At Sea in Dreams—In London Town—Off to Bordeaux—Our Chateau—In
Biarritz—Old Madrid—I am a Spanish Troubadour—Mercedes—My old Comrade
ceases to sing
I am a rolling, rolling stone;
Stern-fashioned in the mould
Wherein God recasts sand and bone,
I glitter with pure gold—
His workmanship, of course, not mine.
So still I roll along,
A sad old stone, half gem-divine,
Gathering moss and song.
God made me; yet I am weak throughout—
I feel this as I roll,
By deep wild waters knocked about,
But like my friend the mole,
Hid ’neath the earth and flowers, I peep
Up through a crack and spy
Another world, from darkness deep
I see a great blue sky.
So on I’ll roll and roll; until
On some wild torrent’s leap
I fall into the mighty mill,
Sink in the ocean’s deep.
To lie quite still as ages fly
’Neath stars up o’er the main,
Till, brought up by the Diver, I
Go rolling on again!
FROM those wild bush-lands I passed away into the cities and on to
ships, then again back to the cities and seaports of the world.
I have often thought of the old crews that I sailed with as a boy. I’ve
met them sometimes in grog saloons and sailors’ homes in seaport towns
of far-away countries; only some of them though—for many went down to
the sea in ships and never returned. I have stood alone at night, in the
far-off seaport’s little street, and heard the drunken laughter of
sailormen by their ships at the wharves below as I gazed into the
windows of the second-hand slop-shop at the relics. Old binoculars,
compasses, oilskin caps and big sea-boots hanging on pegs, in rows, for
sale. As I looked a mist crept under the rotting rafters of the dingy,
musty, oil-lit room, the old oilskins swelled, and bearded wraiths of
dead sailors danced. The big sea-boots tumbled about in a jig by the
broken window as I watched, and sounds of long-dead laughter echoed in
my ears. Then up the little seaport street, from the bay, came a gust of
wind and blew me into the fo’c’sle of a ship far away at sea. I played
the fiddle to the dancing dead men and climbed aloft as their hollow
voices shouted a muffled, windy chantey. The old skipper, with his hand
arched beneath his oilskin sou’wester, looked up aloft and shouted, and
we all echoed back: “Aye, aye, sir,” and my comrade touched me on the
shoulder and said: “Come on, Middleton, you don’t want to buy any of
those d——d old oilskins.”
* * * * *
Once more I found myself off, homeward bound round the Horn, crashing
and rolling along, the howling sails aloft singing to the humming winds
that we loved to hear, for the harder they blew the sooner we should be
in England.
When I arrived in London the autumn rains were falling, and the
population of the mighty city of pavements and stone walls moved along
under a myriad umbrellas, as old St Paul’s at flying intervals voiced
forth from its mellow, iron throat the flight of Time.
Some musical friends in the city had suggested to me that I should do a
wise thing if I went to the fashionable winter resorts in France. The
idea struck me as a very good one. I was told that instrumental players
had gone to France, Spain and Italy and come back wealthy. I had seen a
good deal of the world, at its outposts, and had not succeeded in making
even a portion of a fortune, so I resolved to get out of England without
delay. Before I went I felt that I must have a comrade. The thought of
old age with its boon companion, decrepitude, had always filled me with
a strange horror, as something worse than death, and so for old age I
always felt a commiseration and tenderness which gave me confidence in
grey hairs, which often got me into trouble, but more often brought
advice and sensible comradeship.
When in London, a year or so before, I had made friends with a gentleman
whose name was Bonnivard. He had been educated in France, was a clever
man and could speak French, Spanish and Italian. It struck me that if I
could find out his whereabouts I might persuade him to come with me, for
he was a jovial man, and his knowledge of French would help me in my
travels. To tell you the truth, too, I was rather short of money and
thought perhaps he might even lend me a little towards the expenses of
the trip. I was getting older, and experience had taught me that too
much money was not so inconvenient as too little. I went off to his
villa in the suburbs; the old place had “To Let” in the window. No one
in the district knew of his whereabouts, but at last, just as I was
almost disheartened and giving up the thought of finding him, I met a
gentleman who had known him. He at once gave me his address—inmate,
Homerton Workhouse, Hackney! I was very much upset. I knew too well what
trials, insults and sufferings my friend must have experienced before he
sought a haven of rest in that terrible inquisition, the English
workhouse.
