_When the Roads Were Sweet, Safe and Silent._
So, preliminaries being settled, the elder of the _Sweetheart Travelers_
was entrusted with the editing of this book, on the express condition
that he must _not_ edit it! Strange but true! It is just sixteen years
since, with the assistance of Mr. Gordon Browne's pencil, he began the
preparation of the first series of _Sweetheart_. Ever since which, for
him, fortunate day, he has been under promise to supply a second volume
having for title _Sweethearts at Home_. From all over the world children
keep writing to ask him for more adventures with his little companion on
the front basket-seat of his tricycle. Gladly would he respond to this
wish of unseen baby lips, generally expressed on ruled paper in straggly
lines of doubtful spelling. But, alas! Sweetheart is nineteen and tall.
She would be the death of her poor father (and of the machine) at the
very first hill. Now she rides a "free-wheel" of her own, and saddest
of all to relate, prefers Hugh John or other younger company to her
ancientest of comrades. That is, on cycling trips. But she makes up to
him in other ways, and hardly anything gives her greater pleasure than
to "revisit the roads and ridges" where, sixteen years ago, her baby
fingers, vigilant on the cycle bell, called the preceding wayfarer to
attention.
Then we had the world to ourselves, save for a red farm cart or so. Then
there were no motor-cars, no motor-buses, no clappering insolent
monocycles! It was in some wise the rider's age of gold. The country
still lay waste and sweet and silent about him. The ignoble "toot-toot"
and rhinoceros snort of the pursuing monster was unknown--unknown, too,
the odors which leave the wayfarer fretful and angry behind them.
"_Get out of the way, all you mean little people!_" was not yet the
commonest of highway sounds. The green hedgerows were not hidden under a
gray dust veil. The Trossachs, the Highlands, the English lakes, and our
own fair Galloway roads were not splashed with the iridescent fragrance
of petrol. Ah, we took Time by the forelock, Sweetheart, you and I, in
those old days when the hawthorn was untainted and the wayside
honeysuckles still gave forth a good smell. True, Sweetheart (as above
stated) sounded a bell. But even she did it with relish, and the trill
carried tenderly on the ear, like the mass-bell rung in some great
cathedral as the service culminates, each time more thrilling and
insistent. And it was good to see the smile of the folk as they stood
aside, and the nod which red-cloaked Sweetheart gave them as we glided
noiselessly past!
Ah, a good time! Neither of us are in the least likely to see a better!
For during these fifteen years there has come upon our land a strange
thing, a kind of plague of heartlessness; the return, perhaps, of
mechanically civilized man to the brute, or (if that be too strong) at
least to the ruling-out of all gracious consideration for the rights of
wayfarers.
I am sure that the "motoring-habit" is more poisonous and more injurious
to the nations in this Year of Grace, 1911, than all the poisons that
ever were "listed." It is the Indian hemp of the soul, which makes even
good men mad. The earth may still belong to the Lord, though, standing
afar off, I have sometimes my doubts. But of a certainty the roads
between city and city, the creeper-hung village street where,
generation after generation, children played, the quiet lanes where the
old folk walked arm in arm, are now given over to the Minotaur whose
name is "My Lord Teuf-Teuf."
Every day in all lands (called civilized) the journals are filled with a
lengthening tale of victims--of the little child going to school, bag on
back; the bairn playing with his soldiers in the dust; the deaf old lady
walking along the lanes, so safe and quiet a few years ago. I can see
her pattering about, looking for a few roses to grace her room--roses to
dream over, roses to call back the good days now past for ever.
"HRRUMPH! HRRUMPH!" It is the trump of doom--behind her, unseen, to her
unheard. And in the next number of the local paper there will be the
briefest of paragraphs: "No blame attaches to the proprietor or to his
excellent and competent chauffeur."
Sometimes, if one has the honor to be run over by the Highest of the
High Born, they do inquire for you at the hospital, or even send a
wreath for the coffin. For this one should even be content to die. And
the paragraphs in the papers recording the gift quite make up to the
mourners for their loss.
But even so, this is on the heights of motoring generosity. For at least
_noblesse_ does sometimes oblige. But the more recently and the more
ignobly the Over-Slaughterman has been enriched, the more ignorant of
all knowledge he is, the less he has seen of other lands, the fewer
incursions he has made into the world of books and art, the less he
possesses of that kindly natural consideration which the King-Gentleman
shares with the Working-Gentleman--the more cruel and selfish he is when
he gets himself upon the road, rushing along, disguised to the eyes,
fakir-mad in a kind of devilish Juggernaut joy, to the holocaust of
innumerable innocent victims.
"_The police failed to obtain the number of the car which caused the
accident._"
Naturally! Excellent Under-Slaughterman, vulgarly called Chauffeur!
Knows his business! He will ask for a rise next week and he will get it.
That paragraph about the little girl trailed along for fifty yards under
the rear wheels, with--Hold your tongue, you understand, Higgins--the
details would not look well posted up in my club! Brave
Under-Slaughterman! He winks an eye, as he has a right to do when he
puts his latest-earned gratuity in his pocket.
But, halt there! I will do no man an injustice if I can help it. There
are motorists and drivers of motor-cars who are noways "motor-fiends,"
who conduct a car as safely and carefully as in other times they would a
pair of horses. I have friends among such. God keep them in life and the
practice of "Unto others as I would that others should do unto me!"
But I grow old, at least in experience, and I fear for these my friends.
Motoring as practiced in Great Britain to-day (and the northern
continent is little better) is the direct and intentional abrogation of
the Golden Rule. More, it is the only way in which a man,
light-heartedly, taking no thought for the morrow, may kill his neighbor
with impunity. In old times it was the pursuit of cent.-per-cent. which
damned a man, and delivered him bound body and soul to Satan. We have
changed all that. Now it is the pursuit of the mile-a-minute which sucks
men's hearts empty of a generous feeling, which is the great open-air
school for making iron-bound materialists out of human men--or rather
animals fitted with deadly mechanical appliances worse than those of
Mr. Wells's Martians.
I love my friends who are tied to these chariot wheels. But I fear for
them. Temptation is great. Easy is the descent of Avernus, aided by a
smart chauffeur, who wants to give you "the value of your money" in
speed and the survival of the fittest: _id est_, of himself and you!
Better, far better, to take pack on back, pilgrim staff in hand, and
then--to the woods and the hills with Sweetheart and me, where never
"teuf-teuf" can be heard, nor petrol perfume the land.
But at least in Sweetheart's new book you will only find the old sweet
things, the pleasures that do but gladden, the record of things at once
simple and gracious and tender--such as, if you have been fortunate,
must have happened to yourself. She does not once mention any car except
that pulled along by honest "gees," or that still more favorite sort of
all engineering achievements--the fortifications that the next tide will
sweep away.
Sweetheart, little Sweetheart, and that "dear diary" of yours--for this
relief, much thanks! God keep you ever of the humble, of the
wayside-goers, of those who think--first, second and always--of the
comfort of their fellow-men, especially of the weak, the friendless, and
the poor who foot it along life's way. In brief, may you stay what you
have always been, Sweet of heart--and _my Heart_!
_Ainsi soit-il!_