As soon as I jumped on shore, as I told you in my last, and had taken a
good grip on Jone's heavy stick, I went for those hogs, for I wanted to
drive them off before Jone came ashore, for I didn't want him to think
he must come.
I have driven hogs and cows out of lots and yards often enough, as you
know yourself, madam, so I just stepped up to the biggest of them and
hit him a whack across the head as he was rubbing his nose in among
some papers with bits of landscapes on them, as was enough to make him
give up studying art for the rest of his life; but would you believe
it, madam, instead of running away he just made a bolt at me, and gave
me such a push with his head and shoulders he nearly knocked me over? I
never was so astonished, for they looked like hogs that you might think
could be chased out of a yard by a boy. But I gave the fellow another
crack on the back, which he didn't seem to notice, but just turned
again to give me another push, and at the same minute the two others
stopped rooting among the paint-boxes and came grunting at me.
For the first time in my life I was frightened by hogs. I struck at
them as hard as I could, and before I knew what I was about I flung
down the stick, made a rush for that gate, and was on top of it in no
time, in company with the three other young women that was sitting
there already.
"Really," said the one next to me, "I fancied you was going to be gored
to atoms before our eyes. Whatever made you go to those nasty beasts?"
I looked at her quite severe, getting my feet well up out of reach of
the hogs if they should come near us.
"I saw you was in trouble, miss, and I came to help you. My husband
wanted to come, but he has the rheumatism and I wouldn't let him."
The other two young women looked at me as well as they could around the
one that was near me, and the one that was farthest off said:
"If the creatures could have been driven off by a woman, we could have
done it ourselves. I don't know why you should think you could do it
any better than we could."
I must say, madam, that at that minute I was a little humble-minded,
for I don't mind confessing to you that the idea of one American woman
plunging into a conflict that had frightened off three English women,
and coming out victorious, had a good deal to do with my trying to
drive away those hogs; and now that I had come out of the little end
of the horn, just as the young women had, I felt pretty small, but I
wasn't going to let them see that.
"I think that English hogs," said I, "must be savager than American
ones. Where I live there is not any kind of a hog that would not run
away if I shook a stick at him." The young woman at the other end of
the gate now spoke again.
"Everything British is braver than anything American," said she; "and
all you have done has been to vex those hogs, and they are chewing up
our drawing things worse than they did before."
Of course I fired up at this, and said, "You are very much mistaken
about Americans." But before I could say any more she went on to tell
me that she knew all about Americans; she had been in America, and such
a place she could never have fancied.
"Over there you let everybody trample over you as much as they please.
You have no conveniences. One cannot even get a cab. Fancy! Not a cab
to be had unless one pays enough for a drive in Hyde Park."
I must say that the hogs charging down on me didn't astonish me any
more than to find myself on top of a gate with a young woman charging
on my country in this fashion, and it was pretty hard on me to have her
pitch into the cab question, because Jone and me had had quite a good
deal to say about cabs ourselves, comparing New York and London,
without any great fluttering of the stars and stripes; but I wasn't
going to stand any such talk as that, and so I said:
"I know very well that our cab charges are high, and it is not likely
that poor people coming from other countries are able to pay them; but
as soon as our big cities get filled up with wretched, half-starved
people, with the children crying for bread at home, and the father glad
enough that he's able to get people to pay him a shilling for a drive,
and that he's not among the hundreds and thousands of miserable men who
have not any work at all, and go howling to Hyde Park to hold meetings
for blood or bread, then we will be likely to have cheap cabs as you
have."
"How perfectly awful!" said the young woman nearest me; but the one at
the other end of the gate didn't seem to mind what I said, but shifted
off on another track.
"And then there's your horses' tails," said she; "anything nastier
couldn't be fancied. Hundreds of them everywhere with long tails down
to their heels, as if they belong to heathens who had never been
civilized."
"Heathens?" said I. "If you call the Arabians heathens, who have the
finest horses in the world, and wouldn't any more think of cutting off
their tails than they would think of cutting their legs off; and if
you call the cruel scoundrels who torture their poor horses by sawing
their bones apart so as to get a little stuck-up bob on behind, like a
moth-eaten paint-brush--if you call them Christians, then I suppose
you're right. There is a law in some parts of our country against the
wickedness of chopping off the tails of live horses, and if you had
such a law here you'd be a good deal more Christian-like than you are,
to say nothing of getting credit for decent taste."