I went to Homerton. The officials treated me most politely directly they
discovered the reason of my visit. When I told my old comrade I wanted
to take him to France, as my guest and interpreter, I was considerably
affected by his delight. He had aged since I had last seen him; the old
stiff military moustachios had turned white and had lost their
aristocratic, upward twirls. Next day they were once more alert and
alive with renewed majesty, and the handsome old face, though deeply
wrinkled, was boyish-looking with delight. He was a new being in his
frock-coat and tall hat, which I purchased remarkably cheaply at a
pawnbroker’s shop. The gloss of his hat was perfection, and as he
smoothed it with his sleeve, in the old way, he laughed almost
hysterically, with a schoolboy’s laughter, but my ear detected the
wizened, high note of age in it, and it made him more pathetic than
ever.
The next day, with his dead wife’s photograph and his travelling kit in
my box, as steerage passengers we went down the Thames together, both
happy, on board the s.s. _Albatross_, bound for Bordeaux.
Arriving at Bordeaux, we found it advisable, owing to the state of our
exchequer, to live outside in the suburbs, so we rented a pretty little
chateau in the Rue V——, Cauderon. The weather was bitterly cold, and we
spent a good portion of the day in trying to make our coke fire burn.
Every night we walked into Bordeaux and got a good feed in a restaurant;
one franc fifty centimes secured us several courses, with a bottle of
wine each included. I wandered about Bordeaux a good deal, and went down
the leafy pathways of the Botanical Gardens, but could not appreciate
anything owing to the cold winds. I had thought to visit spots
associated with the old French philosopher, Montaigne, who doubtless in
his day wandered over the historic streets where I now walked looking
for violin engagements. In my sea-chest at our chateau I had Montaigne’s
Essays, and I satisfied myself by lying in my bed and reading the deep,
innocent wisdom of the great Frenchman. Near where we lived there was a
wine merchant and many residents who, I think, worked in the vineyards.
From the merchant we got credit, and things eventually became so bad
that we lived for some time on wine and haricot beans. At last I secured
a course of concert engagements at English and French clubs and
concerts.
My comrade and I invited the wine-seller and several Frenchmen to supper
every night, and the little chateau with “Zee Engleise gentlemen” in it
rang with song as a French harp-player and I played. Long after midnight
the noise went on: they all lifted their arms and opened their mouths,
while Mr Bonnivard told those chivalrous Frenchmen of his experiences in
the Siege of Paris. They were delighted with my comrade’s yarns, and he
went on spinning them vigorously. I could not speak French, so I could
only watch their faces expressing horror or surprise as he fired away.
About two weeks later the smash came. The rent of the chateau was a
hundred francs a month and was due; we also owed the wine-seller for
about a hundred bottles of red and white wine. It was cheap enough,
fourpence a litre.
We could not possibly pay the rent, but we held a hurried and private
council and resolved to give our friend the wine-seller fifty francs and
send the remainder after we arrived at Biarritz. We dared not give him
more, otherwise we should not have our fare. We intended sending the
rent to the agent, who was a little Frenchman and lived round the
corner, directly we had some luck, and we did do so.
Before we went away we invited them all to a grand supper, which ended
at midnight with the stirring _Marseillaise_. We had to be at the Midi
station by ten o’clock next morning. The cab arrived; we first went to
the agent to tell him we were obliged to leave for the English season at
Biarritz and would send the rent on, but he was out, so off we drove. We
had no sooner turned the corner of the street than the agent passed us
in a small chaise and spied us and our boxes. About five minutes after
we saw him chasing after us, about a quarter of a mile behind, shouting
at the top of his voice. “Hadn’t we better stop and explain?” I said to
my companion. But he would not do so; a whole regiment of gendarmes with
drawn swords behind us would not have disturbed him, but would have
simply supplied more excitement to the splendour of his “La Belle
France.” He compared everything that happened around him to his life in
the Homerton Workhouse, and so rubbed his hands with delight, and
shouted in French to the driver, who at once whipped up the horse, and
away we rumbled at full speed. I painfully felt that we were not in the
South Seas, and began to feel uncomfortable when I noticed that the
little agent was gaining upon us. I had come to France to make my
fortune, and the prospect did not appear much better than it did when I
was seeking wealth in the Australian gold-fields a few years before. I
stood up and shouted “Two francs more” in the driver’s ear. He seemed to
understand, and gave the poor horse another slash, and as we flew by the
French people rushed from their villas and shops, thinking a fire engine
was passing through the maze of Bordeaux’s streets. We eventually lost
sight of the agent, caught the train and arrived in due course at
Biarritz.
