Some Private Views Part 11

The spectacle that the roads of the district present at such a time is most melancholy. Everyone is in a closed car--a cross between a bathing machine and that convenient vehicle which carries both corpse and mourners; all the windows seem made of bottle gla.s.s, a phenomenon produced by the flattening of the noses of imprisoned tourists; and nothing s.h.i.+nes except an occasional traveller in oilskin. In such seasons, indeed, oilskin (lined with patience) is your only wear.

Ordinary waterproofs in such a climate become mere blotting paper, and with the best of them, without leggings and headgear to match, the poor Londoner might, I do not say just as well be in London (for that is his aspiration all day long), but just as well go to bed at once, and stop there. 'But why does he not go home?' it may be asked: a question to which there are several answers. In the first place (for one must take the average in such cases) because he is a fool. Secondly, like the rest of the well-to-do world, he has suffered the summer, wherein warmth and suns.h.i.+ne are really to be had, to slip by, and has only the f.a.g end of it in which to take holiday. It is now or never--or at all events now or next year--with him. All his friends, too, are out of town, flattening _their_ noses against window panes; his club is under repair, his house in brown holland, his servants on board wages. Like the young gentleman in Locksley Hall, he is so absolutely at the end of his resources, that an 'angry fancy' is all that is left to him. Of course, under its influence he sits down and writes to the _Times_; but, if the humblest of its correspondents may venture to say so without offence, even that does not help him much. That suicides increase in wet autumns is notorious; but that murders should in these sequestered vales maintain the even tenor of their way is a feather in the cap of human nature. In lodgings, where the pent-up tourist has no one but his wife and family to speak to, where d.i.c.k and Tom _will_ romp in his only sitting-room, and Eliza Jane practises all day on the crazy piano, this forbearance is especially creditable.

Even in hotels, however, there is great temptation. On the north-eastern coast, in particular, when the weather has, as the phrase goes, 'broken up,' and the sky and sea have both become one durable drab, the best of women grow irritable, the men morose. At the _table d'hote_, which even the most exclusive are driven to frequent for company, as sheep huddle together in storm, Dislike ripens to Hate with frightful rapidity. Our neighbour, who always--for it seems always--gets the last of the mushrooms at breakfast, or finishes the oyster sauce at dinner before our very eyes, we are very far, indeed, from loving as ourselves. Our _vis-a-vis_, the man on his honeymoon, is even still more offensive. We resent his happiness, which is apparently uninfluenced by the state of the weather, and our wife wonders what he could have seen in that chit of a girl to attract his attention. To ourselves she seems a great deal too good for him, and in our rare intervals of human feeling we regard her with the tenderest commiseration. The importance attached to meals, and the time we take over them, have no parallel save among the Esquimaux. The least incident that happens in the hotel is of more moment to us than the overthrow of Empires. The whispered news that a fellow guest has been taken seriously ill, and that a medical consultation has been held upon the case, is a matter to be deplored, of course, but one which is not without its consolations. 'Who is it? What is it? Nothing catching I do hope?' (this last uttered with genuine anxiety) are questions that are heard on every side. The general impression is that some lovely young lady of fas.h.i.+on on the drawing-room floor has been seized with pains in her limbs--and no wonder--from exposure to the elements. Her mother comes down every morning and selects dainties for the sick-room from the public breakfast table; those who are near enough to do so inquire in dulcet tones, 'How is your invalid this morning?' The reply is, 'Better, much better,' which somehow falls short of expectation. Even the most giddy and frivolous of girls has no excuse for frightening people for nothing.

At luncheon one day a very fat, strong boy makes his appearance, and is supplied with soup. All his neighbours who have no soup are wild with envy, though they are well acquainted with that soup at dinner, and know that it is bad. 'What is the meaning of it? Why this favouritism?'

we inquire of the waiter furiously. 'Well, you see, sir, he is better now; but that is the invalid.' The delicate, attractive creature we have pictured to ourselves with pains in her limbs turns out, after all, to be a hulking schoolboy, probably bilious from over-eating. The public indignation is excessive, while the subject of it, quite unconscious of the fact, has another plate of soup.