By this time I had forgotten all about what Jone and I had agreed upon
as to arguing over the differences between countries, and I was just as
peppery as a wasp. The young woman at the other end of the gate was
rather waspy too, for she seemed to want to sting me wherever she could
find a spot uncovered; and now she dropped off her horses' tails, and
began to laugh until her face got purple.
"You Americans are so awfully odd," she said. "You say you raise your
corn and your plants instead of growing them. It nearly makes me die
laughing when I hear one of you Americans say raise when you mean
grow."
Now Jone and me had some talk about growing and raising, and the
reasons for and against our way of using the words; but I was ready to
throw all this to the winds, and was just about to tell the impudent
young woman that we raised our plants just the same as we raised our
children, leaving them to do their own growing, when the young woman
in the middle of the three, who up to this time hadn't said a word,
screamed out:
[Illustration: "AND WITH A SCREECH I DASHED AT THOSE HOGS LIKE A STEAM
ENGINE"]
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! He's pulled out my drawing of Wilton Bridge. He'll
eat it up. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Whatever shall I do?"
Instead of speaking I turned quick and looked at the hogs, and there,
sure enough, one of them had rooted open a portfolio and had hold of
the corners of a colored picture, which, from where I sat, I could see
was perfectly beautiful. The sky and the trees and the water was just
like what we ourselves had seen a little while ago, and in about half a
minute that hog would chew it up and swallow it.
The young woman next to me had an umbrella in her hand. I made a snatch
at this and dropped off that gate like a shot. I didn't stop to think
about anything except that beautiful picture was on the point of being
swallowed up, and with a screech I dashed at those hogs like a steam
engine. When they saw me coming with my screech and the umbrella they
didn't stop a second, but with three great wiggles and three scared
grunts they bolted as fast as they could go. I picked up the picture of
the bridge, together with the portfolio, and took them to the young
woman who owned them. As the hogs had gone, all three of the women was
now getting down from the gate.
"Thank you very much," she said, "for saving my drawings. It was
awfully good of you, especially--"
"Oh, you are welcome," said I, cutting her off short; and, handing the
other young woman her umbrella, I passed by the impudent one without so
much as looking at her, and on the other side of the hedge I saw Jone
coming across the grass. I jerked open the gate, not caring who it
might swing against, and walked to meet Jone. When I was near enough I
called out to know what on earth had become of him that he had left me
there so long by myself, forgetting that I hadn't wanted him to come at
all; and he told me that he had had a hard time getting on shore,
because they found the banks very low and muddy, and when he had landed
he was on the wrong side of a hedge, and had to walk a good way around
it.
"I was troubled," said he, "because I thought you might come to grief
with the hogs."
"Hogs!" said I, so sarcastic, that Jone looked hard at me, but I didn't
tell him anything more till we was in the boat, and then I just said
right out what had happened. Jone couldn't help laughing.
"If I had known," said he, "that you was on top of a gate discussing
horses' tails and cabs I wouldn't have felt in such a hurry to get to
you."
"And you would have made a mistake if you hadn't," I said, "for hogs
are nothing to such a person as was on that gate."
Old Samivel was rowing slow and looking troubled, and I believe at that
minute he forgot the River Wye was crooked.
"That was really hard, madam," he said, "really hard on you; but it was
a woman, and you have to excuse women. Now if they had been three
Englishmen sitting on that gate they would never have said such things
to you, knowing that you was a stranger in these parts and had come on
shore to do them a service. And now, madam, I'm glad to see you are
beginning to take notice of the landscapes again. Just ahead of us is
another bend, and when we get around that you'll see the prettiest
picture you've seen yet. This is a crooked river, madam, and that's how
it got its name. Wye means crooked."
After a while we came to a little church near the river bank, and here
Samivel stopped rowing, and putting his hands on his knees he laughed
gayly.
"It always makes me laugh," he said, "whenever I pass this spot. It
seems to me like such an awful good joke. Here's that church on this
side of the river, and away over there on the other side of the river
is the rector and the congregation."
"And how do they get to church?" said I.