In Biarritz I did well: played at the Casino and gave private concerts
at the different clubs and hotels where the wealthy English visitors
stayed, the Hôtel de Paris, Hôtel d’Angleterre and Hôtel du Prince. The
British residents consisted of titled folk: high chiefs, princes and
princesses, descendants of old tribes of blue-blooded lineage. My
comrade was worth his weight in gold; his engaging manner enabled him to
take liberties with old colonels and the austere English “set” which
would have been strongly resented if perpetrated by anyone else. I saw
aristocratic old gentlemen flush and clutch their falling eyeglass with
astonishment as he smacked them on the back, but they recovered and were
amused by his manner, for his appearance and address revealed a
personality and intellectual quality equal to their own.
We also went to Bayonne, an old-fashioned city surrounded by crumbling
ramparts. They had a splendid military band there and played
brilliantly. My companion was so delighted with the change in his
affairs that he sang my songs and no one else’s as he walked and hummed
by my side.
Before we left Biarritz we stayed for a week at the Hôtel St Julien. Mr
Morrison, who ran it, gave a farewell concert on our behalf and refused
to accept anything for our stay in his hotel. My comrade loved singing,
but had no voice for expressing the love. Mrs Morrison heroically
presided at the piano as he sang, over and over again, the one song
which he sang other than my compositions. It was _The Heart bowed down
with Weight of Woe_. Mr Morrison would clench his teeth and drink a
stiff glass of cognac, and then, as the old fellow bowed in a courtly
way, encore him! Our host was a clever literary man, and had all the
kindness and sincerity of a true Bohemian gentleman. My old friend and I
were sorry to bid him and his kind wife good-bye. They made us up a
hamper of savoury food and told us to write to them if we ever got into
a tight corner.
With about five hundred francs in our possession we crossed the
Pyrenees, and after a month’s travelling, playing at various concerts
and Spanish festivals, we arrived at Madrid. We secured apartments in
the old Moorish quarter, then sallied forth and mingled with the swarthy
population. The avenues and parks were alive with youths and beautiful
dark girls with Arab eyes and glorious dark or bronze hair. Groups of
roystering men stood about smoking cigarettes. They looked like a
mixture of Italian, Moor, Turk and Arab, so reminiscent were they of
those races. We wandered by the Puerta de Sol and in the crowded streets
near by, and aristocratic, sharp-bearded hidalgos, with large-brimmed
sombreros on the heads and cloaks thrown over their shoulders, passed us
like cavaliers of the mediæval ages. Till I became used to the scene
round me I felt that we walked the streets of some old, lost city; that
the sailors of the Spanish Armada still had lovers among the Spanish
beauties who sang in groups as they passed us, wearing short, ornamental
skirts and coloured kerchiefs loosely swathing their heads of thick dark
hair. The Spaniards gazed over their mantled shoulders with admiring
eyes, and the laughing, flattered Spanish maidens reciprocated their
gallant attention by gazing back with amorous eyes at their handsome
figures, with black velvet breeches, slashed at the sides to reveal pink
drawers and frills. The _fajas_ (sashes) of the men vied in vividness of
colour with the gay swathing of the fair, bronzed maids.
We strolled on the banks of the Manzanares river by moonlight and seemed
to walk through fairyland, though by day hundreds of Spanish women used
the river as a washing-tub, and forests of clothes props and stretched
lines blossomed forth with delicate and beautiful undergarments of silk
material. The hildagos’ velvet breeches and the maids’ fajas fluttered
cheerfully side by side in the winds among the chestnut groves, and
often the cavaliers and dark-eyed maids that owned them lay tucked in
bed till the laundress brought them home, so poor were they.
