But they are our Allies, said my friend severely. The Germans, on the other
hand, prefer dogs. I hope you are not a pro-German.
On the cat-and-dog issue I am, and I don't care who knows it, I said
recklessly. And I hate these attempts to drag in prejudice. Moreover, I
would beg you to observe that it was a great Frenchman, none other than
Pascal, who paid the highest of all tributes to the dog. "The more I see of
men," he said, "the better I like dogs." I challenge you to produce from
any French source such an encomium on the cat.
No, I continued, the dog is a generous, warmhearted, chivalrous fellow, who
will play with you, mourn for you, or die for you. Why, literature is full
of his heroism. Who has climbed Helvellyn without being haunted by that
shepherd's dog that inspired Scott and Byron? Or the Pass of St. Bernard
without remembering the faithful hounds of the great monastery? But the cat
is a secret and alien creature, selfish and mysterious, a Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde. See her purring on the hearth-rug in front of the fire, and she
seems the picture of innocence and guileless content. All a blind, my dear
fellow, all a blind. Wait till night comes. Then where is demure Mistress
Puss? Is she at home keeping vigil with the good dog Tray? No, the house
may be in blazes or ransacked by burglars for all she cares. She is out on
the tiles and in back gardens pursuing her unholy ritual--that strange
ritual that seems so Oriental, so sinister, so full of devilish purpose. I
can understand the old association of witchcraft with cats. The sight of
cats almost makes me believe in witchcraft, in spite of myself. I can
believe anything about a cat. She is heartless and mercenary. Her name has
become the synonym of everything that is mean, spiteful, and vicious. "An
old cat" is the unkindest thing you can say about a woman.
But the dog wears his heart on his sleeve. His life is as open as the day.
He has his indecorums, but he has no secrets. You may see the worst of him
at a glance, but the best of him is inexhaustible. A cat is as remote from
your life as a lizard, but a dog is as intimate as your own thoughts or
your own shadow, and his loyalty is one of the consolations of a disloyal
world. You remember that remark of Charles Reade's: "He was only a man, but
he was as faithful as a dog." It was the highest tribute he could pay to
his hero--that he was as faithful as a dog. And think of his services--see
him drawing his cart in Belgium, rounding up the sheep into the fold on the
Yorkshire fells, tending the cattle by the highway, warning off the night
prowler from the lonely homestead, always alert, always obedient, always
the friend of man, be he never so friendless.... Shall we go for a walk?
At the joyous word Quilp leapt on me with a frenzied demonstration. "Good
dog," I said. "If Mr. McKenna puts a guinea tax on you I'll never say a
good word for him again."
"W.G."
The worst of spending week-ends in the country in these anxious days is the
difficulty of getting news. About six o'clock on Saturday evening I am
seized with a furious hunger. What has happened on the East front? What on
the West? What in Serbia? Has Greece made up its heroic mind? Is Rumania
still trembling on the brink? What does the French communiqué say? These
and a hundred other questions descend on me with frightful insistence.
Clearly I can't go to bed without having them answered. But there is not an
evening paper to be got nearer than the little railway station in the
valley two miles away, and there is no way of getting it except by Shanks'
mare. And so, unable to resist the glamour of _The Star_, I start out
across the fields for the station.
As I stood on the platform last Saturday evening devouring the latest war
news under the dim oil lamp, a voice behind me said, in broad rural accent,
"Bill, I say, W.G. is dead." At the word I turned hastily to another column
and found the news that had stirred him. And even in the midst of
world-shaking events it stirred me too. For a brief moment I forgot the war
and was back in that cheerful world where we used to be happy, where we
greeted the rising sun with light hearts and saw its setting without fear.
In that cheerful world I can hardly recall a time when a big man with a
black beard was not my King.
I first saw him in the 'seventies. I was a small boy then, and I did him
the honour of playing truant--"playing wag" we called it. I felt that the
occasion demanded it. To have the god of my idolatry in my own little town
and not to pay him my devotions--why, the idea was almost like blasphemy. A
half-dozen, or even a dozen, from my easily infuriated master would be a
small price to pay. I should take the stripes as a homage to the hero. He
would never know, but I should be proud to suffer in his honour.
