Black Forest House: and the sociability therein--Its perfume--George
positively declines to remain in bed after four o'clock in the
morning--The road one cannot miss--My peculiar extra instinct--An
ungrateful party--Harris as a scientist--His cheery confidence--The
village: where it was, and where it ought to have been--George: his
plan--We promenade a la Francais--The German coachman asleep and
awake--The man who spreads the English language abroad.
There was one night when, tired out and far from town or village, we
slept in a Black Forest farmhouse. The great charm about the Black
Forest house is its sociability. The cows are in the next room, the
horses are upstairs, the geese and ducks are in the kitchen, while the
pigs, the children, and the chickens live all over the place.
You are dressing, when you hear a grunt behind you.
"Good-morning! Don't happen to have any potato peelings in here? No, I
see you haven't; good-bye."
Next there is a cackle, and you see the neck of an old hen stretched
round the corner.
"Fine morning, isn't it? You don't mind my bringing this worm of mine in
here, do you? It is so difficult in this house to find a room where one
can enjoy one's food with any quietness. From a chicken I have always
been a slow eater, and when a dozen--there, I thought they wouldn't leave
me alone. Now they'll all want a bit. You don't mind my getting on the
bed, do you? Perhaps here they won't notice me."
While you are dressing various shock heads peer in at the door; they
evidently regard the room as a temporary menagerie. You cannot tell
whether the heads belong to boys or girls; you can only hope they are all
male. It is of no use shutting the door, because there is nothing to
fasten it by, and the moment you are gone they push it open again. You
breakfast as the Prodigal Son is generally represented feeding: a pig or
two drop in to keep you company; a party of elderly geese criticise you
from the door; you gather from their whispers, added to their shocked
expression, that they are talking scandal about you. Maybe a cow will
condescend to give a glance in.
This Noah's Ark arrangement it is, I suppose, that gives to the Black
Forest home its distinctive scent. It is not a scent you can liken to
any one thing. It is as if you took roses and Limburger cheese and hair
oil, some heather and onions, peaches and soapsuds, together with a dash
of sea air and a corpse, and mixed them up together. You cannot define
any particular odour, but you feel they are all there--all the odours
that the world has yet discovered. People who live in these houses are
fond of this mixture. They do not open the window and lose any of it;
they keep it carefully bottled up. If you want any other scent, you can
go outside and smell the wood violets and the pines; inside there is the
house; and after a while, I am told, you get used to it, so that you miss
it, and are unable to go to sleep in any other atmosphere.
We had a long walk before us the next day, and it was our desire,
therefore, to get up early, even so early as six o'clock, if that could
be managed without disturbing the whole household. We put it to our
hostess whether she thought this could be done. She said she thought it
could. She might not be about herself at that time; it was her morning
for going into the town, some eight miles off, and she rarely got back
much before seven; but, possibly, her husband or one of the boys would be
returning home to lunch about that hour. Anyhow, somebody should be sent
back to wake us and get our breakfast.
As it turned out, we did not need any waking. We got up at four, all by
ourselves. We got up at four in order to get away from the noise and the
din that was making our heads ache. What time the Black Forest peasant
rises in the summer time I am unable to say; to us they appeared to be
getting up all night. And the first thing the Black Forester does when
he gets up is to put on a pair of stout boots with wooden soles, and take
a constitutional round the house. Until he has been three times up and
down the stairs, he does not feel he is up. Once fully awake himself,
the next thing he does is to go upstairs to the stables, and wake up a
horse. (The Black Forest house being built generally on the side of a
steep hill, the ground floor is at the top, and the hay-loft at the
bottom.) Then the horse, it would seem, must also have its
constitutional round the house; and this seen to, the man goes downstairs
into the kitchen and begins to chop wood, and when he has chopped
sufficient wood he feels pleased with himself and begins to sing. All
things considered, we came to the conclusion we could not do better than
follow the excellent example set us. Even George was quite eager to get
up that morning.
We had a frugal breakfast at half-past four, and started away at five.
Our road lay over a mountain, and from enquiries made in the village it
appeared to be one of those roads you cannot possibly miss. I suppose
everybody knows this sort of road. Generally, it leads you back to where
you started from; and when it doesn't, you wish it did, so that at all
events you might know where you were. I foresaw evil from the very
first, and before we had accomplished a couple of miles we came up with
it. The road divided into three. A worm-eaten sign-post indicated that
the path to the left led to a place that we had never heard of--that was
on no map. Its other arm, pointing out the direction of the middle road,
had disappeared. The road to the right, so we all agreed, clearly led
back again to the village.
