The Quest of the Golden Girl: A Romance Read online

  His cheeks were shaved, and his whitening beard and moustache were wornsomewhat after the fashion of Charles Dickens. This gave a slighttouch of severity to a face that was full of quiet strength.

  Passing the time of day to each other, we were soon in conversation, Iasking him this and that question about the neighbouring country-side,of which I gathered he was an old inhabitant.

  "Yes," he said presently, "I was the first to put stick or stone onWhortleberry Common yonder. Fifteen years ago I built my own woodcottage there, and now I'm rebuilding it of good Surrey stone."

  "Do you mean that you are building it yourself, with your own hands, noone to help you?" I asked.

  "Not so much as to carry a pail of water," he replied. "I'm my owncontractor, my own carpenter, and my own bricklayer, and I shall besixty-seven come Michaelmas," he added, by no means irrelevantly.

  There was pride in his voice,--pardonable pride, I thought, for who ofus would not be proud to be able to build his own house from floor tochimney?

  "Sixty-seven,--a man can see and do a good deal in that time," I said,not flattering myself on the originality of the remark, but desiring toset him talking. In the country, as elsewhere, we must foregoprofundity if we wish to be understood.

  "Yes, sir," he said, "I have been about a good deal in my time. I haveseen pretty well all of the world there is to see, and sailed as far asship could take me."

  "Indeed, you have been a sailor too?"

  "Twenty-two thousand miles of sea," he continued, without directlyanswering my remark. "Yes, Vancouver's about as far as any vessel needwant to go; and then I have caught seals off the coast of Labrador, andwalked my way through the raspberry plains at the back of the WhiteMountains."

  "Vancouver," "Labrador," "The White Mountains," the very names, thuscasually mentioned on a Surrey heath, seemed full of the sounding sea.Like talismans they whisked one away to strange lands, across vastdistances of space imagination refused to span. Strange to think thatthe shabby little man at my side had them all fast locked, picturesupon pictures, in his brain, and as we were talking was back again ingoodness knows what remote latitude.

  I kept looking at him and saying, "Twenty-two thousand miles of sea!sixty-seven! and builds his own cottage!"

  In addition to all this he had found time to be twenty-one years apoliceman, and to beget and rear successfully twelve children. He wasnow, I gathered, living partly on his pension, and spoke of thisdaughter married, this daughter in service here, and that daughter inservice there, one son settled in London and another in the States,with something of a patriarchal pride, with the independent air too ofa man who could honestly say to himself that, with few advantages fromfortune, having had, so to say, to work his passage, every foot andhour of it, across those twenty-two thousand miles and thosesixty-seven years, he had made a thoroughly creditable job of his life.

  As we walked along I caught glimpses in his vivid and ever-varying talkof the qualities that had made his success possible. They are alwaysthe same qualities!

  A little pile of half-hewn stones, the remains of a ruined wall,scattered by the roadside caught his eye.

  "I've seen the time when I wouldn't have left them stones lying outthere," he said, and presently, "Why, God bless you, I've made my ownboots before to-day. Give me the tops and I'll soon rig up a pairstill."

  And with all his success, and his evident satisfaction with his lot,the man was neither a prig nor a teetotaller. He had probably seen toomuch of the world to be either. Yet he had, he said, been too busy allhis life to spend much time in public-houses, as we drank a pint of aletogether in the inn which stood at the end of the common.

  "No, it's all well enough in its way, but it swallows time," heremarked. "You see, my wife and I have our own pin at home, and whenI'm a bit tired, I just draw a glass for myself, and smoke a pipe, andthere's no time wasted coming and going, and drinking first with thisand then with the other."

  A little way past the inn we came upon a notice-board whereon the lordof the manor warned all wayfarers against trespassing on the common bymaking encampments, lighting fires or cutting firewood thereon, and tothis fortunate circumstance I owe the most interesting story mycompanion had to tell.

  We had mentioned the lord of the manor as we crossed the common, andthe notice-board brought him once more to the old man's mind.

  "Poor gentleman!" he said, pointing to the board as though it was thelord of the manor himself standing there, "I shouldn't like to have hadthe trouble he's had on my shoulders."

