HAMER’S FIRST TRAM
In the country there are houses far more truly the recipients of
formal visits than their occupants, just as, at public functions, your
carriage comes up to your place’s name instead of your own; for master
and tenant pass away, but the House remaineth. You do not call “on”
Bythams, Lyndesays and Wyllens; you call “at” Gilthrotin, Crump or The
Laithes. It is the house that stands on your visiting-list,--that has
become a habit; and your dropped pasteboard is for its door rather than
for those beneath its roof.
Watters was one of these “habits,” but the Legend of the Kitchen
Tea, mysteriously promulgated and enlarged, held many aloof who had
no particular axe to grind. Mrs. Shaw, divided between crochet and
creameries, was indifferent to the quality and size of their social
circle. Hamer, sweetly taking the grinders at their personal estimate,
was unconscious of any difficulty. It was only Dandy on whom the
situation, seen more clearly, pressed unkindly.
She began to grow suspicious of callers, to strain her ears when the
sound of the grinding was low, waiting for it to start up with the
roar of a motor-cycle. She came to know the grades in leeches--the
business-leech and the hobby-leech and the charity-leech and the
soul-leech. No matter what their particular goal, it was reached by the
same path--Hamer Shaw’s cheque-book. The grinders did not want money,
as a rule. Their needs as well as their methods were more subtle, based
upon the pure ethics of elections, local, general or “by,” demure eyes
turned upon next year’s voting-register. It was most of it “by,”
Dandy reflected, watching their tortuous procedure. On the whole, she
preferred the leeches.
She began to wince a little when Harriet, cheerfully unconscious of
having helped the Legend on its way, took it for granted that their
acquaintance was in common; and though, at Dandy’s disclaimer, she
would grunt “Cat-footers! Gees out of repair or something!” her
contempt for the ostraciser did little to soothe the soul of the
ostracised.
Visiting Harriet’s farm, Dandy had come, with some surprise, upon
Harriet’s father. Harriet seemed to stand so very much alone; you did
not credit her with such weaknesses as near relations. Yet Fawcett
Knewstubb was a distinct weakness, a very delicate spot indeed. He
was very horsy, very check and utterly selfish, and a really strong
connoisseur in language and whisky. Harriet kept him and his hunters,
called him “Stubbs!” in the voice of a sergeant, and wished him dead,
in a bitter heart.
Hamer and his daughter motored to Bluecaster Show along a road swarming
with enthusiasts who had no notion of making room for anybody. Dandy
felt more of an outsider than ever in the crowded field, with its
jumping and cattle rings, its tents, its long lines of wooden stands.
She saw many faces she had come to know, but few held return signs
of recognition. The usual people were busy greeting each other, very
contented, very much at home. They were there because they had always
been there, since the time they could first sit on a stand without
falling through. After the greetings, they buried their heads in their
catalogues and slouched along from pen to pen, walking blindly into
everybody else, and offering information to the empty air. Anxious
to do the thing thoroughly, Dandy and Hamer bought catalogues and
slouched, too. By this means they were successful in running into
Harriet, leaning up against something extremely solid with four legs
and a horn or two, gloating over the blue-ribboned card opposite. When
Hamer’s catalogue knocked her hat sideways, she merely remarked “How’s
that for beef?” and continued to gloat. It was a minute or two before
they could call her back to earth, but as soon as she realised their
existence she left off gloating, and trotted them round the field in a
terrific whirl of instruction, leading them at last, somewhat stunned,
to a seat on the Grand Stand.
The day was brilliant, but Harriet, defended against all odds by
Donegal, Burberry and K., with a huge carriage-umbrella tucked under
her arm, insisted stoutly that you never could tell. It always rained
at Bluecaster Show--everybody knew that--and it would rain to-day; this
in a tone indicating that it jolly well better had. Dandy, dressed with
the delicacy of a Blue Wyandotte, felt abashed until she discovered
that Harriet was practically alone in her gloomily-barometric choice of
attire.
Ringed in its green cup brimmed by blue hills, the scene had its own
untheatrical charm, but its thrills were mild and long in arriving.
Business went forward with little regard to spectators, and after a
tedious half-hour, during which four horses, eight cows and twelve
sheep stared solemnly at the crowd, while the whole Committee got down
into the ring and wrangled about them, she found her thoughts straying
to the social ethics of the meeting.