"The old man said distinctly," so Harris reminded us, "keep straight on
round the hill."
"Which hill?" George asked, pertinently.
We were confronted by half a dozen, some of them big, some of them
little.
"He told us," continued Harris, "that we should come to a wood."
"I see no reason to doubt him," commented George, "whichever road we
take."
As a matter of fact, a dense wood covered every hill.
"And he said," murmured Harris, "that we should reach the top in about an
hour and a half."
"There it is," said George, "that I begin to disbelieve him."
"Well, what shall we do?" said Harris.
Now I happen to possess the bump of locality. It is not a virtue; I make
no boast of it. It is merely an animal instinct that I cannot help. That
things occasionally get in my way--mountains, precipices, rivers, and
such like obstructions--is no fault of mine. My instinct is correct
enough; it is the earth that is wrong. I led them by the middle road.
That the middle road had not character enough to continue for any quarter
of a mile in the same direction; that after three miles up and down hill
it ended abruptly in a wasps' nest, was not a thing that should have been
laid to my door. If the middle road had gone in the direction it ought
to have done, it would have taken us to where we wanted to go, of that I
am convinced.
Even as it was, I would have continued to use this gift of mine to
discover a fresh way had a proper spirit been displayed towards me. But
I am not an angel--I admit this frankly,--and I decline to exert myself
for the ungrateful and the ribald. Besides, I doubt if George and Harris
would have followed me further in any event. Therefore it was that I
washed my hands of the whole affair, and that Harris entered upon the
vacancy.
"Well," said Harris. "I suppose you are satisfied with what you have
done?"
"I am quite satisfied," I replied from the heap of stones where I was
sitting. "So far, I have brought you with safety. I would continue to
lead you further, but no artist can work without encouragement. You
appear dissatisfied with me because you do not know where you are. For
all you know, you may be just where you want to be. But I say nothing as
to that; I expect no thanks. Go your own way; I have done with you
both."
I spoke, perhaps, with bitterness, but I could not help it. Not a word
of kindness had I had all the weary way.
"Do not misunderstand us," said Harris; "both George and myself feel that
without your assistance we should never be where we now are. For that we
give you every credit. But instinct is liable to error. What I propose
to do is to substitute for it Science, which is exact. Now, where's the
sun?"
"Don't you think," said George, "that if we made our way back to the
village, and hired a boy for a mark to guide us, it would save time in
the end?"
"It would be wasting hours," said Harris, with decision. "You leave this
to me. I have been reading about this thing, and it has interested me."
He took out his watch, and began turning himself round and round.
"It's as simple as A B C," he continued. "You point the short hand at
the sun, then you bisect the segment between the short hand and the
twelve, and thus you get the north."
He worried up and down for a while, then he fixed it.
"Now I've got it," he said; "that's the north, where that wasps' nest is.
Now give me the map."
We handed it to him, and seating himself facing the wasps, he examined
it.
"Todtmoos from here," he said, "is south by south-west."
"How do you mean, from here?" asked George.
"Why, from here, where we are," returned Harris.
"But where are we?" said George.
This worried Harris for a time, but at length he cheered up.
"It doesn't matter where we are," he said. "Wherever we are, Todtmoos is
south by south-west. Come on, we are only wasting time."
"I don't quite see how you make it out," said George, as he rose and
shouldered his knapsack; "but I suppose it doesn't matter. We are out
for our health, and it's all pretty!"
"We shall be all right," said Harris, with cheery confidence. "We shall
be in at Todtmoos before ten, don't you worry. And at Todtmoos we will
have something to eat."
He said that he, himself, fancied a beefsteak, followed by an omelette.
George said that, personally, he intended to keep his mind off the
subject until he saw Todtmoos.
We walked for half an hour, then emerging upon an opening, we saw below
us, about two miles away, the village through which we had passed that
morning. It had a quaint church with an outside staircase, a somewhat
unusual arrangement.
The sight of it made me sad. We had been walking hard for three hours
and a half, and had accomplished, apparently, about four miles. But
Harris was delighted.
"Now, at last," said Harris, "we know where we are."