My comrade could speak Spanish fairly well, and kept excitedly telling
me so many things that I remembered none of them. In the cheap quarter
of the town, where touring violinists and poets generally reside,
mysterious smells of garlic and cooking steams killed the romance that
hovered about the beautiful terraced architecture of Madrid.
I looked in vain for a position as violinist, but it was not to be had,
or the salary was only sufficient to enable one to live on garlic. So I
was forced to become a Spanish troubadour and go off serenading affluent
hidalgos. Fortunately I very soon replenished our dwindling exchequer.
My comrade, having been educated in France, could bow as royally as the
Spanish señores, and conducted all the financial part of the business.
We went into partnership with our landlady’s daughters, who played the
guitar and mandoline, and I conducted the troupe. When the festival
carnivals began a week later we had a glorious time and made enough
money to enable us to live comfortably. I played my Samoan waltz,
arranging it for two violins, guitar and mandolines, and the wild
barbarian note of the strain was very popular. Maidens, who looked like
Arab girls with shining eyes, whirled and swayed in the arms of their
Don Juans, as under the Spanish moon my cheerful troupe tinkled away and
I played the violin. Except for their artistic gowns and the sashes
flapping as they danced, I saw the South Sea Islanders dancing before
me; the same abandonment was there. Their musical voices, as they sang
the refrain, brought back to me wild tribal dances of the South Sea
forest, where a few years before I had conducted the banging war-drums
and wedding music for cannibals, high chiefs, dethroned kings and
discarded queens.
Pretty Mercedes and Mary, her sister, sang minor melodies in duet style
as I extemporised an obbligato on my violin. They then danced the Jota
Aragonesa and other dances, and little children romped about and
imitated bull-fights, singing wildly all the time.
After the carnival was over my comrade and I strolled about the sleeping
city, and visited the old quarter of alleyways and gloomy buildings and
hidden dens where suspicious characters met and loose lovers played
guitars and mandolines. We watched old priests shuffling along to visit
the sick señores, who had fed on garlic and walnuts, and lived in
Madrid’s East End, but dressed in the blue, open days in majestic
splendour and vivid colour.
We went to the many temples of Madrid. They are seldom silent, for up
their aisles creep gentle Spanish girls, who come in, cross themselves
and kneel in prayer to Jesus and the Holy Virgin. The earnestness of it
all would soften the hardest cynic. Old priests abound, and revel in the
confessions of those innocent girls as they bow their heads with shame
and confess that they have thought more during the week of Don Juan’s
stalwart, lithe figure than of the Holy Virgin. As they pass one sees
them crossing themselves and murmuring their prayers. At the doors
wrinkled old women pester one with little boxes of wax matches, walnuts
and photographs of Madrid and the Blessed Virgin. If one buys a cent’s
worth of anything from them they follow on for three hundred yards,
calling down the blessing of God, Jesus and the Virgin on one’s head.
At night-time, when the moon is high and the olive-trees and palms are
windless and still, down the white-terraced avenue goes Don Quixote
astride his ass, twirling his moustachios, till far away, with Sancho
Panza by his side, he fades under the moonlit chestnut groves. From the
forests of alleyways steal appealing figures, with eyes that beg for an
admiring glance, and in strange, soft tones wail of sorrows and no food
or place to lay their weary heads. Give them a coin and pass on, they
cross themselves and mention the Holy Virgin’s name, and you realise
there is something wrong with the world, for the cry of the Virgin’s
name sounds sincere. All the cities have that frail woman begging the
world to be her husband, because she never secured one good man to love
her and rear those bonny boys and girls who wail to be born in the
infinite shadows behind her. It is a sorrow that has even spread across
the world and reached the island tribes of the South Seas.
Standing on the garden roof of our house in Madrid we could see the
country round, a barren country, and looking like the Australian
Never-Never Land in a civilised state. It is dotted with dusty tracks
and old isolated inns; herds of goats and mules fade far across the
tracks, looking like droves of rats in the desert distance.
There are beautiful spots in Madrid, on the banks of the Manzanares, and
firs, beeches and chestnuts shade the waters and the slopes by the Royal
Gardens.