  "Indeed?" I said interrogatively.

  "Well, you see, sir," he continued, instinctively lowering his voice toa confidential impressiveness, "he married an actress; a noble lady tooshe was, a fine dashing merry lady as ever you saw. All went well fora time, and then it suddenly got whispered about that she and thevillage schoolmaster were meeting each other at nights, in themeadow-bottom at the end of her own park. It lies over that way,--Icould take you to the very place. The schoolmaster was a noble-lookingyoung man too, a devil-me-care blade of a fellow, with a turn forpoetry, they said, and a merry man too, and much in request for a songat The Moonrakers of an evening. Many 's the night I've heard thewindows rattling with the good company gathered round him. Yes, he wasa noble-looking man, a noble-looking man," he repeated wistfully, andwith an evident sympathy for the lovers which, I need hardly say, wonmy heart.

  "But how, I wonder, did they come to know each other?" I interrupted,anxious to learn all I could, even if I had to ask stupid questions tolearn it.

  "Well, of course, no one can say how these things come about. She wasthe lady of the manor and the patroness of his school; and then, as Isay, he was a very noble-looking man, and probably took her fancy; and,sir, whenever some women set their hearts on a man there's no stoppingthem. Have him they will, whatever happens. They can't help it, poorthings! It's just a freak of nature."

  "Well, and how was it found out?" I again jogged him.

  "One of Sir William's keepers played the spy on them. He spread it allover the place how he had seen them on moonlight nights sittingtogether in the dingle, drinking champagne, and laughing and talking asmerry as you please; and, of course, it came in time to Sir William--"

  "You see that green lane there," he broke off, pointing to a romanticpath winding along the heath side; "it was along there he used to go ofa night to meet her after every one was in bed; and when it all cameout there was a regular cartload of bottles found there. The squirehad them all broken up, but the pieces are there to this day.

  "Yes," he again proceeded, "it hit Sir William very hard. He's neverbeen the same man since."

  I am afraid that my sympathies were less with Sir William than betterregulated sympathies would have been. I confess that my imaginationwas more occupied with that picture of the two lovers making merrytogether in the moonlit dingle.

  Is it not, indeed, a fascinating little story, with its piquantcontrasts and its wild love-at-all-costs? And how many such storiesare hidden about the country, lying carelessly in rustic memories, ifone only knew where to find them!

  At this point my companion left me, and I--well, I confess that Iretraced my steps to the common and rambled up that green lane, alongwhich the romantic schoolmaster used to steal in the moonlight to thewarm arms of his love. How eagerly he had trodden the very turf I wastreading,--we never know at what moment we are treading sacred earth!But for that old man, I had passed along this path without a thrill.Had I not but an hour ago stood upon this very common, vainly, so itseemed, invoking the spirits of passion and romance, and the grim oldcommon had never made a sign. And now I stood in the very dingle wherethey had so often and so wildly met; and it was all gone, quite goneaway for ever. The hours that had seemed so real, the kisses that hadseemed like to last for ever, the vows, the tears, all now as if theyhad never been, gone on the four winds, lost in the abysses of time andspace.

  And to think of all the thousands and thousands of lovers who had l
ovedno less wildly and tenderly, made sweet these lanes with their vows,made green these meadows with their feet; and they, too, all gone,their bright eyes fallen to dust, their sweet voices for ever put tosilence.

  To which I would add, for the benefit of the profane, that I sought invain for those broken bottles.

  CHAPTER XII

  THE TRUTH ABOUT THE GIPSIES

  I felt lonely after losing my companion, and I met nobody to take hisplace. In fact, for a couple of hours I met nothing worth mentioning,male or female, with the exception of a gipsy caravan, which I supposewas both; but it was a poor show. Borrow would have blushed for it. Infact, it is my humble opinion that the gipsies have been overdone, justas the Alps have been over-climbed. I have no great desire to seeSwitzerland, for I am sure the Alps must be greasy with being climbed.