"I thought you said it didn't matter," George reminded him.
"No more it does, practically," replied Harris, "but it is just as well
to be certain. Now I feel more confidence in myself."
"I'm not so sure about that being an advantage," muttered George. But I
do not think Harris heard him.
"We are now," continued Harris, "east of the sun, and Todtmoos is south-
west of where we are. So that if--"
He broke off. "By-the-by," he said, "do you remember whether I said the
bisecting line of that segment pointed to the north or to the south?"
"You said it pointed to the north," replied George.
"Are you positive?" persisted Harris.
"Positive," answered George "but don't let that influence your
calculations. In all probability you were wrong."
Harris thought for a while; then his brow cleared.
"That's all right," he said; "of course, it's the north. It must be the
north. How could it be the south? Now we must make for the west. Come
on."
"I am quite willing to make for the west," said George; "any point of the
compass is the same to me. I only wish to remark that, at the present
moment, we are going dead east."
"No we are not," returned Harris; "we are going west."
"We are going east, I tell you," said George.
"I wish you wouldn't keep saying that," said Harris, "you confuse me."
"I don't mind if I do," returned George; "I would rather do that than go
wrong. I tell you we are going dead east."
"What nonsense!" retorted Harris; "there's the sun."
"I can see the sun," answered George, "quite distinctly. It may be where
it ought to be, according to you and Science, or it may not. All I know
is, that when we were down in the village, that particular hill with that
particular lump of rock upon it was due north of us. At the present
moment we are facing due east."
"You are quite right," said Harris; "I forgot for the moment that we had
turned round."
"I should get into the habit of making a note of it, if I were you,"
grumbled George; "it's a manoeuvre that will probably occur again more
than once."
We faced about, and walked in the other direction. At the end of forty
minutes' climbing we again emerged upon an opening, and again the village
lay just under our feet. On this occasion it was south of us.
"This is very extraordinary," said Harris.
"I see nothing remarkable about it," said George. "If you walk steadily
round a village it is only natural that now and then you get a glimpse of
it. Myself, I am glad to see it. It proves to me that we are not
utterly lost."
"It ought to be the other side of us," said Harris.
"It will be in another hour or so," said George, "if we keep on."
I said little myself; I was vexed with both of them; but I was glad to
notice George evidently growing cross with Harris. It was absurd of
Harris to fancy he could find the way by the sun.
"I wish I knew," said Harris, thoughtfully, "for certain whether that
bisecting line points to the north or to the south."
"I should make up my mind about it," said George; "it's an important
point."
"It's impossible it can be the north," said Harris, "and I'll tell you
why."
"You needn't trouble," said George; "I am quite prepared to believe it
isn't."
"You said just now it was," said Harris, reproachfully.
"I said nothing of the sort," retorted George. "I said you said it was--a
very different thing. If you think it isn't, let's go the other way.
It'll be a change, at all events."
So Harris worked things out according to the contrary calculation, and
again we plunged into the wood; and again after half an hour's stiff
climbing we came in view of that same village. True, we were a little
higher, and this time it lay between us and the sun.
"I think," said George, as he stood looking down at it, "this is the best
view we've had of it, as yet. There is only one other point from which
we can see it. After that, I propose we go down into it and get some
rest."
"I don't believe it's the same village," said Harris; "it can't be."
"There's no mistaking that church," said George. "But maybe it is a case
on all fours with that Prague statue. Possibly, the authorities
hereabout have had made some life-sized models of that village, and have
stuck them about the Forest to see where the thing would look best.
Anyhow, which way do we go now?"
"I don't know," said Harris, "and I don't care. I have done my best;
you've done nothing but grumble, and confuse me."
"I may have been critical," admitted George "but look at the thing from
my point of view. One of you says he's got an instinct, and leads me to
a wasps' nest in the middle of a wood."
"I can't help wasps building in a wood," I replied.
"I don't say you can," answered George. "I am not arguing; I am merely
stating incontrovertible facts. The other one, who leads me up and down
hill for hours on scientific principles, doesn't know the north from the
south, and is never quite sure whether he's turned round or whether he
hasn't. Personally, I profess to no instincts beyond the ordinary, nor
am I a scientist. But two fields off I can see a man. I am going to
offer him the worth of the hay he is cutting, which I estimate at one
mark fifty pfennig, to leave his work, and lead me to within sight of
Todtmoos. If you two fellows like to follow, you can. If not, you can
start another system and work it out by yourselves."
