certain faint russets +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 +sentiment 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, that the whole wood looked as dense +as a bush of heather. The prevailing colour was a dull, +smouldering 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 +through the hedge, I found myself in a dim green forest atmosphere +under eaves of virgin foliage. In places where the 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 considerable 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 would be thrown out flat, the +light lying flatly along the top of it, so that against 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 seemed to +be all attention; the wood listened as I went, and held its breath +to number my footfalls. One could not help feeling that there +ought to be some reason for this stillness; whether, as the bright +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 sight, ever and anon, of large spaces of +the open plain. This happened only where the path lay much 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 began to grow lighter about me, and +I caught sight, through the trees, of sundry gables and enclosure +walls, and something like the tops of a rickyard. And sure enough, +a rickyard it proved to be, and a neat little farm-steading, with +the beech-woods growing almost to the door of it. Just before me, +however, as I came upon the path, the trees drew back and let in a +wide flood of daylight 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 dense 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 each 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 +general grace during meat. Every now and again 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 +shrilly publish to the world his satisfaction with himself and what +he had to eat. 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 just 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 fabulist not +quite so skilful, who made points for the moment without having a +studious enough eye to the complete effect; for I thought these +melting greens and blues 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 like 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 gradations of living green +that had before accompanied my walk. I had been sorry to leave +Peacock Farm, but I was not sorry to find myself once more in the +open road, under a pale and somewhat troubled-looking evening sky, +and put my best foot foremost for the inn at Wendover. + +Wendover, in itself, is a straggling, purposeless sort of place. +Everybody seems to have had his own opinion as to how the street +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 along 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 +served as rallying-point for these loose houses, and pulled the +township into something 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-windows, 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 that 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 Walter 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 cupboard 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 glass of water. The furniture +was old-fashioned and stiff. Everything was in keeping, down to +the ponderous leaden inkstand on the round table. And you may +fancy how pleasant it looked, 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 portrait 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 professed much interest in her dolls, and an impatient +desire to see the large one which was kept locked away for great +occasions. And so I had not been very long in the parlour before +the door opened, 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, with a very serious demeanour, asking many questions about +their age and character. I do not think that Lizzie distrusted my +sincerity, but it was evident that she was both bewildered and 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 gravity and a sort of +disquietude, as though she really feared I must be out of my wits. +Sometimes, as when I inquired 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 THE PARLOUR WANTED +TO KISS DOLLY. I fancy 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 knew, +who would never suffer the master of the house to dance, out of an +exaggerated 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 +without 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 discomforts, 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 +upon 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 graveyard 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 dull +sudden fall of a chestnut among the grass--the dog would bark +before the rectory 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 filled 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 near, was almost startled to find they lay on the +grave a man seventy-two years old when he died. We are accustomed +to strew flowers only over the young, where love has been cut short +untimely, and great 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 little 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 miserably 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 token of +love that survived death, as of something yet more beautiful--of +love that had lived a man's life out to an end with him, and been +faithful and companionable, 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 woods, +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-woods above on the other. +The fields were 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 furrow as ploughman or sower +stepped aside for a moment to take a draught. Over all the brown +ploughlands, and under all the leafless hedgerows, there was a +stout piece of labour abroad, and, as it were, a spirit of picnic. +The horses 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 of a +humourist; and his conversation was all in praise of an +agricultural labourer'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 appetite 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-station; 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 usual, 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 came and carried me back to +London. + + + +CHAPTER IV--A WINTER'S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY--A FRAGMENT-- +1876 + + + +At the famous bridge of Doon, Kyle, the central district of the +shire of Ayr, marches with Carrick, the most southerly. On the +Carrick side of the river rises a hill of somewhat gentle +conformation, cleft 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, like a bay-window in a plan, and is fortified +against the surf behind bold crags. 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 were +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 upon 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 summit 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 distinction of sky and sea. Over the white shoulders +of the headlands, or in the opening of bays, there was nothing but +a great vacancy 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 heathenishly at a cow he was driving. +And a little after I scraped acquaintance with a poor body tramping +out to gather cockles. His face was wrinkled by exposure; it was +broken up into flakes and channels, like mud beginning to dry, and +weathered in two colours, an incongruous pink and grey. He had a +faint air of being 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 during the New Year's festivity. I will own I +was not sorry to think he had had a merry New Year, and been young +again for an evening; but I was sorry to see the mark still there. +One could not expect such an old gentleman 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 fifty +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. Plainly, there +was nothing of this in his life, and years and loneliness hung +heavily 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 think +he couldn't do it. 'And, 'deed,' he 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 snow. + +He told me I was to turn down beside the school-house for Dunure. +And so, when I found a lone house among the snow, and heard a +babble of childish voices from 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-birds; 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 well 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 aesthetic 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 better 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. Twelve cockle-shells and a half- +penny china 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 merit 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 own 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 coat, 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 than it takes me to write these words +the four quarts were finished--another round was 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 from 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 +with 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 and gnawed your fingers! I think it would +have come to homicide before the evening--if it were only for the +pleasure of seeing something red! And the masters 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!), Gilbert, Earl of Cassilis, his chaplain, his baker, his +cook, his pantryman, and another 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 etching 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 asked 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 much 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, {3} +'stands upon an ascending ground from east to west, and lyes open +to the south. It hath one principals street, with houses upon both +sides, built of freestone; and it is beautifyed with the situation +of two castles, one at each end of this street. That on 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], and a row +of ballesters round it raised from the top of the staircase, into +which they have mounted a fyne clock. There 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 the 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 decayed 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 +is 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 here 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 than here in a country place betwixt a +village and a town. I heard a great deal about drinking, and a +great deal about religious revivals: two things in which the +Scottish character is emphatic and most unlovely. In particular, I +heard of clergymen who were employing their time in explaining 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 figure 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 part 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, and to do so +speedily. It was not much more 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 +accuracy 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 harem; and yet +these were grown men, and by no means short of wit. It was hard to +suppose they were very eager about the Second Coming: it seemed as +if some elementary notions of temperance for the men and seemliness +for the women would have gone nearer the mark. And 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 economy, 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 courage, thrift and industry, fought their way +upwards to an assured position. + +Abercrummie has told you enough of the Tolbooth; 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 parish 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 about the top. In a general +way this adornment is perched on the very summit of the chimney- +stacks; but there is one corner more elaborate than the rest. A +very 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 look 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 Street, 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 grew hot within her, and her +eyes overflowed at the memory of the past. And even if the tale be +not true of this 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 all of us is the glamour +cast. Some resist and sit resolutely by the fire. Most go 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 evening, we can +catch their voices in the glee. + +By night it was clearer, and Maybole more visible 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 into relief over +the gables and the chimney-stacks, and their shadows over the white +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 out--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 could 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 bleak 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 also, in the kirkyard, the original of Tam o' +Shanter sleeps his last sleep. It is worth noticing, however, that +this 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 blown 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 ploughing 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 the shore, among sand- +hills and by wildernesses of tumbled bent. Every here and there a +few cottages stood together beside a bridge. They had one odd +feature, not easy to describe in words: a triangular porch +projected from 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 pipe with +comfort. There is one objection 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 Scotland, 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. . . . + + + +CHAPTER V--FOREST NOTES 1875-6 + + + +ON THE PLAIN + + +Perhaps the reader knows already the aspect of the great levels of +the Gatinais, 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 disappear; 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 his 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, and not by any means +overworked; but somehow you always see in them the historical +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 taxed beyond possibility of payment, and +lived, in Michelet's image, like a hare between two furrows. These +very people 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 Seigneur ruled and +profited. 'Le Seigneur,' says the old formula, 'enferme ses +manants comme sous porte et gonds, du ciel a la terre. Tout est a +lui, foret chenue, oiseau dans l'air, poisson dans l'eau, bete 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 is, 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 with grain, in the midst of a +close full of cypresses and lilacs, ducks and crowing chanticleers +and droning bees, the old chateau lifts its red chimneys and peaked +roofs and turning vanes into the wind and sun. There is a glad +spring bustle in the air, 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, children of the people, saunter and gambol in the +walled court or feed the ducks in the neglected moat. Plough- +horses, mighty of limb, browse in the long stables. The dial-hand +on the clock waits for some better hour. Out on the plain, where +hot sweat trickles 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 upon gay folk at supper, +while he and his hollow-eyed children watched through the 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 chateau hold no +unsimilar place in his affections. + +If the chateau was my lord's, the forest was my 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 found 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. +For the first offence, by the Salic law, there was a fine of +fifteen sols; and should a man be taken more than once in fault, or +circumstances aggravate the colour of his guilt, he might be +whipped, branded, or hanged. There was a hangman over at Melun, +and, I doubt not, a fine tall gibbet hard by the town gate, where +Jacques might see his fellows dangle against the sky as he went to +market. + +And then, if he lived near to a cover, there would 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 decorating 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, while 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 varlets who get no wages and sleep at +night among the hounds? {4} + +For all that, the forest has been of use to Jacques, not only +warming him with fallen wood, but giving him shelter in days of +sore trouble, when my lord of the chateau, with all his troopers +and trumpets, had been beaten from field after field into some +ultimate fastness, or lay over-seas in an English prison. In these +dark days, when the watch on the church steeple saw the smoke 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 all their household gods, into the wood, whence, +from some high spur, their timid 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 refuge that the woods afforded, where they must abide +all change of weather and keep 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 demons 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 royal forest, +and noble by old associations. These woods have rung to the horns +of all the kings of France, from Philip Augustus downwards. They +have 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 they +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 virtue of the pastime of dead +monarchs. + +Great events, great revolutions, great cycles in the affairs of +men, have here left their note, here taken shape in some +significant and dramatic situation. It was hence that Gruise and +his leaguers led Charles the Ninth a prisoner to Paris. Here, +booted and spurred, and with all his dogs about him, Napoleon met +the Pope beside a woodland cross. Here, on his way to Elba not so +long after, he kissed the eagle of the Old Guard, and spoke words +of passionate farewell to his soldiers. And here, after Waterloo, +rather than yield its ensign to the new power, one of his faithful +regiments burned that memorial of so much toil and glory on the +Grand Master's table, and drank its dust in brandy, as a devout +priest consumes the remnants of the Host. + + +IN THE SEASON + + +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, where the cattle browsed between +the doorsteps. As you go up this street, drawing ever nearer the +beginning of the wood, 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 into the court you +will find as many more, some in billiard-room over absinthe and a +match of corks some without over a last cigar and a vermouth. The +doves coo and flutter from the dovecot; 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, and some +idle painter, who has stored his canvases and washed his brushes, +jangling a waltz on the crazy, tongue-tied piano in the salle-a- +manger. 'Edmond, encore un vermouth,' cries a man in velveteen, +adding in a tone of apologetic afterthought, 'un double, s'il vous +plait.' 'Where are you working?' asks one in pure white linen from +top to toe. 'At the Carrefour de l'Epine,' 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. + +'A table, Messieurs!' cries M. Siron, bearing through 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 of the huntsman winding a horn with a dead boar between his +legs, and his legs--well, 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 English, +that it would do your heart good merely to peep and listen at the +door. One man is telling how they all went last year to the fete +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 table, and is once more trampling the poor piano under powerful +and uncertain fingers. + +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 welcome and a good talk, and perhaps some +pickled oysters and white wine to close the evening. Or a dance is +organised in 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 move 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 looking 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 nearly 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 proposed, and a basket +made ready, and a good procession formed in front of the hotel. +The two trumpeters in honour 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 shadow, 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' haunt, and shows shapely +beards and comely faces and toilettes ranged about the wall. The +bowl is lit, and the punch 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 morning, straggling a good deal +among the birch tufts and the boulders, but ever called 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 +finally 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. No surf-bell on forlorn and +perilous shores, no passing knell over the busy market-place, can +speak with a more heavy and disconsolate tongue to human ears. +Each stroke calls up a host of ghostly reverberations in his mind. +And as he stands rooted, it has grown once more so utterly silent +that it seems to him he might hear the church bells ring the hour +out all the world over, not at Chailly only, but in Paris, and away +in outlandish cities, and in the village on the river, where his +childhood passed between the sun and flowers. + + +IDLE HOURS + + +The woods by night, in all their uncanny effect, are not rightly to +be understood until you can compare them with the woods by day. +The stillness of the medium, the floor of glittering sand, these +trees 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 rise betimes. If you +have not been wakened 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, shines +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-a-manger for coffee, and +then shoulders easel, sunshade, stool, 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 all 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 excuse to bathe. With quick ears, long +spines, and bandy legs, or perhaps as tall as a greyhound and with +a bulldog's head, this 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 notes. 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 roof 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 evil creatures that +haunt the forest. For you may plump into a cave among the rocks, +and find yourself face to face with a wild boar, or see a crooked +viper slither 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 go idly by. Your +friend at the easel labours 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 the shadow of +another tree, and up to his waist in the fern. You cannot watch +your 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 and heather, set in a +basin of low hills, and scattered over with rocks and junipers. +All the open is steeped in pitiless sunlight. Everything stands +out as though it were cut in cardboard, every colour is strained +into its highest key. The boulders are some of them upright and +dead like monolithic castles, some of them prone like sleeping +cattle. The junipers--looking, in their soiled and ragged +mourning, like some funeral procession that has gone seeking the +place of sepulchre three hundred years and more in wind and rain-- +are daubed 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 there 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 song, 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 the 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 comes 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 kindled 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. + + +A PLEASURE-PARTY + + +As this 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 from 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 round 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 exercise; 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 from +Fontainebleau, trudging across on his weekly peddle with a case of +merchandise; and it is 'Desprez, leave me some malachite green'; +'Desprez, leave me so much 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 sound of cannon in +our ears; and now, a little past Franchard, we find a mounted +trooper 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 meanwhile 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 dulcet, his manner +dignified and insinuating. It is not for nothing that the Doctor +has voyaged all the world over, and speaks 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 the sergeant, who +will send us back. At 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 highly recommended for +its beauty. 'Il y a de l'eau,' people have said, with an emphasis, +as if that settled the question, 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 lies out of the forest, a +cluster of houses, with an old bridge, an old castle in ruin, and a +quaint old church. The inn garden descends in terraces to the +river; stable-yard, kailyard, orchard, and a space 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 the two lies the river, clear and +deep, and full of reeds and floating lilies. Water-plants cluster +about the starlings of the long low bridge, and stand half-way up +upon the piers in green luxuriance. They catch the dipped oar with +long antennae, 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 ripple following another over the top of the +yellow deal. And you can hear a splashing and a prattle of voices +from the shed under the old kirk, where the village women wash and +wash 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 and 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 smoothly 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. There is a wish for solitude on all. One +hides himself in the arbour with a cigarette; another goes a walk +in the country with Cocardon; a third inspects the church. And it +is not till dinner is on the table, and the inn's best wine goes +round from glass to glass, that we begin to throw off the restraint +and fuse once more into a jolly fellowship. + +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 - + +'Nous avons fait la noce, +Rentrons a nos foyers!' + +And such is the burthen, even after we have come 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, and the faces +round the punch are lit up, with shifting emphasis, against a +background 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, in a +jacket of green cord, the great, famous, and redoubtable Blank; and +in a moment the fire kindles again, and the night is witness of our +laughter as he imitates Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen, picture- +dealers, all eccentric ways of speaking and thinking, with a +possession, a fury, a strain of mind and voice, that would rather +suggest a nervous crisis than a desire to please. We are as merry +as ever when the trap sets forth again, and say farewell noisily to +all the good folk going farther. Then, as we are far enough from +thoughts of sleep, we visit Blank in his quaint house, and sit an +hour or so in a great tapestried chamber, laid with furs, littered +with sleeping hounds, and lit up, in fantastic shadow and shine, by +a wood fire in a mediaeval 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 showers fall steadily, the trees hang limp, and +the face of the stream is spoiled with dimpling raindrops. +Yesterday's lilies encumber the garden walk, or begin, dismally +enough, their voyage towards the Seine and the salt sea. A sickly +shimmer 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 taken 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; and 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, for 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 neither of them French; for, of all +English phrases, the phrase 'for exercise' is the least +comprehensible across the Straits of Dover. All goes well for a +while with the pedestrians. The wet woods are full of scents in +the noontide. At a certain cross, where there is a guardhouse, +they make a halt, for the forester's wife 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 wall, and some +prints of love-affairs and the great Napoleon hunting. As they +draw near the Quadrilateral, and 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 am sure we should keep more to the right,' +says one; and the other is just as certain 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 gurgles in their +boots. They leave the track and try across country with a +gambler's desperatin, for it seems as if it were impossible to make +the situation worse; 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 ever welcomed English ale. Thence, by the +Bois d'Hyver, the Ventes-Alexandre, and the Pins Brules, to the +clean hostelry, dry clothes, and dinner. + + +THE WOODS IN SPRING + + +I think 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-a- +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 artists' sunshades as with unknown mushrooms, nor +bestrewn with the remains of English 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, 'a 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; and, dotted among the pines, or standing by +themselves in rocky clearings, the delicate, snow-white trunks of +birches, spreading out into snow-white branches yet more 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 among the bracken and brown +heather. It is all rather cold and unhomely. It has not 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 woods 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, pure 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 the 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 stand 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 firs 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, guttered 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 these coverts is so excessive, that +there are moments when pleasure draws to the verge of fear. You +listen and listen for some noise to break the silence, till you +grow half mesmerised by the intensity of the strain; your sense of +your own identity is troubled; your brain reels, like that of some +gymnosophist poring on his own nose in Asiatic jungles; and should +you see your own outspread feet, you see them, not as anything of +yours, 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 long 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 leaves rustle underfoot, or you may time +your steps to the steady recurrent strokes of the woodman's axe. +From time to time, over the low grounds, a flight of rooks 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 the 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 clearings, and +the solid noise of horses galloping passes below you, where you sit +perched among the rocks and heather. The boar 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: the old woman laden with a fagot of chips, and the +little ones hauling a long branch behind them in her wake. That 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 +frosty 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 fire spread out along the green +pine-tops, in a remote uncanny glen, hard by a hill of naked +boulders. He drew near warily, and beheld a picnic party seated +under a tree in an open. The old father knitted a sock, the mother +sat staring at the fire. The eldest son, 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 says; 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 friend'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. 