Leaves in the Wind Part 9

created something like a sensation. The sports of the 'Englander' were held in contempt by the students, and this absurd toy was the last straw. It was the very symbol of the childishness of a nation given over to the sport of babes.

"One day the Pole was riding out on his bicycle when he pa.s.sed a couple of students, who shouted opprobrious epithets at the 'Englander' and his preposterous vehicle. The Pole turned round, flung some verbal change back at them, and rode on his way.

"That evening as he sat in his room he heard steps ascending the stairs, and there entered two students clothed in all the formality of grave business. They had brought the Pole a challenge to a duel from each of the two young fellows with whom he had exchanged words on the road. The challenges were couched in the most ruthless terms. This was to be no mere nominal satisfaction of honour. It was to be a duel without guards or any of those restrictions that are common in such affairs. The weapon was the sword, and the time-limit eight days.

"The seconds having fulfilled their errand went away, leaving the Pole in no cheerful frame of mind. He was only a very indifferent swordsman, and had never cultivated the sport of duelling. Now suddenly he was faced with the necessity of fighting a duel in which he would certainly be beaten, and might be killed, for he understood the intentions of the challengers. It was clearly not possible for him to acquire in a week such expertness with the sword as would give him a chance of victory.

"In this emergency he came along to the little group of which I have spoken. We were playing cards when he entered, but stopped when we saw that something unusual had happened. He told us the story of the bicycle ride and the sequel. What was he to do? He must fight, of course, but how was he to get a dog's chance?

"Now the oldest of our group, and by far the most worldly wise, was an American. He listened to the Pole and agreed that there was no time for him to become sufficiently expert with the sword. 'But can you shoot?' he asked the Pole. Yes, he was not a bad shot. The American took up an ace from a pack of cards and held it up. 'Could you, standing where you are, hit that ace with a revolver?' 'I am not sure that I could hit it,' answered the Pole, 'but I should come very near it.' 'That's all right,' said the American. 'Now to business. These fellows have forgotten something. They're so used to fighting with the sword that they've forgotten there's such a thing as the revolver. And they're trying to bluff you into their own terms. They've forgotten, or don't choose to remember, that, as the challenged party, you have choice of weapons. Now we'll draw up an answer to this letter, accepting the challenge, claiming the choice of weapons, choosing the revolver, and putting the conditions as stiff as we can make 'em.'

"So we sat around the American and composed the reply. And I can a.s.sure you it had a very ugly look. The Pole signed it with great delight, and the American and I as seconds delivered it.

"Then we waited. One day pa.s.sed without an answer--two, three, four, five, six. Still no answer. We were enjoying ourselves. On the evening of the seventh day the seconds reappeared at the Pole's rooms.

They brought no acceptance of his challenge, but an impudent demand for the original conditions. The Pole came along to us with the news.

'That's all right,' said the American. 'We've got them on the run.

Now to clinch the business.' And once more we sat round in great glee to draft the reply. It was as hot as we knew how to make it. It breathed death in every syllable, and it gave the Germans eight days to prepare for the end at the muzzle of the revolver.

"Again we waited, and again the days pa.s.sed without a sign. Then on the eve of the eighth day the seconds once more appeared. I was present with the Pole at the time. I have never seen a more forlorn pair than those seconds made as they entered. Their princ.i.p.als, driven into a corner, faced with the alternative of fighting with weapons which did not a.s.sure them of victory or of accepting the humiliation of running away, had decided to run away. They would not fight on the conditions offered by the Pole, and the seconds were a spectacle of humiliation. Their apologies to us struggled with their indignation at their princ.i.p.als and they went away a chastened spectacle. That night we had a gay gathering with the American in the chair, and I think the incident must have got wind abroad, for thenceforward the Pole rode his Safety in peace and in triumph....

"You may think that story is a trifle. Well, it is. But I think it has some bearing on the end of the war."

ON EARLY RISING

There is no period of the year when my spirit is so much at war with the flesh as this. For the winter is over, and the woods are browning and the choristers of the fields are calling me to matins--and I do not go. Spiritually I am an early riser. I have a pa.s.sion for the dawn and the dew on the gra.s.s, and the "early pipe of half-awakened birds."

On the rare occasions on which I have gone out to meet the sun upon the upland lawn or on the mountain tops I have experienced an emotion that perhaps no other experience can give. I remember a morning in the Tyrol when I had climbed Kitzbulhorn to see the sun rise. I saw the darkness changing to chill grey, but no beam of sunlight came through the ma.s.sed clouds that barred the east. Feeling that my night climb had been in vain, I turned round to the west, and there, by a sort of magical reflection, I saw the sunrise. A beam of light, invisible to the east, had pierced the clouds and struck the mountains in the west.

It seemed to turn them to molten gold, and as it moved along the black ma.s.s it was as though a vast torch was setting the world aflame. And I remembered that fine stanza of Clough's:

And not through eastern windows only, When morning comes, comes in the light.