Unfortunately there was a canvas round the field where the hero played, and
as the mark of the Mint was absent from my pockets I was on the wrong side
of the canvas. But I knew a spot where by lying flat on your stomach and
keeping your head very low you could see under the canvas and get a view of
the wicket. It was not a comfortable position, but I saw the King. I think
I was a little disappointed that there was nothing supernatural about his
appearance and that there were no portents in the heavens to announce his
coming. It didn't seem quite right somehow. In a general way I knew he was
only a man, but I was quite prepared to see something tremendous happen,
the sun to dance or the earth to heave, when he appeared. I never felt the
indifference of Nature to the affairs of men so acutely.
I saw him many times afterwards, and I suppose I owe more undiluted
happiness to him than to any man that ever lived. For he was the genial
tyrant in a world that was all sunshine. There are other games, no doubt,
which will give you as much exercise and pleasure in playing them as
cricket, but there is no game that fills the mind with such memories and
seems enveloped in such a gracious and kindly atmosphere. If you have once
loved it and played it, you will find talk in it enough "for the wearing
out of six fashions," as Falstaff says. I like a man who has cricket in his
soul. I find I am prejudiced in his favour, and am disposed to disbelieve
any ill about him. I think my affection for Jorkins began with the
discovery that he, like myself, saw that astounding catch with which Ulyett
dismissed Bonnor in the Australian match at Lord's in 1883--or was it 1884?
And when to this mutual and immortal memory we added the discovery that we
were both at the Oval at the memorable match when Crossland rattled Surrey
out like ninepins and the crowd mobbed him, and Key and Roller miraculously
pulled the game out of the fire, our friendship was sealed.
The fine thing about a wrangle on cricket is that there is no bitterness in
it. When you talk about politicians you are always on the brink of bad
temper. When you disagree about the relative merits of W.B. Yeats or
Francis Thompson you are afflicted with scorn for the other's lack of
perception. But you may quarrel about cricketers and love each other all
the time. For example, I am prepared to stand up in a truly Christian
spirit to the bowling of anybody in defence of my belief that--next to him
of the black beard--Lohmann was the most naturally gifted all-round
cricketer there has ever been. What grace of action he had, what an
instinct for the weak spot of his opponent, what a sense for fitting the
action to the moment, above all, what a gallant spirit he played the game
in! And that, after all, is the real test of the great cricketer. It is the
man who brings the spirit of adventure into the game that I want. Of the
Quaifes and the Scottons and the Barlows I have nothing but dreary
memories. They do not mean cricket to me. And even Shrewsbury and Hayward
left me cold. They were too faultily faultless, too icily regular for my
taste. They played cricket not as though it was a game, but as though it
was a proposition in Euclid. And I don't like Euclid.
It was the hearty joyousness that "W.G." shed around him that made him so
dear to us youngsters of all ages. I will admit, if you like, that
Ranjitsinhji at his best was more of a magician with the bat, that Johnny
Briggs made you laugh more with his wonderful antics, that A.P. Lucas had
more finish, Palairet more grace, and so on. But it was the abundance of
the old man with the black beard that was so wonderful. You never came to
the end of him. He was like a generous roast of beef--you could cut and
come again, and go on coming. Other men flitted across our sky like
meteors, but he shone on like the sun in the heavens, and like the sun in
the heavens he scattered largesse over the land. He did not seem so much a
man as an institution, a symbol of summer and all its joys, a sort of
Father Christmas clothed in flannels and sunshine. It did you good merely
to look at him. It made you feel happy to see such a huge capacity for
enjoyment, such mighty subtlety, such ponderous gaiety. It was as though
Jove, or Vulcan, or some other god of antiquity had come down to play games
with the mortals. You would not have been much surprised if, when the
shadows lengthened across the greensward and the umpire signalled that the
day's play was done, he had wrapped himself in a cloud of glory and floated
away to Olympus.
And now he is gone indeed, and it seems as though a part, and that a very
happy part, of my life has gone with him. When sanity returns to the earth,
there will arise other deities of the cricket field, but not for me. Never
again shall I recapture the careless rapture that came with the vision of
the yellow cap flaming above the black beard, of the Herculean frame and
the mighty bared arms, and all the godlike apparition of the master. As I
turned out of the little station and passed through the fields and climbed
the hill I felt that the darkness that has come upon the earth in these
days had taken a deeper shade of gloom, for even the lights of the happy
past were being quenched.