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 singing in his ears, but he fancies he was +followed as he ran by a peal of Titanic laughter. Nothing has ever +transpired 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 Heine's 'Gods in Exile'; that the +upright old man with the eyebrows was no other than Father Jove, +and the young dragoon with the taste for music either Apollo or +Mars. + + +MORALITY + + +Strange 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 France have had their word to say about Fontainebleau. +Chateaubriand, Michelet, Beranger, George Sand, de Senancour, +Flaubert, Murger, the brothers Goncourt, Theodore 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 when 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 Abbe Guilbert published his Historical Description 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 +Abbe 'sont admirees avec surprise des voyageurs qui s'ecrient +aussitot avec Horace: 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 +Abbe likes places where many alleys meet; or which, like the Belle- +Etoile, are kept up 'by a special gardener,' and admires at the +Table du Roi the labours of the Grand Master of Woods and Waters, +the Sieur de la Falure, 'qui a fait faire ce magnifique endroit.' + +But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes +a claim upon men's hearts, as for that subtle something, that +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 here 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 bring an old sorrow that has been a long +while your friend and enemy; and if, like Beranger's your gaiety +has run away from home and left open the door for sorrow 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 contrariety of interests. You +forget the narrow lane where all men jostle together in +unchivalrous contention, and the kennel, deep and unclean, that +gapes on either hand for the defeated. Life is simple enough, it +seems, and the very idea of sacrifice becomes like a mad fancy out +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 more exercised than the affections. +When you have had your will of the forest, you may visit the whole +round world. You may buckle on your knapsack and take the road on +foot. You may bestride a good 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 cord +of Europe and go down from Alpine glaciers to where Italy extends +her marble moles and glasses her marble palaces in the midland sea. +You may sleep in flying trains or wayside taverns. You may be +awakened at dawn 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 wine; 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, and 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 network bound about your feet by birth +and old companionship and loyal love, and bear 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 what they know to be behind, enter +into their notion of a place. If the sea, for instance, lie just +across 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 knowledge of its greatness +is for much in the effect produced. You reckon up the miles that +lie between you and intrusion. You may walk before you all day +long, and not fear to touch the barrier of your Eden, or stumble +out of fairyland into the land of gin and steam-hammers. And there +is an old tale enhances for the imagination the grandeur of the +woods of France, and secures you in the thought of your seclusion. +When Charles VI. hunted in the time of his wild boyhood near +Senlis, there was captured an old stag, having a collar of bronze +about his neck, and these words engraved on the collar: 'Caesar +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. If the extent of +solemn wood could thus safeguard a tall stag from the hunter's +hounds and houses, might not you also play hide-and-seek, in these +groves, with all the pangs and trepidations of man's life, and +elude Death, the mighty hunter, for more than the span of human +years? Here, also, crash his arrows; here, in the farthest glade, +sounds the gallop of the pale horse. But he does not hunt this +cover with all his hounds, for the game is thin and small: and if +you were but alert and wary, if you lodged ever in the deepest +thickets, you too might live on into later generations and astonish +men by your stalwart age and the trophies of an immemorial success. + +For the forest takes away from you all excuse to die. There is +nothing here to cabin 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 shadows and the sun +wheeling his wide circuit through the naked heavens. Here shall +you see no enemies but winter 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 the 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 long 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 athletic act of the imagination. A faint far-off +rumour as of Merovingian wars; a legend as of some dead religion. + + + +CHAPTER VI--A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE {5} A FRAGMENT 1879 +Originally intended to serve as the opening chapter of 'Travels +with a Donkey in the Cevennes.' + + + +Le Monastier is the chief place of a hilly canton 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, the seat of an arch- +priest and several vicars. It stands on the side of hill above 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 pediment and ornamental work in iron. For +Monastier, like Maybole in Ayrshire, was a sort of country capital, +where the 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 means to ruin himself by high living in this +village on the hills. He certainly has claims to be considered the +most remarkable spendthrift on record. How he set about it, in a +place where there are no luxuries for sale, and where the board at +the best inn comes to little 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 hear one woman +clattering off prayers for the edification of the others at their +work. They wear gaudy shawls, white caps with a gay ribbon about +the head, and sometimes a black felt brigand hat above the cap; and +so they give the street colour and brightness and a foreign air. A +while ago, when England largely supplied 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 takes 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, as with our northern pitmen, and +left nobody the richer. The women bravely squandered their gains, +kept the men in idleness, and gave themselves up, as I was told, to +sweethearting and a merry life. From week's end to week's end it +was one continuous gala in Monastier; people spent the day in the +wine-shops, and the drum or the bagpipes led on the bourrees up to +ten at night. Now these dancing days are over. 'Il n'y a plus de +jeunesse,' said Victor the garcon. I hear of no great advance in +what are thought the essentials of morality; but the bourree, with +its rambling, sweet, interminable music, and alert and rustic +figures, has fallen into disuse, and 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, and marvel once more at the complicated scheme of things +upon this earth, and how a turn of fashion in England can silence +so much mountain merriment in France. The lace-makers themselves +have not entirely 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 town 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 tailcoat 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 bulges; 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 the week been twice as long, she would have +waited still. There was a canonical day for consultation; such was +the ancestral habit, to which a respectable lady must study to +conform. + +Two conveyances go daily to Le Puy, but they rival 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 cafe. The Courrier (such is the +name of one) should leave Le Puy by two in the afternoon and arrive +at Monastier in good on the return voyage, 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 little 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 +country lies in moorland pasture. The country 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 common 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 passage over the stones; for +it is a great warbler, and at night, after I was in bed 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, the population +is, in its way, as Scottish as the country. They have abrupt, +uncouth, Fifeshire manners, and accost you, as if you were +trespassing, an 'Ou'st-ce que vous allez?' only 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 +various pigs and sheep and cattle that make so pleasant a tinkling +in the meadows. The lace-makers have disappeared from the street. +Not to attend mass would involve social degradation; and you may +find people reading Sunday books, in particular a sort of Catholic +Monthly Visitor on the doings of Our Lady of Lourdes. I remember +one Sunday, when I was walking in the country, that I fell on a +hamlet and found all the inhabitants, from the patriarch to the +baby, gathered in the shadow of a gable at prayer. One strapping +lass stood with her back to the wall and did the solo part, the +rest chiming in devoutly. Not far off, a lad lay flat on his face +asleep among some straw, to represent the worldly element. + +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 girl; and the arguments +in the two cases were identical. Each apostle based her claim on +the superior virtue and attainments of her clergy, and clenched the +business with a threat of hell-fire. 'Pas bong pretres ici,' said +the Presbyterian, 'bong pretres en Ecosse.' And the postmaster's +daughter, taking up 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 each side +relies on hell, and Protestant and Catholic alike address +themselves to 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 boast a son in holy +orders. And here also, the young men have a tendency to emigrate. +It is certainly not poverty 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 spirit 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 question was now +an apothecary in Brazil. He had flown by way of Bordeaux, and +first landed in America, bareheaded and barefoot, 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, to be an apothecary +in Brazil. As for his 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. Ou'st que vous allez? was changed for me into Quoi, vous +rentrez au Monastier and in the town itself every urchin seemed 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 disagreeable bewilderment. 'Bread,' which +sounds a commonplace, plain-sailing monosyllable 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 got it carefully by heart, as a stand-by, I presume, for +winter evenings. I have tried it since then with every sort 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 falling towards decrepitude. One and all were pleasant and +natural, ready to laugh and ready with a certain quiet solemnity +when that was called for by the subject of our talk. Life, since +the fall in wages, had begun 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 and 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 but 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 +all 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 sitting in judgment over the +last. 'No, no,' she would say, 'that is not it. I am old, 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 twang off an oath with Sir Toby Belch in person. There +was nothing so high or so low, in heaven or earth or in the human +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 avoided +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 hulking fellow, visibly the worse +for drink before the day was well begun. But it was strange to +hear her unwearying flow of oaths and obscenities, endless like a +river, and now and then rising to a passionate shrillness, in the +clear and silent air of the morning. In city slums, the thing +might have passed unnoticed; but in a country valley, and from a +plain and honest countrywoman, this beastliness of speech surprised +the ear. + +The Conductor, as he is called, of Roads and Bridges 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 enthusiasm and +special knowledge are the great social qualities, and what they are +about, whether white sauce or Shakespeare's plays, an altogether +secondary question. + +I used to accompany the Conductor on his professional rounds, and +grew to believe myself an expert in the business. 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 the Marquis de +Villemer; and I have spoken with an old man, who was then a child +running about the inn kitchen, and who still 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 pleased her fancy; and it +would be curious to know if she afterwards employed it in her +works. The peasants, who knew nothing of betters and had never so +much as heard of local colour, could not explain her chattering +with this backward child; and to them she seemed a very homely lady +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 up by Crouzials +towards Mount Mezenc and the borders of Ardeche, I began an +improving 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 dames qui faisaient la manege 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 been 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 devil qui s'amusait a faire ca. + +I suggested there was nothing more likely, as he must have some +amusement. + +The foreman said it was odd, but there was less of that sort of +thing than formerly. 'C'est difficile,' he added, 'a expliquer.' + +When we were well up on the moors and the Conductor was trying some +road-metal with the gauge - + +'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 Ardeche 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, when 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 Conductor 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 +information in despair. A tale of old lawlessness 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 equipped he takes the road with terror. All day the family +sits about the fire in a foul and airless hovel, and equally +without work or diversion. The father may carve a rude piece of +furniture, but that is all that will be done until the spring sets +in again, and along with it the labours of the field. It is not +for nothing that you find a clock in the meanest of these mountain +habitations. A clock and an almanac, you would fancy, were +indispensable in such a life . . . + + + +CHAPTER VII--RANDOM MEMORIES: ROSA QUO LOCORUM + + + +Through 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 volumes +in a library. The child is conscious of an interest, not in +literature but in life. A taste for the precise, the adroit, or +the comely in the use of words, 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 negatives 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 +loud words, but I believe the words themselves were what I +cherished. I had about the same time, and under the same +influence--that of my dear nurse--a favourite author: it is +possible the reader 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:- + +'Behind the hills of Naphtali +The sun went slowly down, +Leaving on mountain, 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 that charmed me in my +childhood: + +'Jehovah Tschidkenu is nothing to her'; {6} - + +I may say, without flippancy, that he was nothing 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, +has 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 picture +eloquent beyond their value. Rummaging 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 banks 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 shrill children. Here, +in the fleecy person 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 greater 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 children 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 accompany 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--that the presence of these articles afforded me encouragement. +The third and last of my pictures illustrated words:- + + 'My table Thou hast furnished + In presence of my foes: +My head Thou dost with oil anoint, +And my cup overflows': + +and this was perhaps the most interesting of the series. I saw +myself seated in a kind of open stone summer-house at table; over +my shoulder a hairy, bearded, and robed 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 white +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 conveyed from Bagster's Pilgrim's Progress; the bearded and +robed figure from any one of the thousand Bible pictures; and the +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 jest, +remark; but the serious spirit of infancy adopted it in earnest. +Children are 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 idea 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 +appealed to me at the moment as least contaminate with mean +associations. In this string of pictures I believe the 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 rude +psalm the one lovely verse which dwells in the minds of all, not +growing old, 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 unconsciously; I listened for news of the great +vacant world upon whose edge I stood; I listened 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 which 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 picturesque, called Paul Blake; these are the three +strongest impressions I remember: The Swiss Family Robinson came +next, longo intervallo. At these I played, conjured up their +scenes, 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 flash of colour and a heavenly +sweetness in the air. Somehow my play-mate had vanished, or is out +of the story, as the sages say, but I was sent into the village on +an errand; and, taking a book of fairy 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 have never since forgot, and if my +mind serves me to the last, I never shall, for it was then that I +knew I loved reading. + + +II + + +To pass from hearing literature to reading it is to take a great +and dangerous step. With not a few, I think a large proportion of +their pleasure then comes to an end; 'the malady of not marking' +overtakes them; they read thenceforward by the eye alone and hear +never again the chime of fair words or the march of the stately +period. Non ragioniam of these. But to all the step is dangerous; +it involves coming of age; it is even a kind of second weaning. In +the past all was at the choice of others; they chose, they +digested, they read aloud for us and sang to their own tune the +books of childhood. In the future 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 choice, and she imposed them on my +infancy, reading the works of others as a poet would scarce dare to +read his own; gloating on the rhythm, dwelling with delight on +assonances and alliterations. I know 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 of my nurse +triumphed, and after a long search, I can find in these earliest +volumes of my autobiography no mention of anything but nursery +rhymes, the Bible, and Mr. M'Cheyne. + +I suppose all children agree in looking back with delight on their +school Readers. We might not now find so much pathos in 'Bingen on +the Rhine,' 'A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,' or in +'The Soldier's Funeral,' in the declamation 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 to my father; who roasted me +for years in consequence. I am sure one should not be so +deliciously tickled by the humorous pieces:- + +'What, 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 tawdry too; but on the 'Address to the Ocean,' or on 'The +Dying Gladiator,' 'time has writ no wrinkle.' + +'Tis 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 Dickens 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 Latin divinity, +cyclopaedias, physical science, and, above all, optics, held the +chief 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, The Female Bluebeard, G. Sand's +Mare au Diable--(how came it in that grave assembly!), Ainsworth's +Tower of London, and four old volumes of Punch--these were the +chief exceptions. In these latter, which made for years the chief +of my diet, I very early fell in love (almost as soon as I could +spell) with the Snob Papers. I knew them almost by heart, +particularly the visit to the Pontos; and I remember my surprise +when I found, long afterwards, that they were famous, and signed +with a famous name; to me, as I read and admired them, they were +the works of Mr. Punch. Time and again I tried to read Rob Roy, +with whom of course I was acquainted from the Tales of a +Grandfather; time and again the early part, with Rashleigh and +(think of it!) the adorable Diana, choked me off; and I shall never +forget the pleasure and surprise with which, lying on the floor one +summer evening, I struck of a sudden into the first scene with +Andrew Fairservice. 'The worthy Dr. Lightfoot'--'mistrysted with a +bogle'--'a wheen green trash'--'Jenny, lass, I think I ha'e her': +from that day to this the phrases have been unforgotten. I read +on, I need scarce say; I came to Glasgow, I bided tryst on Glasgow +Bridge, I met Rob Roy and the Bailie in the Tolbooth, all with +transporting pleasure; and then the clouds gathered once more about +my path; and I dozed and skipped until I stumbled half-asleep into +the clachan of Aberfoyle, and the voices of Iverach and Galbraith +recalled me to myself. With that scene and the defeat of Captain +Thornton the book concluded; Helen and her sons shocked even the +little schoolboy of nine or ten with their unreality; I read no +more, or I did not grasp what I was reading; and years elapsed +before I consciously met Diana and her father among the hills, or +saw Rashleigh dying in the chair. When I think of that novel and +that evening, I am impatient with all others; they seem but shadows +and impostors; they cannot satisfy the appetite which this +awakened; and I dare be known to think it the best of Sir Walter's +by nearly as much as Sir Walter is the best of novelists. Perhaps +Mr. Lang is right, and our first friends in the land of fiction are +always the most real. And yet I had read before this Guy +Mannering, and some of Waverley, with no such delighted sense of +truth and humour, and I read immediately after the 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 huge gulf, +Ivanhoe and 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 has been added to my admirations in that enchanted +world of Rob Roy; I think more of the letters in Redgauntlet, and +Peter Peebles, that dreadful 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 finished it yet; Peveril of the Peak dropped half way +through from my schoolboy hands, and though I have since waded to +an end in a kind of wager with myself, 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 that 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? . . . + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE IDEAL HOUSE + + + +Two things are necessary in any neighbourhood where we propose to +spend a life: a desert 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 desirable, 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 inspiriting +than distant Alps, and the thick fern upon a Surrey heath makes a +fine forest for the imagination, and the dotted yew trees noble +mountains. A Scottish moor with birches and firs grouped here and +there upon a knoll, or one of those rocky seaside deserts of +Provence overgrown with rosemary and thyme and smoking with aroma, +are places where the mind is never weary. Forests, being 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 +rabbits, will stand well for the necessary desert. + +The house must be within hail of either a little 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; and 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 should, besides, be narrow +enough to cross, or the burn hard by a bridge, or we are at once +shut out of Eden. The quantity 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 + +'Shallow rivers, by whose falls +Melodious birds sing madrigals.' + +If the sea is to be our ornamental water, choose 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 Teneriffe 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 variety 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 cut into and +cleared at the new owner's pleasure, are the qualities to be sought +for in your chosen land. Nothing is 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 against 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 into 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 eager or toilful gardener misbecomes the garden +landscape; a tasteful gardener will be ever meddling, will keep the +borders raw, and take the bloom off nature. Close adjoining, if +you are 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 entered through a door in the high +fruit-wall; so that you close the door behind you on your sunny +plots, your hedges and evergreen jungle, when you go down to watch +the apples falling in the pool. It is a golden maxim to cultivate +the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care 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 cages 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 can tolerate caged, though even then I +think it hard, and that is what is called in France the Bec- +d'Argent. I once had 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 worked, 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. In 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 the lane, so that you must stroll to hear it, and +yet a little farther, tree-tops 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. A house of more than +two stories is a mere 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 reception 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 +divan: 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 hoc: 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 one 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 sanctuary 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 Claude or two. The room is very spacious, and the five +tables and two chairs are but as islands. One table is for actual +work, one close by for references in use; one, very large, for MSS. +or proofs 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 wearisome +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, make them of all +printed matter the most fit to stimulate and satisfy the fancy. +The chair in which you write is very low 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 twittering +into song. + +Joined along by a passage, you may reach the great, sunny, glass- +roofed, and tiled gymnasium, at the far end of which, lined with +bright marble, is your plunge and swimming bath, fitted with a +capacious boiler. + +The whole loft of the house from end to end makes one undivided +chamber; here are set forth tables on which to model imaginary 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 end 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 to 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 winter evenings. This +should be furnished in warm positive colours, and sofas and floor +thick with rich furs. The hearth, where you burn wood of aromatic +quality on silver dogs, tiled round about with Bible pictures; the +seats deep and easy; a single Titian in a gold frame; a white bust +or so upon a bracket; a rack for the journals of the week; a table +for the books of the year; and close in a corner the three shelves +full of eternal books that never weary: Shakespeare, Moliere, +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 Bible in +Spain, the Pilgrim's Progress, Guy Mannering and 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 insomnia, 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. . . . + + + +CHAPTER IX--DAVOS IN WINTER + + + +A mountain valley has, at the best, a certain prison-like effect on +the imagination, but 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; but to these the health-seeker is +rigidly confined. There are for him no cross-cuts over the field, +no following of streams, no unguided rambles in the wood. His +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 each +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 +sculpture, fills it, when regarded near at hand, with wonderful +depths of coloured shadow, 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 walk, 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 colours, and the +whisper of the woods. And scents here are as rare as colours. +Unless you get a gust of kitchen in passing some hotel, you shall +smell nothing all day long but the faint and choking odour of +frost. Sounds, too, are absent: not a bird pipes, not a bough +waves, in the dead, windless atmosphere. If a sleigh goes by, the +sleigh-bells ring, 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 each 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. Climb 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 the health resort +the walks are besieged by single people walking rapidly with plaids +about their shoulders, by sudden troops of German boys trying to +learn to jodel, 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 walks +about. Alas! no muse will suffer this imminence of interruption-- +and at the second stampede of jodellers you find your modest +inspiration fled. Or you may 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 public view. Alas! there is no help for it among the +Alps. There are no recesses, 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 they endure, +chequer and by their contrast brighten the sameness of the fair- +weather 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 spire of +alp hangs suspended in mid-sky among awful glooms and blackness; or +perhaps the edge of some great mountain shoulder will be designed +in living gold, and 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, appearances of sun and air that endure but for a +moment and return no more. Other variations are more lasting, as +when, 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 +through a forest so disguised, the tongue-tied torrent struggling +silently in the cleft 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 morning; totter down +stairs in a state of somnambulism; take the simulacrum of a meal by +the glimmer of one lamp in the deserted coffee-room; and find +yourself by seven o'clock outside in a belated moonlight and a +freezing chill. The mail sleigh takes you up and carries 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 they 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 western 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 yourself upon the farther +side in yet another Alpine valley, snow white and coal black, 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. + + + +CHAPTER X--HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS + + + +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 the +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 within earshot of the interminable and +unchanging surf--idle among spiritless idlers; not perhaps dying, +yet hardly living either, and aspiring, sometimes fiercely, after +livelier weather and some vivifying change. These were certainly +beautiful places to 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 was 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 southern sky. It is among these mountains in 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. Instead 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 health 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. We cannot all of us go +farming in Colorado; and there is yet a middle term, which combines +the medical benefits of the new system with the moral drawbacks of +the old. Again the invalid has to lie aside from life and its +wholesome duties; again he has to be an idler among idlers; but +this time at a great altitude, far among the mountains, with the +snow piled before his door and the frost flowers every morning on +his window. The mere fact is tonic to his nerves. His choice of a +place of wintering has somehow to his own eyes the air of an act of +bold contract; and, since he has 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 summits the +higher you climb; a few noble peaks seen even from the valley; a +village 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-woods, and covering all the +mountains with a dazzling curd; add a few score invalids marching +to and fro upon the snowy road, or skating on the ice-rinks, +possibly 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 curving 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 +the snow reverberates the sunshine; from end to end the air tingles +with the light, clear and dry like crystal. Only along the course +of the river, but high above it, there hangs far into the noon, one +waving scarf of vapour. It were hard to fancy a more engaging +feature in a landscape; perhaps it is harder to believe 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 natural 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 here 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 none 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 crudity, 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 +daytime 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 many degrees; the peaks that +are no longer shone upon dwindle into ghosts; and meanwhile, +overhead, if the weather be rightly characteristic of the place, +the sky fades 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 homely 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 peer through their +windows and foresee no end but an entire seclusion from Europe, 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, glossy like fur, bright like daylight, a joy to +wallowing dogs and cheerful to the souls of men. Or perhaps from +across 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 +recognises the empire of the Fohn. + + + +CHAPTER XI--ALPINE DIVERSIONS + + + +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 the 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, long before +Christmas they will have given up the English for a bad job. There +will follow, perhaps, a skirmish between the two races; the German +element seeking, 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-played 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 into our mountain valley, coming you know not whence, going +you cannot imagine whither, 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 guests at +dinner-time with songs and a collection. They are all of them good +to see; they, at least, are moving; they bring 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 +still simmer in our mountain prison. Some of them, too, are +welcome as the flowers in May for their own sake; some of them 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 grinding +lilt, with which the blind man, seeking pence, accompanies the beat +of paddle wheels across the ferry, there is surely a difference +rather of kind than of degree to that unearthly voice of singing +that bewails and praises the destiny of man at the touch of the +true virtuoso. Even 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 respect 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 lead 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 under 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 board, with the +front wheels on a pivot, which was called a hurlie; he may remember +this contrivance, 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 career of +the tobogganist. The correct position is to sit; but the fantastic +will sometimes sit hind-foremost, or dare the descent 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 the 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 desperate exertion. On a very steep track, with +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 body, 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 +true 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 this 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 landed on the highroad by the door of your own +hotel. This, in an atmosphere tingling with forty degrees of +frost, in a night 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 life of man upon his planet. + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS + + + +To any one who should come from a southern sanitarium to the Alps, +the row of sun-burned 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 five of even the bad cases bears +the mark of sickness on his face. The plump sunshine from above +and its strong reverberation from below colour the skin like an +Indian climate; the treatment, which consists mainly of the open +air, exposes even the sickliest to tan, and a tableful of invalids +comes, in a month or two, to resemble a tableful of hunters. But +although he may be thus 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 +languishes; 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 +certain troubled delight in his existence which can nowhere else be +paralleled. He is perhaps no happier, but he is stingingly alive. +It does not, perhaps, 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 every 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 strength 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 joy 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 merry 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 +stirring 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 tete'; 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 land of its +nativity still as a pool, clean as river water, and as heady as +verse. It is more than probable that in its noble natural +condition this was the very wine of Anjou so beloved by Athos in +the 'Musketeers.' Now, if the reader has 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, than 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 lasts. + +The influence of this giddy air displays itself 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 utter their judgments with +a cannonade of syllables; a big word is as good as a meal 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 without +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 joke, to be +positively offensive in hot weather. He writes it in good faith +and with a sense of inspiration; it is only 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 like +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 somewhat comforts him. Nor is the ill +without 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 send a man to the proper +measured level for the ode, the biography, or the religious 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 congestion, perhaps, that leads the invalid, when all +goes well, to face the new day with such a bubbling cheerfulness. +It is certainly congestion that makes night hideous with visions, +all the chambers 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, for 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. + + + +CHAPTER XIII--ROADS--1873 + + + +No amateur 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 famous +picture-gallery. But what is thus admitted with regard to art is +not extended to the (so-called) natural beauties 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 healthful and +strengthening to the taste; and that the best school for a lover of +nature 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 harmonious 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 as this that we find ourselves in the right temper +to seek out small sequestered loveliness. The constant recurrence +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 true +pleasure of your 'rural voluptuary,'--not to remain awe-stricken +before a Mount 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 tranquil 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 much 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 else, it is minute knowledge +and long-continued loving industry that make the true dilettante. +A man must have thought much over scenery before he begins fully to +enjoy it. It is no youngling enthusiasm on hilltops that can +possess itself of the last essence of beauty. Probably most +people's heads are growing bare before they can see all in a +landscape that they have the capability of seeing; 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 +windows begin to be darkened and restrained in sight. Thus the +study of nature should be carried forward thoroughly and with +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 play. There is a +dangerous vice inherent in any such intellectual refining upon +vague 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 that makes the attempt +attractive; for any expression, however imperfect, once given to a +cherished feeling, seems a sort of legitimation of the pleasure we +take in it. A common sentiment is one of those 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 otherwise than we have seen them, will continue to +the end to be one of life's choicest pleasures. + +Let the reader, then, betake himself in the spirit 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 vista 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 slope, 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 changeful and +enlivening that he can always pleasurably busy his mind about it. +He may leave the river-side, or fall out 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 they 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 swing and +wilfulness. You might think for a whole summer's day (and not have +thought it any nearer an end by evening) what 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-path across a meadow--in +all its human waywardness and unaccountability, in all the grata +protervitas of its varying direction--will always be more to us +than a railroad well engineered through a difficult country. {7} +No reasoned sequence is thrust upon our attention: we seem to have +slipped for one lawless little moment out of the iron rule of cause +and effect; and so we revert at once to some of the pleasant old +heresies of personification, always poetically orthodox, and +attribute a sort of free-will, an active and spontaneous life, to +the white riband of road that lengthens out, and bends, and +cunningly adapts itself to the inequalities of the land before our +eyes. We remember, as we write, some miles of fine wide highway +laid out with conscious aesthetic artifice through a broken and +richly cultivated tract of country. It is said that the engineer +had Hogarth's line of beauty in his mind as he laid them down. And +the result is striking. One splendid satisfying sweep passes with +easy transition into another, and there is nothing to trouble or +dislocate the strong continuousness of the main line of the road. +And yet there is something wanting. There is here no saving +imperfection, none of those secondary curves and little +trepidations of direction that carry, in natural roads, our +curiosity actively along with them. One feels at once that this +road has not has been laboriously grown like a natural road, but +made to pattern; and that, while a model may be academically +correct in outline, it will always be inanimate and cold. The +traveller is also aware of a sympathy of mood between himself and +the road he travels. We have all seen ways that have wandered into +heavy sand near the sea-coast, and trail wearily over the dunes +like a trodden serpent. Here we too must plod forward 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 might perhaps +resolve with a little trouble. We might reflect that the present +road had been developed out of a tract 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. Or we might carry the reflection further, and remind +ourselves that where the air is invigorating and the ground firm +under the traveller's foot, his eye is quick to take advantage of +small undulations, and he will turn carelessly aside from the +direct way wherever there is anything beautiful to examine or some +promise of a wider view; so that even a bush of wild roses may +permanently bias and deform the straight path over the meadow; +whereas, where the soil is heavy, one is preoccupied with the +labour of mere progression, and goes with a bowed head heavily and +unobservantly forward. Reason, however, will not carry us the +whole way; for the sentiment often recurs in situations where it is +very hard to imagine any possible explanation; and indeed, if we +drive briskly along a good, well-made road in an open vehicle, we +shall experience this sympathy almost at its fullest. We feel the +sharp settle of the springs at some curiously twisted corner; after +a steep ascent, the fresh air dances in our faces as we rattle +precipitately down the other side, and we find it difficult to +avoid attributing something headlong, a sort of ABANDON, to the +road itself. + +The mere winding of the path is enough to enliven 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 valleys 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 +something new to be seen, and takes us, like a careful cicerone, to +many different points 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 peoples 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 that 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 sound 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 the 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 understood by the dweller in places more +populous. We remember standing beside a countryman once, in the +mouth of a quiet by-street in a city that was more than ordinarily +crowded and bustling; he seemed stunned 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 expression 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 concourse 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 road +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 shining +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 junction. There is a passionate paragraph in +Werther that strikes the very key. 'When I came hither,' he +writes, 'how the 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 themselves 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 before, and we stand in our indigent and cramped estate, +and our soul thirsts after a still ebbing elixir.' It is to this +wandering and uneasy spirit of anticipation that roads minister. +Every little vista, every little glimpse that we have of what lies +before us, gives the impatient imagination rein, so that it can +outstrip the body and already plunge into the shadow of the woods, +and 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 rear 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 long miles +of march, feel as if he also were within the gates? + + + +CHAPTER XIV--ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES--1874 + + + +It is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, and +we have much in our own power. Things looked at patiently from one +side after another generally end by showing a side that is +beautiful. A few months ago some words were said in the Portfolio +as to an 'austere regimen in scenery'; and such a discipline was +then recommended as 'healthful and strengthening to the taste.' +That is the text, so to speak, of the present essay. This +discipline 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 come +to each place in the right spirit. The traveller, as Brantome +quaintly tells us, 'fait des discours en soi pour soutenir en +chemin'; and into these discourses he weaves something out of all +that he sees and suffers by the way; they take 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 +lighter 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 follows 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 beauty, much as a gentle +and sincere character is provocative of sincerity and gentleness in +others. And even where there is no harmony to be elicited by the +quickest and most obedient of spirits, 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 admirable 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 where 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 sort 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 ourselves 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 together, 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 tempted to put forth the +paradox that any place is good enough to live a life in, while 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 +sympathetic 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 seemed, to quicken +and educate my sensibilities than many years in places that jumped +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. A river, indeed, fell into the sea near the town where I +resided; but the valley of the river was shallow and bald, for as +far up as ever I had the heart to follow it. There were roads, +certainly, but roads that had no beauty or interest; for, as there +was no timber, and but little irregularity of surface, you saw your +whole walk exposed to you from the beginning: there was nothing +left to fancy, nothing to expect, nothing to see by the wayside, +save here and there an unhomely-looking homestead, and here and +there a solitary, spectacled stone-breaker; and you were only +accompanied, as you went doggedly forward, by the gaunt telegraph- +posts and the hum of the resonant wires in the keen sea-wind. To +one who had learned to know their song in warm pleasant places by +the Mediterranean, it seemed to taunt the country, and make it +still bleaker by suggested contrast. Even the waste places by the +side of the road were not, as Hawthorne liked to put it, 'taken +back to Nature' by any decent covering of vegetation. Wherever the +land had the chance, it seemed to lie fallow. There is a certain +tawny nudity of the South, bare sunburnt plains, coloured like a +lion, and hills clothed only in the blue transparent air; but this +was of another description--this was the nakedness of the North; +the earth seemed to know that it was naked, and was ashamed and +cold. + +It seemed to be always blowing on that coast. Indeed, this had +passed into the speech of the inhabitants, and they saluted each +other when they met with 'Breezy, breezy,' 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, persistent +sort, that interferes with sight and respiration, and makes the +eyes sore. Even such winds as these have their own merit in proper +time and place. It is pleasant 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 gets 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 sort to be noticed in a +country where there were no trees and hardly any shadows, save the +passive shadows of clouds or those of rigid houses and walls. But +the wind 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 the 'Prelude,' has used this as a figure for the feeling +struck in us by the quiet 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 +Abruptly into some sequester'd nook, +Still as a shelter'd place when winds blow loud!' + +I remember meeting a man once, in a train, who told me of what must +have been quite the most perfect instance of this pleasure of +escape. He had gone up, one sunny, 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 long while in +dark stairways, he issued at last into the sunshine, on a platform +high above the town. At that elevation it was quite still and +warm; the gale was only in the lower strata of the air, 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 holding 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 keep 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 tranquil water, and the sea-birds, screaming +and flickering from the ruined crags, alone disturb the silence and +the sunshine. One such place has impressed itself on my memory +beyond all others. On a rock by the water's edge, old fighting men +of the Norse breed had planted a double castle; the two stood wall +to wall like semi-detached villas; and yet feud had run so high +between their owners, 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, when the sea +boomed against the foundations and the wild winter wind was loose +over 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 there 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 trouble the +sea within view. The two castles, black and ruinous as the rocks +about them, were still distinguishable from these by something more +insecure and fantastic in the outline, something that the last +storm had left imminent and the next would demolish entirely. It +would be difficult to render in words the sense of peace that took +possession of me on these three afternoons. It was helped out, as +I have said, by the contrast. The shore was battered and bemauled +by previous tempests; I had the memory at heart of the insane +strife 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 something transitory and +fretful in the impression of a high wind under a cloudless sky; it +seems to have no root in the constitution of things; it must +speedily begin to faint and wither away like a cut flower. And on +those days the thought of the wind and the thought of human life +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 wind of +a butterfly's wing. The placidity 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 +rock, or swimming leisurely in the sunshine, it seemed to me that +they were enjoying 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 afternoon 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 lines 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 - + +'Mon coeur est un luth suspendu, +Sitot qu'on le touche, il resonne.' + +I can give no reason why these lines came to me at this time; and +for that very cause I repeat them here. For all I know, they may +serve to complete 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 others 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 something 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 will surely find. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} The Second Part here referred to is entitled 'ACROSS THE +PLAINS,' and is printed in the volume so entitled, together with +other Memories and Essays. + +{2} 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. + +{3} William Abercrombie. See Fasti Ecclesia Scoticanae, under +'Maybole' (Part iii.). + +{4} 'Duex poures varlez qui n'ont nulz gages et qui gissoient la +nuit avec les chiens.' See Champollion--Figeac's Louis et Charles +d'Orleans, i. 63, and for my lord's English horn, ibid. 96. + +{5} Reprinted by permission of John Lane. + +{6} 'Jehovah Tsidkenu,' translated in the Authorised Version as +'The Lord our Righteousness' (Jeremiah xxiii. 6 and xxxiii. 16). + +{7} Compare Blake, in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell: +'Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads, without +improvement, are roads of Genius.' + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ESSAYS OF TRAVEL *** + +This file should be named esstr10.txt or esstr10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, esstr11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, esstr10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END* + diff --git a/old/esstr10.zip b/old/esstr10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1de133 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/esstr10.zip diff --git a/old/esstr10h.htm b/old/esstr10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c07cb3a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/esstr10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6790 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> +<title>Essays of Travel</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Essays of Travel, by Robert Louis Stevenson</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays of Travel, by Robert Louis Stevenson +(#30 in our series by Robert Louis Stevenson) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Essays of Travel + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Release Date: August, 1996 [EBook #627] +[This file was first posted on July 3, 1996] +[Most recently updated: September 2, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p> +<a name="startoftext"></a> +Transcribed from the 1905 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +ESSAYS OF TRAVEL<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Contents<br> +<br> +THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT: FROM THE CLYDE TO SANDY HOOK<br> + THE SECOND CABIN<br> + EARLY IMPRESSION<br> + STEERAGE IMPRESSIONS<br> + STEERAGE TYPES<br> + THE SICK MAN<br> + THE STOWAWAYS<br> + PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW<br> + NEW YORK<br> +COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK<br> + COCKERMOUTH<br> + AN EVANGELIST<br> + ANOTHER<br> + LAST OF SMETHURST<br> +AN AUTUMN EFFECT<br> +A WINTER’S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY<br> +FOREST NOTES -<br> + ON THE PLAINS<br> + IN THE SEASON<br> + IDLE HOURS<br> + A PLEASURE-PARTY<br> + THE WOODS IN SPRING<br> + MORALITY<br> +A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE<br> +RANDOM MEMORIES: ROSA QUO LOCORUM<br> +THE IDEAL HOUSE<br> +DAVOS IN WINTER<br> +HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS<br> +ALPINE DIVERSION<br> +THE STUMULATION OF THE ALPS<br> +ROADS<br> +ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER I - THE AMATEUR EMIGRANT<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +THE SECOND CABIN<br> +<br> +<br> +I first encountered my fellow-passengers on the Broomielaw in Glasgow. +Thence we descended the Clyde in no familiar spirit, but looking askance +on each other as on possible enemies. A few Scandinavians, who +had already grown acquainted on the North Sea, were friendly 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 descend the widening estuary; and +with the falling temperature the gloom among the passengers increased. +Two of the women wept. Any one who had come aboard might have +supposed we were all absconding from the law. There was scarce +a word interchanged, and no common sentiment but that of cold united +us, until at length, having touched 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 the land to which she was to +bear us.<br> +<br> +I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although anxious to +see the worst of emigrant 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 understand +the choice, and what I gained, some outline of the internal disposition +of the ship will first be necessary. In her very nose is Steerage +No. 1, down two pair of stairs. A little abaft, another companion, +labelled Steerage No. 2 and 3, gives admission to three galleries, two +running forward towards Steerage No. 1, and the third aft towards the +engines. The starboard forward gallery is the second 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 heart 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 terrified by this new experience, or the clean +flat smack of the parental hand in chastisement.<br> +<br> +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 tea 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 snuff in the former from a flavour +of boiling and dish-cloths in the second. As a matter of fact, +I have seen passengers, 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, boiled 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 +thing mere chicken-bones and flakes of fish, neither hot nor cold. +If these were not the scrapings of plates their looks belied them sorely; +yet we were all too hungry to be proud, and fell to these leavings greedily. +These, the bread, which was excellent, and the soup and porridge which +were both good, formed my whole diet throughout the voyage; so that +except for the broken meat and the convenience of a table I might as +well have been in the steerage outright. Had they given me porridge +again in the evening, I should have been perfectly contented with the +fare. As it was, with a few biscuits and some whisky and water +before turning in, I kept my body going and my spirits up to the mark.<br> +<br> +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 steerage there are males and females; in the second cabin ladies +and gentlemen. For some time after I came aboard I thought 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 +females, 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; everywhere else I was incognito, moving among my inferiors +with simplicity, not so much 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.<br> +<br> +For all these advantages I paid but two guineas. Six guineas is +the steerage fare; eight that by the second cabin; and when you remember +that the steerage passenger must supply bedding and dishes, and, in +five cases out of ten, either brings some dainties with him, or privately +pays the steward for extra rations, 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 for the asking. Two of my fellow-passengers +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 friends, 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 bring them by saloon.<br> +<br> +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. There +was a mixed group of Swedes, Danes, 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 speak 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, known 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 word of +condemnation. One of them was Scots; the other claimed to be American; +admitted, after some fencing, that he was born in England; and ultimately +proved to be an Irishman born and nurtured, but ashamed to own his country. +He had a sister on board, whom he faithfully neglected throughout the +voyage, though she was not only sick, but much his senior, and had nursed +and cared for him in childhood. In appearance he was like 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.<br> +<br> +Next, to turn to topics more agreeable, we had a newly-married couple, +devoted to each other, with a pleasant story of how they 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 plain 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 attention and a privilege.<br> +<br> +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 should +reach New York. They had heard reports, her husband and she, of +some unwarrantable disparity of hours between these two cities; and +with a spirit commendably scientific, had seized on this occasion to +put them to the proof. It was a good thing for the old lady; for +she passed much leisure time in studying the watch. Once, when +prostrated by sickness, she let it run down. It was inscribed +on her harmless mind in 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, she 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 +when 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 been the same with the other Scotsmen present, for we all laughed +our fill.<br> +<br> +Last but not least, I come to my excellent friend Mr. Jones. It +would be difficult to say whether I was his right-hand man, or he mine, +during the voyage. Thus at table I carved, while he only scooped +gravy; but at our concerts, of which more anon, he was the president +who called up performers to sing, and I but his messenger who ran his +errands and pleaded 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 undeceive me. For as there +is a <i>lingua franca</i> 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 +<i>h</i>; a word of a dialect is picked up from another band in the +forecastle; until often the result is undecipherable, and 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 speech 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 and after a fashion a rich man; now the wife was +dead and the money gone. But his was the nature that looks forward, +and goes on from one year to another and through all the extremities +of fortune undismayed; and if the sky were to fall to-morrow, I should +look to see Jones, 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 think 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 +cut, there would be Jones with his bottle.<br> +<br> +If he had one taste more strongly than another, it was to study character. +Many an hour 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; and we could hardly go to bed +in comfort till we had exchanged notes and discussed 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 angled 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 double detection; +but Jones, with a better civility, broke into a peal of unaffected laughter, +and declared, what was the truth, that there was a pair of us indeed.<br> +<br> +<br> +EARLY IMPRESSIONS<br> +<br> +<br> +We steamed out of the Clyde on Thursday night, and early on the Friday +forenoon we took in our last batch of emigrants at Lough Foyle, in Ireland, +and said farewell to Europe. The company was now complete, 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.<br> +<br> +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, this knowledge grew more clear and melancholy. +Emigration, from a word of the most cheerful import, came to sound most +dismally in my ear. There is nothing more agreeable to picture +and nothing more pathetic to behold. The abstract idea, as conceived +at home, is hopeful and adventurous. A young man, you fancy, scorning +restraints and helpers, issues forth into life, that great 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 +heroisms; it stands to them as the victorious war which subdued an empire +stands to the personal act of bravery which spiked a single cannon and +was adequately rewarded with a medal. For in emigration the young +men enter direct and by the shipload on their heritage of work; empty +continents swarm, as at the bo’s’un’s whistle, with +industrious hands, and whole new empires are domesticated to the service +of man.<br> +<br> +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 the +men were below thirty; many were married, and encumbered with families; +not a few were already up in years; and this itself was out of tune +with my imaginations, 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 taking 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.’<br> +<br> +Labouring mankind had in the last years, and throughout Great Britain, +sustained a prolonged and crushing series of defeats. I had heard +vaguely of these 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 factories, useless strikes, and starving girls. +But I had never taken them home to me or represented these distresses +livingly to my imagination.<br> +<br> +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 not 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. Thus 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 circumstances +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, +on 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.<br> +<br> +The children found each other out like dogs, and 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 manoeuvring on the outskirts of acquaintance. +The sea, the ship, and 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 often had my heart in my mouth, watching +them climb into the shrouds or on the rails, 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 composure 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 forward 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.<br> +<br> +And since I am here on the chapter of the children, I must mention one +little fellow, whose family belonged to Steerage No. 4 and 5, and who, +wherever he went, was like a strain of music round the ship. He +was an ugly, merry, unbreeched 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 his 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 their midst and sang aloud in the pleasant heartlessness +of infancy.<br> +<br> +Throughout the Friday, intimacy among us men made but a few advances. +We discussed the 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 from in the old; and, above all, we condoled +together over the food and the vileness 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 their heels; and to these all seemed for the best +in the best of possible steamers. 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 speaking +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. +But these working men were loud in their outcries. It was not +‘food for human 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 better rations from the ship. This marvellously 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 turn 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.<br> +<br> +With one of their complaints I could most heartily 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 others agreed to do so, +and I thought we should have been quite a party. Yet, when I brought +up my rug about seven bells, there was no one to be seen but the watch. +That chimerical terror of good night-air, which makes men close their +windows, list their doors, and seal themselves up with their own poisonous +exhalations, had sent all these healthy workmen down below. One +would think we had been brought up in a fever country; yet in England +the most malarious districts are in the bedchambers.<br> +<br> +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 the starboard bow, and was dry but chilly. I found a shelter +near the fire-hole, and made myself snug for the night.<br> +<br> +The ship moved over the uneven sea with a gentle 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 brass and the beautiful sea-cry, ‘All’s +well!’ I know nothing, whether for poetry or music, that +can surpass the effect of these two syllables in the darkness of a night +at sea.<br> +<br> +The day dawned fairly enough, and during the early 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 rose +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 were received +with generous applause. Once or twice, a recitation, very spiritedly +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, they 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 dancers departed under a cloud. Eight Frenchmen, 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 careful of dignity. He dares +not be comical; his fun must escape from him unprepared, and above all, +it must be unaccompanied by any physical demonstration. I like +his society under most circumstances, but let me never again join with +him in public gambols.<br> +<br> +But the impulse to sing was strong, and triumphed over modesty and even +the inclemencies of sea and sky. On this rough Saturday night, +we got together 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 the 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 measure saved by the vigour and unanimity +with which the chorus was thrown forth into the night. I observed +a Platt-Deutsch mason, entirely innocent of English, adding heartily +to the general effect. And perhaps the German mason 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.<br> +<br> +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 Anchor’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 more appropriate moment +for ‘Auld Lang Syne’ than now, when the land, the friends, +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.<br> +<br> +All Sunday the weather remained wild and cloudy; 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 the majority of the emigrants. I heard +an old woman express her surprise that ‘the ship didna gae doon,’ +as she saw some one pass 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 their divine. ‘I didna +think he was an experienced preacher,’ said one girl to me.