I suppose if I had been a hero of romance, instead of an ordinary
kind of chap, I would have steamed in with the Tallahassee, fired
a gun, and landed in state, instead of putting on my old clothes
and sneaking into the county on an automobile. However, I did my
little best, so far as making a date with Babcock was concerned,
and as it turned out in the end I dare say the hero of romance
wouldn't have managed it much better himself. It was late when I
got into Forty Fyles (as the village was called), and put up at
one of those quaint, low-raftered, bulging old inns which still
remain, thank Heaven, here and there, in the less travelled parts
of England. If I were dusty and dirty when I arrived, you ought to
have seen me the next day after a two-hours' job with the
differential gears. By the time I had got the trouble to rights,
and had puffed up and down the main street to make assurance sure
and astonish the natives (who came out two hundred strong and
cheered), I was as frowsy, unkempt, and dilapidated an American as
ever drove a twelve H.P. Panhard through the rural lanes of
Britain. Indeed, I was so shocked at my own appearance when I
looked at myself in the glass (such a wiggly old glass that showed
one in streaks like bacon) that I went down to the draper's and
tried to buy a new set out. But as they had nothing except cheap
tripper suits for pigmies (I stood six feet in my stockings and
had played full back at college) and fishermen's clothes of an
ancient Dutch design, I forebore to waste my good dollars in
making a guy of myself, and decided to remain as I was.
Then, as I was sitting in the bar and asking the potman the best
way to get to Castle Fyles, it suddenly came over me that it was
the Fourth of July, and that, recreant as I was, I had come near
forgetting the event altogether. I started off again down the main
street to discover some means of raising a noise, and after a good
deal of searching I managed to procure several handfuls of strange
whitey fire-crackers the size of cigars and a peculiar red package
that the shopkeeper called a "Haetna Volcano." He said that for
four and eightpence one couldn't find its match in Lunnon itself,
and obligingly took off twopence when I pointed out Vesuvius
hadn't a fuse. With the crackers in my pocket and the volcano
under my arm I set forth in the pleasant summer morning to walk to
Castle Fyles, having an idea to rest by the way and celebrate the
Fourth in the very heart of the hereditary enemy.
The road, as is so often the case in England, ran between high
stone walls and restrained the wayfarer from straying into the
gentlemen's parks on either hand. The sun shone overhead with the
fierce heat of a British July; and to make matters worse in my
case, I seemed to be the loadstone of what traffic was in progress
on the highway. A load of hay stuck to me with obstinate
determination; if I walked slowly, the hay lagged beside me; if I
quickened my pace, the hay whipped up his horses; when I rested
and mopped my brow, the hay rested and mopped ITS brow. Then there
were tramps of various kinds: a Punch and Judy show on the march;
swift silent bicyclists who sped past in a flurry of dust; local
gentry riding cock-horses (no doubt to Banbury Crosses); local
gentry in dogcarts; local gentry in closed carriages going to a
funeral, and apparently (as seen through the windows) very hot and
mournful and perspiring; an antique clergyman in an antique gig
who gave me a tract and warned me against drink; a char-a-bancs
filled to bursting with the True Blue Constitutional Club of East
Pigley--such at least was the inscription on a streaming banner--
who swung past waving their hats and singing "Our Boarder's such a
Nice Young Man"; then some pale aristocratic children in a sort of
perambulating clothes-basket drawn by a hairy mite of a pony, who
looked at me disapprovingly, as though I hadn't honestly come by
the volcano; then--but why go on with the never-ending procession
of British pilgrims who straggled out at just sufficient intervals
to keep between them a perpetual eye on my movements and prevent
me from celebrating the birth of freedom in any kind of privacy.
At last, getting desperate at this espionage and thinking besides
I could make a shorter cut towards Castle Fyles, I clambered over
an easy place in the left-hand wall and dropped into the shade of
a magnificent park. Here, at least, whatever the risk of an
outraged law (which I had been patronisingly told was even
stricter than that of the Medes and Persians), I seemed free to
wander unseen and undetected, and accordingly struck a course
under the oaks that promised in time to bring me out somewhere
near the sea.
Dipping into a little dell, where in the perfection of its English
woodland one might have thought to meet Robin Hood himself, or
startle Little John beside a fallen deer, I looked carefully
about, got out my pale crackers, and wondered whether I dared
begin. It is always an eerie sensation to be alone in the forest,
what with the whispering leaves overhead, the stir and hum of
insects, the rustle of ghostly foot-falls, and (in my case) the
uneasy sense of green-liveried keepers sneaking up at one through
the clumps of gorse. However, I was not the man to belie the blood
of Revolutionary heroes and meanly carry my unexploded crackers
beyond the scene of danger, so I remembered the brave days of old
and touched a whitey off. It burst with the roar of a cannon and
reverberated through the glades like the broadside of a man-of-
war. It took me a good five minutes before I had the courage to
detonate another, which, for better security, I did this time
under my hat. I am not saying it did the hat any good, but it
seemed safer and less deafening, and I accordingly went on in this
manner until there were only about three whiteys left between me
and Vesuvius, which I kept back, in accordance with tradition, for
one big triumphant bang at the end.
I was in the act of touching my cigar to whitey number three,--on
my knees, I remember; and trying to arrange my hat so as to get
the most muffling for the least outlay of burned felt, when the
branches in front of me parted and I looked up to see--well,
simply the most beautiful woman in the world, regarding me with
astonishment and anger. She was about twenty, somewhat above the
medium height, and her eyes were of a lovely flashing blue that
seemed in the intensity of her indignation to positively emit
sparks--altogether the most exquisitely radiant and glorious
creature that man was ever privileged to gaze upon.
"How dare you let off fireworks in this park?" she said, in a
voice like clotted cream.