George's plan lacked both originality and aplomb, but at the moment it
appealed to us. Fortunately, we had worked round to a very short
distance away from the spot where we had originally gone wrong; with the
result that, aided by the gentleman of the scythe, we recovered the road,
and reached Todtmoos four hours later than we had calculated to reach it,
with an appetite that took forty-five minutes' steady work in silence to
abate.
From Todtmoos we had intended to walk down to the Rhine; but having
regard to our extra exertions of the morning, we decided to promenade in
a carriage, as the French would say: and for this purpose hired a
picturesque-looking vehicle, drawn by a horse that I should have called
barrel-bodied but for contrast with his driver, in comparison with whom
he was angular. In Germany every vehicle is arranged for a pair of
horses, but drawn generally by one. This gives to the equipage a lop-
sided appearance, according to our notions, but it is held here to
indicate style. The idea to be conveyed is that you usually drive a pair
of horses, but that for the moment you have mislaid the other one. The
German driver is not what we should call a first-class whip. He is at
his best when he is asleep. Then, at all events, he is harmless; and the
horse being, generally speaking, intelligent and experienced, progress
under these conditions is comparatively safe. If in Germany they could
only train the horse to collect the money at the end of the journey,
there would be no need for a coachman at all. This would be a distinct
relief to the passenger, for when the German coachman is awake and not
cracking his whip he is generally occupied in getting himself into
trouble or out of it. He is better at the former. Once I recollect
driving down a steep Black Forest hill with a couple of ladies. It was
one of those roads winding corkscrew-wise down the slope. The hill rose
at an angle of seventy-five on the off-side, and fell away at an angle of
seventy-five on the near-side. We were proceeding very comfortably, the
driver, we were happy to notice, with his eyes shut, when suddenly
something, a bad dream or indigestion, awoke him. He seized the reins,
and, by an adroit movement, pulled the near-side horse over the edge,
where it clung, half supported by the traces. Our driver did not appear
in the least annoyed or surprised; both horses, I also, noticed, seemed
equally used to the situation. We got out, and he got down. He took
from under the seat a huge clasp-knife, evidently kept there for the
purpose, and deftly cut the traces. The horse, thus released, rolled
over and over until he struck the road again some fifty feet below. There
he regained his feet and stood waiting for us. We re-entered the
carriage and descended with the single horse until we came to him. There,
with the help of some bits of string, our driver harnessed him again, and
we continued on our way. What impressed me was the evident
accustomedness of both driver and horses to this method of working down a
hill.
Evidently to them it appeared a short and convenient cut. I should not
have been surprised had the man suggested our strapping ourselves in, and
then rolling over and over, carriage and all, to the bottom.
Another peculiarity of the German coachman is that he never attempts to
pull in or to pull up. He regulates his rate of speed, not by the pace
of the horse, but by manipulation of the brake. For eight miles an hour
he puts it on slightly, so that it only scrapes the wheel, producing a
continuous sound as of the sharpening of a saw; for four miles an hour he
screws it down harder, and you travel to an accompaniment of groans and
shrieks, suggestive of a symphony of dying pigs. When he desires to come
to a full stop, he puts it on to its full. If his brake be a good one,
he calculates he can stop his carriage, unless the horse be an extra
powerful animal, in less than twice its own length. Neither the German
driver nor the German horse knows, apparently, that you can stop a
carriage by any other method. The German horse continues to pull with
his full strength until he finds it impossible to move the vehicle
another inch; then he rests. Horses of other countries are quite willing
to stop when the idea is suggested to them. I have known horses content
to go even quite slowly. But your German horse, seemingly, is built for
one particular speed, and is unable to depart from it. I am stating
nothing but the literal, unadorned truth, when I say I have seen a German
coachman, with the reins lying loose over the splash-board, working his
brake with both hands, in terror lest he would not be in time to avoid a
collision.
