Although fond of rural surroundings and always interested in nature,
the adventure in which I had become involved is not one I can
recommend to a person of refined tastes. I found it little enough to
my own taste even during the first two hours of travel when we kept to
the beaten thoroughfare, for the sun was hot, the dust stifling, and
the language with which the goods-animals were berated coarse in the
extreme.
Yet from this plain roadway and a country of rolling down and heather
which was at least not terrifying, our leader, the Tuttle person,
swerved all at once into an untried jungle, in what at the moment I
supposed to be a fit of absent-mindedness, following a narrow path
that led up a fearsomely slanted incline among trees and boulders of
granite thrown about in the greatest disorder. He was followed,
however, by the goods-animals and by the two cow-persons, so that I
soon saw the new course must be intended.
The mountains were now literally quite everywhere, some higher than
others, but all of a rough appearance, and uninviting in the extreme.
The narrow path, moreover, became more and more difficult, and seemed
altogether quite insane with its twistings and fearsome declivities.
One’s first thought was that at least a bit of road-metal might have
been put upon it. But there was no sign of this throughout our
toilsome day, nor did I once observe a rustic seat along the way,
although I saw an abundance of suitable nooks for these. Needless to
say, in all England there is not an estate so poorly kept up.
There being no halt made for luncheon, I began to look forward to
tea-time, but what was my dismay to observe that this hour also passed
unnoted. Not until night was drawing upon us did our caravan halt
beside a tarn, and here I learned that we would sup and sleep,
although it was distressing to observe how remote we were from proper
surroundings. There was no shelter and no modern conveniences; not
even a wash-hand-stand or water-jug. There was, of course, no central
heating, and no electricity for one’s smoothing-iron, so that one’s
clothing must become quite disreputable for want of pressing. Also the
informal manner of cooking and eating was not what I had been
accustomed to, and the idea of sleeping publicly on the bare ground
was repugnant in the extreme. I mean to say, there was no _vie
intime_. Truly it was a coarser type of wilderness than that which
I had encountered near New York City.
The animals, being unladen, were fitted with a species of leather
bracelet about their forefeet and allowed to stray at their will. A
fire was built and coarse food made ready. It is hardly a thing to
speak of, but their manner of preparing tea was utterly depraved, the
leaves being flung into a tin of boiling water and allowed to
_stew_. The result was something that I imagine etchers might use
in making lines upon their metal plates. But for my day’s fast I
should have been unequal to this, or to the crude output of their
frying-pans.
Yet I was indeed glad that no sign of my dismay had escaped me, for
the cow-persons, Hank and Buck, as I discovered, had given unusual
care to the repast on my account, and I should not have liked to seem
unappreciative. Quite by accident I overheard the honest fellows
quarrelling about an oversight: they had, it seemed, left the
finger-bowls behind; each was bitterly blaming the other for this,
seeming to feel that the meal could not go forward. I had not to be
told that they would not ordinarily carry finger-bowls for their own
use, and that the forgotten utensils must have been meant solely for
my comfort. Accordingly, when the quarrel was at its highest I broke
in upon it, protesting that the oversight was of no consequence, and
that I was quite prepared to roughen it with them in the best of good
fellowship. They were unable to conceal their chagrin at my having
overheard them, and slunk off abashed to the cooking-fire. It was
plain that under their repellent exteriors they concealed veins of the
finest chivalry, and I took pains during the remainder of the evening
to put them at their ease, asking them many questions about their wild
life.
Of the dangers of the jungle by which we were surrounded the most
formidable, it seemed, was not the grizzly bear, of which I had read,
but an animal quaintly called the “high-behind,” which lurks about
camping-places such as ours and is often known to attack man in its
search for tinned milk of which it is inordinately fond. The spoor of
one of these beasts had been detected near our campfire by the
cow-person called Buck, and he now told us of it, though having at
first resolved to be silent rather than alarm us.
As we carried a supply of the animal’s favourite food, I was given two
of the tins with instructions to hurl them quickly at any high-behind
that might approach during the night, my companions arming themselves
in a similar manner. It appears that the beast has tushes similar in
shape to tin openers with which it deftly bites into any tins of milk
that may be thrown at it. The person called Hank had once escaped with
his life only by means of a tin of milk which had caught on the
sabrelike tushes of the animal pursuing him, thus rendering him
harmless and easy of capture.