<br> +<br> +Is was a bleak, uncomfortable day; but at night, 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 burning as steadily and sweetly across this hurly-burly +of the winds and waters as ever at home upon the summer woods. +The engine 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, over 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 thing of small account, and +that just above the mast reigned peace unbroken and eternal.<br> +<br> +<br> +STEERAGE SCENES<br> +<br> +<br> +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 made 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 one side of the stair; on the other, a no less +attractive spot, the cabin of the indefatigable interpreter.<br> +<br> +I have seen people packed into this space like herrings in a barrel, +and many merry evenings prolonged there until five bells, when the lights +were ruthlessly extinguished and all must go to roost.<br> +<br> +It had been rumoured since Friday that there was 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 Orpheus 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 eyes. +Humanly speaking, it is a more important matter to play the fiddle, +even badly, than to write huge works upon recondite subjects. +What could Mr. Darwin have 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 understand 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.<br> +<br> +‘It is a privilege,’ I said. He thought a while upon +the word, turning it over in his Scots head, and then answered with +conviction, ‘Yes, a privilege.’<br> +<br> +That night I was summoned by ‘Merrily danced the 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 open slide-door we had a glimpse of a grey night sea, with patches +of phosphorescent foam flying, swift as birds, into the wake, and the +horizon rising and falling 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 lighted by another lamp, lads and lasses +danced, not more than three at a time for lack 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 +Irish 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 mouth, drinking in the general admiration +and throwing out remarks to kindle it.<br> +<br> +‘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, ‘Hush!’ with uplifted finger and glowing, supplicating +eyes, ‘he’s going to play “Auld 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. 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 quadrilles, +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 thus squiring the fiddler into public +note. There is nothing more becoming than a genuine admiration; +and it shares this with love, that it does not become contemptible although +misplaced.<br> +<br> +The dancing was but feebly carried on. The space was almost impracticably +small; 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 was the eagerness of the brother to display all the acquirements +of his idol, and such the sleepy indifference of the performer, that +the tune would as often as not be changed, and the hornpipe expire into +a ballad before the dancers had cut half a dozen shuffles.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +The wind hauled ahead with a head sea. By ten at night heavy sprays +were flying and drumming over the forecastle; the companion of Steerage +No. 1 had to be closed, 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 part of +the ship, Mr. Jones and I paid it a late visit. Steerage No. 1 +is shaped like an isosceles triangle, the sides opposite the equal angles +bulging outward with the contour of the ship. It is lined with +eight pens of sixteen bunks apiece, four bunks below and four above +on either side. At night the place is lit with two lanterns, one +to each table. As the steamer beat on her way among the rough +billows, the light passed through violent phases of change, and was +thrown to and fro and up and down with startling swiftness. You +were tempted to wonder, as you looked, how so thin a glimmer could control +and disperse such solid blackness. When Jones and I entered we +found a little company of our acquaintances seated together at the triangular +foremost table. A more forlorn party, in more dismal circumstances, +it would be hard to imagine. The motion here in the ship’s +nose was very violent; the uproar of the sea often overpoweringly loud. +The yellow flicker of the lantern spun round and round and tossed the +shadows in masses. The air was hot, but it struck a chill from +its foetor.<br> +<br> +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 mine were keeping up what heart they could in company. +Singing was their refuge from discomfortable thoughts and sensations. +One piped, in feeble tones, ‘Oh why left I my hame?’ which +seemed a pertinent question in the circumstances. 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 dim inferno, to an accompaniment of plunging, hollow-sounding bows +and the rattling spray-showers overhead.<br> +<br> +All seemed unfit for conversation; a certain dizziness had interrupted +the activity of their minds; and except to sing they were tongue-tied. +There was present, however, one tall, powerful fellow of doubtful nationality, +being neither quite Scotsman nor altogether Irish, but 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 +another contribution to our culture.<br> +<br> +‘Just by way of change,’ said he, ‘I’ll ask +you a Scripture riddle. There’s profit in them too,’ +he added ungrammatically.<br> +<br> +This was the riddle-<br> +<br> +C and P<br> +Did agree<br> +To cut down C;<br> +But C and P<br> +Could not agree<br> +Without the leave of G;<br> +All the people cried to see<br> +The crueltie<br> +Of C and P.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +I think it must have been the riddle that settled 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 little 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 steerage to steerage, but at least not stagnant; and from this +couch, as well as the usual sounds of a rough night at sea, the hateful +coughing and retching of the sick and the sobs of children, I heard +a man run wild with terror beseeching his friend for encouragement. +‘The ship ‘s going down!’ he cried with a thrill of +agony. ‘The ship’s going down!’ he repeated, +now in a blank whisper, now with his voice rising towards a sob; and +his friend might reassure him, reason with him, joke at him - all was +in vain, and the old cry came back, ‘The ship’s going 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!<br> +<br> +The next morning when I came on deck I found a new world indeed. +The wind was fair; the 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.<br> +<br> +We had many fine-weather diversions to beguile the time. There +was a single chess-board 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 observed, more popular as well +as more conspicuously well done than the former. We had a regular +daily competition to guess 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. From the Clyde to Sandy Hook +I never heard a wager offered or taken. We had, besides, romps +in plenty. Puss in the Corner, which we had rebaptized, in more +manly style, Devil and four Corners, was my own favourite game; but +there were many who preferred another, the humour of which was to box +a person’s ears until he found out who had cuffed him.<br> +<br> +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. 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 the air and throw in the interest of human speech.<br> +<br> +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 about nothing, which +galled me to the quick. 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 people managed to convey by their +presence. They seemed to throw their clothes in our faces. +Their eyes searched us all over for tatters and incongruities. +A laugh was ready at their lips; but they were too well-mannered to +indulge it in our hearing. Wait 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.<br> +<br> +<br> +STEERAGE TYPES<br> +<br> +<br> +We had a fellow on board, an Irish-American, for all the world like +a beggar in a print by Callot; one-eyed, with great, splay crow’s-feet +round the sockets; a knotty squab nose coming down over his moustache; +a miraculous hat; a shirt that had been white, ay, ages long ago; an +alpaca coat in its last sleeves; and, without hyperbole, no buttons +to his trousers. Even in these rags and tatters, the man twinkled +all over with impudence like a piece of sham jewellery; and I have heard +him offer a situation to one 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 brought 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.<br> +<br> +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 +lumberingly enough in broken German, and learned from his own lips that +he had been an apothecary. He carried the photograph 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 barbaric and unhomely cast, the eye both reassured and touched. +It was large and very dark and soft, with an expression of dumb endurance, +as if it had often looked on desperate circumstances and never looked +on them without resolution.<br> +<br> +He cried out when I used the word. ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘not +resolution.’<br> +<br> +‘The resolution to endure,’ I explained.<br> +<br> +And then he shrugged his shoulders, and said, <i>‘Ach, ja,’</i> +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 one 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; the new ideas, ‘<i>wie eine feine</i> +<i>Violine</i>,’ were audible among the big empty drum notes of +Imperial diplomacy; and he looked to see a great revival, though with +a somewhat indistinct and childish hope.<br> +<br> +We had a father and son who made a pair of Jacks-of-all-trades. +It was the son who sang the ‘Death of Nelson’ under such +contrarious circumstances. He was by trade a shearer of ship plates; +but he could touch the organ, and led two choirs, and played the flute +and piccolo 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.’<br> +<br> +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 silver 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 hostile view of matrimony in consequence. ‘It’s +an old saying,’ he remarked: ‘God made ’em, and the +devil he mixed ’em.’<br> +<br> +I think he was justified by his experience. It was a dreary story. +He would bring home three pounds on Saturday, and on Monday all the +clothes would be in pawn. Sick of the useless struggle, he gave +up a paying contract, and contented himself with small and ill-paid +jobs. ‘A bad job was as good as a good job for me,’ +he said; ‘it all went the same way.’ Once the wife +showed signs of amendment; she kept steady for weeks on end; it was +again worth while to labour and to do one’s best. The husband +found a good situation some distance from home, and, to make a little +upon every hand, started the wife in a cook-shop; the children were +here and there, busy as mice; savings began to grow together in the +bank, and the golden age of hope had returned again to that unhappy +family. But one week my old acquaintance, getting earlier through +with his work, came home on the Friday instead of the Saturday, and +there was his wife to receive him reeling drunk. He ‘took +and gave her a pair o’ black eyes,’ for which I pardon him, +nailed up the cook-shop door, gave up his situation, and resigned himself +to a life of poverty, with the workhouse at the end. As the children +came to their full age they fled the house, and established themselves +in other countries; some did well, some not so well; but the father +remained at home alone with his drunken wife, all his sound-hearted +pluck and varied accomplishments depressed and negatived.<br> +<br> +Was she dead now? or, after all these years, had 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.<br> +<br> +‘Now, I suppose, I must put my old bones to work again,’ +said he; ‘but I can do a turn yet.’<br> +<br> +And the son to whom he was going, I asked, was he not able to support +him?<br> +<br> +‘Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘But I’m never happy +without a job on hand. And I’m stout; I can eat a’most +anything. You see no craze about me.’<br> +<br> +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 thriving 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.<br> +<br> +Total abstinence, like all ascetical conclusions, 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 courage 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 stuck to his work, and kept away from drink.’<br> +<br> +‘Ah!’ said he slowly, ‘the drink! You see, that’s +just my trouble.’<br> +<br> +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. You would have +said he recognised a destiny 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.<br> +<br> +As far as I saw, drink, idleness, and incompetency were the three great +causes of emigration, and for all of them, and drink first 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 that be so, why not now, and where +you stand? <i>Coelum non animam</i>. Change Glenlivet for +Bourbon, and it is still whisky, only not so good. A sea-voyage +will not give a man the nerve to put aside cheap pleasure; emigration +has to be done before we climb the vessel; an aim in life is the only +fortune worth the finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, +but in the heart itself.<br> +<br> +Speaking generally, there is no vice of this kind more contemptible +than another; for each is but a result and outward sign of a soul tragically +ship-wrecked. In the majority of cases, cheap pleasure is resorted +to by way of anodyne. The pleasure-seeker sets forth upon life +with high and difficult ambitions; he meant to be nobly good and nobly +happy, though 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. Hence the comparative success of the teetotal +pledge; because to a man who had nothing it sets at least a negative +aim in life. Somewhat as prisoners beguile their days by taming +a spider, the reformed drunkard makes an interest out of abstaining +from intoxicating drinks, and may live for that negation. There +is something, at least, <i>not to be done</i> each day; and a cold triumph +awaits him every evening.<br> +<br> +We had one on board with us, whom I have already referred to under the +name Mackay, who seemed to me not only a good instance 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 subjects 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, quick, 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 +in 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 delighted to receive +it, but could pay you back in kind.<br> +<br> +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 damned 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 played 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.<br> +<br> +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. He produced a +mere fancy article. Mackay’s notion of a book was <i>Hoppus’s +Measurer</i>. 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.<br> +<br> +I tried to fight the point with Mackay. I made him own that he +had taken pleasure 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 +from the spring, whereas his ploughs and butter-churns were but means +and mechanisms 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, and 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.<br> +<br> +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 conspiracy against +the people. Thus, when I put 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 it up for a bad job. My question is, “Can 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.<br> +<br> +It may be argued that these opinions spring from 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 larger 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 Mackay +had most of the elements of a liberal education. He had skirted +metaphysical and mathematical 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 among 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 Puritan 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, +leads at last directly to material greed?<br> +<br> +Nature is a good guide through life, and the love 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 little 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 eloquent 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 other that had thrown him from situation to situation, +and at length on board the emigrant ship. Barney ate, so to speak, +nothing from the galley; his own tea, butter, and eggs supported him +throughout 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.<br> +<br> +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 feet shuffling +to the air, his eyes seeking and bestowing encouragement - and to have +enjoyed the bow, so nicely calculated between jest and earnest, between +grace 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 leaned 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 him spin half round +in a pirouette and throw an audacious wink to an old gentleman above.<br> +<br> +This was the more characteristic, as, for all his daffing, he was a +modest and very polite little fellow among ourselves.<br> +<br> +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 in a grave, quiet manner, because they supplied no fish +on Friday; for Barney was a conscientious Catholic. He had likewise +strict notions of refinement; and when, late one evening, after the +women had 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.<br> +<br> +<br> +THE SICK MAN<br> +<br> +<br> +One night Jones, the young O’Reilly, and myself were walking arm-in-arm +and briskly up and down the deck. Six bells had rung; 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 somewhere snugly out of sight.<br> +<br> +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 replied 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 doctor twice, and had +walked the deck against fatigue till he was overmastered and had fallen +where we found him.<br> +<br> +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 find any one to guide us. It +was no time for delicacy; so we ran once more forward; and I, whipping +up a ladder and touching my hat to the officer of the watch, addressed +him as politely as I could -<br> +<br> +‘I beg your pardon, sir; but there is a man lying bad with cramp +in the lee scuppers; and I can’t find the doctor.’<br> +<br> +He looked at me peeringly in the darkness; and then, somewhat harshly, +‘Well, <i>I</i> can’t leave the bridge, my man,’ said +he.<br> +<br> +‘No, sir; but you can tell me what to do,’ I returned.<br> +<br> +‘Is it one of the crew?’ he asked.<br> +<br> +‘I believe him to be a fireman,’ I replied.<br> +<br> +I dare say officers are much annoyed by complaints and alarmist information +from their freight of human creatures; but certainly, 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 immediately 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 would +now be in the smoking-room over his pipe.<br> +<br> +One of the stewards was often enough to be found 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 companion, breathing hurry; and in his shirt-sleeves and perched +across the carpenters bench upon one thigh, found Blackwood; a neat, +bright, dapper, Glasgow-looking 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 comfortable at that moment; +and the truth is, I did not stop to consider his feelings, but told +my story in a breath.<br> +<br> +‘Steward,’ said I, ‘there’s a man lying bad +with cramp, and I can’t find the doctor.’<br> +<br> +He turned upon me as pert as a sparrow, but with a black look that is +the prerogative of man; and taking his pipe out of his mouth -<br> +<br> +‘That’s none of my business,’ said he. ‘I +don’t care.’<br> +<br> +I could have strangled the little ruffian where he sat. The thought +of his cabin civility 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.<br> +<br> +‘You will have to make it your business,’ said I, ‘for +I am sent to you by the officer on the bridge.’<br> +<br> +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 were anxious to leave +a better impression.<br> +<br> +When we got on deck again, Jones was still beside 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 streaming 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.<br> +<br> +‘O let me lie!’ he pleaded. ‘I’ll no’ +get better anyway.’ And then, with a moan that went to my +heart, ‘O why did I come upon this miserable journey?’<br> +<br> +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?’<br> +<br> +Meantime Jones, relieved of his immediate charge, 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 finger. The light, as it reached the spot, showed +us an elderly man, thick-set, and grizzled with years; but the shifting +and coarse shadows concealed from us the expression and even the design +of his face.<br> +<br> +So soon as the cook set eyes on him he gave a sort of whistle.<br> +<br> +‘<i>It’s only a passenger</i>!’ said he; and turning +about, made, lantern and all, for the galley.<br> +<br> +‘He’s a man anyway,’ cried Jones in indignation.<br> +<br> +‘Nobody said he was a woman,’ said a gruff voice, which +I recognised for that of the bo’s’un.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +‘No?’ he repeated with a breathing of anger; and we saw +him hurry aft in person.<br> +<br> +Ten minutes after the doctor made his appearance 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 +had now come to our assistance, expressing loud sorrow that such ‘a +fine cheery body’ 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 heart 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 yet +once more, with a gasp and a wailing prolongation of the fourth word: +‘I had no <i>call</i> to come.’ But there he was; +and by the doctor’s orders and the kind force of his two shipmates +disappeared down the companion of Steerage No.1 into the den allotted +him.<br> +<br> +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 seaman, 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 about the lantern; and now seeing him in conversation +with Jones, and being choked with indignation, I proceeded to blow off +my steam.<br> +<br> +‘Well,’ said I, ‘I make you my compliments upon your +steward,’ and furiously narrated what had happened.<br> +<br> +‘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.’<br> +<br> +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 days, 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 <i>Alabama</i>, and praying God we shouldn’t +find 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 nothing but themselves. +They’re damned greedy, selfish fellows.’ He would +not hear of the decadence of England. ‘They say they send +us beef from America,’ he argued; ‘but who pays for it? +All the money in the world’s in England.’ The Royal +Navy was the best of possible services, according to him. ‘Anyway +the officers are gentlemen,’ said 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 forced to make a new choice in life, ‘by God, he would try +Frenchmen!’ For all his looks and rough, cold manners, I +observed that children were never frightened by him; they divined him +at once 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 monkey trick.<br> +<br> +In the morning, my first thought was of the sick man. I was afraid +I should not recognise 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.<br> +<br> +To descend on an empty stomach into Steerage No. 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 twilight of the bunks. You may guess if +I was pleased, not only for him, but for myself also, when I heard that +the sick man was better and had gone on deck.<br> +<br> +The morning was raw and foggy, though the sun suffused the fog with +pink and amber; the fog-horn still blew, stertorous and intermittent; +and to add to the discomfort, the seamen were just beginning to wash +down the decks. But for a sick man this was heaven compared to +the steerage. I found him standing on the hot-water pipe, just +forward of the saloon 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 born in Ireland, had lived a quarter of a century on the banks +of Tyne, and was married to a Scots wife. A fisherman 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 spring, he worked as a labourer +about chemical furnaces, or along the wharves unloading vessels. +In this comparatively humble 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.<br> +<br> +Ere he started, he informed me, he had been warned against the steerage +and the steerage fare, and recommended to bring with him 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 reminded 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-beat, 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 fisher 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 boat 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, when his +appetite was tempted by some excellent pea-soup. We were all much +of the same mind on board, 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 the passage by saloon. The second cabin, after +due inquiry, he scouted as another edition of the steerage.<br> +<br> +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 received 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.<br> +<br> +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 rendered +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 Edinburgh, an Irish labourer trudging +homeward from the fields. Our roads lay together, and it was natural +that we should fall into talk. He was covered with mud; an inoffensive, +ignorant creature, who thought the Atlantic Cable was a secret contrivance +of the masters the better to oppress labouring mankind; and I confess +I was astonished to learn that he had nearly three hundred pounds in +the bank. But this 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 and at night; whereas my fellow-passenger +had never quitted Tyneside, and had made all that he possessed in that +same accursed, down-falling England, whence skilled mechanics, engineers, +millwrights, and carpenters were fleeing as from the native country +of starvation.<br> +<br> +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. He spoke sharply of the masters, +and, when I led him on, of the men also. The masters had been +selfish and obstructive, the men selfish, silly, and light-headed. +He rehearsed to me the 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 and even the good faith of the Union delegates; +and although he had escaped himself 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 the 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 principles, +he said, were growing ‘like a seed.’<br> +<br> +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 calm; 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.<br> +<br> +<br> +THE STOWAWAYS<br> +<br> +<br> +On the Sunday, among a party of men who were talking in our companion, +Steerage No. 2 and 3, we remarked a new figure. He wore tweed +clothes, well enough made if not very fresh, and a plain smoking-cap. +His face was pale, with pale eyes, and spiritedly enough designed; but +though not yet thirty, a sort 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 perfectly 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.’<br> +<br> +I was not so sure, for to me there was something 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 hin, tell his own stories. They were so swingingly +set 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. Company, 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; and of a dozen +other sides of life, each introducing some vigorous thumb-nail portrait. +He had the talk to himself that night, we were all so glad to listen. +The best talkers usually address themselves to some particular society; +there they are kings, elsewhere camp-followers, as a man may know Russian +and 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 circle 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 minds +of those who heard him. This, with a certain added colouring of +rhetoric and rodomontade, must have been the style of Burns, who equally +charmed the ears of duchesses and hostlers.<br> +<br> +Yet freely and personally as he spoke, many points 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 episode +in the rakish, topsy-turvy life of such an one as I had imagined. +But then there came incidents more doubtful, which showed an almost +impudent greed after gratuities, and a truly impudent disregard for +truth. And then there 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 things; 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 very trying.<br> +<br> +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.’<br> +<br> +‘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, without 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 home 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, +appearing again, begrimed and bashful, upon deck. The career of +these sea-tramps partakes largely of the adventurous. They may +be poisoned by coal-gas, or die 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 land, 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 among the fuel, uttered but a word or two, and +departed for a farther country than America.<br> +<br> +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 his forgiveness. +After half an hour with 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 engineer. 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 often make a good profit out of his adventure. +Four engineers stowed away last summer on the same ship, the <i>Circassia</i>; +and before two days after their arrival each of the four had found a +comfortable berth. This was the most hopeful tale of emigration +that I heard from first to last; and as you see, the luck was for stowaways.<br> +<br> +My curiosity was much inflamed by what I heard; and the next morning, +as I was making the round of the ship, I was delighted 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. Alick, 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.<br> +<br> +Alick had held all sorts of good situations, and wasted many opportunities +in life. I have heard him end a story with these words: ‘That +was in my golden days, when 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 existence +was not unpleasant to Alick himself, and he might have long continued +to enjoy idleness and a life on tick; but he had a comrade, let us call +him Brown, who 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 +another old chum in Sauchiehall Street.<br> +<br> +‘By the bye, Alick,’ said he, ‘I met a gentleman in +New York who was asking for you.’<br> +<br> +‘Who was that?’ asked Alick.<br> +<br> +‘The new second engineer on board the <i>So-and-so</i>,’ +was the reply.<br> +<br> +‘Well, and who is he?’<br> +<br> +‘Brown, to be sure.’<br> +<br> +For Brown had been one of the fortunate quartette aboard the <i>Circassia</i>. +If that was the way of it in the States, Alick thought it was high time +to follow Brown’s example. He spent his last day, as he +put it, ‘reviewing the yeomanry,’ and the next morning says +he to his landlady, ‘Mrs. X., I’ll not take porridge to-day, +please; I’ll take some eggs.’<br> +<br> +‘Why, have you found a job?’ she asked, delighted.<br> +<br> +‘Well, yes,’ returned the perfidious Alick; ‘I think +I’ll start to-day.’<br> +<br> +And so, well lined with eggs, start he did, but for America. I +am afraid that landlady has seen the last of him.<br> +<br> +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 voyage from the Broomielaw +to Greenock. That night, the ship’s yeoman pulled him out +by the heels and had him before the mate. Two other stowaways +had already 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.<br> +<br> +‘Take him to the forecastle and give him a meal,’ said the +mate, ‘and see and pack him off the first thing to-morrow.’<br> +<br> +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 grumbled 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 heard +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 kindness; 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 always 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, smoking 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.<br> +<br> +Next day by afternoon, Lough Foyle being already 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 several on board, and even intimate with one of the +engineers; but it was plainly not the etiquette of such occasions for +the authorities to avow their information. Every one professed +surprise and anger on his appearance, and he was led prison before the +captain.<br> +<br> +‘What have you got to say for yourself?’ inquired the captain.<br> +<br> +‘Not much,’ said Alick; ‘but when a man has been a +long time out of a job, he will do things he would not under other circumstances.’<br> +<br> +‘Are you willing to work?’<br> +<br> +Alick swore he was burning to be useful.<br> +<br> +‘And what can you do?’ asked the captain.<br> +<br> +He replied composedly that he was a brass-fitter by trade.<br> +<br> +‘I think you will be better at engineering?’ suggested the +officer, with a shrewd look.<br> +<br> +‘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.<br> +<br> +‘Have you been to sea?’ again asked the captain.<br> +<br> +‘I’ve had a trip on a Clyde steamboat, sir, but no more,’ +replied the unabashed Alick.<br> +<br> +‘Well, we must try and find some work for you,’ concluded +the officer.<br> +<br> +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 his deduction. ‘When I get talking +to a man, I can get round him.’<br> +<br> +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 sea 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 Devonian 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 care 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 board a trading dandy. +Somewhere in the Bristol Channel the dandy sprung a leak and went down; +and though the crew were picked 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 Sea, that the entire crew deserted and remained behind +upon the quays of Belfast.