"In the summer time," said he, "they come over with a ferry-boat and a
rope; but in the winter, when the water is frozen, they can't get over
at all. Many's the time I've lain in bed and laughed and laughed when
I thought of this church on one side of the river, and the whole
congregation and the rector on the other side, and not able to get
over."
Toward the end of the day, and when we had rowed nearly twenty miles,
we saw in the distance the town of Monmouth, where we was going to stop
for the night.
[Illustration: "In the winter, when the water is frozen, they can't get
over"]
Old Samivel asked us what hotel we was going to stop at, and when we
told him the one we had picked out he said he could tell us a better
one.
"If I was you," he said, "I'd go to the Eyengel." We didn't know what
this name meant, but as the old man said he would take us there we
agreed to go.
"I should think you would have a lonely time rowing back by yourself,"
I said.
"Rowing back?" said he. "Why, bless your soul, lady, there isn't
nobody who could row this boat back agen that current and up them
rapids. We take the boats back with the pony. We put the boat on a
wagon and the pony pulls it back to Ross; and as for me, I generally go
back by the train. It isn't so far from Monmouth to Ross by the road,
for the road is straight and the river winds and bends."
The old man took us to the inn which he recommended, and we found it
was the Angel. It was a nice, old-fashioned, queer English house. As
far as I could see, they was all women that managed it, and it couldn't
have been managed better; and as far as I could see, we was the only
guests, unless there was "commercial gents," who took themselves away
without our seeing them.
We was sorry to have old Samivel leave us, and we bid him a most
friendly good-by, and promised if we ever knew of anybody who wanted to
go down the River Wye we would recommend them to ask at Ross for
Samivel Jones to row them.
We found the landlady of the Angel just as good to us as if we had been
her favorite niece and nephew. She hired us a carriage the next day,
and we was driven out to Raglan Castle, through miles and miles of
green and sloping ruralness. When we got there and rambled through
those grand old ruins, with the drawbridge and the tower and the
courtyard, my soul went straight back to the days of knights and
ladies, and prancing steeds, and horns and hawks, and pages and
tournaments, and wild revels and vaulted halls.
The young man who had charge of the place seemed glad to see how much
we liked it, as is natural enough, for everybody likes to see us
pleased with the particular things they have on hand.
"You haven't anything like this in your country," said he. But to this
I said nothing, for I was tired of always hearing people speak of my
national denomination as if I was something in tin cans, with a label
pasted on outside; but Jone said it was true enough that we didn't have
anything like it, for if we had such a noble edifice we would have
taken care of it, and not let it go to rack and ruin in this way.
Jone has an idea that it don't show good sense to knock a bit of
furniture about from garret to cellar until most of its legs are
broken, and its back cracked, and its varnish all peeled off, and then
tie ribbons around it, and hang it up in the parlor, and kneel down to
it as a relic of the past. He says that people who have got old ruins
ought to be very thankful that there is any of them left, but it's no
use in them trying to fill up the missing parts with brag.
We took the train and went to Chepstow, which is near the mouth of the
Wye, and as the railroad ran near the river nearly all the way we had
lots of beautiful views, though, of course, it wasn't anything like as
good as rowing along the stream in a boat. The next day we drove to the
celebrated Tintern Abbey, and on the way the road passed two miles and
a half of high stone wall, which shut in a gentleman's place. What he
wanted to keep in or keep out by means of a wall like that, we couldn't
imagine; but the place made me think of a lunatic asylum.
The road soon became shady and beautiful, running through woods along
the river bank and under some great crags called the Wyndcliffe, and
then we came to the Abbey and got out.
Of all the beautiful high-pointed archery of ancient times, this ruined
Abbey takes the lead. I expect you've seen it, madam, or read about it,
and I am not going to describe it; but I will just say that Jone, who
had rather objected to coming out to see any more old ruins, which he
never did fancy, and only came because he wouldn't have me come by
myself, was so touched up in his soul by what he saw there, and by
wandering through this solemn and beautiful romance of bygone days, he
said he wouldn't have missed it for fifty dollars.
We came back to Gloucester to-day, and to-morrow we are off for Buxton.
As we are so near Stratford and Warwick and all that, Jone said we'd
better go there on our way, but I wouldn't agree to it. I am too
anxious to get him skipping round like a colt, as he used to, to stop
anywhere now, and when we come back I can look at Shakespeare's tomb
with a clearer conscience.
* * * * *