The wild weather out of doors is not, of course, confined to the land, and the sea would be a fine sight if it was not invisible. The waves, indeed, are so high that the fis.h.i.+ng-boats which have remained out all night are often warned off, or, as it is locally termed, 'burned off,'

from the harbour bar. A tar barrel is lighted for this purpose on the headland, and it is the only thing which the eternal rain cannot utterly squelch and extinguish. Occasionally we venture down upon the pier to see the boats make the harbour, which, not a little to our disappointment, they never fail to do. There are huge b.u.t.tresses of stone against the pier-head, behind which the new comer imagines he may crouch in perfect safety, till the third wave comes in and convinces him to the contrary. No one ever dreams of 'burning' _him_ off--giving him one word of warning of that unpleasant contingency; for to behold a fellow creature more drenched and dripping than ourselves is very soothing. As to the dangers of maritime life, we are all agreed that they are greatly overrated; and some sceptics even go so far as to suggest that the skeleton s.h.i.+p, half embedded in the sands, which so impresses visitors in fine weather, is not a genuine wreck at all, but has been placed there by the Town Corporation to delude the public.

Now and then we splash down to the quay to see a few million of herrings sold at four s.h.i.+llings a hundred, which will presently induce philanthropic fishmongers in London to advertise 'a glut this morning,'

and to retail them at threepence apiece. At rare intervals we explore the dripping town. It is amazing what a fascination the small picture-shops, to which at home we should never give a glance, afford us; even the frontispieces to popular music have unwonted attractions; while the pottery-shops, full of ware made from clay 'peculiar to the locality,' are only too seductive to our wives, who purchase largely what they believe to be great bargains, till they find on their return home the identical articles in Oxford Street, at half the price. In London we never visit the British Museum itself, unless to escort some country cousin, but at Barecliff-on-Sea, in wet weather, the miserable little local Inst.i.tute, with its specimens of strata, its calf with two heads in spirits, and its petrified toad, is an irresistible temptation. The great event of the day, however, is the wading down to the railway-station (which is in a quagmire) to meet the express train which brings more victims, 'unconscious of their doom,' to Barecliff, and who evidently flatter themselves that the pouring rain is an exceptional phenomenon; it also brings the London newspapers, for which we fight and struggle (the demand being greatly in excess of the supply) and think ourselves fortunate if we secure a supplement. It is true there is a _Times_ in the smoking-room of the hotel, but it is always engaged five deep, is the cause of terrible quarrels, and every afternoon we expect to see it imbrued in gore.

In the evening, when one does not mind the wet so much--'its tooth is not so keen because it is not seen'--there are dissipations at 'the Rooms by the Sea.' Amateur charitable concerts are given there, in which it is whispered that this and that lady at the _table d'hote_ will take part, who become public characters and objects of immense interest in consequence. Thither, too, come 'the inimitable Jones,'

from the Edgware Road Music Hall, with his 'unrivalled _repertoire_ of comic songs;' the Spring Board Family, who have been 'p.r.o.nounced by the general consensus of the medical faculty in London to be unique,' as having neither joints nor backbone; and Herr von Deft, 'who will repeat the same astounding performances which have electrified the reigning families of Europe.' The serious people (for whom 'the glee-singers of Mesopotamia' are also suspected of dropping a line) are angled for by white-cravatted lecturers, who enhance their statistics of conversion by the exhibition of poisoned arrows, and of clubs, on which, with the microscope, may be detected the hairs of missionary martyrs. In fine weather, of course, these attractions would be advertised in vain; but the fact is, our whole community has been reduced by the cruelty of the elements to a sort of second childhood; the rain which permeates everything is softening our brain.

This is only too evident from the conversation in the hotel porch where the men meet every morning to discuss the topic of the day--the weather. A sullen gloom pervades them--the first symptom of mental aberration. Those, on the other hand, who express their opinion that it 'really seems to be clearing a little' are in more advanced stages. We who are less afflicted shake our heads, and murmur painfully, but also with a considerable touch of contempt, 'Poor fellows!'

The piano in the ladies' drawing-room is always going, but it excites no soothing influence; there is an impression in the hotel that the performers are foreigners, and should be discouraged. But there is one instrument hanging in the hall on which everyone plays, native or alien, and every note is discord. It is the barometer. People talk of the delicacy of scientific instruments; if they are right, the shocks which that barometer survives proves it to be an exception. Batter it as we may, and do, the faithful needle, with a determination worthy of a better cause, maintains its position at 'Much Rain.' The manager is appealed to vehemently, coa.r.s.ely; he shrugs his shoulders, protests with humility that he cannot help the weather, or affirms it is unprecedented--which we do not believe. Other managers--in the Engadine, for example--the papers say, are providing excellent weather; what does he mean by it?