<br> +<br> +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 Wednesday: 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 the look of a street Arab; and captains will have nothing +to say to a ragamuffin; for in that trade, as in all others, it is the +coat that depicts the man. You may hand, reef, and steer like +an angel, 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; although, 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 begging, 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 much instruction; he could ‘read +bills on the street,’ but was ‘main bad at writing’; +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 contemporaneous 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 four times had been discovered +and handed back to starvation. The fifth time was lucky; and you +may judge if he were pleased to be aboard ship again, at his old work, +and with duff twice a week. He was, said Alick, ‘a devil +for the duff.’ Or if devil was not the word, it was one +if anything stronger.<br> +<br> +The difference in the conduct of the two was remarkable. The Devonian +was as willing 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 by, fell-to +languidly for just the necessary time till they were out of sight. ‘I’m +not breaking my heart with it,’ he remarked.<br> +<br> +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 the 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.<br> +<br> +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 character 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 neutralised +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 before 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 +upon persuasion should learn the persuasive faculty of silence, above +all as to his own misdeeds. It is only in the farce and for dramatic +purposes that Scapin enlarges on his peculiar talents to the world at +large.<br> +<br> +Scapin is perhaps a good name for this clever, unfortunate Alick; for +at the bottom of all his misconduct there was a guiding 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 unusual emotion, like a man thinking of his mistress, ‘I +would give up anything for a lark.’<br> +<br> +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 suddenly, 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; +he’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 other’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 +incongruous in his attitude, and was plainly sincere in both characters.<br> +<br> +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 find 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 was 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 about 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 might have increased the offer +to a whole one, or perhaps a pair of them, and not lived to regret his +liberality. But 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.’<br> +<br> +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 charity +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 some curious admirers.<br> +<br> +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 Irish Tommy came past, very neatly attired, +as was her custom.<br> +<br> +‘Poor fellow,’ she said, stopping, ‘you haven’t +a vest.’<br> +<br> +‘No,’ he said; ‘I wish I ‘ad.’<br> +<br> +Then she stood and gazed on him in silence, until, 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.<br> +<br> +‘Do you want a match?’ she asked. And before he had +time to reply, she ran off and presently returned with more than one.<br> +<br> +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. There are many +relations which go on to marriage and last during a lifetime, in which +less human feeling is engaged than in this scene of five minutes at +the stoke-hole.<br> +<br> +Rigidly speaking, this would end the chapter of the stowaways; but in +a larger sense of the word I have yet more to add. Jones had discovered +and pointed out to me a young woman who was remarkable among her fellows +for a pleasing and interesting air. She was poorly clad, to the +verge, if not over the line, of disrespectability, with a ragged old +jacket and a bit of a sealskin cap no bigger than your fist; but her +eyes, her whole expression, and her manner, even in ordinary moments, +told of a true womanly nature, capable of love, anger, and devotion. +She had a look, too, of refinement, like one who might have been a better +lady than most, had she been allowed the opportunity. When alone +she seemed preoccupied and sad; but she was not often alone; there was +usually by her side a heavy, dull, gross man in rough clothes, chary +of speech and gesture - not from caution, but poverty of disposition; +a man like a ditcher, unlovely and uninteresting; whom she petted and +tended and waited on with her eyes as if he had been Amadis of Gaul. +It was strange to see this hulking fellow dog-sick, and this delicate, +sad woman caring for him. He seemed, from first to last, insensible +of her caresses and attentions, and she seemed unconscious of his insensibility. +The Irish husband, who sang his wife to sleep, and this Scottish girl +serving her Orson, were the two bits of human nature that most appealed +to me throughout the voyage.<br> +<br> +On the Thursday before we arrived, the tickets were collected; and soon +a rumour began to go round the vessel; and this girl, with her bit of +sealskin cap, became the centre of whispering and pointed fingers. +She also, it was said, was 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 and children to be hers. +The ship’s officers discouraged the story, which may therefore +have been a story and no more; but it was believed in the steerage, +and the poor girl had to encounter many curious eyes from that day forth.<br> +<br> +<br> +PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND REVIEW<br> +<br> +<br> +Travel is of two kinds; and this voyage of mine across the ocean combined +both. ‘Out of my country and myself I go,’ sings the +old poet: and I was not only travelling out of my country in latitude +and longitude, but out of myself in diet, associates, and consideration. +Part of the interest and a great deal of the amusement flowed, at least +to me, from this novel situation in the world.<br> +<br> +I found that I had what they call fallen in life 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 remind 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 accident by the difference of language and manners between England +and France. I must now take a humbler view; for here I was among +my own countrymen, somewhat roughly clad to be sure, but with every +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 officers 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. From all these guesses I drew +one conclusion, 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.<br> +<br> +To the saloon passengers also I sustained my part 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, took me, like +the transformed monarch in the story, for a mere common, human man. +They gave me a hard, dead look, with the flesh about the eye kept unrelaxed.<br> +<br> +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 +then learned for the first time, and by the exhaustive process, how +much attention 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 paid +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 upper 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 exactly at what stage of toilette a man +becomes invisible to the well-regulated female eye.<br> +<br> +Here on shipboard the matter was put to a more complete test; for, even +with the addition of speech and manner, I passed among the ladies for +precisely the average man of the steerage. It was one afternoon +that I saw this demonstrated. A very plainly dressed woman was +taken ill on deck. I think 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 large 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. +Of course I had to reply; and as the talk went on, I began to discover +that the whole group took me for the husband. I looked upon my +new wife, poor creature, with mingled feelings; and I must own she had +not even the appearance of the poorest class of city servant-maids, +but looked more like a country wench who should have been employed at +a roadside inn. Now was the time for me to go and study the brass +plate.<br> +<br> +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 better 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 intention. Their manner was well calculated to remind +me of my fallen fortunes. You may be sincerely amused by the amateur +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.<br> +<br> +Another trick of mine which told against my reputation was my choice +of roosting-place in an active draught upon the cabin floor. I +was openly jeered and flouted 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.<br> +<br> +Indeed I may say that, upon the whole, my new position sat lightly and +naturally upon my spirits. I accepted the consequences with readiness, +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, as 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.<br> +<br> +In other ways I was content with my position. It seemed no disgrace +to be confounded with my company; for I may as well declare at once +I found their manners as gentle and becoming as those of any other class. +I do not mean that my friends could have sat down without embarrassment +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 hope 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 only no qualification, but a positive disability to +move easily and becomingly in this. When Jones complimented me +- because I ‘managed to behave very pleasantly’ to my fellow-passengers, +was how he put it - I could follow the thought in his mind, and knew +his compliment to be such as we pay foreigners on their proficiency +in English. I dare say this praise was given me immediately on +the back of some unpardonable solecism, which had led him to review +my conduct as a whole. We are all ready to laugh at the ploughman +among lords; we should consider also the case of a lord 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 parochial rather than universal; that, +like a country wine, will not bear transportation 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 must 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 external +acceptation throughout all the others, and this tends to keep us well +satisfied with slight acquirements and the amateurish accomplishments +of a clique. But manners, like art, should be human and central.<br> +<br> +Some of my fellow-passengers, as I now moved among 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 manners 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 refinement, 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 have 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; but though they +may be eager listeners, they have rarely seemed to me either willing +or careful thinkers. Culture is not measured by the greatness +of the field which is covered by our knowledge, but by the nicety with +which we can perceive relations in that field, whether 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 relations, +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 should have +had a definite thought in his head as he said it. Some hated the +Church because they disagreed with it; some hated Lord Beaconsfield +because of war and taxes; all hated the masters, possibly with reason. +But these failings were not at the root of the matter; the true reasoning +of their souls ran thus - I have not got on; I ought to have got on; +if there was a revolution I should get on. How? They had +no idea. Why? Because - because - well, look at America!<br> +<br> +To be politically blind is no distinction; we are all so, if you come +to that. At bottom, as it seems to me, there is but one question +in modern home politics, though 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 their 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 were now about to settle for themselves, +once more they knew not how, by crossing the Atlantic in a steamship +of considerable tonnage.<br> +<br> +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 will +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.<br> +<br> +Nothing is perhaps more notable in the average workman than his surprising +idleness, and the candour with which he confesses to the failing. +It has to me been always something of a relief to find the poor, as +a general rule, so little oppressed with work. I can in consequence +enjoy 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 fatigue by way of relief as satisfied this powerful +frontiersman for the day. He, at least, like all the educated +class, 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.<br> +<br> +I give the story as it was told me, and it was told me for a fact. +A man fell from a housetop in the city of Aberdeen, and was brought +into hospital with broken bones. He was asked what was his trade, +and replied that he was a <i>tapper</i>. No one had ever heard +of such a thing before; 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 slip +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 +advertised 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 swell 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.<br> +<br> +I heard nothing on board of the tapper; but I was astonished at the +stories told by my companions. Skulking, shirking, malingering, +were all established tactics, it appeared. They could see no dishonesty +where a man who is paid for an bones work gives half an hour’s +consistent idling in its place. Thus the tapper would refuse to +watch for the police during a burglary, 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 begins on his career of toil. He has never +had his fill of holidays in the past, and his prospect of holidays in +the future is both distant and uncertain. In the circumstances, +it would require a high degree of virtue not to snatch alleviations +for the moment.<br> +<br> +There were many good talkers on the ship; and I believe good talking +of a certain sort is a common accomplishment among working 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. They mark time instead of marching. +They think 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 +possible for premise, and begin to dispute under an oath to conquer +or to die.<br> +<br> +But the talk of a workman is apt to be more interesting than that of +a wealthy merchant, because the thoughts, hopes, and 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 income, simply from its smallness, than a large one. +I never wearied listening to the details of a workman’s economy, +because 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 that a rich man has +seven courses a day, ten to one the half of them remain untasted, and +the whole is but misspent money and a weariness to the flesh.<br> +<br> +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, soup 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 difficult 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 whether Croesus 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 only directs the manoeuvres 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 philosophical, 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 <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>; +for every step is critical and human life is presented to you naked +and verging to its lowest terms.<br> +<br> +<br> +NEW YORK<br> +<br> +<br> +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 radish +in a bed; and if the worst befell, you would instantly and mysteriously +disappear from the ranks of mankind.<br> +<br> +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 light 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 body; he had visited +a robber inn. The public has an old and well-grounded favour for +this class of incident, and shall be gratified to the best of my power.<br> +<br> +My fellow-passenger, whom we shall call M’Naughten, had come from +New York to Boston with a comrade, seeking work. They were a pair +of rattling blades; and, leaving their baggage at the station, passed +the day in beer saloons, and with congenial spirits, until midnight +struck. Then they applied themselves to find a lodging, and walked +the streets till two, knocking at houses of entertainment 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 found themselves in the same street +where they had begun their search, and in front of a French hotel where +they had already sought accommodation. Seeing the house still +open, they returned to the charge. A man in a white cap sat in +an office by the door. He seemed to welcome them more warmly than +when they had first presented themselves, and the charge for the night +had somewhat unaccountably fallen from a dollar to a quarter. +They thought him ill-looking, 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.<br> +<br> +It was furnished with a bed, a chair, and some conveniences. The +door did not lock 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 the curtain of the first. He was startlingly +disappointed. There was no picture. The frame surrounded, +and the curtain was 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, larger in size +than that which they occupied, where three men sat crouching and silent +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 cap 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 streets of Boston till the morning.<br> +<br> +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 through 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 miraculously; 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 strident noise of falling water filled +the air; the restaurants smelt heavily of wet people and wet clothing.<br> +<br> +It took us but a few minutes, though it cost us 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 storage +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.<br> +<br> +Jones was well known; we were received warmly; and two minutes afterwards +I had refused a drink from the proprietor, and was going on, in my plain +European fashion, to refuse a cigar, when Mr. Mitchell sternly 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 begun 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.<br> +<br> +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 obscurely +know; what is to be yet lies beyond the flight of our imaginations. +Greece, Rome, and Judaea are gone by forever, leaving to generations +the legacy of their accomplished work; China still endures, an old-inhabited +house in the brand-new city of nations; England has already declined, +since she has lost the States; and to these States, therefore, yet undeveloped, +full of dark possibilities, and grown, like another 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 understand 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 suddenly hears of a family of cousins, all about his own +age, who keep house together 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 English youths turn to the +thought of the American Republic. It seems to them as if, out +west, the war 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, and 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 rather 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.<br> +<br> +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 time, 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, returning with the spring to find thousands camped +upon their marshes, and the lamps burning far and near along populous +streets; forests that disappear like snow; 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 that 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.<br> +<br> +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 were 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 weeks in New York, and neither of them had yet found +a single job or earned a single halfpenny. Up to the present they +were exactly out of pocket by the amount of the fare.<br> +<br> +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 should have hesitated; the devil was in it, but Jones and +I should dine like heathen emperors. I set to work, asking after +a restaurant; and I chose the wealthiest and most gastronomical-looking +passers-by to ask from. Yet, although 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 the cost of twenty +dinners. I do not know 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 cooking, some so-called French wine, and French coffee to +conclude the whole. I never entered into the feelings of Jack +on land so completely as when I tasted that coffee.<br> +<br> +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 upon the floor; he +did not sleep until near morning, and I, for my part, never closed an +eye.<br> +<br> +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 sound 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 growing eerier and eerier, +for I dare say I was a little fevered by my restless night, and hurried +to dress and get downstairs.<br> +<br> +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 +his 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 also was exactly out of pocket by the amount of +the fare. I began to grow sick at heart for my fellow-emigrants.<br> +<br> +Of my nightmare wanderings in New York I spare to tell. I had +a thousand and one things to do; only the day to do them in, and a journey +across the continent before me 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, booksellers, +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-questioned 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 answers in silence; and yet when all was over, he shook +hands with me up to the elbows, 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 manager, 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 ground, 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 that 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 up to be the death of him by his +insulting behaviour, he himself would be just upon 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 state 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.<br> +<br> +I was so wet when I got back to Mitchell’s toward 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 heart I said farewell to them as they lay a pulp in the +middle of a pool upon the floor of Mitchell’s kitchen. I +wonder if they are dry by now. Mitchell hired a man 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 safely to Reunion House, where they will get decent meals and find +an honest and obliging landlord. I owed him this word of thanks, +before I enter fairly on the second <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a> +and far less agreeable chapter of my emigrant experience.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER II - COCKERMOUTH AND KESWICK - A FRAGMENT - 1871<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +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 itself 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 gold; allow my memory to choose out what is truly memorable +by a process of natural selection; and I piously believe that in this +way I ensure the Survival of the Fittest. If I make notes for +future use, or if I am obliged to write letters during the course of +my little excursion, I so interfere with the process that I can never +again find out what is worthy 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 this 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 some fifty or sixty hours about the middle remain +quite distinct and definite, like 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 minister 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 had 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 situated: ‘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 limbo of forgetfulness.<br> +<br> +<br> +COCKERMOUTH<br> +<br> +<br> +I was lighting my pipe as I stepped out of the inn at Cockermouth, and +did not raise 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 quarrelsome 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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, then a third, several couples out love-making +in the spring evening; and a consequent 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 name of Smethurst, and the designation of ‘Canadian Felt +Hat Manufacturers.’ There was no more hope of evening fellowship, +and I could only stroll on by the river-side, under the trees. +The water was dappled with slanting sunshine, and dusted all over with +a little mist of flying insects. There were some amorous ducks, +also, whose 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.<br> +<br> +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 chooses 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 scenery 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 tobacco, and the company of one +or two chosen companions, to a ball where I feel myself very hot, awkward, +and weary, I merely state these preferences as facts, and 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 plea 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 last, +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 train in the early evening.<br> +<br> +<br> +AN EVANGELIST<br> +<br> +<br> +Cockermouth itself, on the same authority, was a Place with ‘nothing +to see’; nevertheless 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. When 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 other on his own head, +so that he looked something like the typical Jew old-clothes man. +As I drew near, he came sidling 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 scarcely 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 where the large trout commonly lay, underneath an overhanging +bank; and he was much 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, +trying 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 speaking to the blush; as it is, I can recall only the sense, and +that perhaps imperfectly. He began by saying that 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 died +out in himself, but must at my age be still quite lively and active. +Then he told me that he had a little raft afloat on the river above +the dam which he was going to lend me, in order that 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 this 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 embarkation, +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.<br> +<br> +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 that as it may, there is no doubt that I soon wearied and came ashore +again, and that it gives me more pleasure to recall the man himself +and his simple, happy conversation, so full of gusto and sympathy, than +anything possibly connected with his crank, insecure embarkation. +In order to avoid seeing him, for I was not a little ashamed of myself +for having failed to enjoy his treat sufficiently, I determined to continue +up the river, 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 wisdom, 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 their 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 gospel of +quiet and contentment.<br> +<br> +<br> +ANOTHER<br> +<br> +<br> +I was shortly to meet with an evangelist of another stamp. After +I had forced my way through a gentleman’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, with a beautiful little girl by her side, came +up to ask for alms, and gradually fell 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 the little girl upon her hands. She seemed +quite hopeful and cheery, and, though she was unaffectedly sorry for +the loss of her husband’s earnings, she made no pretence of despair +at the loss of his 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 all +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 with 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 Catholic 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 some tracts about Biddy and the Priest, and the Orangeman’s +Bible. I was a little amused at his abrupt manner, for he was +still a young man, and had somewhat the air of a navy officer; but 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 very 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.<br> +<br> +<br> +LAST OF SMETHURST<br> +<br> +<br> +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 the bystanders if they +saw <i>him</i> 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. <i>He</i> 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, already 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. I mentioned that I had seen Mr. Smethurst +already, and that he had been very polite to me; and we fell into a +discussion of the hatter’s merits that lasted some time and left +us quite good friends at its conclusion. The topic was productive +of goodwill. We exchanged tobacco and talked about the season, +and agreed at last that we should go to the same hotel at Keswick and +sup in company. As he had some business in the town which would +occupy him some hour or so, on our arrival I was to improve the time +and go down to the lake, that I might see a glimpse of the promised +wonders.<br> +<br> +The night had fallen already when I reached the water-side, at a place +where many pleasure-boats are moored and ready for hire; and as I went +along a stony path, between wood and water, a strong wind blew 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 water. 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 sudden 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 accosted 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 know, and we stood +together for a while and had an amusing little talk. The wind, +too, made himself of the party, 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 the 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 and 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 dark 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 recitation +of these elegant extracts, except perhaps the anecdotes with which he +varied the entertainment. Seeing, I suppose, 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. . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER III - AN AUTUMN EFFECT - 1875<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +‘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. <a name="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</a><br> +<br> +<br> +A country rapidly passed through under favourable auspices may leave +upon us a unity of impression that would only be disturbed 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 them +for a moment in going by; we generalise boldly and simply, and are gone +before the sun is overcast, before the rain falls, before the season +can steal like 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 expose 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, as we went by, will have a conception +of it far more memorable and articulate than 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 the day after, +till at length the stable characteristics of the country are all blotted +out from him behind the confusion of variable effect.<br> +<br> +I begin my little pilgrimage in the most enviable 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 which 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 themselves 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 and 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 calling on them to return; and some passion, +some duty, some worthy or unworthy expectation, 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 bright, as we leave the town behind us, and we shall feel once +again (as we have felt 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 forward as a new creature into a new world.<br> +<br> +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, dull, 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, +the 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 enough, against the sky. I +say foolishly enough, although I have seen the effect employed cleverly +in art, and such long line 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 water and level land, where it +did not jar, as here, with the soft contour of hills and valleys. +The whole scene had an 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 trees on the horizon +that one was forced to think of it all as of a clever French landscape. +For it is rather in nature 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 forms +in which we learn to think of landscape are forms that we have got from +painted canvas. Any man can see and understand a picture; it is +reserved for the few to separate anything out of the confusion of nature, +and see that distinctly and with intelligence.<br> +<br> +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 treading 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 distance +I could see no longer. Overhead there was a wonderful carolling +of larks which seemed to follow me as I went. Indeed, during all +the time I was in that 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 take 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 just 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. The 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 +have 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 pinholes 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.<br> +<br> +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 would have been sad but for the sunshine and the singing +of the larks. And as it was, there came over me at times 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 less 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 +there 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 them 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. +And if there were a few who had no particular 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 opinion; 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 +danced 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.