There was a rail dividing the stand, cleaving the two-shilling section
from the half-crown. This puzzled her, as the planks on either side
were equally hard. Harriet’s explanation that you got sixpenny-worth
more water-jump scarcely seemed to go deep enough. The grinders were
half-crowners, she noticed, glued as a rule to the side of some local
celebrity, such as the Member or the High Sheriff or the President; but
the leeches only ran to two shillings--with the exception of Helwise,
who was inviting Bluecaster to come and see how badly they wanted a new
bath at Crabtree, when she wasn’t issuing orders to Lanty in the ring.
Apart from his aunt, Lancaster was having the usual harried time of an
authority on these occasions. When he wasn’t helping or looking for
the judge, he was calling competitors or catching stray sheep, artfully
eluding business-demands from button-holing tenants, or rescuing the
usual veterans of the ring who stand so trustingly behind the hurdles.
He knew everybody, it seemed, just as Helwise, talking baths, knew
everybody, and Harriet, flourishing her clumsy gamp. Names passing from
mouth to mouth were no more than empty sound to herself. The fact that
Seaman was jumping did not fill her with anticipation, nor could the
recent death of a well-known horseman move her to a sense of loss. She
began to be rather bored by the unhurrying succession of events, and
checked herself guiltily in a yawn. The judge of the moment was having
a real day out with a fine hunter-class, and had to be practically
dragged off each horse in turn. Hamer was drinking in Harriet’s
observations like an eager child, but he was as new to it all as his
daughter.
Even the old hands were getting a little weary, and found time to turn
a speculative eye upon the strangers--the cheery, handsome man and
the slim, well-groomed girl; and the Legend went round in ascending
chromatics of incredulity. Some knew Hamer by accident, so to speak:
“Behaved very decently over that Abbey Corner smash, don’t you know!
Sporting and all that--gave a thumping big subscription to to-day’s
business,” etc. etc., and wondered vaguely whether he might not be
worth cultivating. The women with sons looked at Dandy and said that
anybody married anybody nowadays, and that even Kitchen Tea might be
made positively chic if the butter were spread thick enough. The women
with daughters only were not interested.
Dandy had ceased to be self-conscious, however. She was watching
Lancaster at work with the same dreary chill of separation that she
had experienced in the Lane. This was his life, this interchange of
business and friendship to which she was an absolute stranger. Harriet
was perfectly at ease in it, grumbling, grunting, cracking a joke with
a passing farmer or summing-up a prize-winner in a pithy sentence--at
ease and happy.
“Dull enough to _you_, I expect,” she observed, detecting Dandy’s
secret yawn. “We’re brought up to it, of course. Besides, it’s my
trade. Rotten show, though! Rotten judging! Fool of a crowd! But all
the same I couldn’t stop away, any more than Lanty Lancaster. I’ve
grown to it, you see. When I was a kid it was my big blow-out of the
year, and I’ve still got the same feeling for it, like Christmas Day
and all that piffle. It isn’t the thing itself--it gets slacker and
rottener every year, as I’m always telling them, especially Lanty
Lancaster--it’s what it stands for, and all the years behind it. If
ever I want to purr, it’s when I’m sitting on this shaky old stand,
watching a flat-footed imitation of a horse going slap for the water.
But you must be about fed up on it, I suppose! It’s as slow as Noah’s
Ark, and, besides, it always rains.” She slipped the catch of the gamp
to see if it worked, and shot a glance at the sun which should have
sent it slinking over the horizon like a dog shouted to kennel. “We’re
getting through to the jumping, though. You’ll find that a bit more
enlivening. Stubbs is turning out--did I tell you? He’s got a mount
that can jump about as much as a hedgehog, but he thinks he’s going to
win all right. It’s no use _my_ jawing; he won’t take anything from
_me_. I hope he’ll behave decently, that’s all, and not get slanging
the judges. Trust Stubbs to have been where the sun is shining, even
though it always rains!”
The band behind the stand broke into a dirge which proved to be “The
Girl in the Taxi,” and to this suitable _motif_ the leapers sidled into
the ring for their primary reconnaissance. There was something of the
dignity of ritual in their solemn progression from fence to fence, in
the measuring thrust of the intelligent heads through the furze. Dandy
had her first thrill in spite of the accompaniment. She wanted to beat
a little drum in the wake of the processional hoofs.
Harriet knew the riders, gentleman, groom or horse-dealer, just as she
knew the mounts,--from the hunter, that did a little gentle following
of hounds by the aid of gates, to the professional “leppers,” that
never see open country, but spend their time winning prizes at a round
of shows, and jump more with their brains than with any other section
of their queer-shaped carcasses. She dragged out a pencil like a poker,
and settled down to work.