Needless to say, I was greatly interested in this animal of the quaint
name, and resolved to remain on watch during the night in the hope of
seeing one, but at this juncture we were rejoined by the Tuttle
person, who proceeded to recount to Hank and Buck a highly coloured
version of my regrettable encounter with Mr. C. Belknap-Jackson back
in the New York wilderness, whereat they both lost interest in the
high-behind and greatly embarrassed me with their congratulations upon
this lesser matter. Cousin Egbert, it seemed, had most indiscreetly
talked of the thing, which was now a matter of common gossip in Red
Gap. Thereafter I could get from them no further information about the
habits of the high-behind, nor did I remain awake to watch for one as
I had resolved to, the fatigues of the day proving too much for me.
But doubtless none approached during the night, as the two tins of
milk with which I was armed were untouched when I awoke at dawn.
Again we set off after a barbarous breakfast, driving our laden
animals ever deeper into the mountain fastness, until it seemed that
none of us could ever emerge, for I had ascertained that there was not
a compass in the party. There was now a certain new friendliness in
the manner of the two cow-persons toward me, born, it would seem, of
their knowledge of my assault upon Belknap-Jackson, and I was somewhat
at a loss to know how to receive this, well intentioned though it was.
I mean to say, they were undoubtedly of the servant-class, and of
course one must remember one’s own position, but I at length decided
to be quite friendly and American with them.
The truth must be told that I was now feeling in quite a bit of a funk
and should have welcomed any friendship offered me; I even found
myself remembering with rather a pensive tolerance the attentions of
Mr. Barker, though doubtless back in Red Gap I should have found them
as loathsome as ever. My hump was due, I made no doubt, first, to my
precarious position in the wilderness, but more than that to my
anomalous social position, for it seemed to me now that I was neither
fish nor fowl. I was no longer a gentleman’s man--the familiar
boundaries of that office had been swept away; on the other hand, I
was most emphatically not the gentleman I had set myself up to be, and
I was weary of the pretence. The friendliness of these uncouth
companions, then, proved doubly welcome, for with them I could conduct
myself in a natural manner, happily forgetting my former limitations
and my present quite fictitious dignities.
I even found myself talking to them of cricket as we rode, telling
them I had once hit an eight--fully run out it was and not an
overthrow--though I dare say it meant little to them. I also took
pains to describe to them the correct method of brewing tea, which
they promised thereafter to observe, though this I fear they did from
mere politeness.
Our way continued adventurously upward until mid-afternoon, when we
began an equally adventurous descent through a jungle of pine trees,
not a few of which would have done credit to one of our own parks,
though there were, of course, too many of them here to be at all
effective. Indeed, it may be said that from a scenic standpoint
everything through which we had passed was overdone: mountains, rocks,
streams, trees, all sounding a characteristic American note of
exaggeration.
Then at last we came to the wilderness abode of Cousin Egbert. A rude
hut of native logs it was, set in this highland glen beside a tarn.
From afar we descried its smoke, and presently in the doorway observed
Cousin Egbert himself, who waved cheerfully at us. His appearance gave
me a shock. Quite aware of his inclination to laxness, I was yet
unprepared for his present state. Never, indeed, have I seen a man so
badly turned out. Too evidently unshaven since his disappearance, he
was gotten up in a faded flannel shirt, open at the neck and without
the sign of cravat, a pair of overalls, also faded and quite wretchedly
spotty, and boots of the most shocking description. Yet in spite of
this dreadful tenue he greeted me without embarrassment and indeed
with a kind of artless pleasure. Truly the man was impossible, and when
I observed the placard he had allowed to remain on the waistband of his
overalls, boastfully alleging their indestructibility, my sympathies
flew back to Mrs. Effie. There was a cartoon emblazoned on this placard,
depicting the futile efforts of two teams of stout horses, each attached
to a leg of the garment, to wrench it in twain. I mean to say, one might
be reduced to overalls, but this blatant emblem was not a thing any
gentleman need have retained. And again, observing his footgear, I was
glad to recall that I had included a plentiful supply of boot-cream in
my scanty luggage.
Three of the goods-animals were now unladen, their burden of
provisions being piled beside the door while Cousin Egbert chatted
gayly with the cow-persons and the Indian Tuttle, after which these
three took their leave, being madly bent, it appeared, upon
penetrating still farther into the wilderness to another cattle farm.
Then, left alone with Cousin Egbert, I was not long in discovering
that, strictly speaking, he had no establishment. Not only were there
no servants, but there were no drains, no water-taps, no ice-machine,
no scullery, no central heating, no electric wiring. His hut consisted
of but a single room, and this without a floor other than the packed
earth, while the appointments were such as in any civilized country
would have indicated the direst poverty. Two beds of the rudest
description stood in opposite corners, and one end of the room was
almost wholly occupied by a stone fireplace of primitive construction,
over which the owner now hovered in certain feats of cookery.
