There is a small black notebook into which I look once or twice a year
to refresh my memory of a carnal and spiritual pilgrimage to Edinburgh,
made with Mifflin McGill (upon whose head be peace) in the summer of
1911. It is a testament of light-hearted youth, savoury with the
unindentured joys of twenty-one and the grand literary passion. Would
that one might again steer _Shotover_ (dearest of pushbikes) along the
Banbury Road, and see Mifflin's lean shanks twirl up the dust on the way
to Stratford! Never was more innocent merriment spread upon English
landscape. When I die, bury the black notebook with me.
That notebook is memorable also in a statistical way, and perchance may
serve future historians as a document proving the moderate cost of
wayfaring in those halcyon days. Nothing in Mr. Pepys' diary is more
interesting than his meticulous record of what his amusements cost him.
Mayhap some future economist will pore upon these guileless confessions.
For in the black memorandum book I succeeded, for almost the only time
in my life, in keeping an accurate record of the lapse of coin during
nine whole days. I shall deposit the document with the Congressional
Library in Washington for future annalists; in the meantime I make no
excuse for recounting the items of the first sixty hours. Let no one
take amiss the frequent entries marked "cider." July, 1911, was a hot
month and a dusty, and we were biking fifty miles the day. Please reckon
exchange at two cents per penny.
£ | s. | d
July 16 pint cider | | 4
½ pint cider | | 1½
lunch at Banbury | 2 | 2
pint cider at Ettington | | 3
supper at Stratford | 1 | 3
stamp and postcard | | 2
____ _____ _____
| 4 | 3½
July 17 Postcards and stamps | | 9
pencil | | 1
Warwick Castle | 2 | -
cider at the _Bear and Baculus_ | |
(which Mifflin _would_ call the | |
_Bear and Bacillus) _ | | 2½
_Bowling Green Inn, _bed and | |
breakfast | 3 | 2
Puncture | 1 | -
Lunch, Kenilworth | 1 | 6
Kenilworth Castle | | 6
Postcards | | 4
Lemonade, Coventry | | 4
Cider | | 2½
Supper, Tamworth, _The Castle Hotel_ | 2 | 1
____ _____ _____
| 16 | 5½
July 18 Johnson house, Lichfield | | 3
cider at _The Three Crowns_ | | 4
postcard and shave | | 4
_The King's Head_, bed and breakfast | 3 | 7
cider | | 2
tip on road[A] | | 1½
lunch, Uttoxeter | 1 | 3
cider, Ashbourne, _The Green | |
Man_ | | 3
landlord's drink, Ashbourne[B] | | 1
supper, _Newhaven House_, | 1 | -
lemonade, Buxton | | 3
____ _____ _____
TOTAL £1 4 1
($5.78)
[Footnote A: As far as I can remember, this was a gratuity to a rather
tarnished subject who directed us at a fork in the road, near a railway
crossing.]
[Footnote B: This was a copper well lavished; for the publican, a
ventripotent person with a liquid and glamorous brown eye, told us
excellent gossip about Dr. Johnson and George Eliot, both heroes in that
neighbourhood. "Yes," we said, "that man Eliot was a great writer," and
he agreed.]
That is to say, 24 bob for two and a half days. We used to reckon that
ten shillings a day would do us very nicely, barring luxuries and
emergencies. We attained a zealous proficiency in reckoning shillings
and pence, and our fervour in posting our ledgers would have gladdened a
firm of auditors. I remember lying on the coping of a stone bridge over
the water of Teviot near Hawick, admiring the green-brown tint of the
swift stream bickering over the stones. Mifflin was writing busily in
his notebook on the other side of the bridge. I thought to myself,
"Bless the lad, he's jotting down some picturesque notes of something
that has struck his romantic eye." And just then he spoke--"Four and
eleven pence half-penny so far to-day!"
Would I could retrogress over the devious and enchanting itinerary. The
McGill route from Oxford to Auld Reekie is 417 miles; it was the
afternoon of the ninth day when with thumping hearts we saw Arthur's
Seat from a dozen miles away. Our goal was in sight!
There was a reason for all this pedalling madness. Ever since the days
when we had wandered by Darby Creek, reading R.L.S. aloud to one
another, we had planned this trip to the gray metropolis of the north. A
score of sacred names had beckoned us, the haunts of the master. We knew
them better than any other syllables in the world. Heriot Row, Princes
Street, the Calton Hill, Duddingston Loch, Antigua Street, the Water of
Leith, Colinton, Swanston, the Pentland Hills--O my friends, do those
names mean to you what they did to us? Then you are one of the
brotherhood--what was to us then the sweetest brotherhood in the world!
In a quiet little hotel in Rutland Square we found decent lodging, in a
large chamber which was really the smoking room of the house. The city
was crowded with tourists on account of an expected visit of the King
and Queen; every other room in the hotel was occupied. Greatly to our
satisfaction we were known as "the smoking-room gentlemen" throughout
our stay. Our windows opened upon ranks of corridor-cars tying on the
Caledonian Railway sidings, and the clink and jar of buffers and
coupling irons were heard all night long. I seem to remember that
somewhere in his letters R.L.S. speaks of that same sound. He knew
Rutland Square well, for his boyhood friend Charles Baxter lived there.
Writing from Samoa in later years he says that one memory stands out
above all others of his youth--Rutland Square. And while that was of
course only the imaginative fervour of the moment, yet we were glad to
know that in that quiet little cul de sac behind the railway terminal we
were on ground well loved by Tusitala.
The first evening, and almost every twilight while we were in Auld
Reekie, we found our way to 17 Heriot Row--famous address, which had
long been as familiar to us as our own. I think we expected to find a
tablet on the house commemorating the beloved occupant; but no; to our
surprise it was dark, dusty, and tenantless. A sign TO SELL was
prominent. To take the name of the agent was easy. A great thought
struck us. Could we not go over the house in the character of
prospective purchasers? Mifflin and I went back to our smoking room and
concocted a genteel letter to Messrs. Guild and Shepherd, Writers to the
Signet.
Promptly came a reply (Scots business men answer at once).