“That’s Captain Pole-Pole on Griselda, the little gray. Rushes
everything that she doesn’t take steck at, and a brute to hold, by the
look of her. The big roarer waving its wild tail and doing an imitation
of a charging squadron belongs to Bluecaster. Lanty has her out for the
fun of the thing. They call her something idiotic--oh, yes--_Flossie!_
She can jump quite a bit--Heaven knows how--though you can feel the
stand shake. There’s a groom up--plays the triangle in my village
orchestra. The thing called Chipmunk, looking as though it was made of
knitting-needles, belongs to the Ritson Bros. One’s riding, and the
other runs in and throws things if Chippie starts frivolling. There’s
the winner--the little brown like an oak box with head and legs. You’d
think he hadn’t the reach for a grass-plot rail, but he’s there, every
time. Watch his eyes, and his good-tempered ears! He’s as pleased as
Punch all along, and as dead in earnest as a city man sprinting for
his train. Yes, he’ll win right enough! Why? Because he jumps with
his head. You can see him stop to think just before he takes off, and
he doesn’t give the fence an inch more than is wanted. This is his
living--he comes from Saddleback way--and little Seaman doesn’t mean
to waste himself playing round. Stubbs must be cracked to think he can
beat him! The rough-looking black with the rope-reins has been taught
to behave like a mad circus and an Ulster riot combined. Its owner is
a blacksmith in his spare time, and nobody else can stick on its back.
It’s clever, too, but it’s apt to get carried away by its play-acting
and make mistakes. Flyer goes to sleep and leaves his heels behind
him, and Grace tries to do the tight-rope act on the pole with all
four feet at once. That’s Stubbs on his beetle-crusher--Lapwing, _he_
calls it! He doesn’t look any too genial, does he? We had a row before
starting about rotifers, if you know what those are--some sort of a
measly swimming microbe or rotten reptile of that kind. It’s the only
thing he cares a rap about except horses and the inside of a glass, and
he was ramping mad because some of the beastly things had got thrown
away. I hope Lanty is somewhere about.”
Stubbs was immense--very check, very baggy, and very red in the face.
His side-whiskers bristled aggressively, and there was a vicious gleam
in his eye. He was riding a boring chestnut with weak quarters and the
action of a schoolboy in clogs. Harriet dug the person in front of her
with the gamp by way of relieving her feelings. Hamer and Dandy tried
to think of things to say, but she cut them short.
“Oh, it won’t be the first time he’s made fools of us both in public!
I can’t help feeling a bit grubbed, but I suppose I can stick it out.
Anyhow, I’ve got to stop and see him through. Save them hunting me up,
if he goes and breaks his neck.”
She thrust her hands in her pockets and scowled. Lapwing had already
collided with the brown, and Stubbs, ripe for fight, was beginning to
explode. The quiet little boy on Seaman stared in astonishment until
Lancaster, coming up, laid a palm on Lapwing’s poking nose and drew him
out of range. He had some tale ready, peculiarly adapted to Stubbs’
appreciation, and Harriet caught her father’s guffaw as he rode to his
place. She sighed sharply--with relief, Dandy judged--and addressed
herself to shouting “Good lad!” or “Good lass!” with supreme and
delightful unconsciousness of self.
The sleepy Flyer led off, and left everything in ruins behind him,
after which there was a lengthy pause, while rails and bricks were
replaced and furze-tops refixed. Griselda gave a charming illustration
of the so-called feminine temperament, refusing to look at any jump
until forced upon it, and then flying it with a complete trust in
Providence and an absolute disregard of economy. After these, the
performance of the Bluecaster warrior ranked high, in spite of the
roaring and waving accompaniment, and a suggestion of clanking chains
as she rocked past. Carrying her proud head at the noble angle affected
by some ladies much engaged in good works, she yet contrived, by dint
of squinting down her nose at the last moment, to view a jump in time
to clear it, and thundered on to the next in an atmosphere of escaped
earthquakes. In spite of her size and weight, she tackled the trap
quite neatly, and roared down the field to the water. Here she was
superb! On the wings of sound she came, gathered herself into a mighty
bunch, plunged and was over, leaving mingled impressions of trumpets,
bazaar-bunting and a motor-exhaust.