At last one morning, wetter than ever, some n.o.ble spirit, the Tell of our liberties, exclaims, 'Who would be free, himself must strike the blow.' His actual words (if one was not writing history) are, 'Hang me if I stand this any longer,' and they strike the keynote of everybody's thought. He goes away by the next train, and his departure is followed by the same effects as the tapping of a reservoir. The hotel company--I mean the inmates; the company goes into bankruptcy--stream off at once to their own homes. That journey through the pouring rain is the happiest day of our wet holiday. How beautiful looms soaking, soppy, smoky London! In that excellent town who cares for rain?

'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes spout.'

Pooh! pooh! Call a cab--call two!

_TRAVELLING COMPANIONS._

It was held by wise men of old that adversity was the test of friends.h.i.+p, but as his Excellency the Minister of the United States has observed, _per_ Mr. Biglow, 'They did not know everything down in Judee;' and among other subjects of which those ancient writers were necessarily ignorant was that of Continental travel. The coming to grief of a friend is unquestionably very inconvenient; as a millionaire of my acquaintance observes (under the influence, as he confidently believes, of benevolent emotion), 'One likes to see one's friends prosperous;' but even when they are not so, it requires some effort to follow the dictates of prudence and cast them off. And, after all, the man, even though you may cut him, remains the same; as fit for the purposes of friends.h.i.+p as ever, except for his pecuniary condition.

There is no such change in his relation to oneself as Emerson describes in one of his essays; his words I forget, and his works are miles away, but the man he has in his mind has in some way fallen short of expectation--declined, perhaps, to lend the philosopher money.

'Yesterday,' he says, 'my friend was the illimitable ocean; to-day he is a pond.' He had come to the end of him. And some friends, as my little child complains as he strokes his black kitten, 'end so soon.'

There are no circ.u.mstances, however, under which friends.h.i.+p comes so often to a violent and sudden death as under the pressure of travel. It is like the fate which the Scientific ascribe to a box sunk in the sea; after a certain depth, which varies according to the strength of the box, the weight of the superinc.u.mbent water bursts it up. It is merely a question of how deep or how strong. Our travelling companion remains our friend for a day, for a week, for even a month; but at the month's end he is our friend no longer. Our relations have probably become what the diplomatists term 'strained' long before that date, but a day comes when the tension becomes intolerable; the cable parts and we lose him.

Unfortunately, not always, however; there are circ.u.mstances--such as being on board s.h.i.+p, for example--when we thus part without parting company. A long voyage is the most terrible trial to which friends.h.i.+p can be subjected. It is like the old sentence of pressing to death, 'as much as he can bear, and more.' It is doubtful, for example, whether friends.h.i.+p has ever survived a voyage to Australia. I have sometimes asked a man whether he knew So-and-So, who hails, like himself, from Melbourne, and he has replied, 'We came over in the same s.h.i.+p'--'Only that, and nothing more,' as the poet puts it; but his tone has an unmistakable significance, and one perceives at once that the topic had better not be pursued.

A very dear friend of mine once proposed that we should go round the world together; he offered to pay all my expenses, and painted the expedition in rose-colour. But I had the good sense to decline the proposal. I felt I should lose my friend. Even yachting is a very dangerous pastime in this respect, especially when the vessel is becalmed. In that case, like the sea itself, one's friend soon becomes a pond. Conceive, then, what it must be to go round the world with him!

Is it possible, both being human, that we can still love one another when we have got to j.a.pan, for instance? And then we have to come back together! How frightful must be that moment when he tells us the same story he told at starting, and we feel that he has come to the end of his tether, and is going to tell _all_ his stories over again! This is why it so often happens that only one of two friends returns from any long voyage they have undertaken together. What has become of the other? A question that one should never put to the survivor. It is certain that great travellers, and especially those who travel by sea, have a very different code of morals from that which they conform to at home. Human life is not so sacred to them. Perhaps it is in this respect that travel is said to enlarge the mind. That it does not sharpen it, however, whatever it may do for the temper, is tolerably certain. In their habits travellers are singularly conventional. They are compelled, of course, to suffer certain inconveniences, but they endure others, and most serious ones, quite unnecessarily, merely because it is the custom so to do. In crossing the Atlantic, for example, a man of means will submit to be shut up in a close cupboard for ten days with an utter stranger, though by paying double fare he can get a cabin to himself. This arises from no desire for economy, but simply because he does not think for himself; other travellers do the like, and he follows their example. Yet what money could recompense him for occupying for the same time _on land_ a double-bedded room--not to say a mere china closet--with a man of whom he knows nothing except that he is subject to chronic sickness? A pleasant sort of travelling companion indeed, yet, strange to say, the commonest of all. Where there is a slender purse this terrible state of things (supposing travel under such circ.u.mstances to be compatible with pleasure at all, which, for my part, I cannot imagine) is not a matter of choice; but where it can be avoided why is it undergone?