<br> +<br> +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 find quite a bustle on the other side, a great coming +and going of school-children upon by-paths, and, in every second field, +lusty horses and stout country-folk a-ploughing. The way I followed +took me through many fields thus occupied, and through many strips of +plantation, and then over a little space of smooth turf, very pleasant +to the feet, set with tall fir-trees and clamorous with rooks making +ready for the winter, and so back again into the quiet road. I +was now 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 hollow; 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 had been washed with water. After I had crossed +the little zone of mist, the path began to remount the hill; and just +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 donkeys, 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 fit 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 roguish and wanton in his face, a look too like +that of a schoolboy or a street Arab, 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 +levity of his disposition by impudently wagging his ears at me as I +drew near. I say he was somewhat solemnised just then; 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 puzzled, 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 unwound. A humorous sort of sympathy +for the creature took hold upon me. I went up, and, not without +some trouble on my part, and much distrust and resistance on the part +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 angry, 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, shouting 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 face, that +she had already recommended her spirit most religiously to Heaven, and +prepared herself for the worst. And 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 courtesies, the little old maid and I went on our respective +ways.<br> +<br> +Nor had she misled me. Great Missenden was close at hand, as she +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 about 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, <i>sub jove</i>, for the sale of pastry +and cheap toys; and a great number of holiday children thronged about +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 London 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.<br> +<br> +Night had fallen before I ventured forth again. It was pitch-dark +in the village 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 +<i>genre</i> 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 with 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, and a virtuous young man with a genius +for mechanics, who should love, and protect, and ultimately marry the +girl in the crimson room. Baudelaire has a few dainty 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 enlarged +on the same text. The subject, at least, is one that I am seldom +weary of entertaining. I remember, night after night, at Brussels, +watching a good family sup 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 awake in bed with all manner of quaint imaginations. +Much of the pleasure of the <i>Arabian Nights</i> hinges upon this Asmodean +interest; and we are not weary of lifting other people’s roofs, +and going about 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 worst 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 light their candle, and mix +their salad, and go orderly to bed.<br> +<br> +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 behind 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 at the end of it! She could +nowise reconcile this with her moral sense. And, indeed, 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 read 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 driven 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.<br> +<br> +Wendover (which was my next stage) lies in the same valley with Great +Missenden, but at the foot of it, where the hills trend 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 opened out into the plain, was +shallow, and a little bare, perhaps, but full of graceful convolutions. +From the level 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 followed the footpath. Wendover lay +well down 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 crescents +of river, and snatches of slanting road, and finally melted into the +ambiguous cloud-land over the horizon. The sky was an opal-grey, +touched here and there with blue, and with certain faint russets 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 sentiment of distance +and atmosphere about the day and the place.<br> +<br> +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, that the whole wood looked as dense as a bush of heather. +The prevailing colour was a dull, smouldering 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 through the hedge, I found myself in a dim +green forest atmosphere under eaves of virgin foliage. In places +where the 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 considerable 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 would be thrown out flat, the light lying +flatly along the top of it, so that against 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 seemed to be all attention; the wood listened as +I went, and held its breath to number my footfalls. One could +not help feeling that there ought to be some reason for this stillness; +whether, as the bright 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 sight, ever and anon, of large spaces of +the open plain. This happened only where the path lay much 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.<br> +<br> +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 began to grow lighter about me, and I caught sight, through +the trees, of sundry gables and enclosure walls, and something like +the tops of a rickyard. And sure enough, a rickyard it proved +to be, and a neat little farm-steading, with the beech-woods growing +almost to the door of it. Just before me, however, as I came upon +the path, the trees drew back and let in a wide flood of daylight 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 dense 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 each 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 general grace during +meat. Every now and again 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 shrilly publish to the world +his satisfaction with himself and what he had to eat. 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 +just 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 fabulist not quite +so skilful, who made points for the moment without having a studious +enough eye to the complete effect; for I thought these melting greens +and blues 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 like +going three whole days’ journey to the southward, or a month back +into the summer.<br> +<br> +I was sorry to leave <i>Peacock Farm</i> - 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 gradations of living green that had before accompanied +my walk. I had been sorry to leave <i>Peacock</i> <i>Farm</i>, +but I was not sorry to find myself once more in the open road, under +a pale and somewhat troubled-looking evening sky, and put my best foot +foremost for the inn at Wendover.<br> +<br> +Wendover, in itself, is a straggling, purposeless sort of place. +Everybody seems to have had his own opinion as to how the street 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 along 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 served as rallying-point for these +loose houses, and pulled the township into something 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-windows, +and three peaked gables, and many swallows’ nests plastered about +the eaves.<br> +<br> +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 that 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 Walter 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 cupboard 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 glass of water. +The furniture was old-fashioned and stiff. Everything was in keeping, +down to the ponderous leaden inkstand on the round table. And +you may fancy how pleasant it looked, 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.<br> +<br> +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 portrait 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 professed much interest in her dolls, +and an impatient desire to see the large one which was kept locked away +for great occasions. And so I had not been very long in the parlour +before the door opened, 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, +with a very serious demeanour, asking many questions about their age +and character. I do not think that Lizzie distrusted my sincerity, +but it was evident that she was both bewildered and 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 gravity and a sort of disquietude, as though she really feared +I must be out of my wits. Sometimes, as when I inquired 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 <i>the gentleman in the parlour +wanted to kiss Dolly</i>. I fancy 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 knew, who would never suffer the master of the house to dance, +out of an exaggerated sense of the dignity of that master’s place +and carriage.<br> +<br> +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 without 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 discomforts, 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 upon an unworthy hearer.<br> +<br> +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 +graveyard 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 dull sudden fall of a chestnut +among the grass - the dog would bark before the rectory 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 filled 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 near, was almost startled to find +they lay on the grave a man seventy-two years old when he died. +We are accustomed to strew flowers only over the young, where love has +been cut short untimely, and great 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 little 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 miserably 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 token of love that survived death, +as of something yet more beautiful - of love that had lived a man’s +life out to an end with him, and been faithful and companionable, and +not weary of loving, throughout all these years.<br> +<br> +The morning cleared a little, and the sky was once more the old stone-coloured +vault over the sallow meadows and the russet woods, 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-woods above on the other. The fields were 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 furrow as ploughman or sower stepped aside for a moment to take +a draught. Over all the brown ploughlands, and under all the leafless +hedgerows, there was a stout piece of labour abroad, and, as it were, +a spirit of picnic. The horses 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 of a humourist; and his conversation was all in praise of +an agricultural labourer’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 appetite 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 <i>O fortunatos agricolas</i>! 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.<br> +<br> +Tring was reached, and then Tring railway-station; 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 usual, 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 came and carried me back to London.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER IV - A WINTER’S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY - A FRAGMENT +- 1876<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +At the famous bridge of Doon, Kyle, the central district of the shire +of Ayr, marches with Carrick, the most southerly. On the Carrick +side of the river rises a hill of somewhat gentle conformation, cleft +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, like a bay-window +in a plan, and is fortified against the surf behind bold crags. +This hill is known as the Brown Hill of Carrick, or, more shortly, Brown +Carrick.<br> +<br> +It had snowed overnight. The fields were all sheeted up; they +were 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 upon 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 summit +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 distinction of sky and sea. Over the white shoulders of +the headlands, or in the opening of bays, there was nothing but a great +vacancy and blackness; and the road as it drew near the edge of the +cliff seemed to skirt the shores of creation and void space.<br> +<br> +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 heathenishly at a cow he was driving. +And a little after I scraped acquaintance with a poor body tramping +out to gather cockles. His face was wrinkled by exposure; it was +broken up into flakes and channels, like mud beginning to dry, and weathered +in two colours, an incongruous pink and grey. He had a faint air +of being 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 +during the New Year’s festivity. I will own I was not sorry +to think he had had a merry New Year, and been young again for an evening; +but I was sorry to see the mark still there. One could not expect +such an old gentleman 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 fifty 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. +Plainly, there was nothing of this in his life, and years and loneliness +hung heavily 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 +think he couldn’t do it. ‘And, ‘deed,’ +he 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 snow.<br> +<br> +He told me I was to turn down beside the school-house for Dunure. +And so, when I found a lone house among the snow, and heard a babble +of childish voices from 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-birds; 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.<br> +<br> +It is, perhaps, characteristic of Dunure that none were brought him.<br> +<br> +The people at the public-house did not seem well 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 aesthetic 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 better 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. Twelve cockle-shells and a half-penny china 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 merit 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 own 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 coat, that had been many a Sunday to church, added something +(save the mark!) of preciousness to the material.<br> +<br> +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 than it takes me to write these words the four +quarts were finished - another round was proposed, discussed, and negatived +- and they were creaking out of the village with their carts.<br> +<br> +The ruins drew you towards them. You never saw any place more +desolate from 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 +with 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 and gnawed your fingers! I think it would have come to homicide +before the evening - if it were only for the pleasure of seeing something +red! And the masters 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!), Gilbert, +Earl of Cassilis, his chaplain, his baker, his cook, his pantryman, +and another 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.<br> +<br> +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 etching 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 asked 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 much 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.<br> +<br> +‘The toune of Mayboll,’ says the inimitable Abercrummie, +<a name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3">{3}</a> ‘stands upon +an ascending ground from east to west, and lyes open to the south. +It hath one principals street, with houses upon both sides, built of +freestone; and it is beautifyed with the situation of two castles, one +at each end of this street. That on 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], and a row of ballesters round it raised +from the top of the staircase, into which they have mounted a fyne clock. +There 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 the 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 +decayed 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 is 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 here 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 than here in a country +place betwixt a village and a town. I heard a great deal about +drinking, and a great deal about religious revivals: two things in which +the Scottish character is emphatic and most unlovely. In particular, +I heard of clergymen who were employing their time in explaining 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 figure 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 part 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, +and to do so speedily. It was not much more 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 accuracy of which I can vouch-<br> +<br> +‘Ye had a spree here last Tuesday?’<br> +<br> +‘We had that!’<br> +<br> +‘I wasna able to be oot o’ my bed. Man, I was awful +bad on Wednesday.’<br> +<br> +‘Ay, ye were gey bad.’<br> +<br> +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 harem; and yet these were grown men, and +by no means short of wit. It was hard to suppose they were very +eager about the Second Coming: it seemed as if some elementary notions +of temperance for the men and seemliness for the women would have gone +nearer the mark. And 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 economy, 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 courage, thrift and industry, fought their +way upwards to an assured position.<br> +<br> +Abercrummie has told you enough of the Tolbooth; 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 parish 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 about the top. In a general way +this adornment is perched on the very summit of the chimney-stacks; +but there is one corner more elaborate than the rest. A very 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 look +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 Street, 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 grew hot within her, and her eyes +overflowed at the memory of the past. And even if the tale be +not true of this 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 all of us is the glamour cast. +Some resist and sit resolutely by the fire. Most go 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 evening, we can catch +their voices in the glee.<br> +<br> +By night it was clearer, and Maybole more visible 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 into relief over the gables and the chimney-stacks, +and their shadows over the white 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 out - a compatriot of Burns, again! - ‘The saut +tear blin’s my e’e.’<br> +<br> +Next morning there was sun and a flapping wind. From the street +corners of Maybole I could 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 bleak 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 +also, in the kirkyard, the original of Tam o’ Shanter sleeps his +last sleep. It is worth noticing, however, that this 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 blown 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 ploughing lea; +a cart foal, all in a field by himself, capered and whinnied as if the +spring were in him.<br> +<br> +The road from Turnberry to Girvan lies along the shore, among sand-hills +and by wildernesses of tumbled bent. Every here and there a few +cottages stood together beside a bridge. They had one odd feature, +not easy to describe in words: a triangular porch projected from 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 pipe with comfort. There is one objection 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 +Scotland, 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. . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER V - FOREST NOTES 1875-6<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +ON THE PLAIN<br> +<br> +<br> +Perhaps 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 disappear; 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 his 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.<br> +<br> +These peasant farmers are well off nowadays, and not by any means overworked; +but somehow you always see in them the historical 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 taxed +beyond possibility of payment, and lived, in Michelet’s image, +like a hare between two furrows. These very people 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 Seigneur +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 chenue, 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 is, 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 with grain, in the midst of a close full of cypresses and lilacs, +ducks and crowing 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 air, 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, children of the people, saunter and +gambol in the walled court or feed the ducks in the neglected moat. +Plough-horses, mighty of limb, browse in the long stables. The +dial-hand on the clock waits for some better hour. Out on the +plain, where hot sweat trickles 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 upon gay folk at +supper, while he and his hollow-eyed children watched through the 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 chateau hold no unsimilar +place in his affections.<br> +<br> +If the chateau was my lord’s, the forest was my 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 found 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. For the first offence, +by the Salic law, there was a fine of fifteen sols; and should a man +be taken more than once in fault, or circumstances aggravate the colour +of his guilt, he might be whipped, branded, or hanged. There was +a hangman over at Melun, and, I doubt not, a fine tall gibbet hard by +the town gate, where Jacques might see his fellows dangle against the +sky as he went to market.<br> +<br> +And then, if he lived near to a cover, there would 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 decorating 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 <i>bien-aller</i> +with all your lungs. Jacques must stand by, hat in hand, while +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 +varlets who get no wages and sleep at night among the hounds? <a name="citation4"></a><a href="#footnote4">{4}</a><br> +<br> +For all that, the forest has been of use to Jacques, not only warming +him with fallen wood, but giving him shelter in days 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 fastness, +or lay over-seas in an English prison. In these dark days, when +the watch on the church steeple saw the smoke 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 all their household +gods, into the wood, whence, from some high spur, their timid 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 refuge that the woods afforded, where they must +abide all change of weather and keep 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 demons like himself, even in these +caves and thickets there were glad hearts and grateful prayers.<br> +<br> +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 royal forest, and noble +by old associations. These woods have rung to the horns of all +the kings of France, from Philip Augustus downwards. They have +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 they 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 virtue of the pastime of dead monarchs.<br> +<br> +Great events, great revolutions, great cycles in the affairs of men, +have here left their note, here taken shape in some significant and +dramatic situation. It was hence that Gruise and his leaguers +led Charles the Ninth a prisoner to Paris. Here, booted and spurred, +and with all his dogs about him, Napoleon met the Pope beside a woodland +cross. Here, on his way to Elba not so long after, he kissed the +eagle of the Old Guard, and spoke words of passionate farewell to his +soldiers. And here, after Waterloo, rather than yield its ensign +to the new power, one of his faithful regiments burned that memorial +of so much toil and glory on the Grand Master’s table, and drank +its dust in brandy, as a devout priest consumes the remnants of the +Host.<br> +<br> +<br> +IN THE SEASON<br> +<br> +<br> +Close into the edge of the forest, so close that the trees of the <i>bornage</i> +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, where the cattle browsed between the doorsteps. +As you go up this street, drawing ever nearer the beginning of the wood, +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 into the court you will find as many more, +some in billiard-room over absinthe and a match of corks some without +over a last cigar and a vermouth. The doves coo and flutter from +the dovecot; 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, and some idle painter, who has stored his canvases +and washed his brushes, jangling a waltz on the crazy, tongue-tied piano +in the salle-à-manger. ‘<i>Edmond, encore un vermouth</i>,’ +cries a man in velveteen, adding in a tone of apologetic afterthought, +‘<i>un double, s’il vous plaît</i>.’ ‘Where +are you working?’ 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.<br> +<br> +‘<i>À table, Messieurs</i>!’ cries M. Siron, bearing +through 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 of the huntsman winding a horn with a +dead boar between his legs, and his legs - well, 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 English, +that it would do your heart good merely to peep and listen at the door. +One man is telling how they all went last year to the fete 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 table, and is once more trampling the poor piano +under powerful and uncertain fingers.<br> +<br> +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 welcome and a good talk, and perhaps some pickled +oysters and white wine to close the evening. Or a dance is organised +in 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 move 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 looking 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 nearly 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 proposed, +and a basket made ready, and a good procession formed in front of the +hotel. The two trumpeters in honour 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 shadow, 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’ haunt, and shows shapely beards +and comely faces and toilettes ranged about the wall. The bowl +is lit, and the punch 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 morning, straggling a good deal among the birch +tufts and the boulders, but ever called 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 finally 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. +No surf-bell on forlorn and perilous shores, no passing knell over the +busy market-place, can speak with a more heavy and disconsolate tongue +to human ears. Each stroke calls up a host of ghostly reverberations +in his mind. And as he stands rooted, it has grown once more so +utterly silent that it seems to him he might hear the church bells ring +the hour out all the world over, not at Chailly only, but in Paris, +and away in outlandish cities, and in the village on the river, where +his childhood passed between the sun and flowers.<br> +<br> +<br> +IDLE HOURS<br> +<br> +<br> +The woods by night, in all their uncanny effect, are not rightly to +be understood until you can compare them with the woods by day. +The stillness of the medium, the floor of glittering sand, these trees +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.<br> +<br> +And on the first morning you will doubtless rise betimes. If you +have not been wakened 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, shines 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, stool, 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 all 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 excuse to bathe. With quick ears, long spines, and bandy +legs, or perhaps as tall as a greyhound and with a bulldog’s head, +this 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.<br> +<br> +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 notes. 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 roof 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 evil creatures that haunt the forest. For you may plump +into a cave among the rocks, and find yourself face to face with a wild +boar, or see a crooked viper slither across the road.<br> +<br> +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 go idly +by. Your friend at the easel labours 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 the shadow of +another tree, and up to his waist in the fern. You cannot watch +your 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.<br> +<br> +Your tree stands in a hollow paved with fern and heather, set in a basin +of low hills, and scattered over with rocks and junipers. All +the open is steeped in pitiless sunlight. Everything stands out +as though it were cut in cardboard, every colour is strained into its +highest key. The boulders are some of them upright and dead like +monolithic castles, some of them prone like sleeping cattle. The +junipers - looking, in their soiled and ragged mourning, like some funeral +procession that has gone seeking the place of sepulchre three hundred +years and more in wind and rain - are daubed 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 there 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.<br> +<br> +Meanwhile at your elbow some one tunes up a song, 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.<br> +<br> +‘You can get up now,’ says the painter; ‘I’m +at the background.’<br> +<br> +And so up you get, stretching yourself, and go your way into the wood, +the daylight becoming richer and more golden, and the 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 comes 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 kindled 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.<br> +<br> +<br> +A PLEASURE-PARTY<br> +<br> +<br> +As this 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 from 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 round 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 exercise; 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 from Fontainebleau, trudging across on his weekly peddle with +a case of merchandise; and it is ‘Desprez, leave me some malachite +green’; ‘Desprez, leave me so much 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 sound of cannon in our ears; and now, a little past Franchard, we +find a mounted trooper 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 meanwhile 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 dulcet, his manner dignified +and insinuating. It is not for nothing that the Doctor has voyaged +all the world over, and speaks 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. ‘<i>En voiture, +Messieurs, Mesdames</i>,’ 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 the sergeant, who will send us back. +At any moment we may encounter a flying shell, which will send us somewhere +farther off than Grez.<br> +<br> +Grez - for that is our destination - has been highly recommended for +its beauty. ‘<i>Il y a de l‘eau</i>,’ people +have said, with an emphasis, as if that settled the question, 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 +lies out of the forest, a cluster of houses, with an old bridge, an +old castle in ruin, and a quaint old church. The inn garden descends +in terraces to the river; stable-yard, kailyard, orchard, and a space +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 the two lies the +river, clear and deep, and full of reeds and floating lilies. +Water-plants cluster about the starlings of the long low bridge, and +stand half-way up upon the piers in green luxuriance. They catch +the dipped oar with long antennae, 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 ripple following another over the top of the +yellow deal. And you can hear a splashing and a prattle of voices +from the shed under the old kirk, where the village women wash and wash +all day among the fish and water-lilies. It seems as if linen +washed there should be specially cool and sweet.<br> +<br> +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 and 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 smoothly 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. +There is a wish for solitude on all. One hides himself in the +arbour with a cigarette; another goes a walk in the country with Cocardon; +a third inspects the church. And it is not till dinner is on the +table, and the inn’s best wine goes round from glass to glass, +that we begin to throw off the restraint and fuse once more into a jolly +fellowship.<br> +<br> +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 -<br> +<br> +‘Nous avons fait la noce,<br> +Rentrons à nos foyers!’<br> +<br> +And such is the burthen, even after we have come 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, and the faces round +the punch are lit up, with shifting emphasis, against a background 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, in a jacket +of green cord, the great, famous, and redoubtable Blank; and in a moment +the fire kindles again, and the night is witness of our laughter as +he imitates Spaniards, Germans, Englishmen, picture-dealers, all eccentric +ways of speaking and thinking, with a possession, a fury, a strain of +mind and voice, that would rather suggest a nervous crisis than a desire +to please. We are as merry as ever when the trap sets forth again, +and say farewell noisily to all the good folk going farther. Then, +as we are far enough from thoughts of sleep, we visit Blank in his quaint +house, and sit an hour or so in a great tapestried chamber, laid with +furs, littered with sleeping hounds, and lit up, in fantastic shadow +and shine, by a wood fire in a mediaeval chimney. And then we +plod back through the darkness to the inn beside the river.<br> +<br> +How quick bright things come to confusion! When we arise next +morning, the grey showers fall steadily, the trees hang limp, and the +face of the stream is spoiled with dimpling raindrops. Yesterday’s +lilies encumber the garden walk, or begin, dismally enough, their voyage +towards the Seine and the salt sea. A sickly shimmer 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 taken +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; and 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, for a match +at corks and by one consent a messenger is sent over for the wagonette +- Grez shall be left to-morrow.