Chipmunk did quite a good round, thanks to a continuous shower of hats,
sticks and ear-splitting yells; but Grace’s tight-rope effects were
unsuccessful, except with the pole, on which she managed to do quite a
delicate little bit of work. Lucifera, the black, was greeted warmly
by the crowd, to whom she was well known, and responded by putting her
back into things, like any other popular clown. Nothing grudging, she
gave them all her tricks, from the preliminary, vicious, white-eyed
sidle and spin to the last terrific bound with which she caught the bit
in her teeth and rushed the obstacle. She missed the water, however, by
trying to do a circle on the back outside edge too far up the field,
but made up for it by leathering off into the crowd with a splendid
impersonation of a mad runaway.
Little Seaman had only one mannerism, a circular trot like the weaving
of a spell that seemed to wind him up for the first hurdle. Dandy’s
heart went out to the sensible, eager, square little horse with the
box-legs. He might have been a machine measured to each length and
lift, so obviously did he spare unnecessary effort, had it not been
for clear evidence of mind behind, of humanly-patient intelligence
and endeavour. At the water, his customary check drew a groan of
disappointment, changing to applause as it was seen that he was safely
across. Certain ladies were so ear-piercingly enraptured that he had to
drop on his knees and bow his little box-head before trotting soberly
back to his place.
And, at last--Stubbs.
It was perfectly clear that Nature had never intended Lapwing to “lep”;
clearer still that Lapwing was entirely of Nature’s opinion. He was
born tired; his foolish head had a weary droop; his heavy hoofs were in
curious contrast with his weedy frame. What he could not walk through,
he sat on behind. When driven to rise, he hit the swing-gate with such
force that he nearly looped the loop along with it. He bundled into the
trap like a sack of old clothes, utterly abolished the stone wall, and
plumped slick into the water, where he stayed determinedly, in spite of
the volcanic eruption in the saddle. Lancaster removed the pair once
more, this time with difficulty. Harriet flushed a little under the joy
of the crowd, but she said nothing, only gave the same sharp little
sigh as she watched the retreating figures and the soothing hand on the
check knee.
The second round brought its own disasters. Flyer had finally gone to
sleep for the afternoon, and was withdrawn. Chipmunk missed the gate,
owing to there being no hat handy. Griselda and Grace both foozled the
wall, the one from temper and the other from silliness, and Flossie
was so busy being noble that she forgot to squint at the trap and was
caught. Lucifera, excited by the crowd, began to overact, tried to sit
on the shilling stand and broke a stirrup-leather. Only Seaman steadily
kept his form--and Stubbs.
Lapwing came out as if he were going to be hanged. At the first hurdle
he manifested pained surprise, stopped dead and began to nibble the
furze. Blows and curses brought him to the straw-bound pole, where he
again paused to munch. The gate being uneatable, however, he cleared
it, pecking heavily, broke the trap into matchwood, and jammed his
rider’s knee against the wall. Then, evincing a sudden passion for the
water, tore up to it _con amore_, only to swerve aside at the wing,
leaving Stubbs to go on in the main direction; and as splash, roar and
oath ascended to heaven, returned to his nibbling.
The Committee appeared on the spot like mushrooms. Stubbs was fished
out, set right end up, condoled with, and, being close in front of
the Grand Stand, requested to hush. But Stubbs did not hush, had no
intention of hushing. Stamping and shouting, he informed them what
he thought of shows in general and this show in particular. Then
he was requested to leave, but he wouldn’t do that, either, and by
way of reply ran a coil of lurid language round every member of the
association. Men climbed down from the stands and joined the happy
party, until presently it seemed as if the whole Agricultural Society
was helping in the suppression and ejection of Stubbs.
Harriet, white to the lips, observed “Rotter! Low-down rotter!” between
her teeth and got to her feet; but when she would have made her way
down, Hamer caught her by the arm.
“This isn’t your job, my girl!” he said cheerfully, pressing her back
into her seat. “You stick to Dandy there, and grit your teeth a minute
longer. I’ll have things straightened out in two twos.”
He dropped into the ring with extraordinary lightness, while his
daughter slipped a hand round Harriet’s unreceptive elbow, by way of
conveying sympathy and keeping her quiet at the same time. Helwise
fussed down to them, dropping things and repeating the bath-theme _ad
lib._ The people near began to discuss hats and servants with feverish
politeness, bringing a faint smile even to the victim’s rigid lips. The
Member stood up and tried to see something at the back of the stand
that wasn’t there, and of course all the grinders followed his example.
Hamer broke a path through the crush with his own pleasant directness
of purpose. Everybody was trying to make Stubbs behave, and nobody was
succeeding: neither Bluecaster, tongue-tied and ashamed, nor Lancaster,
soothing and propelling, nor the High Sheriff, the Chief Constable, the
Judges, the Secretary and Treasurer, the Referee in All Classes, nor
the Police. It was a case of carrying Stubbs off bodily, and nobody
liked to do it, for, in spite of language and check and abominable
conduct, he was yet One of Us, and moreover his daughter watched from
the stand. To them came Hamer the Outsider.