There is nothing that convinces me of the folly of mankind so much as those advertis.e.m.e.nts we see in the summer months with respect to travelling companions, from volunteers of both s.e.xes: 'Wanted, a travelling companion for a few months on the Continent, etc. The highest references will be required.' The idea of going with a stranger upon a tour of pleasure must surely originate in Hanwell, and the adventurer may think himself fortunate if it does not end in Broadmoor.

References, indeed! Who can answer for a fellow-creature's temper, patience, unselfishness, during such an ordeal as a protracted tour? No one who has not travelled with him already; and one may be tolerably certain his certificate does not come from _that_ quarter. It is true some people are married to strangers by advertis.e.m.e.nt; but their companions.h.i.+p, as I am given to understand, does not generally last for months, or anything like it.

Imagine two people, as utterly unknown to one another, except by letter (and 'references'), as the _x_ and _y_ of an equation, meeting for the first time at the railway-station! With what tremors must each regard the other! What a relief it must be to X. to find that Y. is at least a white man; on the other hand, it must rather dash his hopes, if they are set on pedestrianism, to find that his _compagnon de voyage_ has a wooden leg. Yet what are his mere colour and limbs compared with his temperament and disposition? If one did not know the frightful risks one's fellow-creatures incur every day for little pleasure and less profit, one would certainly say these people must be mad.

But if instead of X. and Y., it is even A. and B., men who have known one another for years, and in every relation but as fellow-travellers, there is risk enough in such a venture. One night, after dinner at the club, they agree with effusion to take their autumn trip together; they are warm with wine and with the remembrance of their college friends.h.i.+p--which extended perhaps, when they afterwards come to think about it, a very little way. What days they will have in Switzerland together! What mornings (to see the sunrise) upon mountain-tops! What evenings on Lucerne! What nights in Paris! A. thinks himself fortunate indeed in having secured B.'s society for the next three months--a man with such a reputation for conversation; even T., the cynic of the club, has testified to his charm of manner. By-the-bye, what was it--exactly--T. had said of B.? A. cannot remember it at the moment, but recalls it on the night before they start together. 'B. is a charming fellow, only he has this peculiarity--that if there is only one armchair in a room, B. is sure to get it.'

B., on the other hand, congratulates himself on A.'s excessive good sense, which even T. had knowledged. What was it--exactly--T. had said of A.? He cannot remember it at the moment, but recalls it on the night before they start together. 'A. is such a thoroughly practical fellow; he has committed many follies, and not a few crimes, but he can lay his hand on the place where his heart should be, and honestly aver that he has never given sixpence to anybody.' Full of misgivings, and with demonstrations of satisfaction that are in themselves suspicious, they meet at the terminus. A. has a little black bag, which contains his all; it frees him from all trouble about luggage, and (especially) from the necessity of paying a porter. He is resolved not to lose a moment, nor spend a sixpence, in a Custom-house. To his horror, he perceives that B., whose one idea is comfort, has a portmanteau specially designed for him (apparently upon the model of Noah's Ark), and which can scarcely be got into the luggage-van. This article delays them twenty-four hours at every frontier, because the ordinary authorities decline to open it upon the ground that it contains an infernal machine, and have to telegraph to their Government for instructions.

Again, B. is no doubt a charming conversationalist--in English; but he does not know one single word of any other language. He requires every observation of their alien fellow-travellers to be translated, and then says 'Oh!' discontentedly, or 'It seems to me that foreigners have no ideas.' And not for one moment can A. get rid of him. If there _is_ a friend that sticketh closer than a brother, it is the Travelling Companion who is dependent upon you for interpretation. It is needless to say that under these circ.u.mstances the gla.s.s of Friends.h.i.+p falls from 'Set Fair' to 'Stormy' with much rapidity. After A's fourth quarrel with a waiter about half a franc, B. calls him a 'mean hound,'

and takes the opportunity of returning to his native land with a French count, who speaks perfect English, and robs him of his watch and chain and the contents of his pocket-book on board the steamer. A. and B.

meet one another daily at the club for years afterwards, but without recognition.

Their case, of course, is an extreme one; but that of C. and D. is almost as bad. They are men of prudence, and persuade E. to go with them, as a makeweight. 'If we should ever disagree,' they say, 'as to what is to be done--which, however, is to the last degree improbable--the majority of votes shall carry it'--an arrangement which only delays the inevitable event--

'Three little n.i.g.g.e.r boys went the world to view, The third was left in Calais, and then there were two.'