<br> +<br> +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 neither of them French; for, of all English phrases, +the phrase ‘for exercise’ is the least comprehensible across +the Straits of Dover. All goes well for a while with the pedestrians. +The wet woods are full of scents in the noontide. At a certain +cross, where there is a guardhouse, they make a halt, for the forester’s +wife 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 wall, and some prints of love-affairs and the great Napoleon hunting. +As they draw near the Quadrilateral, and 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 am sure we should keep more to the right,’ says one; +and the other is just as certain 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 gurgles in their +boots. They leave the track and try across country with a gambler’s +desperatin, for it seems as if it were impossible to make the situation +worse; 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 ever welcomed English ale. +Thence, by the Bois d’Hyver, the Ventes-Alexandre, and the Pins +Brulés, to the clean hostelry, dry clothes, and dinner.<br> +<br> +<br> +THE WOODS IN SPRING<br> +<br> +<br> +I think 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 +artists’ sunshades as with unknown mushrooms, nor bestrewn with +the remains of English 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, ‘<i>à fond +de train, monsieur, et avec douze pipuers</i>.’<br> +<br> +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; +and, dotted among the pines, or standing by themselves in rocky clearings, +the delicate, snow-white trunks of birches, spreading out into snow-white +branches yet more 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 among the +bracken and brown heather. It is all rather cold and unhomely. +It has not 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 woods +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, pure +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 the 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.<br> +<br> +Comely beeches send up their white, straight, clustered branches, barred +with green moss, like so many fingers from a half-clenched hand. +Mighty oaks stand 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 firs 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, guttered 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 these coverts +is so excessive, that there are moments when pleasure draws to the verge +of fear. You listen and listen for some noise to break the silence, +till you grow half mesmerised by the intensity of the strain; your sense +of your own identity is troubled; your brain reels, like that of some +gymnosophist poring on his own nose in Asiatic jungles; and should you +see your own outspread feet, you see them, not as anything of yours, +but as a feature of the scene around you.<br> +<br> +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 long 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 leaves rustle underfoot, +or you may time your steps to the steady recurrent strokes of the woodman’s +axe. From time to time, over the low grounds, a flight of rooks +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 the 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 clearings, and the solid noise of horses +galloping passes below you, where you sit perched among the rocks and +heather. The boar 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.<br> +<br> +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: the old woman +laden with a fagot of chips, and the little ones hauling a long branch +behind them in her wake. That 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 frosty 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 fire spread out along the green pine-tops, +in a remote uncanny glen, hard by a hill of naked boulders. He +drew near warily, and beheld a picnic party seated under a tree in an +open. The old father knitted a sock, the mother sat staring at +the fire. The eldest son, 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 says; 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 friend’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. 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 singing in his ears, but he +fancies he was followed as he ran by a peal of Titanic laughter. +Nothing has ever transpired 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 Heine’s ‘Gods +in Exile’; that the upright old man with the eyebrows was no other +than Father Jove, and the young dragoon with the taste for music either +Apollo or Mars.<br> +<br> +<br> +MORALITY<br> +<br> +<br> +Strange 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 France +have had their word to say about Fontainebleau. Chateaubriand, +Michelet, Béranger, George Sand, de Senancour, Flaubert, 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 when 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 <i>Historical Description</i> <i>of the Palace, Town, +and Forest of Fontainebleau</i>. 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 Horace: 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 labours of the Grand Master of Woods and Waters, the +Sieur de la Falure, ‘qui a fait faire ce magnifique endroit.’<br> +<br> +But indeed, it is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a +claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that 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 here 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 bring 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 sorrow +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 contrariety of interests. You forget the narrow +lane where all men jostle together in unchivalrous contention, and the +kennel, deep and unclean, that gapes on either hand for the defeated. +Life is simple enough, it seems, and the very idea of sacrifice becomes +like a mad fancy out of a last night’s dream.<br> +<br> +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 more exercised than the affections. +When you have had your will of the forest, you may visit the whole round +world. You may buckle on your knapsack and take the road on foot. +You may bestride a good 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 cord of Europe and go +down from Alpine glaciers to where Italy extends her marble moles and +glasses her marble palaces in the midland sea. You may sleep in +flying trains or wayside taverns. You may be awakened at dawn +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 wine; 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, and 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 network bound about your feet +by birth and old companionship and loyal love, and bear your shovelful +of phosphates to and fro, in town country, until the hour of the great +dissolvent.<br> +<br> +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 what they know to be behind, enter +into their notion of a place. If the sea, for instance, lie just +across 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 knowledge of its greatness is for much +in the effect produced. You reckon up the miles that lie between +you and intrusion. You may walk before you all day long, and not +fear to touch the barrier of your Eden, or stumble out of fairyland +into the land of gin and steam-hammers. And there is an old tale +enhances for the imagination the grandeur of the woods of France, and +secures you in the thought of your seclusion. When Charles VI. +hunted in the time of his wild boyhood near Senlis, there was captured +an old stag, having a collar of bronze about his neck, and these words +engraved on the collar: ‘Caesar 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. +If the extent of solemn wood could thus safeguard a tall stag from the +hunter’s hounds and houses, might not you also play hide-and-seek, +in these groves, with all the pangs and trepidations of man’s +life, and elude Death, the mighty hunter, for more than the span of +human years? Here, also, crash his arrows; here, in the farthest +glade, sounds the gallop of the pale horse. But he does not hunt +this cover with all his hounds, for the game is thin and small: and +if you were but alert and wary, if you lodged ever in the deepest thickets, +you too might live on into later generations and astonish men by your +stalwart age and the trophies of an immemorial success.<br> +<br> +For the forest takes away from you all excuse to die. There is +nothing here to cabin 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 shadows and the sun wheeling his +wide circuit through the naked heavens. Here shall you see no +enemies but winter 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 the 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 long 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 athletic act of the imagination. A +faint far-off rumour as of Merovingian wars; a legend as of some dead +religion.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VI - A MOUNTAIN TOWN IN FRANCE <a name="citation5"></a><a href="#footnote5">{5}</a> +A FRAGMENT 1879<br> +<i>Originally intended to serve as the opening chapter of ‘Travels +with a Donkey in the Cevennes.’<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +</i>Le Monastier is the chief place of a hilly canton 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, the seat of an arch-priest and several +vicars. It stands on the side of hill above 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 pediment and ornamental work in +iron. For Monastier, like Maybole in Ayrshire, was a sort of country +capital, where the 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 means to ruin himself by high living in this village +on the hills. He certainly has claims to be considered the most +remarkable spendthrift on record. How he set about it, in a place +where there are no luxuries for sale, and where the board at the best +inn comes to little 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.<br> +<br> +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 hear one woman clattering +off prayers for the edification of the others at their work. They +wear gaudy shawls, white caps with a gay ribbon about the head, and +sometimes a black felt brigand hat above the cap; and so they give the +street colour and brightness and a foreign air. A while ago, when +England largely supplied herself from this district with the lace called +<i>torchon</i>, 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 takes 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, +as with our northern pitmen, and left nobody the richer. The women +bravely squandered their gains, kept the men in idleness, and gave themselves +up, as I was told, to sweethearting and a merry life. From week’s +end to week’s end it was one continuous gala in Monastier; people +spent the day in the wine-shops, and the drum or the bagpipes led on +the <i>bourrées</i> up to ten at night. Now these dancing +days are over. ‘<i>Il n’y a plus de jeunesse</i>,’ +said Victor the garçon. I hear of no great advance in what +are thought the essentials of morality; but the <i>bourrée</i>, +with its rambling, sweet, interminable music, and alert and rustic figures, +has fallen into disuse, and 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, and marvel once more +at the complicated scheme of things upon this earth, and how a turn +of fashion in England can silence so much mountain merriment in France. +The lace-makers themselves have not entirely 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.<br> +<br> +From time to time a market is held, and the town 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 +tailcoat 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 bulges; 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 the week been twice as long, +she would have waited still. There was a canonical day for consultation; +such was the ancestral habit, to which a respectable lady must study +to conform.<br> +<br> +Two conveyances go daily to Le Puy, but they rival 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 <i>Courrier</i> (such +is the name of one) should leave Le Puy by two in the afternoon and +arrive at Monastier in good on the return voyage, 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.<br> +<br> +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 little 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 country lies in moorland +pasture. The country 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 common +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 passage over the +stones; for it is a great warbler, and at night, after I was in bed +at Monastier, I could hear it go singing down the valley till I fell +asleep.<br> +<br> +On the whole, this is a Scottish landscape, although not so noble as +the best in Scotland; and by an odd coincidence, the population is, +in its way, as Scottish as the country. They have abrupt, uncouth, +Fifeshire manners, and accost you, as if you were trespassing, an ‘Où’st-ce +que vous allez?’ only 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 various pigs +and sheep and cattle that make so pleasant a tinkling in the meadows. +The lace-makers have disappeared from the street. Not to attend +mass would involve social degradation; and you may find people reading +Sunday books, in particular a sort of Catholic <i>Monthly Visitor</i> +on the doings of Our Lady of Lourdes. I remember one Sunday, when +I was walking in the country, that I fell on a hamlet and found all +the inhabitants, from the patriarch to the baby, gathered in the shadow +of a gable at prayer. One strapping lass stood with her back to +the wall and did the solo part, the rest chiming in devoutly. +Not far off, a lad lay flat on his face asleep among some straw, to +represent the worldly element.<br> +<br> +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 girl; and the arguments in the +two cases were identical. Each apostle based her claim on the +superior virtue and attainments of her clergy, and clenched the business +with a threat of hell-fire. ‘<i>Pas bong prêtres ici</i>,’ +said the Presbyterian, ‘<i>bong prêtres en Ecosse</i>.’ +And the postmaster’s daughter, taking up 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 each +side relies on hell, and Protestant and Catholic alike address themselves +to a supposed misgiving in their adversary’s heart. And +I call it cheerful, for faith is a more supporting quality than imagination.<br> +<br> +Here, as in Scotland, many peasant families boast a son in holy orders. +And here also, the young men have a tendency to emigrate. It is +certainly not poverty 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 spirit +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 question was now an apothecary in Brazil. He +had flown by way of Bordeaux, and first landed in America, bareheaded +and barefoot, 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, +to be an apothecary in Brazil. As for his 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.<br> +<br> +I soon became a popular figure, and was known for miles in the country. +<i>Où’st que vous allez</i>? was changed for me into <i>Quoi, +vous rentrez au Monastier</i> and in the town itself every urchin seemed +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.<br> +<br> +‘Do they speak <i>patois</i> in England?’ I was once +asked; and when I told them not, ‘Ah, then, French?’ said +they.<br> +<br> +‘No, no,’ I said, ‘not French.’<br> +<br> +‘Then,’ they concluded, ‘they speak <i>patois</i>.’<br> +<br> +You must obviously either speak French or <i>patios</i>. 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 <i>patios</i> 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 disagreeable bewilderment. ‘Bread,’ +which sounds a commonplace, plain-sailing monosyllable 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 got +it carefully by heart, as a stand-by, I presume, for winter evenings. +I have tried it since then with every sort of accent and inflection, +but I seem to lack the sense of humour.<br> +<br> +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 falling towards +decrepitude. One and all were pleasant and natural, ready to laugh +and ready with a certain quiet solemnity when that was called for by +the subject of our talk. Life, since the fall in wages, had begun +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 and +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 but +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 all 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 sitting in judgment +over the last. ‘No, no,’ she would say, ‘that +is not it. I am old, 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.<br> +<br> +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 +twang off an oath with Sir Toby Belch in person. There was nothing +so high or so low, in heaven or earth or in the human 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 avoided <i>patois</i> 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 hulking +fellow, visibly the worse for drink before the day was well begun. +But it was strange to hear her unwearying flow of oaths and obscenities, +endless like a river, and now and then rising to a passionate shrillness, +in the clear and silent air of the morning. In city slums, the +thing might have passed unnoticed; but in a country valley, and from +a plain and honest countrywoman, this beastliness of speech surprised +the ear.<br> +<br> +The <i>Conductor</i>, as he is called, <i>of Roads and Bridges</i> 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 enthusiasm and +special knowledge are the great social qualities, and what they are +about, whether white sauce or Shakespeare’s plays, an altogether +secondary question.<br> +<br> +I used to accompany the Conductor on his professional rounds, and grew +to believe myself an expert in the business. 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 the <i>Marquis</i> +<i>de Villemer</i>; and I have spoken with an old man, who was then +a child running about the inn kitchen, and who still 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 <i>patois</i>, she would +make him repeat it again and again till it was graven in her memory. +The word for a frog particularly pleased her fancy; and it would be +curious to know if she afterwards employed it in her works. The +peasants, who knew nothing of betters and had never so much as heard +of local colour, could not explain her chattering with this backward +child; and to them she seemed a very homely lady and far from beautiful: +the most famous man-killer of the age appealed so little to Velaisian +swine-herds!<br> +<br> +On my first engineering excursion, which lay up by Crouzials towards +Mount Mezenc and the borders of Ardèche, I began an improving +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 <i>bourgeois et dames qui faisaient +la manège avec des chaises</i>, 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 been 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 devil <i>qui s’amusait +à faire ca.<br> +<br> +</i>I suggested there was nothing more likely, as he must have some +amusement.<br> +<br> +The foreman said it was odd, but there was less of that sort of thing +than formerly. ‘<i>C’est difficile</i>,’ he +added, ‘<i>à expliquer</i>.’<br> +<br> +When we were well up on the moors and the <i>Conductor</i> was trying +some road-metal with the gauge -<br> +<br> +‘Hark!’ said the foreman, ‘do you hear nothing?’<br> +<br> +We listened, and the wind, which was blowing chilly out of the east, +brought a faint, tangled jangling to our ears.<br> +<br> +‘It is the flocks of Vivarais,’ said he.<br> +<br> +For every summer, the flocks out of all Ardèche are brought up +to pasture on these grassy plateaux.<br> +<br> +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, when 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.<br> +<br> +The <i>Conductor</i> 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 information +in despair. A tale of old lawlessness may yet be read in these +uncouth timidities.<br> +<br> +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 +equipped he takes the road with terror. All day the family sits +about the fire in a foul and airless hovel, and equally without work +or diversion. The father may carve a rude piece of furniture, +but that is all that will be done until the spring sets in again, and +along with it the labours of the field. It is not for nothing +that you find a clock in the meanest of these mountain habitations. +A clock and an almanac, you would fancy, were indispensable in such +a life . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VII - RANDOM MEMORIES: ROSA QUO LOCORUM<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Through 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 volumes in a library. The child is +conscious of an interest, not in literature but in life. A taste +for the precise, the adroit, or the comely in the use of words, 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 negatives +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 loud words, but I believe the words themselves were +what I cherished. I had about the same time, and under the same +influence - that of my dear nurse - a favourite author: it is possible +the reader 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:-<br> +<br> +‘Behind the hills of Naphtali<br> +The sun went slowly down,<br> +Leaving on mountain, tower, and tree,<br> +A tinge of golden brown.’<br> +<br> +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 that charmed me in my childhood:<br> +<br> +‘Jehovah Tschidkenu is nothing to her’; <a name="citation6"></a><a href="#footnote6">{6}</a> +-<br> +<br> +I may say, without flippancy, that he was nothing 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, has continued +to haunt me.<br> +<br> +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 picture eloquent beyond +their value. Rummaging 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 banks +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 shrill children. Here, in the fleecy person 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 greater +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 children 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 accompany 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 - that the presence of these articles afforded me encouragement. +The third and last of my pictures illustrated words:-<br> +<br> + ‘My table Thou hast furnished<br> + In presence of my foes:<br> +My head Thou dost with oil anoint,<br> +And my cup overflows’:<br> +<br> +and this was perhaps the most interesting of the series. I saw +myself seated in a kind of open stone summer-house at table; over my +shoulder a hairy, bearded, and robed 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 white 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’ <i>Antiquities of Scotland</i>; the imps conveyed +from Bagster’s <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>; the bearded and +robed figure from any one of the thousand Bible pictures; and the 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 jest, remark; but the serious +spirit of infancy adopted it in earnest. Children are 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 idea +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 appealed to me at the moment as least contaminate with mean associations. +In this string of pictures I believe the 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 rude psalm the one lovely verse which dwells in +the minds of all, not growing old, not disgraced by its association +with long Sunday tasks, a scarce conscious joy in childhood, in age +a companion thought:-<br> +<br> +‘In pastures green Thou leadest me,<br> +The quiet waters by.’<br> +<br> +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 unconsciously; I listened for news of the great vacant +world upon whose edge I stood; I listened 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 which I lay so +long in durance. <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>; some of the books of +that cheerful, ingenious, romantic soul, Mayne Reid; and a work rather +gruesome and bloody for a child, but very picturesque, called <i>Paul +Blake</i>; these are the three strongest impressions I remember: <i>The +Swiss Family Robinson</i> came next, <i>longo intervallo</i>. +At these I played, conjured up their scenes, and delighted to hear them +rehearsed unto seventy times seven. I am not sure but what <i>Paul +Blake</i> 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 flash of colour +and a heavenly sweetness in the air. Somehow my play-mate had +vanished, or is out of the story, as the sages say, but I was sent into +the village on an errand; and, taking a book of fairy 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 have never since forgot, and if my +mind serves me to the last, I never shall, for it was then that I knew +I loved reading.<br> +<br> +<br> +II<br> +<br> +<br> +To pass from hearing literature to reading it is to take a great and +dangerous step. With not a few, I think a large proportion of +their pleasure then comes to an end; ‘the malady of not marking’ +overtakes them; they read thenceforward by the eye alone and hear never +again the chime of fair words or the march of the stately period. +<i>Non ragioniam</i> of these. But to all the step is dangerous; +it involves coming of age; it is even a kind of second weaning. +In the past all was at the choice of others; they chose, they digested, +they read aloud for us and sang to their own tune the books of childhood. +In the future 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 choice, +and she imposed them on my infancy, reading the works of others as a +poet would scarce dare to read his own; gloating on the rhythm, dwelling +with delight on assonances and alliterations. I know 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 +of my nurse triumphed, and after a long search, I can find in these +earliest volumes of my autobiography no mention of anything but nursery +rhymes, the Bible, and Mr. M’Cheyne.<br> +<br> +I suppose all children agree in looking back with delight on their school +Readers. We might not now find so much pathos in ‘Bingen +on the Rhine,’ ‘A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,’ +or in ‘The Soldier’s Funeral,’ in the declamation +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 to my father; who roasted me for years in consequence. +I am sure one should not be so deliciously tickled by the humorous pieces:-<br> +<br> +‘What, crusty? cries Will in a taking,<br> +Who would not be crusty with half a year’s baking?’<br> +<br> +I think this quip would leave us cold. The ‘Isles of Greece’ +seem rather tawdry too; but on the ‘Address to the Ocean,’ +or on ‘The Dying Gladiator,’ ‘time has writ no wrinkle.’<br> +<br> +’Tis the morn, but dim and dark,<br> +Whither flies the silent lark?’ -<br> +<br> +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 Dickens 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.<br> +<br> +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 Latin divinity, cyclopaedias, +physical science, and, above all, optics, held the chief place upon +the shelves, and it was only in holes and corners that anything really +legible existed as by accident. The <i>Parent’s Assistant, +Rob</i> <i>Roy, Waverley</i>, and <i>Guy Mannering</i>, the<i> Voyages +of</i> <i>Captain Woods Rogers</i>, Fuller’s and Bunyan’s +<i>Holy Wars</i>,<i> The Reflections of Robinson Crusoe, The Female +Bluebeard</i>, G. Sand’s <i>Mare au Diable</i> - (how came it +in that grave assembly!), Ainsworth’s <i>Tower of London</i>, +and four old volumes of Punch - these were the chief exceptions. +In these latter, which made for years the chief of my diet, I very early +fell in love (almost as soon as I could spell) with the Snob Papers. +I knew them almost by heart, particularly the visit to the Pontos; and +I remember my surprise when I found, long afterwards, that they were +famous, and signed with a famous name; to me, as I read and admired +them, they were the works of Mr. Punch. Time and again I tried +to read <i>Rob Roy</i>, with whom of course I was acquainted from the +<i>Tales of a Grandfather</i>; time and again the early part, with Rashleigh +and (think of it!) the adorable Diana, choked me off; and I shall never +forget the pleasure and surprise with which, lying on the floor one +summer evening, I struck of a sudden into the first scene with Andrew +Fairservice. ‘The worthy Dr. Lightfoot’ - ‘mistrysted +with a bogle’ - ‘a wheen green trash’ - ‘Jenny, +lass, I think I ha’e her’: from that day to this the phrases +have been unforgotten. I read on, I need scarce say; I came to +Glasgow, I bided tryst on Glasgow Bridge, I met Rob Roy and the Bailie +in the Tolbooth, all with transporting pleasure; and then the clouds +gathered once more about my path; and I dozed and skipped until I stumbled +half-asleep into the clachan of Aberfoyle, and the voices of Iverach +and Galbraith recalled me to myself. With that scene and the defeat +of Captain Thornton the book concluded; Helen and her sons shocked even +the little schoolboy of nine or ten with their unreality; I read no +more, or I did not grasp what I was reading; and years elapsed before +I consciously met Diana and her father among the hills, or saw Rashleigh +dying in the chair. When I think of that novel and that evening, +I am impatient with all others; they seem but shadows and impostors; +they cannot satisfy the appetite which this awakened; and I dare be +known to think it the best of Sir Walter’s by nearly as much as +Sir Walter is the best of novelists. Perhaps Mr. Lang is right, +and our first friends in the land of fiction are always the most real. +And yet I had read before this <i>Guy Mannering</i>, and some of <i>Waverley</i>, +with no such delighted sense of truth and humour, and I read immediately +after the 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. <i>Rob Roy</i>, <i>Guy Mannering</i>, and <i>Redgauntlet</i> +first; then, a little lower; <i>The Fortunes of Nigel</i>; then, after +a huge gulf, <i>Ivanhoe</i> and <i>Anne of Geierstein</i>: the rest +nowhere; such was the verdict of the boy. Since then <i>The Antiquary, +St. Ronan’s Well, Kenilworth</i>, and <i>The</i> <i>Heart of Midlothian</i> +have gone up in the scale; perhaps <i>Ivanhoe and Anne of Geierstein</i> +have gone a trifle down; Diana Vernon has been added to my admirations +in that enchanted world of <i>Rob Roy</i>; I think more of the letters +in <i>Redgauntlet</i>, and Peter Peebles, that dreadful 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 <i>The Pirate</i> when +I was a child, I have never finished it yet; <i>Peveril of the Peak</i> +dropped half way through from my schoolboy hands, and though I have +since waded to an end in a kind of wager with myself, 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 <i>Book of Snobs</i>: does that 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? . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VIII - THE IDEAL HOUSE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Two things are necessary in any neighbourhood where we propose to spend +a life: a desert and some living water.<br> +<br> +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 desirable, 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 inspiriting +than distant Alps, and the thick fern upon a Surrey heath makes a fine +forest for the imagination, and the dotted yew trees noble mountains. +A Scottish moor with birches and firs grouped here and there upon a +knoll, or one of those rocky seaside deserts of Provence overgrown with +rosemary and thyme and smoking with aroma, are places where the mind +is never weary. Forests, being 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 rabbits, will stand well for the necessary +desert.<br> +<br> +The house must be within hail of either a little 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; and 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 should, +besides, be narrow enough to cross, or the burn hard by a bridge, or +we are at once shut out of Eden. The quantity 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<br> +<br> +‘Shallow rivers, by whose falls<br> +Melodious birds sing madrigals.’<br> +<br> +If the sea is to be our ornamental water, choose 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 Teneriffe 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.<br> +<br> +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 +variety 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 cut into and cleared at the new owner’s +pleasure, are the qualities to be sought for in your chosen land. +Nothing is 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 against +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 into 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 eager or toilful gardener misbecomes the garden landscape; a tasteful +gardener will be ever meddling, will keep the borders raw, and take +the bloom off nature. Close adjoining, if you are 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 +entered through a door in the high fruit-wall; so that you close the +door behind you on your sunny plots, your hedges and evergreen jungle, +when you go down to watch the apples falling in the pool. It is +a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will +take care 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 cages 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 can tolerate caged, though even then I +think it hard, and that is what is called in France the Bec-d’Argent. +I once had 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 worked, carried it with me when I went for meals, and kept it by my +head at night: the first thing in the morning, these <i>maestrini</i> +would pipe up. But these, even if you can pardon their imprisonment, +are for the house. In 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 the lane, so that you must stroll +to hear it, and yet a little farther, tree-tops populous with rooks.