  Besides, the Alps and the gipsies, in common with waterfalls and ruinedcastles, belong to the ready-made operatic poetry of the world, fromwhich the last thrill has long since departed. They are, so to say,public poetry, the public property of the emotions, and no longer touchthe private heart or stir the private imagination. Our fathers felt somuch about them that there is nothing left for us to feel. They are asa rose whose fragrance has been exhausted by greedy and indiscriminatesmelling. I would rather find a little Surrey common for myself andidle about it a summer day, with the other geese and donkeys, thanclimb the tallest Alp.

  Most gipsies are merely tenth-rate provincial companies, travellingwith and villainously travestying Borrow's great pieces of "Lavengro"and "Romany Rye." Dirty, ill-looking, scowling men; dirty, slovenly,and wickedly ugly women; children to match, snarling, filthy littlecurs, with a ready beggar's whine on occasion. A gipsy encampmentto-day is little more than a moving slum, a scab of squalor on the fairface of the countryside.

  But there was one little trifle of an incident that touched me as Ipassed this particular caravan. Evidently one of the vans had come togrief, and several men of the party were making a great show ofrepairing it. After I had run the gauntlet of the begging children,and was just out of ear-shot of the group, I turned round to survey itfrom a distance. It was encamped on a slight rise of the undulatingroad, and from where I stood tents and vans and men were clearlysilhouetted against the sky. The road ran through and a little higherthan the encampment, which occupied both sides of it. Presently thefigure of a young man separated itself from the rest, stept up on tothe smooth road, and standing in the middle of it, in an absorbedattitude, began to make a movement with his hands as though windingstring round a top. That in fact was his occupation, and for the nextfive minutes he kept thus winding the cord, flinging the top to theground, and intently bending down to catch it on his hand, none of theothers, not even the children, taking the slightest notice of him,--heentirely alone there with his poor little pleasure. There seemed to mepathos in his loneliness. Had some one spun the top with him, it wouldhave vanished; and presently, no doubt at the bidding of an oath Icould not hear, he hurriedly thrust the top into his pocket, and oncemore joined the straining group of men. The snatched pleasure must beput by at the call of reality; the world and its work must rush in uponhis dream. I have often thought about the top and its spinner, as Ihave noted the absorbed faces of other people's pleasures in thestreets,--two lovers passing along the crowded Strand with eyes onlyfor each other; a student deep in his book in the corner of an omnibus;a young mother glowing over the child in her arms; the wild-eyedmusician dreamily treading on everybody's toes, and begging nobody'spardon; the pretty little Gaiety Girl hurrying to rehearsal with nothought but of her own sweet self and whether there will be a letterfrom Harry at the stage-door,--yes, if we are alone in our griefs, weare no less alone in our pleasures. We spin our tops as in anenchanted circle, and no one sees or heeds save ourselves,--as howshould they with their own tops to spin? Happy indeed is he, who hashis top and cares still to spin it; for to be tired of our tops is tobe tired of life, saith the preacher.

  As the young gipsy's little holiday came to an end, I turned with asigh upon my way; and here, while still on the subject, may I remark onthe curious fact that probably Borrow has lived and died without asingle gipsy having heard of him, just as the expertest anglers knownothing of Izaak Walton.

  Has the British soldier, one wonders, yet discovered Rudyard Kipling,or is the Wessex peasant aware of Thomas Hardy? It is odd to think thatthe last people to read such authors are the very people they mostconcern. For you might spend your life, say, in studying the Londonstreet boy, and write never so movingly and humourously about him, yetwould he never know your name; and though Whitechapel makes novelists,it does so without knowing it,--makes them to be read in Mayfair,--justas it never wears the dainty hats and gowns its weary little millinersand seamstresses make through the day and night. It is Capital andLabour over again, for in literature also we reap in gladness whatothers have sown in tears.

  And now, after these admirable reflections, I am about to make such"art" as I can of another man's tragedy, as will appear in the nextchapter.

  CHAPTER XIII

  A STRANGE WEDDING

  My moralisings were cut short by my entering a village, and, it beingabout the hour of noon, finding myself in the thick of a villagewedding.

