On leaving "Barchester" we took the road to Gloucester. I think it
safe to say that it is the finest road for motoring in England, which
is equivalent to saying in the world. The French roads, I am told,
are in some ways superior, but so straight and hard and white that
travelling on them soon becomes monotonous. Then they are so
artificial, running like the road the Tsar is said to have laid out
with a ruler, between Petersburg and Moscow! But the English roads
run naturally, with many a turn from town to town, just as man first
found it easy to walk. Of course we now have roads at home equal to
any--for the first year or two--but think how many generations have
used these roads, and always, I imagine, kept them in repair. The
difference is like that between a granite bridge and one of our new
concrete ones. At first there seems nothing to choose between them;
but when the rain and frost of a few seasons have done their work,
the one has begun to look dingy and shabby, while the other has
gained in dignity.
Of course it is not only the surface of the road which makes motoring
on it so delightful; it is the continuous succession of lovely rural
scenes. For example, we had not gone many miles when we met a
horseman--an ancient groom we supposed--riding along the grass by the
roadside and followed by a pack of hounds, which he was "walking."
Ruth jumped from the car and begged to be allowed to take a kodak of
them. He smilingly called them together, the older ones looking up
into his face and the pups still nosing about the grass. The light
was good and the promise of a satisfactory picture excellent.
The "groom" asked if he might have a picture when the film had been
developed, which Ruth said she would be delighted to send if he would
give her his address.
"Just address it, ma'am, to 'James the Huntsman, The Kennels,
Blankshire.'"
"But your last name?" she asked.
"That is my name, ma'am, James the Huntsman."
So we learned that not only was he not a groom but that we were not
in the twentieth century but still in feudal England, where a man's
occupation was his designation--the individual not having yet
emerged! That his status should be fixed for life was evidently as
satisfactory to "James the Huntsman" as, it is to be presumed, was
his master's, whether knight or baronet, to him.
"It is like a scene from 'Ivanhoe,'" said Ruth, when we were again
under way. "If we were a little farther to the east, in
Northamptonshire, where Sherwood Forest lies, I have no doubt we
should meet Gurth the serf, or Robin Hood!"
"No," said I, "the serfs are working in factories, and Robin Hood is
in the 'city.'"
"You talk like William Jennings Bryan," mocked Ruth.
A few miles farther on we came to another England. Again we met a
horseman. I said this time a "groom," but Ruth said she was sure he
would call himself "chevalier."
Whoever he was he looked noble enough to be a duke. He was riding a
seal-brown horse whose coat shone like a chestnut in the sunlight. I
noticed that the horse was restive, and so shut off the engine till
he should pass. The rider thanked me, touching his cap--so I suppose
he could not have been a duke--and remarked that the horse was "full
of beans."
I said it was a superb animal, and the groom, leaning forward to pat
his neck, for the horse was still nervous, replied: "He ought to be,
sir, for he's own brother to"--I am sorry to say I have forgotten the
name--"winner of the Derby." So we had met the aristocracy, after
all!
Not long after this we met a flock of sheep. Again we stopped. But
we got no thanks from the surly shepherd--Ruth said because he was so
tired--but the panting dog, who ran from side to side on the road,
gave us a grateful glance, as much as to say: "I am glad you did
that, for had you kept on, these fools would have been all over the
road, and I should have been beaten."
But it was not only the passengers on the "king's highway" who kept
us entertained--not to say entranced--but houses and gardens on
either side made it hard to keep the tenth commandment!
When I said this to Ruth, she replied that it could hardly be my
neighbor's wife whom I coveted, which was true, if cattish, for the
ones we saw were more worthy than alluring! The ox and the ass were
not in evidence, but I suspect Ruth coveted the man servant, and
specially the maid servant, of whom we caught glimpses from time to
time, flitting across the well-trimmed lawns or standing at the
servants' entrance, gossiping with the butcher or the baker or the
candlestick-maker--what difference can it make to a young woman who
is forbidden to have "followers"?
