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@@ -0,0 +1,6630 @@ +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: 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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