"Do you know my side of life--London?" asked the Tenderfoot
haughtily, as he followed La Mancha by a corkscrew trail up the lower
foothills.
"Rather," said the Blackguard,--"the mare's a great pal of mine."
"The _Lord_ Mayor, I suppose, you mean?"
"No, the grey mare--horse's old woman, you know. Besides, I know the
place well. The Grand Trunk passes through it; there's quite a
station."
"Why, hundreds of lines go to London."
"Well, I don't know about hundreds. There's the Grand Trunk, and
perhaps they carry a line of portmanteaux or hat-boxes. But I always
take the Grand Trunk. More commodious. Besides, one has to have a
lot of clothes for a big place like London; it has ten thousand
people."
"Five millions, you mean."
"Oh, come off; there are not that number in the whole of Ontario, or
Canada, for that matter."
"London, Ontario? But I was talking of the real London."
"I see; another place, I suppose, of the same name--called after it,
most likely. Oh yes, I know, of course."
The Tenderfoot raged furiously.
"All right, keep on your shirt," said the Blackguard; "I'll be quite
serious if you like. Yes, I know Town--lots of relations there."
"What name?" asked the Tenderfoot innocently. "Where do they live?"
"All over the place--different branches of the family, you know, but
you can always tell them by their coat-of-arms--the Medici arms,
three golden globes and a side door. They're mostly uncles."
In spite of himself, Mr. Ramsay laughed. "I know them. What made
you say I came from Clapham Junction?"
"Where do you live, then?"
"Balham."
"I was only two miles wrong, my friend; it's written on you."
"Written on me?"
"Yes, it will rub off in time, that brand of the respectable suburbs.
Good old southern suburbs!"
"I don't see what you mean, but you know your London."
"Yes, Tenderfoot, but not _your_ London. Mine was the jolly old
London of dress rehearsals, actors' dressing-rooms, suppers at
Salviati's, a brake for the Derby, Tattersall's, Lord's, Sunday at
Richmond, Monday with the Vagabonds, at the House, in the Night Club,
in the Row, in Mayfair, in Whitechapel, on the River, in the Bucket
Shop, up the Spout, or the deuce knows where."
"I never saw that London," said the Tenderfoot gravely.
"What was your London, then?"
"Oh, the City, the City all day, and for my sins Exeter Hall, because
my father's that sort of man; and in the evenings, parlour games,
lawn tennis, parties,--my mother's that kind of woman; lecturing on
minerals at the Polytechnics, debating at the mock Parliament,
slumming in Southwark. Lord, how sick I was of it all--oh, how sick
and tired! But now these woods, this life, if I could only
understand,--meeting men, real men like you, with bodies instead of
only souls."
"Poor little beggar! Yet I suppose there were things you liked even
in your London?"
"Yes, cycling, boating, the debates, the lecturing, thinking,
reading, finding out things. After all, it's a wonderful place, the
centre of everything, the middle of the whole world."
"Give me the outside edge," said the Blackguard, "the jumping-off
place where you look out into the dark occasionally, and catch a
glimpse of heaven or hell through the window."
"That sounds like poetry."
"And it feels like life. I've never read a book, but I've lived--you
bet, I've lived! Great gods, it's better than books; it's better
than London, as you'll see when you get to live. You don't
understand things yet. You don't know what it is to be in danger, to
feel your heart jump with excitement, to feel your blood dance at the
order to fire, to kill men, to be shot at. I used to like a bull
feast once in Spain, but that's tame; to fight in our
insurrections--that was better. Even a dead nation must have a
little fun, and so, because we're not strong enough to fight our
neighbours, we have comical insurrections among ourselves. We are
quite bloodthirsty, and some people really get hurt. But there's not
even that these last few years. Poor old Spain! Once she was
mistress of the earth, once we Spaniards lived for war and wine and
love, and had it all until we were satisfied. Now there are one or
two live Spaniards like me, but to live as our fathers lived we have
to serve under another flag.
"When you wake up, when you've forgotten all about that infernal old
Balham, you'll see that there's another London, the centre of the
Empire, which has stolen the fire from heaven that once belonged to
Spain. We're making that Empire, we cowboys and miners, magistrates
and mounted police of the frontier,--making the new empire in
Australia, in Canada, in Africa, in India. That's what it means, the
frontier which you've been trying, after your little Balham way, to
live in these last few days." Then the Blackguard relapsed into a
shamefaced chuckle. "By Jove, I didn't think I had it in me. I'm
going to preach to the boys when I get back to camp. I'll make 'em
sit up, and if they laugh I'll punch their heads till they're sick."
The hillside was clothed beneath the pines with a dense wet jungle of
rotting deadfall, fruit bushes gorgeous with blossom, and the immense
leaves poised on viciously barbed stems of the devil-club. After
climbing for a very long time, the riders came to the brow of this
lowest spur of the mountains, from whence the trail wound on through
big timber for many a weary mile, gently rising save where there was
an occasional abrupt slope to be surmounted. The top of the ridge
was a gigantic stairway, and it was sundown before the Tenderfoot and
his guide came to the base of the upper foothills.
"I say," said the Tenderfoot, as they breathed their horses before
breasting the zig-zag trail up this mountain,--"I've been too much
ashamed to say anything, but will these people at the Throne mind my
coming without any luggage?"
"They won't mind, if you don't."
"I set off from Windermere driving a pack-horse in front of me."
"I see, and the horse went back to Windermere? They'll send it along
with the mail or our next patrol. I'll tell Grab-a-root, the
Quartermaster."
"I say, you've rum names in this country--Grab-a-root, Dandy, Mutiny,
Tribulation, Arrapahoe Bill, The Blackguard. Does everybody have a
nickname?"
"No; only men who are pretty well liked--or hated."
"Have I one?"
"Oh, you're only a Tenderfoot,--you don't count."
The youngster sighed. "They called me Charlie at home; but here--I
see now."
"Poor old Charlie!"
"And Mr. Burrows up yonder?"
"The Lunatic, eh? We must be getting on."
"Is it very far?" the lad sighed pitifully.
"A mile or two. Come on."
The big timber insensibly gave place to pines scattering up the slope
of ever-lessening girth and stature, sharp, slender cones, black like
funeral torches. It seemed ten weary miles to the top of this upper
foothill. The summit was a desolate moor, streaked with snow in its
hollows, stony, with patches of grassy swamp and scattered torches
twisted in uncouth torture, very small, yet looming monstrous against
the waning light. Ahead was a stony ridge speckled with juniper
bushes, and on its brow two spots like jutting rocks.
"Look," said the Blackguard, pointing to a tiny glimmer under one of
these spots; "they're lighting their lamp at the Throne."