  Undoubtedly the nicest way to get married is on the sly, and indeed itis at present becoming quite fashionable. Many young couples of myacquaintance, who have had no other reason for concealing the factbeyond their own whim, have thus slipped off without saying a word toanybody, and returned full-blown housekeepers, with "at home" days oftheir own, and everything else like real married people,--for, as saidan old lady to me, "one can never be sure of married people nowadaysunless you have been at the wedding."

  My friend George Muncaster, who does everything charmingly differentfrom any one else, hit upon one of the quaintest plans for hismarriage. It was simple, and some may say prosaic enough. His daysbeing spent at a great office in the city, he got leave of absence fora couple of hours, met his wife, went with her to the registrar's,returned to his office, worked the rest of the day as usual, and thenwent to his new home to find his wife and dinner awaiting him,--alljust as it was going to be every night for so many happy years.Prosaic, you say! Not your idea of poetry, perhaps, but, after a newand growing fashion in poetry, truly poetic. George Muncaster'smarriage is a type of the new poetry, the poetry of essentials. The oldpoetry, as exemplified in the old-fashioned marriage, is a poetry ofexternals, and certainly it has the advantage of picturesqueness.

  There is perhaps more to be said for it than that. Indeed, if I wereever to get married, I am at a loss to know which way I shouldchoose,--George Muncaster's way or the old merry fashion, with the riceand the old shoes and the orange-blossom. No doubt the old cheerypublicity is a little embarrassing to the two most concerned, and theold marriage customs, the singing of the bride and bridegroom to theirnuptial couch, the frank jests, the country horse-play, must havefretted the souls of many a lover before Shelley, who, it will beremembered, resented the choral celebrations of his Scotch landlord andfriends by appearing at his bedroom door with a brace of pistols.

  How like Shelley! The Scotch landlord meant well, we may be sure, anda very small pinch of humour, or even mere ordinary humanity, asdistinct from humanitarianism, would have taken in the situation. Ofcourse Shelley's mind was full of the sanctity of the moment, andindignant that "the hour for which the years did sigh" should thus bebroken in upon by vulgar revelry; but while we may sympathise with hisview, and admit to the full the sacredness, not to say the solemnity,of the marriage ceremony, yet it is to be hoped that it still retains anaturally mirthful side, of which such public merriment is but thecrude expression.

  With all its sweet and mystical significance, surely the prevailingfeeling in the hearts of bride and bridegroom is, or should be, that ofhappiness,--happiness bubbling and dancing, all sunny ripples fromheart to heart.

  Surely they can spare a little of it, just one day's sight of i
t, to aless happy world,--a world long since married and done for, and withlittle happiness in it save the spectacle of other people's happiness.It is good for us to see happy people, good for the symbols ofhappiness to be carried high amidst us on occasion; for if they serveno other purpose, they inspire in us the hope that we too may some daybe happy, or remind our discontented hearts that we have been.

  If it were only for the sake of those quaint old women for whom lifewould be entirely robbed of interest were it not for other people'sweddings and funerals, one feels the public ceremony of marriage a sortof public duty, the happiness tax, so to say, due to the somewhatimpoverished revenues of public happiness. Other forms of happinessare taxed; why not marriage?

  In a village, particularly, two people who robbed the community of itsperquisites in this respect would be looked upon as "enemies of thepeople," and their joint life would begin under a social ban which itwould cost much subsequent hospitality to remove. The dramaticinstinct to which the life of towns is necessarily unfavourable, iskept alive in the country by the smallness of the stage and the fewnessof the actors. A village is an organism, conscious of its severalparts, as a town is not.

  In a village everybody is a public man. The great events of his lifeare of public as well as private significance, appropriately,therefore, invested with public ceremonial. Thus used to living in thepublic eye, the actors carry off their parts at weddings and otherdramatic ceremonials, with more spirit than is easy to a townsman, whois naturally made self-conscious by being suddenly called upon to fillfor a day a public position for which he has had no training. That nodoubt is the real reason for the growth of quiet marriages; and thedesire for them, I suspect, comes first from the man, for there are fewwomen who at heart do not prefer the old histrionic display.