At night I used to lie in my attic room and listen to the nightingales
singing in the chestnut-tree outside my window, its mate piping back
approval from another tree at regular intervals. My old comrade lay fast
asleep on the next trestle bed, for the Spanish hidalgos gave him
cognac, and on the way home from the festival concerts he would clutch
me tightly by the arm, as little Mercedes and Mary laughed by my side.
In the morning he used to say: “Dear boy, whatever was it that overcame
me last night? It’s that wretched garlic.”
Sometimes when we were short of money we lay on our beds smoking, and he
would tell me of the Siege of Paris, his terrible experiences there, and
how he ate his share of the elephant and lion steaks from the Zoo.
Becoming philosophical, he would tell me of his boyish aspirations, the
happiness he got out of them and the worry from the events that never
happened. I would say: “Supposing we run right out of money, what about
food and a bed?” Then he would cheer me up by saying: “My dear boy,
all’s sure to be well; we are certain to be _somewhere_ and sleep
_somewhere_ whatever happens.” Then, as was his wont, he would lick his
thumb and push the old cigar stump into his pipe and hum my last
melody—a melody that no publisher would buy—till I, secure in his
philosophical comradeship, fell asleep. He never professed or spoke on
religious matters, but each night he knelt by his bed before he got in
and lit his pipe.
We were very happy in the house of Señora Dolores; she treated us as
though we were dear relatives. In her little attic room I spent the
happiest hours of my Continental travels. I lay half the night reading
my beloved Montaigne’s essays. The old French Shakespeare was my best
dead learned friend. If ever I was worried and could not sleep for
thinking I went to my sea-chest and brought him out. I read some of his
essays over twenty times, but they were always fresh, wise and sincere,
and I still read them. In that little room I also read poetry’s
legitimate child, Keats. As my dear comrade slept on I fell in love with
Madeline and roamed with Endymion, Lamia and Hyperion. The nightingale
singing outside
“Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn”
as the moonlight glimmered through my little room. I have read somewhere
that Keats was earthly. I think if he had lived his intense genius would
have fought for the sorrows of humanity, and his marvellous mind made
literature and our country even better than it is. It may be centuries
before earth, capable of bringing forth such spiritual flowers as his
earthliness did, will be born again.
Poor little Mercedes! She crossed herself and murmured the Holy Virgin’s
name many times as we bade her and her sister good-bye, and I thought of
Madeline, and felt sad that the days of gallant knights and amorous
warriors were gone for ever. I can still see their eyes shining through
sorrow as we said farewell; even the old mother’s wrinkled face blushed
as we kissed the three.
We went from Madrid to Valencia, where we stayed for three weeks, and
then left by boat for Marseilles, and then on to Nice, and finally to
Genoa. My comrade was the happiest of men as he tramped beside me; he
loved to carry my violin. We started to write an opera together,
entitled _The Siege of Paris_. He was delighted as he gave me thrilling,
realistic details of all he had witnessed. I tried to place them in
lyrical form and wrote suitable melodies round the tragic events. He
knew as much about authorship as I did, but I believe, with the help of
his clever head and earnestness, we should have amply made up for our
artistic deficiencies and lack of literary method.
The manuscript still remains unfinished, as we left it, for not long
after he ceased singing my songs. The brief sunlight between the
workhouse and the grave faded and disappeared. When I turned away from
his last resting-place I was the only mourner, and as I went away into
our mysterious world once more I felt very lonely.
So end the intimate reminiscences of my wanderings, most of them
experiences up to my twenty-second birthday. Whether I have succeeded in
giving the reader an insight into the personality of the writer, such a
glimpse as an autobiography is supposed to give, I do not know.
Personally, I think it is a hard thing to do in a thorough sense,
especially for a vagabond at heart. Each individual is a multitude of
struggling ancestral strains, and real active life is manifested in the
fight, the fierce hunt to find ourselves; which we can never do, for we
die every moment that we live. So all we can attempt in a book is to
tell truthfully those things that impressed us deeply at different
periods of our life, so deeply that they still remain imprinted on the
mind. Also to tell of our experiences for better or worse in this life
of ours, where one footstep taken out of the track that we have known
and write about would have altered the whole book of our life to another
colour.
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