Thanks to my famished state I was in no mood to criticise his efforts,
which he presently set forth upon the rough deal table in a hearty but
quite inelegant manner. The meal, I am bound to say, was more than
welcome to my now indiscriminating palate, though at a less urgent
moment I should doubtless have found the bread soggy and the beans a
pernicious mass. There was a stew of venison, however, which only the
most skilful hands could have bettered, though how the man had
obtained a deer was beyond me, since it was evident he possessed no
shooting or deer-stalking costume. As to the tea, I made bold to speak
my mind and succeeded in brewing some for myself.
Throughout the repast Cousin Egbert was constantly attentive to my
needs and was more cheerful of demeanour than I had ever seen him. The
hunted look about his eyes, which had heretofore always distinguished
him, was now gone, and he bore himself like a free man.
“Yes, sir,” he said, as we smoked over the remains of the meal, “you
stay with me and I’ll give you one swell little time. I’ll do the
cooking, and between whiles we can sit right here and play cribbage
day in and day out. You can get a taste of real life without moving.”
I saw then, if never before, that his deeper nature would not be
aroused. Doubtless my passing success with him in Paris had marked the
very highest stage of his spiritual development. I did not need to be
told now that he had left off sock-suspenders forever, nor did I waste
words in trying to recall him to his better self. Indeed for the
moment I was too overwhelmed by fatigue even to remonstrate about his
wretched lounge-suit, and I early fell asleep on one of the beds while
he was still engaged in washing the metal dishes upon which we had
eaten, singing the while the doleful ballad of “Rosalie, the Prairie
Flower.”
It seemed but a moment later that I awoke, for Cousin Egbert was again
busy among the dishes, but I saw that another day had come and his
song had changed to one equally sad but quite different. “In the hazel
dell my Nellie’s sleeping,” he sang, though in a low voice and quite
cheerfully. Indeed his entire repertoire of ballads was confined to
the saddest themes, chiefly of desirable maidens taken off untimely
either by disease or accident. Besides “Rosalie, the Prairie Flower,”
there was “Lovely Annie Lisle,” over whom the willows waved and
earthly music could not waken; another named “Sweet Alice Ben Bolt”
lying in the churchyard, and still another, “Lily Dale,” who was
pictured “‘neath the trees in the flowery vale,” with the wild rose
blossoming o’er the little green grave.
His face was indeed sad as he rendered these woful ballads and yet his
voice and manner were of the cheeriest, and I dare say he sang without
reference to their real tragedy. It was a school of American balladry
quite at variance with the cheerful optimism of those I had heard from
the Belknap-Jackson phonograph, where the persons are not dead at all
but are gayly calling upon one another to come on and do a folkdance,
or hear a band or crawl under--things of that sort. As Cousin Egbert
bent over a frying pan in which ham was cooking he crooned softly:
“In the hazel dell my Nellie’s sleeping,
Nellie loved so long,
While my lonely, lonely watch I’m keeping,
Nellie lost and gone.”
I could attribute his choice only to that natural perversity which
prompted him always to do the wrong thing, for surely this affecting
verse was not meant to be sung at such a moment.
Attempting to arise, I became aware that the two days’ journey had
left me sadly lame and wayworn, also that my face was burned from the
sun and that I had been awakened too soon. Fortunately I had with me a
shilling jar of Ridley’s Society Complexion Food, “the all-weather
wonder,” which I applied to my face with cooling results, and I then
felt able to partake of a bit of the breakfast which Cousin Egbert now
brought to my bedside. The ham was of course not cooked correctly and
the tea was again a mere corrosive, but so anxious was my host to
please me that I refrained from any criticism, though at another time
I should have told him straight what I thought of such cookery.
When we had both eaten I slept again to the accompaniment of another
sad song and the muted rattle of the pans as Cousin Egbert did the
scullery work, and it was long past the luncheon hour when I awoke,
still lame from the saddle, but greatly refreshed.
It was now that another blow befell me, for upon arising and searching
through my kit I discovered that my razors had been left behind. By
any thinking man the effect of this oversight will be instantly
perceived. Already low in spirits, the prospect of going unshaven
could but aggravate my funk. I surrendered to the wave of homesickness
that swept over me. I wanted London again, London with its yellow fog
and greasy pavements, I wished to buy cockles off a barrow, I longed
for toasted crumpets, and most of all I longed for my old rightful
station; longed to turn out a gentleman, longed for the Honourable
George and our peaceful if sometimes precarious existence among people
of the right sort. The continued shocks since that fateful night of
the cards had told upon me. I knew now that I had not been meant for
adventure. Yet here I had turned up in the most savage of lands after
leading a life of dishonest pretence in a station to which I had not
been born--and, for I knew not how many days, I should not be able to
shave my face.