<br> +<br> +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. A house of more than two +stories is a mere 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 reception 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 divan: 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 <i>ad hoc</i>: 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 one 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 sanctuary 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 Claude +or two. The room is very spacious, and the five tables and two +chairs are but as islands. One table is for actual work, one close +by for references in use; one, very large, for MSS. or proofs 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 wearisome 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, +make them of all printed matter the most fit to stimulate and satisfy +the fancy. The chair in which you write is very low 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 twittering +into song.<br> +<br> +Joined along by a passage, you may reach the great, sunny, glass-roofed, +and tiled gymnasium, at the far end of which, lined with bright marble, +is your plunge and swimming bath, fitted with a capacious boiler.<br> +<br> +The whole loft of the house from end to end makes one undivided chamber; +here are set forth tables on which to model imaginary 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 end 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 to 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.<br> +<br> +I have left to the last the little room for winter evenings. This +should be furnished in warm positive colours, and sofas and floor thick +with rich furs. The hearth, where you burn wood of aromatic quality +on silver dogs, tiled round about with Bible pictures; the seats deep +and easy; a single Titian in a gold frame; a white bust or so upon a +bracket; a rack for the journals of the week; a table for the books +of the year; and close 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 <i>Carmosine</i> +and the other at <i>Fantasio</i>); the <i>Arabian Nights</i>, and kindred +stories, in Weber’s solemn volumes; Borrow’s <i>Bible in +Spain</i>, the <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i>, <i>Guy Mannering</i> +and <i>Rob Roy</i>, <i>Monte Cristo</i> and the <i>Vicomte de Bragelonne</i>, +immortal Boswell sole among biographers, Chaucer, Herrick, and the <i>State +Trials</i>.<br> +<br> +The bedrooms are large, airy, with almost no furniture, floors of varnished +wood, and at the bed-head, in case of insomnia, one shelf of books of +a particular and dippable order, such as <i>Pepys</i>, the <i>Paston +Letters</i>, Burt’s <i>Letters from the Highlands</i>, or the +<i>Newgate Calendar</i>. . . .<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER IX - DAVOS IN WINTER<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +A mountain valley has, at the best, a certain prison-like effect on +the imagination, but 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; but to these the health-seeker is rigidly confined. There +are for him no cross-cuts over the field, no following of streams, no +unguided rambles in the wood. His 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 each 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 sculpture, fills it, when regarded near at hand, with wonderful +depths of coloured shadow, 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 walk, +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 colours, and the whisper of the woods. And scents +here are as rare as colours. Unless you get a gust of kitchen +in passing some hotel, you shall smell nothing all day long but the +faint and choking odour of frost. Sounds, too, are absent: not +a bird pipes, not a bough waves, in the dead, windless atmosphere. +If a sleigh goes by, the sleigh-bells ring, and that is all; you work +all winter through to no other accompaniment but the crunching of your +steps upon the frozen snow.<br> +<br> +It is the curse of the Alpine valleys to be each 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. Climb +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 the health resort +the walks are besieged by single people walking rapidly with plaids +about their shoulders, by sudden troops of German boys trying to learn +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 walks about. +Alas! no muse will suffer this imminence of interruption - and at the +second stampede of jödellers you find your modest inspiration fled. +Or you may 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 public view. Alas! there +is no help for it among the Alps. There are no recesses, 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.<br> +<br> +For this publicity there is no cure, and no alleviation; but the storms +of which you will complain so bitterly while they endure, chequer and +by their contrast brighten the sameness of the fair-weather 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 spire of alp hangs suspended in mid-sky among awful glooms +and blackness; or perhaps the edge of some great mountain shoulder will +be designed in living gold, and 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, appearances of sun and air that endure but +for a moment and return no more. Other variations are more lasting, +as when, 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 through a forest +so disguised, the tongue-tied torrent struggling silently in the cleft +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.<br> +<br> +Or, possibly, you arise very early in the morning; totter down stairs +in a state of somnambulism; take the simulacrum of a meal by the glimmer +of one lamp in the deserted coffee-room; and find yourself by seven +o’clock outside in a belated moonlight and a freezing chill. +The mail sleigh takes you up and carries 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 they 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 western 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 yourself +upon the farther side in yet another Alpine valley, snow white and coal +black, 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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER X - HEALTH AND MOUNTAINS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +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 the 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 within earshot +of the interminable and unchanging surf - idle among spiritless idlers; +not perhaps dying, yet hardly living either, and aspiring, sometimes +fiercely, after livelier weather and some vivifying change. These +were certainly beautiful places to 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 was +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.<br> +<br> +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 southern sky. +It is among these mountains in 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. Instead 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 health 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.<br> +<br> +But it is a far cry to the Rocky Mountains. We cannot all of us +go farming in Colorado; and there is yet a middle term, which combines +the medical benefits of the new system with the moral drawbacks of the +old. Again the invalid has to lie aside from life and its wholesome +duties; again he has to be an idler among idlers; but this time at a +great altitude, far among the mountains, with the snow piled before +his door and the frost flowers every morning on his window. The +mere fact is tonic to his nerves. His choice of a place of wintering +has somehow to his own eyes the air of an act of bold contract; and, +since he has 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.<br> +<br> +A long straight reach of valley, wall-like mountains upon either hand +that rise higher and higher and shoot up new summits the higher you +climb; a few noble peaks seen even from the valley; a village 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-woods, and covering all the mountains with a dazzling curd; add +a few score invalids marching to and fro upon the snowy road, or skating +on the ice-rinks, possibly 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 curving 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 the snow reverberates the sunshine; +from end to end the air tingles with the light, clear and dry like crystal. +Only along the course of the river, but high above it, there hangs far +into the noon, one waving scarf of vapour. It were hard to fancy +a more engaging feature in a landscape; perhaps it is harder to believe +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 natural 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 here 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 none 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 crudity, 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 daytime in the Alps.<br> +<br> +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 many degrees; the peaks that are no longer +shone upon dwindle into ghosts; and meanwhile, overhead, if the weather +be rightly characteristic of the place, the sky fades 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 homely in the fields of snow.<br> +<br> +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 peer through their windows and foresee no +end but an entire seclusion from Europe, 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, glossy like fur, +bright like daylight, a joy to wallowing dogs and cheerful to the souls +of men. Or perhaps from across 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 +recognises the empire of the Föhn.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XI - ALPINE DIVERSIONS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +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 the 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, long before Christmas they will have given up +the English for a bad job. There will follow, perhaps, a skirmish +between the two races; the German element seeking, in the interest of +their actors, to raise a mysterious item, the <i>Kur-taxe</i>, which +figures heavily enough already in the weekly bills, the English element +stoutly resisting. Meantime in the English hotels home-played +farces, <i>tableaux-vivants</i>, 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.<br> +<br> +A magazine club supplies you with everything, from the <i>Quarterly</i> +to the <i>Sunday at Home</i>. Grand tournaments are organised +at chess, draughts, billiards and whist. Once and again wandering +artists drop into our mountain valley, coming you know not whence, going +you cannot imagine whither, 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 guests at dinner-time with songs +and a collection. They are all of them good to see; they, at least, +are moving; they bring 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 still simmer in our mountain prison. Some +of them, too, are welcome as the flowers in May for their own sake; +some of them 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 +grinding lilt, with which the blind man, seeking pence, accompanies +the beat of paddle wheels across the ferry, there is surely a difference +rather of kind than of degree to that unearthly voice of singing that +bewails and praises the destiny of man at the touch of the true virtuoso. +Even that you may perhaps enjoy; and if you do so you will own it impossible +to enjoy it more keenly than here, <i>im Schnee der Alpen</i>. +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 respect 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.<br> +<br> +Of skating little need be said; in so snowy a climate the rinks must +be intelligently managed; their mismanagement will lead 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 +under 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 board, with the front wheels on a pivot, which +was called a <i>hurlie</i>; he may remember this contrivance, 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 career of the tobogganist. +The correct position is to sit; but the fantastic will sometimes sit +hind-foremost, or dare the descent 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 the 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 desperate +exertion. On a very steep track, with 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 body, 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.<br> +<br> +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 true 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 this 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 landed on the highroad by the door of your own hotel. +This, in an atmosphere tingling with forty degrees of frost, in a night +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 life of man upon his planet.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XII - THE STIMULATION OF THE ALPS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +To any one who should come from a southern sanitarium to the Alps, the +row of sun-burned 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 five of even the bad cases bears the mark of sickness +on his face. The plump sunshine from above and its strong reverberation +from below colour the skin like an Indian climate; the treatment, which +consists mainly of the open air, exposes even the sickliest to tan, +and a tableful of invalids comes, in a month or two, to resemble a tableful +of hunters. But although he may be thus 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 +languishes; 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 certain troubled +delight in his existence which can nowhere else be paralleled. +He is perhaps no happier, but he is stingingly alive. It does +not, perhaps, 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.<br> +<br> +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 every 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 strength 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.<br> +<br> +It is hard to say wherein it lies, but this joy 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 merry as +it proves to be transient.<br> +<br> +The brightness - heaven and earth conspiring to be bright - the levity +and quiet of the air; the odd stirring silence - more stirring than +a tumult; the snow, the frost, the enchanted landscape: all have their +part in the effect and on the memory, ‘<i>tous vous tapent sur +la téte</i>’; 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 land of its nativity still as a pool, clean as +river water, and as heady as verse. It is more than probable that +in its noble natural condition this was the very wine of Anjou so beloved +by Athos in the ‘Musketeers.’ Now, if the reader has +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, than 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 lasts.<br> +<br> +The influence of this giddy air displays itself 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 utter their judgments with a cannonade of +syllables; a big word is as good as a meal 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 without 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 joke, to be positively offensive in +hot weather. He writes it in good faith and with a sense of inspiration; +it is only 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 like 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 somewhat comforts him. Nor is +the ill without 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 send a man to the proper measured level +for the ode, the biography, or the religious 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.<br> +<br> +Is it a return of youth, or is it a congestion of the brain? It +is a sort of congestion, perhaps, that leads the invalid, when all goes +well, to face the new day with such a bubbling cheerfulness. It +is certainly congestion that makes night hideous with visions, all the +chambers 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, for 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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XIII - ROADS - 1873<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +No amateur 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 famous picture-gallery. But what is +thus admitted with regard to art is not extended to the (so-called) +natural beauties 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 healthful and strengthening to the taste; and that the best school +for a lover of nature 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 harmonious 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 as this that we find ourselves in the right temper +to seek out small sequestered loveliness. The constant recurrence +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 true pleasure +of your ‘rural voluptuary,’ - not to remain awe-stricken +before a Mount 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 tranquil 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 much 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 else, it is minute knowledge and long-continued +loving industry that make the true dilettante. A man must have +thought much over scenery before he begins fully to enjoy it. +It is no youngling enthusiasm on hilltops that can possess itself of +the last essence of beauty. Probably most people’s heads +are growing bare before they can see all in a landscape that they have +the capability of seeing; 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 windows begin to be darkened and restrained +in sight. Thus the study of nature should be carried forward thoroughly +and with 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 play. There is a dangerous vice inherent +in any such intellectual refining upon vague 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 that makes the +attempt attractive; for any expression, however imperfect, once given +to a cherished feeling, seems a sort of legitimation of the pleasure +we take in it. A common sentiment is one of those 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 otherwise than we have seen them, will continue to the end +to be one of life’s choicest pleasures.<br> +<br> +Let the reader, then, betake himself in the spirit 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 vista 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 slope, 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 changeful and enlivening +that he can always pleasurably busy his mind about it. He may +leave the river-side, or fall out 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 they 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 swing and wilfulness. You might think for a whole summer’s +day (and not have thought it any nearer an end by evening) what 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-path across a meadow - in all its human +waywardness and unaccountability, in all the <i>grata protervitas</i> +of its varying direction - will always be more to us than a railroad +well engineered through a difficult country. <a name="citation7"></a><a href="#footnote7">{7}</a> +No reasoned sequence is thrust upon our attention: we seem to have slipped +for one lawless little moment out of the iron rule of cause and effect; +and so we revert at once to some of the pleasant old heresies of personification, +always poetically orthodox, and attribute a sort of free-will, an active +and spontaneous life, to the white riband of road that lengthens out, +and bends, and cunningly adapts itself to the inequalities of the land +before our eyes. We remember, as we write, some miles of fine +wide highway laid out with conscious aesthetic artifice through a broken +and richly cultivated tract of country. It is said that the engineer +had Hogarth’s line of beauty in his mind as he laid them down. +And the result is striking. One splendid satisfying sweep passes +with easy transition into another, and there is nothing to trouble or +dislocate the strong continuousness of the main line of the road. +And yet there is something wanting. There is here no saving imperfection, +none of those secondary curves and little trepidations of direction +that carry, in natural roads, our curiosity actively along with them. +One feels at once that this road has not has been laboriously grown +like a natural road, but made to pattern; and that, while a model may +be academically correct in outline, it will always be inanimate and +cold. The traveller is also aware of a sympathy of mood between +himself and the road he travels. We have all seen ways that have +wandered into heavy sand near the sea-coast, and trail wearily over +the dunes like a trodden serpent. Here we too must plod forward +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 might perhaps resolve +with a little trouble. We might reflect that the present road +had been developed out of a tract 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. Or we might +carry the reflection further, and remind ourselves that where the air +is invigorating and the ground firm under the traveller’s foot, +his eye is quick to take advantage of small undulations, and he will +turn carelessly aside from the direct way wherever there is anything +beautiful to examine or some promise of a wider view; so that even a +bush of wild roses may permanently bias and deform the straight path +over the meadow; whereas, where the soil is heavy, one is preoccupied +with the labour of mere progression, and goes with a bowed head heavily +and unobservantly forward. Reason, however, will not carry us +the whole way; for the sentiment often recurs in situations where it +is very hard to imagine any possible explanation; and indeed, if we +drive briskly along a good, well-made road in an open vehicle, we shall +experience this sympathy almost at its fullest. We feel the sharp +settle of the springs at some curiously twisted corner; after a steep +ascent, the fresh air dances in our faces as we rattle precipitately +down the other side, and we find it difficult to avoid attributing something +headlong, a sort of <i>abandon</i>, to the road itself.<br> +<br> +The mere winding of the path is enough to enliven 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 valleys 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 something new to be seen, and takes us, like a careful +cicerone, to many different points of distant view before it allows +us finally to approach the hoped-for destination.<br> +<br> +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 peoples 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 that 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 sound 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 the 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 understood by the dweller +in places more populous. We remember standing beside a countryman +once, in the mouth of a quiet by-street in a city that was more than +ordinarily crowded and bustling; he seemed stunned 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 <i>great deal of meeting thereabouts</i>. +The phrase is significant. It is the expression 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 concourse of the streets was in his eyes +only an extraordinary multiplication of such ‘meetings.’<br> +<br> +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 road 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. <i>Sehnsucht</i> - 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 shining 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 junction. There is a passionate +paragraph in <i>Werther</i> that strikes the very key. ‘When +I came hither,’ he writes, ‘how the 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 themselves 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 <i>there</i> is changed to <i>here</i>, all is afterwards as it +was before, and we stand in our indigent and cramped estate, and our +soul thirsts after a still ebbing elixir.’ It is to this +wandering and uneasy spirit of anticipation that roads minister. +Every little vista, every little glimpse that we have of what lies before +us, gives the impatient imagination rein, so that it can outstrip the +body and already plunge into the shadow of the woods, and 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 rear 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 long miles of march, feel as if +he also were within the gates?<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER XIV - ON THE ENJOYMENT OF UNPLEASANT PLACES - 1874<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +It is a difficult matter to make the most of any given place, and we +have much in our own power. Things looked at patiently from one +side after another generally end by showing a side that is beautiful. +A few months ago some words were said in the <i>Portfolio</i> as to +an ‘austere regimen in scenery’; and such a discipline was +then recommended as ‘healthful and strengthening to the taste.’ +That is the text, so to speak, of the present essay. This discipline +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 come to each place in the right spirit. The +traveller, as Brantôme quaintly tells us, ‘<i>fait +des discours en soi pour soutenir en chemin</i>’; and into these +discourses he weaves something out of all that he sees and suffers by +the way; they take 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 lighter 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 follows +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 beauty, much as a gentle +and sincere character is provocative of sincerity and gentleness in +others. And even where there is no harmony to be elicited by the +quickest and most obedient of spirits, 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 admirable 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 where 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 sort 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 ourselves 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 together, +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 <i>Wuthering Heights</i> - 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.<br> +<br> +With all this in mind, I have often been tempted to put forth the paradox +that any place is good enough to live a life in, while 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 sympathetic 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 seemed, to +quicken and educate my sensibilities than many years in places that +jumped more nearly with my inclination.<br> +<br> +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. A river, indeed, fell into the sea near the town where I +resided; but the valley of the river was shallow and bald, for as far +up as ever I had the heart to follow it. There were roads, certainly, +but roads that had no beauty or interest; for, as there was no timber, +and but little irregularity of surface, you saw your whole walk exposed +to you from the beginning: there was nothing left to fancy, nothing +to expect, nothing to see by the wayside, save here and there an unhomely-looking +homestead, and here and there a solitary, spectacled stone-breaker; +and you were only accompanied, as you went doggedly forward, by the +gaunt telegraph-posts and the hum of the resonant wires in the keen +sea-wind. To one who had learned to know their song in warm pleasant +places by the Mediterranean, it seemed to taunt the country, and make +it still bleaker by suggested contrast. Even the waste places +by the side of the road were not, as Hawthorne liked to put it, ‘taken +back to Nature’ by any decent covering of vegetation. Wherever +the land had the chance, it seemed to lie fallow. There is a certain +tawny nudity of the South, bare sunburnt plains, coloured like a lion, +and hills clothed only in the blue transparent air; but this was of +another description - this was the nakedness of the North; the earth +seemed to know that it was naked, and was ashamed and cold.<br> +<br> +It seemed to be always blowing on that coast. Indeed, this had +passed into the speech of the inhabitants, and they saluted each other +when they met with ‘Breezy, breezy,’ 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, persistent +sort, that interferes with sight and respiration, and makes the eyes +sore. Even such winds as these have their own merit in proper +time and place. It is pleasant 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 gets 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 sort to be noticed in a country where there were no +trees and hardly any shadows, save the passive shadows of clouds or +those of rigid houses and walls. But the wind 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 the ‘Prelude,’ has used this as a figure for +the feeling struck in us by the quiet by-streets of London after the +uproar of the great thoroughfares; and the comparison may be turned +the other way with as good effect:-<br> +<br> +‘Meanwhile the roar continues, till at length,<br> +Escaped as from an enemy, we turn<br> +Abruptly into some sequester’d nook,<br> +Still as a shelter’d place when winds blow loud!’<br> +<br> +I remember meeting a man once, in a train, who told me of what must +have been quite the most perfect instance of this pleasure of escape. +He had gone up, one sunny, 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 long while in dark stairways, he issued +at last into the sunshine, on a platform high above the town. +At that elevation it was quite still and warm; the gale was only in +the lower strata of the air, 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 <i>Place</i> far below him, he saw the good people holding +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!<br> +<br> +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 keep 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 tranquil water, and the sea-birds, screaming and flickering from +the ruined crags, alone disturb the silence and the sunshine. +One such place has impressed itself on my memory beyond all others. +On a rock by the water’s edge, old fighting men of the Norse breed +had planted a double castle; the two stood wall to wall like semi-detached +villas; and yet feud had run so high between their owners, 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, when +the sea boomed against the foundations and the wild winter wind was +loose over 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 there 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 trouble the sea within view. +The two castles, black and ruinous as the rocks about them, were still +distinguishable from these by something more insecure and fantastic +in the outline, something that the last storm had left imminent and +the next would demolish entirely. It would be difficult to render +in words the sense of peace that took possession of me on these three +afternoons. It was helped out, as I have said, by the contrast. +The shore was battered and bemauled by previous tempests; I had the +memory at heart of the insane strife 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 something transitory and fretful +in the impression of a high wind under a cloudless sky; it seems to +have no root in the constitution of things; it must speedily begin to +faint and wither away like a cut flower. And on those days the +thought of the wind and the thought of human life 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 wind of a butterfly’s wing. +The placidity 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 rock, or swimming +leisurely in the sunshine, it seemed to me that they were enjoying 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.<br> +<br> +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 afternoon 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 lines 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 -<br> +<br> +‘Mon coeur est un luth suspendu,<br> +Sitôt qu’on le touche, il résonne.’<br> +<br> +I can give no reason why these lines came to me at this time; and for +that very cause I repeat them here. For all I know, they may serve +to complete the impression in the mind of the reader, as they were certainly +a part of it for me.<br> +<br> +And this happened to me in the place of all others 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 something 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 will surely find.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Footnotes:<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> The Second +Part here referred to is entitled ‘ACROSS THE PLAINS,’ and +is printed in the volume so entitled, together with other Memories and +Essays.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</a> 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.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3">{3}</a> William Abercrombie. +See <i>Fasti Ecclesia Scoticanae</i>, under ‘Maybole’ (Part +iii.).<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote4"></a><a href="#citation4">{4}</a> ‘Duex +poures varlez qui n’ont nulz gages et qui gissoient la nuit avec +les chiens.’ See Champollion - Figeac’s <i>Louis et +Charles d’Orléans</i>, i. 63, and for my lord’s English +horn, <i>ibid</i>. 96.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote5"></a><a href="#citation5">{5}</a> Reprinted +by permission of John Lane.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote6"></a><a href="#citation6">{6}</a> ‘Jehovah +Tsidkenu,’ translated in the Authorised Version as ‘The +Lord our Righteousness’ (Jeremiah xxiii. 6 and xxxiii. 16).<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7">{7}</a> Compare Blake, +in the <i>Marriage of Heaven and Hell</i>: ‘Improvement makes +straight roads; but the crooked roads, without improvement, are roads +of Genius.’<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, ESSAYS OF TRAVEL ***<br> +<pre> + +******This file should be named esstr10h.htm or esstr10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, esstr11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, esstr10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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