To know that you can't draw and to be told so by your friends are two
very different things. Honnell can't draw, but hates his inseparable
Swan to tell him so. Honnell's sketches have hitherto been criticised
only by people who also wanted their drawing flattered. Swan learned
bluntness on the Yukon. So they are an odd pair to be chumming now in
the Arctic circle. They are so friendly that they will tramp together
for half a day and exchange scarcely so much as a grunt of conversation.
Swan, of course, feels quite at home in North Russia and smiles at the
people who call it cold and its distances big. Honnell has lived in
Edinburgh, so doesn't notice the temperature, though he misses the
tramway system. Both can say about six words--the same--in Russian, and
both have bought a pair of moccasins--Swan because he likes them, and
Honnell because he would like to.
Recently they set off together from Kola on the Murman Coast to try to
find a village from which jolly little Laplanders and Laplanderesses
come sliding and skidding to market behind their stout-hearted reindeer.
They left all their picturesque Arctic gear behind them except their
moccasins, Swan being one of those trying people who don't care how they
look, if only they "mush" along fast enough. Their provisions consisted
of a tin of bully and four edible tiles or army biscuits, with some
margarine in a Y.M.C.A. envelope.
The story they told on their return--for they did return and in good
time for dinner--was mostly Honnell's, but I must admit that Swan could
not be got to refute it. As they approached the village--some huts on a
white hillside above a frozen lake--a representative of the dog-colony
came to meet them, waving his tail with an anti-clockwise circular
motion impossible to the dog of temperate zones. Having inspected
them he escorted them on their way in a perfectly civilised and even
courteous manner.
So far from being resisted, their entry was ignored save by the little
fur-capped boys, who collected at their heels as if they had formed the
vanguard of a circus, and the little brightly-kerchiefed girls, who
bolted for cover. All the adult male inhabitants, fiercely-bearded
little men like trolls done up in reindeer-skin from top to toe,
appeared to be engrossed in the manufacture of sleighs, although the
village was already littered and cluttered up with them; and all the
ladies were indoors sewing reindeer-skin into trousers or making tea.
Having exchanged a noise like "_Sdrastetye_" (which in these parts seems
to mean "_Bon jour_") with everybody they saw, our two friends sat on a
log, and rested, while Honnell set about sketching, as he calls it, the
primitive wooden church. The little boys, of course, formed a sort of
pyramid on his shoulders to watch. Whether because his fingers were cold
and so not completely under his control, or because the vibrations of
the human pyramid communicated to his pencil some lucky jerks, the marks
Honnell committed to (or on) his note-book were such as supplied the
simple children of the snow with a clue as to his intentions, and he was
intensely gratified to hear one say to another, "_Tzerhof_!"--knowing
that noise to signify "church" in the local tongue.
Swan, perceiving the moral damage likely to be done to his friend by
this flattering incident, sought to puncture Honnell's unhealthy pride
by saying, "_Plaho?_" (or "bad") as a suggestion to the critics;
but this only caused them to say repeatedly and with emphasis,
"_Dobra_!"--which was one of Honnell's six words and means "good."
Thus the mischief was done. Honnell returned to his billet a man changed
and as it were possessed. To hear him talk now one would suppose culture
had fled from the Temperate to the Arctic zone. Of the Lapps' habits
and their houses he knows nothing, cares nothing; all his enthusiasm is
reserved for the honesty and the innate artistic perception of their
children. So seriously has he been affected by this unaided and
impartial recognition of the subject of his drawing that some of us
wonder if he will not settle down amongst those who alone understand and
appreciate him. Returning home what can he hope to be? At best a hero of
the Relief Force. But in his Lapp village he could imagine himself an
Artist.
* * * * *
"Canon Cooper O'Filley, known as the 'Walking Parson,' has decided
to celebrate his seventieth birthday by walking from Yorkshire to
Madrid."--_Sunday Paper_.
An even better-known "Walking Parson," Mr. COOPER, of Filey, will have
to look to his laurels now that this Irish pedestrian has entered the
lists.
* * * * *
"Mr. J.B. Fagan has decided to revive 'Twelfth Night' with the
original cast at the Court Theatre."--_Daily Graphic_.
We trust that when Mr. FAGAN revives the "original cast" he will not
omit to provide also against the inevitable call of "Author!" and settle
the BACON-SHAKSPEARE controversy once for all.
* * * * *