It was the houses which tempted me. There was an infinite variety to
choose from--Elizabethan, Tudor, Jacobean (I am not sure I am always
right about the period)--but I recognized the real Queen Anne. Here
was a "gentleman's residence" and there a tiny cottage covered with
climbing roses. I noted scores of Elizabethan houses with chimneys
as graceful as the smoke which curled from them. Why cannot a modern
architect design a chimney which will draw the eye as well as the
smoke? And the gardens! Those of the poor as well as of the rich
were a riot of color. There were dogs and ponies and
"governess-carts," and all the things we are familiar with in the
illustrated papers. As I looked at all these delectable things, it
seemed to me that England was an earthly paradise; as old Gaunt says,
"A second Eden." I grew melancholy as I remembered the "L" and the
crowded subway, and the noise and the dirt of our chief city, the
struggle for existence and the prevailing discontent--every man
striving to surpass his neighbor--no one content with that station in
life to which "it had pleased God to call him." How many Americans,
I said to myself, believe God has called them to anything? Here, I
continued, is peace and contentment. Would God that I were there!
Now Ruth has an uncanny way of knowing of what one is thinking, so I
was not startled when she broke into my revery by saying:
"Yes, it is all beautiful, but how long could you stand it? I do not
mean what you now see, but what you do not see! How many people have
taken off their caps to us this morning simply because they believe
us to belong to the 'gentry'? In that last village through which we
passed, did the children 'bob' to us because they recognized our
superiority in character or education? You would not have been the
vicar of that lovely Norman church we passed five miles back one
month before there would have been trouble! The 'servility' of the
'lower classes' would so have gotten on your nerves that you would
have insulted some laborer for the satisfaction of having him answer
you like a man! You would find another thing, which is that
'kowtowing' is not confined to one class. If the laborer 'kowtows'
to the vicar, the vicar must 'kowtow' to the lord of the manor."
"Why, Ruth," I cried, "where is Bryan now? You talk like the ladies
on the soap-boxes in Union Square!"
"You forget," she said, "that I am not talking about myself. I
should adore to have the school children 'bob' to me, and would be
quite willing in turn to 'bob' to the Lady Emeline or to the Dowager
Countess. But you! Really, John, I sometimes think you know
yourself less than any one I ever met!"
"It's lucky I have you to show me what I am like," I growled.
"Indeed it is," she cheerfully replied. "I'll tell you whom you are
like: you are exactly like Crugan!"
To show you how absurd the comparison is, I must tell you something
about Tom Crugan. He lived in our ward before he made his fortune,
and was a good fellow--is still, so far as I know! More than once he
had helped me when some poor wretch had got into trouble and needed a
little "influence." When he got the contract for a section of the
subway, he made a lot of money--I hope honestly! Then he made a
lucky investment in real estate, which, curiously enough, the city
found it must have--at an advance in price--and then Tom and his
family made the grand tour. Mrs. Crugan kept herself in the
background, but the girls, who were real Irish beauties, had a
_succès fou_. One of them married an Italian prince, and the other a
German count. Well, Tom stayed abroad about two years and then
suddenly returned. He came down to our part of the town soon after,
to look after some property he held there, and I saw him.
"Hello, Crugan," I said. "I am glad to see you back. Did you like
Europe?"
"I did for a while," he replied, "but the best day of the trip was
when I set foot in Hoboken. The carriage was there to meet us, and
when I had put my wife in, she says to me: 'Ain't you comin' too,
Tom?'
"'Not in a carriage, I ain't,' says I. 'And what is more, if that
coachman touches his hat to me again, I'm liable to do him an injury!
You go on up, mother, and I'll be there most as soon as you, anyway.'
"So I got onto a Christopher Street ferry, and caught a crosstown and
swung onto a Fourth Avenue and went out onto the front platform to
smoke a cigar and watch the driver handle his team. Pretty soon a
mail-wagon got across the tracks, and he had to pull up pretty sharp,
and the handle of his brake caught me in the stomach. Did he throw a
fit because he had hit a man who was smoking a twenty-five-cent
cigar? He did not. He turns to me and says: 'Why the hell can't you
keep your belly out of my brake?' Say, I could have kissed that man!"