But here again a ferment stirred in my blood, some electric thrill of
anarchy which had come from association with these Americans, a
strange, lawless impulse toward their quite absurd ideals of equality,
a monstrous ambition to be in myself some one that mattered, instead
of that pretended Colonel Ruggles who, I now recalled, was to-day
promised to bridge at the home of Mrs. Judge Ballard, where he would
talk of hunting in the shires, of the royal enclosure at Ascot, of
Hurlingham and Ranleigh, of Cowes in June, of the excellence of the
converts at Chaynes-Wotten. No doubt it was a sort of madness now
seized me, consequent upon the lack of shaving utensils.
I wondered desperately if there was a true place for me in this life.
I had tasted their equality that day of debauch in Paris, but
obviously the sensation could not permanently be maintained upon
spirits. Perhaps I might obtain a post in a bank; I might become a
shop-assistant, bag-man, even a pressman. These moody and unwholesome
thoughts were clouding my mind as I surveyed myself in the wrinkled
mirror which had seemed to suffice the uncritical Cousin Egbert for
his toilet. It hung between the portrait of a champion middle-weight
crouching in position and the calendar advertisement of a brewery
which, as I could not fancy Cousin Egbert being in the least concerned
about the day of the month, had too evidently been hung on his wall
because of the coloured lithograph of a blond creature in theatrical
undress who smirked most immorally.
Studying the curiously wavy effect this glass produced upon my face, I
chanced to observe in a corner of the frame a printed card with the
heading “Take Courage!” To my surprise the thing, when I had read it,
capped my black musings upon my position in a rather uncanny way.
Briefly it recited the humble beginnings of a score or more of the
world’s notable figures.
“Demosthenes was the son of a cutler,” it began. “Horace was the son
of a shopkeeper. Virgil’s father was a porter. Cardinal Wolsey was the
son of a butcher. Shakespeare the son of a wool-stapler.” Followed the
obscure parentage of such well-known persons as Milton, Napoleon,
Columbus, Cromwell. Even Mohammed was noted as a shepherd and
camel-driver, though it seemed rather questionable taste to include in
the list one whose religion, as to family life, was rather scandalous.
More to the point was the citation of various Americans who had sprung
from humble beginnings: Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Garfield, Edison. It
is true that there was not, apparently, a gentleman’s servant among
them; they were rail-splitters, boatmen, tailors, artisans of sorts,
but the combined effect was rather overwhelming.
From the first moment of my encountering the American social system,
it seemed, I had been by way of becoming a rabid anarchist--that is,
one feeling that he might become a gentleman regardless of his
birth--and here were the disconcerting facts concerning a score of
notables to confirm me in my heresy. It was not a thing to be spoken
lightly of in loose discussion, but there can be no doubt that at
this moment I coldly questioned the soundness of our British system,
the vital marrow of which is to teach that there is a difference
between men and men. To be sure, it will have been seen that I was not
myself, having for a quarter year been subjected to a series of
nervous shocks, and having had my mind contaminated, moreover, by
being brought into daily contact with this unthinking American
equality in the person of Cousin Egbert, who, I make bold to assert,
had never for one instant since his doubtless obscure birth considered
himself the superior of any human being whatsoever.
This much I advance for myself in extenuation of my lawless
imaginings, but of them I can abate no jot; it was all at once clear
to me, monstrous as it may seem, that Nature and the British Empire
were at variance in their decrees, and that somehow a system was base
which taught that one man is necessarily inferior to another. I dare
say it was a sort of poisonous intoxication--that I should all at once
declare:
“His lordship tenth Earl of Brinstead and Marmaduke Ruggles are two
men; one has made an acceptable peer and one an acceptable valet, yet
the twain are equal, and the system which has made one inferior
socially to the other is false and bad and cannot endure.” For a
moment, I repeat, I saw myself a gentleman in the making--a clear
fairway without bunkers from tee to green--meeting my equals with a
friendly eye; and then the illumining shock, for I unconsciously added
to myself, “Regarding my inferiors with a kindly tolerance.” It was
there I caught myself. So much a part of the system was I that,
although I could readily conceive a society in which I had no
superiors, I could not picture one in which I had not inferiors. The
same poison that ran in the veins of their lordships ran also in the
veins of their servants. I was indeed, it appeared, hopelessly
inoculated. Again I read the card. Horace was the son of a shopkeeper,
but I made no doubt that, after he became a popular and successful
writer of Latin verse, he looked down upon his own father. Only could
it have been otherwise, I thought, had he been born in this fermenting
America to no station whatever and left to achieve his rightful one.