They find the makeweight intolerable before they have crossed the Channel, and, having agreed to cut their cable from him, are from that moment never in the same mind about anything else. It is a modern version of the three brigands who stole the Communion plate. C. and D.

push E. over the precipice, and C. stabs D. at a supper for which D.

has purveyed poisoned wine.

The only way to secure a really eligible travelling companion is to try him first in short swallow-flights, or rather pigeon-flights, from home. Take your bird with you for a few days' outing near home; then, if he proves pleasant, for a week's tour in Cornwall; then for ten days in Scotland, where, if you meet with the usual weather, and he still keeps his temper and politeness, you may trust yourself to him anywhere. Out of twenty failures there will, perhaps, be one success.

In this manner I have discovered in time, in my dearest and nearest friends, the most undreamt of vices. One man, F., hitherto much respected as a Chancery barrister, has, as it has turned out, been intended by nature for a professional pedestrian. His true calling is to walk 'laps' round the Agricultural Hall or at Lillie Bridge, with nothing on to speak of save a handkerchief round his forehead. 'Let us walk' is his one cry as soon as he becomes a travelling companion. And he is not content to do this when he arrives at any place of interest, but insists upon walking _there_--perhaps along a dusty road, or over turnip-fields. I like walking myself in moderation--say a mile out and a mile in; but not, certainly not, twenty miles at a stretch, and at a speed which precludes conversation. This cla.s.s of travelling companion is very dangerous. If he does not get his walking he becomes malignant.

My barrister, at least, being denied the opportunity of drawing out marriage-settlements, conveying land, or otherwise plundering the community, took to practical jokes. Having a suspicion of his pedestrian powers, from the extreme length of his legs, I took G. with us, a man whom I could trust in that respect, and who fancied he had heart complaint. G. and I took our exercise alone together in a fly.

One day we took a long drive--four miles or more--to a well-known bay.

The vehicle could not get down to the sea, so we descended on foot, leaving it at the top of the cliff, with the strictest orders to the man not to stir till we came back. When we returned the fly was gone.

How we reached our hotel, Heaven knows! but we did arrive there, in the last stage of exhaustion. The driver of the carriage, whom we met next day, informed us that a gentleman had been thrown from his horse on the cliff-top and had broken his leg, and that, under the circ.u.mstances, he had ventured to disobey our instructions and take the poor fellow home.

Years afterwards I discovered that nothing of the kind had happened, but that the fiendish F. had given the driver a sovereign to play that trick upon us. F. is a judge now, and has been lately trying election cases. I wonder what he thinks of himself when he rebukes offenders for the heinous crime of bribery!

Again, I always thought H. a pleasant fellow till we went together to Cornwall. He had gone through the first ordeal of a few days nearer home to my satisfaction, but at Penzance he broke out. He was so dreadfully particular about his food that nothing satisfied him--not even pilchards three times a day; and the way he went on at the waiters is not to be described by a decent pen. The attendant at Penzance was not, I am bound to say, a good waiter. He said, though he habitually put his thumb in every dish, he 'hadn't quite got his hand in,' and was not used to the business.' 'Used! you know nothing about it!' exclaimed H., viciously. Then the poor fellow burst into tears. 'Pray be patient with me, good gentlemen,' he murmured. 'I do my best; but until last Wednesday as ever was I was a pork-butcher.' One cannot stand a travelling companion who makes the waiters cry.

The worst kind of fellow-traveller is one who, to use his own scientific phrase for his complaint, suffers from 'disorganisation of the nervous centres.' At home his little weaknesses do not strike you.

You may not be on the spot when he flies across Piccadilly Circus, pursued, as he fancies, by a Brompton omnibus which has not yet reached St. James's Church, and is moving at a snail's pace; you may not have been with him on that occasion when, in his eagerness to be in time for the 'Flying Dutchman,' he arrives at Paddington an hour before it starts, and is put into the parliamentary train which is shunted at Slough to let the 'Dutchman' pa.s.s; but when you come to travel with him you know what 'nerves' are to your cost. On the other hand, this is the easiest kind of travelling companion to get rid of; for you have only to feign a sore throat, with feverish symptoms, and off he flies on the wings of terror, leaving you, as he thinks--if he _has_ a thought except for his nervous centres--to the tender mercies of a foreign doctor, to hireling nurses, and to a grave in the strangers' cemetery.

THE END.