At Waldshut, one of those little sixteenth-century towns through which
the Rhine flows during its earlier course, we came across that
exceedingly common object of the Continent: the travelling Briton grieved
and surprised at the unacquaintance of the foreigner with the subtleties
of the English language. When we entered the station he was, in very
fair English, though with a slight Somersetshire accent, explaining to a
porter for the tenth time, as he informed us, the simple fact that though
he himself had a ticket for Donaueschingen, and wanted to go to
Donaueschingen, to see the source of the Danube, which is not there,
though they tell you it is, he wished his bicycle to be sent on to Engen
and his bag to Constance, there to await his arrival. He was hot and
angry with the effort of the thing. The porter was a young man in years,
but at the moment looked old and miserable. I offered my services. I
wish now I had not--though not so fervently, I expect, as he, the
speechless one, came subsequently to wish this. All three routes, so the
porter explained to us, were complicated, necessitating changing and re-
changing. There was not much time for calm elucidation, as our own train
was starting in a few minutes. The man himself was voluble--always a
mistake when anything entangled has to be made clear; while the porter
was only too eager to get the job done with and so breathe again. It
dawned upon me ten minutes later, when thinking the matter over in the
train, that though I had agreed with the porter that it would be best for
the bicycle to go by way of Immendingen, and had agreed to his booking it
to Immendingen, I had neglected to give instructions for its departure
from Immendingen. Were I of a despondent temperament I should be
worrying myself at the present moment with the reflection that in all
probability that bicycle is still at Immendingen to this day. But I
regard it as good philosophy to endeavour always to see the brighter side
of things. Possibly the porter corrected my omission on his own account,
or some simple miracle may have happened to restore that bicycle to its
owner some time before the end of his tour. The bag we sent to
Radolfzell: but here I console myself with the recollection that it was
labelled Constance; and no doubt after a while the railway authorities,
finding it unclaimed at Radolfzell, forwarded it on to Constance.
But all this is apart from the moral I wished to draw from the incident.
The true inwardness of the situation lay in the indignation of this
Britisher at finding a German railway porter unable to comprehend
English. The moment we spoke to him he expressed this indignation in no
measured terms.
"Thank you very much indeed," he said; "it's simple enough. I want to go
to Donaueschingen myself by train; from Donaueschingen I am going to walk
to Geisengen; from Geisengen I am going to take the train to Engen, and
from Engen I am going to bicycle to Constance. But I don't want to take
my bag with me; I want to find it at Constance when I get there. I have
been trying to explain the thing to this fool for the last ten minutes;
but I can't get it into him."
"It is very disgraceful," I agreed. "Some of these German workmen know
hardly any other language than their own."
"I have gone over it with him," continued the man, "on the time table,
and explained it by pantomime. Even then I could not knock it into him."
"I can hardly believe you," I again remarked; "you would think the thing
explained itself."
Harris was angry with the man; he wished to reprove him for his folly in
journeying through the outlying portions of a foreign clime, and seeking
in such to accomplish complicated railway tricks without knowing a word
of the language of the country. But I checked the impulsiveness of
Harris, and pointed out to him the great and good work at which the man
was unconsciously assisting.
Shakespeare and Milton may have done their little best to spread
acquaintance with the English tongue among the less favoured inhabitants
of Europe. Newton and Darwin may have rendered their language a
necessity among educated and thoughtful foreigners. Dickens and Ouida
(for your folk who imagine that the literary world is bounded by the
prejudices of New Grub Street, would be surprised and grieved at the
position occupied abroad by this at-home-sneered-at lady) may have helped
still further to popularise it. But the man who has spread the knowledge
of English from Cape St. Vincent to the Ural Mountains is the Englishman
who, unable or unwilling to learn a single word of any language but his
own, travels purse in hand into every corner of the Continent. One may
be shocked at his ignorance, annoyed at his stupidity, angry at his
presumption. But the practical fact remains; he it is that is
anglicising Europe. For him the Swiss peasant tramps through the snow on
winter evenings to attend the English class open in every village. For
him the coachman and the guard, the chambermaid and the laundress, pore
over their English grammars and colloquial phrase books. For him the
foreign shopkeeper and merchant send their sons and daughters in their
thousands to study in every English town. For him it is that every
foreign hotel- and restaurant-keeper adds to his advertisement: "Only
those with fair knowledge of English need apply."
Did the English-speaking races make it their rule to speak anything else
than English, the marvellous progress of the English tongue throughout
the world would stop. The English-speaking man stands amid the strangers
and jingles his gold.
"Here," cries, "is payment for all such as can speak English."
He it is who is the great educator. Theoretically we may scold him;
practically we should take our hats off to him. He is the missionary of
the English tongue.