So I mused thus licentiously until one clear conviction possessed me:
that I would no longer pretend to the social superiority of one
Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles. I would concede no inferiority in myself,
but I would not again, before Red Gap’s county families vaunt myself
as other than I was. That this was more than a vagrant fancy on my
part will be seen when I aver that suddenly, strangely, alarmingly, I
no longer cared that I was unshaven and must remain so for an untold
number of days. I welcomed the unhandsome stubble that now projected
itself upon my face; I curiously wished all at once to be as badly
gotten up as Cousin Egbert, with as little thought for my station in
life. I would no longer refrain from doing things because they were
“not done.” My own taste would be the law.
It was at this moment that Cousin Egbert appeared in the doorway with
four trout from the stream nearby, though how he had managed to snare
them I could not think, since he possessed no correct equipment for
angling. I fancy I rather overwhelmed him by exclaiming, “Hello,
Sour-dough!” since never before had I addressed him in any save a
formal fashion, and it is certain I embarrassed him by my next
proceeding, which was to grasp his hand and shake it heartily, an
action that I could explain no more than he, except that the violence
of my self-communion was still upon me and required an outlet. He
grinned amiably, then regarded me with a shrewd eye and demanded if I
had been drinking.
“This,” I said; “I am drunk with this,” and held the card up to him.
But when he took it interestedly he merely read the obverse side which
I had not observed until now. “Go to Epstein’s for Everything You
Wear,” it said in large type, and added, “The Square Deal Mammoth
Store.”
“They carry a nice stock,” he said, still a bit puzzled by my tone,
“though I generally trade at the Red Front.” I turned the card over
for him and he studied the list of humble-born notables, though from a
point of view peculiarly his own. “I don’t see,” he began, “what right
they got to rake up all that stuff about people that’s dead and gone.
Who cares what their folks was!” And he added, “‘Horace was the son of
a shopkeeper’--Horace who?” Plainly the matter did not excite him, and
I saw it would be useless to try to convey to him what the items had
meant to me.
“I mean to say, I’m glad to be here with you,” I said.
“I knew you’d like it,” he answered. “Everything is nice here.”
“America is some country,” I said.
“She is, she is,” he answered. “And now you can bile up a pot of tea
in your own way while I clean these here fish for sapper.”
I made the tea. I regret to say there was not a tea cozy in the place;
indeed the linen, silver, and general table equipment were sadly
deficient, but in my reckless mood I made no comment.
“Your tea smells good, but it ain’t got no kick to it,” he observed
over his first cup. “When I drench my insides with tea I sort of want
it to take a hold.” And still I made no effort to set him right. I now
saw that in all true essentials he did not need me to set him right.
For so uncouth a person he was strangely commendable and worthy.
As we sipped our tea in companionable silence, I busy with my new and
disturbing thoughts, a long shout came to us from the outer distance.
Cousin Egbert brightened.
“I’m darned if that ain’t Ma Pettengill!” he exclaimed. “She’s rid
over from the Arrowhead.”
We rushed to the door, and in the distance, riding down upon us at
terrific speed, I indeed beheld the Mixer. A moment later she reigned
in her horse before us and hoarsely rumbled her greetings. I had last
seen her at a formal dinner where she was rather formidably done out
in black velvet and diamonds. Now she appeared in a startling tenue of
khaki riding-breeches and flannel shirt, with one of the wide-brimmed
cow-person hats. Even at the moment of greeting her I could not but
reflect how shocked our dear Queen would be at the sight of this
riding habit.
She dismounted with hearty explanations of how she had left her
“round-up” and ridden over to visit, having heard from the Tuttle
person that we were here. Cousin Egbert took her horse and she entered
the hut, where to my utter amazement she at once did a feminine thing.
Though from her garb one at a little distance might have thought her a
man, a portly, florid, carelessly attired man, she made at once for
the wrinkled mirror where, after anxiously scanning her burned face
for an instant, she produced powder and puff from a pocket of her
shirt and daintily powdered her generous blob of a nose. Having
achieved this to her apparent satisfaction, she unrolled a bundle she
had carried at her saddle and donned a riding skirt, buttoning it
about the waist and smoothing down its folds--before I could retire.
“There, now,” she boomed, as if some satisfying finality had been
brought about. Such was the Mixer. That sort of thing would never do
with us, and yet I suddenly saw that she, like Cousin Egbert, was
strangely commendable and worthy. I mean to say, I no longer felt it
was my part to set her right in any of the social niceties. Some
curious change had come upon me. I knew then that I should no longer
resist America.