I
Though I head this article “Edward Whymper as I Knew Him,” I prefer
first to write of Edward Whymper as he was before I knew him--or
rather before he knew me. In the town where he and I were then living
he had been dubbed “Bradlaugh turned Baedeker” by one resident who
insisted on Whymper’s likeness to the late Charles Bradlaugh, and
was aware that the Great Mountaineer had written various “Guides.”
Another name by which he was known was “The Sphinx,” possibly because
of his silence, his aloofness, and the mystery with which he was
supposed to surround himself. To the good folk of the town he was
indeed always something of an enigma. In the street he stalked
straightforwardly along, looking only in front of him, set of mouth,
stony of eye and severe of brow, if anyone either spoke to, or stared
at him. On the journey up to London, when most people read their
morning paper, he was rarely seen with a newspaper in his hand, but
stared, pipe in mouth, out of the window, except when going through
proofs or working at papers which he produced from a black leather
bag, without which he was never seen in the train. On the journey
down, when work for the day was done, his would-be sociable fellow
passengers found Whymper taciturn and reticent, responding, or rather
not responding, to any conversational advance, if possible, in a
monosyllable.
The town in question was Southend, where he lived in Cliff Town
Parade, and I, ten minutes’ walk away at Westcliff. Though he
contended that there was no place within fifty miles of London with
such fine air, and though he never wearied (like Robert Buchanan,
who, as well as his brother poet, Sir Edwin Arnold, was at one
time a resident of Southend) of extolling the atmospheric effects
of sunshine and shadow upon the saltings, and though (again like
Buchanan, who had said as much to me) he vowed that nowhere else
in England were there to be seen more glorious pageants of sunrise
and sunset--to the people of Southend, especially to his fellow
travellers on the railway, he had taken an implacable dislike. When
in London I was first introduced to him, he and I fell out upon
the subject. Hearing that I lived at Southend, he asked me whether
I did not agree with him that nowhere else would one meet such
objectionable folk as those who journeyed backward and forward to
town.
I replied that though Southend had no claim to be the home of rank
and fashion (overrun as it was and is, during the summer months,
by swarming hordes of East End trippers), I had found my fellow
travellers and the residents generally--of the middle classes as they
admittedly were--cordial, sociable, and kindly, and that for my part,
so far from feeling as he did, I liked them and had many friends
among them.
This for some reason exasperated Whymper, who launched out in fierce
abuse of his unoffending fellow townsmen.
“My good sir,” he stormed, “I ask you where else in England, where
else in God’s world if you like, will you come across such a
collection and crew of defaulting solicitors, bagmen, undischarged
bankrupts, shady stockbrokers and stock jobbers, potmen, pawnbrokers
and publicans as on that particular railway which you and I use?”
I did not agree with him, and told him so plainly if courteously,
whereupon, seeing that I was more amused than annoyed by his
storming, he suddenly turned good-tempered, diverted the conversation
into other channels, and when we parted was quite friendly.
His attitude on this occasion, as I afterwards discovered, was
characteristically Whymperian. He could respect a man who stood up
to him and was undismayed by his storming; he had “no use,” as the
Americans say, for one who was ready cheaply and insincerely to
profess himself entirely in agreement. He would at any time rather
be bearded than humoured, and the fact that on our first meeting I
refused to be browbeaten was, I now believe, one of the reasons why
he and I thereafter became good friends.
One picture of Edward Whymper, as I saw him many times, is vivid in
my memory. The morning train to town is on the point of starting,
the guard has waved his flag, blown his whistle, and is urging
late comers to “hurry up.” Along the platform, indifferent to the
guard’s frantic arm-waving, never lengthening his step by so much
as one inch, never quickening his pace by as much as by one second,
but strolling as leisurely as if the train were not to start for an
hour, and looking at each carriage for the face he is seeking, walks
a closely-knit, sturdily-built man of middle height. His dress is
unusual, as he is well aware, accounting for it once by reminding me
of a great nobleman who, equally eccentric in the matter of dress,
remarked, “Where I live, every one knows who and what I am, so it
doesn’t matter what I wear. In London no one knows who and what I am,
so I am equally free to please myself.”
More often than not Whymper, when going to town, wore a black
greatcoat over a woollen sweater, and had a brown seal fur cap with
lapels pulled down over the ears and fastened under the chin, for,
like many who have spent much time in Canada, he felt colder in the
damp and foggy climate of England, even when the temperature is
moderate, than he did in the drier, clearer atmosphere of the Great
Dominion, and when the thermometer stands at 40 degrees below zero.
But unusual as are a fur cap and sweater, when worn as I have
seen Whymper wear them even when journeying to London, at the
height of the season, they struck one as less incongruous than the
ill-brushed, out-of-date silk hat in which, with black leather or
cloth leggings, he occasionally weirdly arrayed himself. He sees
my face at the window, stops, and, as leisurely as he had walked,
enters the carriage and seats himself opposite to me, his back to
the engine. To me he merely nods, or if on that occasion inclined
to be loquacious, goes so far as to say “Good morning,” but never
another word. The other occupants of the compartment he either
entirely ignores or favours with a baleful glare. Then he puts his
bag upon his knee, produces a packet of biscuits, and, looking out
of the window all the time, munches them with jaws that move as
rhythmically and methodically as if run by clockwork. His breakfast
of dry biscuits finished, he dives into his bag for a flask, solemnly
unscrews the stopper, as solemnly lifts the flask to his mouth, takes
a drink, smacks his lips, replaces the stopper in the flask and then
the flask in the bag, snaps the lock and puts the bag at his side.
This done, he fishes in his pocket for pipe, tobacco and matches,
charges and lights his pipe, takes with evident enjoyment two or
three long draws at it, sniffing possibly with relish and with open
nostrils at the smoke which rises from the bowl, settles himself
comfortably in his corner, and then, and not till then, turns to me
with a cheery “Well, and how are you this morning?” I reply with
equal cheeriness, and probably the whole way up to town we talk--only
we two--incessantly.
But had I, _before_ he had munched his biscuits, swigged at his
flask, replaced the latter in his bag, lit his pipe and settled
himself in the corner, addressed him in any way, I should have had
the shortest of answers, and the chances are that for the rest of the
journey he would have remained silent. That was Edward Whymper’s way,
and a man who liked more to have his own way I never met. My liking
was for himself, not for his ways; but since it was his whim to be
let alone, to speak to no one and to be spoken to by no one until
he had breakfasted and lit his pipe, I was quite willing so to let
him go his own way, knowing that soon the oracle would speak of its
own accord, and would say many things which were well worth anyone’s
attention and hearing.