“Sir,” he observed to Stubbs, with the simple grace of touch that gave
his every action charm, “I understand you to be an authority upon
_Rotifera_. I should like your advice upon the mounting of certain
specimens of _Bdelloidaceæ_ that I have just obtained!”
Stubbs broke off half-way in a stream of adjectives beginning with the
second and fourth letters of the alphabet, and stared; and everybody
round, after a momentary impression that Hamer was drunk, too, wagged
their heads and repeated “_Bdelloidaceæ!_” in a loud chorus, as if it
were some kind of charm, until Stubbs himself began to say any bits of
it that came foremost, without in the least meaning to.
“I have also some fine samples of _Pedalionidæ_,” Hamer continued in
his comforting tones, motioning Lancaster to call up his car as he
engineered the offender towards the rope. “A remarkable species--most
remarkable!--but perfectly familiar to you, I’ve no doubt. The
_Flosculariaceæ_, too, not to speak of the _Philodinaceæ_--here we are,
and mind the step!”
Stubbs made one last attempt to get up steam, but was throttled with a
fresh animalculæ, hustled into the car and driven off. Lanty came back
to the girls.
“I’m to drive you home, if you’ll allow me,” he said to Dandy; and “Can
I find your bicycle?” to Harriet. “The third round will be through in
a few minutes, but I’ll hand my job over to somebody, and we’ll clear
off at once, if you like. Your man has the horse, so he’s all right.
You’ve done well, to-day, haven’t you? How many firsts did you get? You
and Wild Duck are bad to beat!”
Harriet grunted, but her face relaxed. It hardened again, however, as
she stood up and took a last defiant look round before walking off
the field. She cycled home behind the dog-cart, counting the times
Lancaster’s eyes were turned to Dandy’s face. She was a trifle cheered
when it began to rain heavily, and she was able to hand over the
carriage-umbrella with an air of patronage, and splash along bravely in
Burberry and K.; but, in spite of the “firsts,” in spite of having been
proved infallible, her cup of bitterness, that day, was full.
Helwise chattered all the way as blithely as if erring fathers and
shamed daughters did not exist. Bluecaster, it seemed, had promised the
bath.
“He was quite agreeable about it, Lancelot--porcelain on legs,
nickel-plated hot and cold, _you_ know! I really hadn’t to hint more
than _twice_! That led on, of course, to the Perils to Plumbers--my
dear boy, how often have I told you that I never _ask_? He’s sending
the cheque to-night. You don’t think, Miss Shaw, that your charming
father----? Really, Lancelot, you needn’t bite my head off! You’re not
a bit grateful about the bath, and I don’t agree with you that the old
one was all right. I knew I should get a present to-day, because I
put on my skirt wrong side out. That always means luck! It was rather
awkward, because the wrong side of the stuff doesn’t go with the coat,
and the picoted seams looked rather queer--I saw people staring, on the
stand--but I’m glad I stuck to it! If I’d changed, I shouldn’t have got
the bath.”
Dandy listened vaguely to the chattering voice, thinking of her
father, happily mounted on his favourite hobby. He would love looking
after Stubbs, and they would spend the evening forming plans for his
regeneration. She had a touch of tenderness for the impossible Stubbs;
he had unintentionally given her this blissful ride in the rain. When
Helwise stopped for a second, she listened to the hoofs and to Lanty’s
little clicks and calls of encouragement. She had heard him define
horse-travelling as “company and music.” She remembered it now, and had
music in her heart to match. And so, in hearing it, forgot to listen to
Helwise altogether.
* * * * *
And for a whole week the County talked of Hamer, and went about prating
of _Bdelloidaceæ_ as if they bred them, and looked up rotiferous
information on the quiet, in order to confound each other’s ignorance.
The wives called at Watters and filled the card-tray, and the postman
staggered under letters of invitation. Hamer became known as “sound,”
“useful,” “a man at a pinch,” “a dashed good sort all round, don’t you
know!” and every club in the district fought to own him. He was quite
pleased about it all, and never guessed that his impulsive piece of
“tramming” had worked the transformation. Somebody in a hole needing
pulling out was all that Hamer wanted to make him happy, and he was
seldom out of a job. He welcomed the new friends as he had welcomed the
grinders and leeches, and opened to them his heart and his pocket.
That was how Hamer became “county.”