In front the dawn breaks slow, how slowly.

But westward, look, the land is bright.

And there was that other dawn which I saw, from the icy ridge of the Petersgrat, turning the snow-clad summits of the Matterhorn, the Weisshorn, and Mont Blanc to a magic realm of rose-tinted battlements.

And there are others. But they are few, for though I am spiritually a son of the morning, I am physically a sluggard. There are some people who are born with a gift for early rising. I was born with a genius for lying in bed. I can go to bed as late as anybody, and have no joy in a company that begins to yawn and grow drowsy about ten o'clock.

But in the early rising handicap I am not a starter. A merciful providence has given me a task that keeps me working far into the night and makes breakfast and the newspaper in bed a matter of duty. No words can express the sense of secret satisfaction with which I wake and realise that I haven't to get up, that stern duty bids me lie a little longer, listening to the comfortable household noises down below and the cheerful songs outside, studying anew the pattern of the wall-paper and taking the problems of life "lying-down" in no craven sense.

I know there are many people who have to catch early morning buses and trams who would envy me if they knew my luck. For the ign.o.ble family of sluggards is numerous. It includes many distinguished men. It includes saints as well as sages. That moral paragon, Dr. Arnold, was one of them; Thomson, the author of "The City of Dreadful Night," was another. Bishop Selwyn even put the duty of lying in bed on a moral plane. "I did once rise early," he said, "but I felt so vain all the morning and so sleepy all the afternoon that I determined not to do it again." He stayed in bed to mortify his pride, to make himself humble.

And is not humility one of the cardinal virtues of a good Christian? I have fancied myself that people who rise early are slightly self-righteous. They can't help feeling a little scornful of us sluggards. And we know it. Humility is the badge of all our tribe.

We are not proud of lying in bed. We are ashamed--and happy. The n.o.blest sluggard of us all has stated our case for us. "No man practises so well as he writes," said Dr. Johnson. "I have all my life been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that n.o.body who does not rise early will ever do any good."

Of course we pay the penalty. We do not catch the early worm. When we turn out all the bargains have gone, and we are left only with the odds and ends. From a practical point of view, we have no defence. We know that an early start is the secret of success. It used to be said of the Duke of Newcastle that he always went about as though he had got up half an hour late, and was trying all day to catch it up. And history has recorded what a grotesque failure he was in politics. When someone asked Nelson for the secret of his success he replied: "Well, you see, I always manage to be a quarter of an hour in front of the other fellow." And the recipe holds good to-day. When the inner history of the battle of the Falkland Islands is told in detail it will be found that it was the early start insisted on by the one man of military genius and vision we have produced in this war that gave us that priceless victory.

And if you have ever been on a walking tour or a cycling tour you know that early rising is the key of the business. Start early and you are master of your programme and your fate. You can linger by the way, take a dip in the mountain tarn, lie under the shadow of a great rock in the hot afternoon, and arrive at the valley inn in comfortable time for the evening meal. Start late and you are the slave of the hours.

You chase them with weary feet, pa.s.s the tarn with the haste of a dispatch bearer though you are dying for a bathe, and arrive when the roast and boiled are cleared away and the merry company are doing a "traverse" around the skirting board of the billiard room. Happy reader, if you know the inn I mean--the jolly inn at Wasdale Head.

No, whether from the point of view of business or pleasure, worldly wisdom or spiritual satisfaction, there is nothing to be said in our defence. All that we can say for lying in bed is what Foote--I think it was Foote--said about the rum. "I went into a public-house," he said, "and heard one man call for some rum because he was hot, and another call for some rum because he was cold. Then I called for some rum because I liked it." We sluggards had better make the same clean breast of the business. We lie in bed because we like it. Just that.

Nothing more. We like it. We claim no virtue, ask no indulgence, accept with humility the rebukes of the strenuous.

As for me, I have a licence--nay, I have more; I have a duty. It is my duty to lie in bed o' mornings until the day is well aired. For I burn the midnight oil, and the early blackbird--the first of our choir to awake--has often saluted me on my way home. Therefore I lie in bed in the morning looking at the ceiling and listening to the sounds of the busy world without a twinge of conscience. If you were listening, you would hear me laugh softly to myself as I give the pillow another shake and thank providence for having given me a job that enables me to enjoy the privileges of the sluggard without incurring the odium that he so richly deserves.

ON BEING KNOWN

I went into a tailor's in the West End the other day to order some clothes. My shadow rarely darkens a tailor's door, and this tailor's door it had never darkened before. I was surprised therefore, when, after the preliminaries of measurement were finished, the attendant, in reply to a question about a deposit, said "No deposit is necessary.

The name is good enough." I confess I felt the compliment as an agreeable shock. The request for a deposit always jars on me. I know that "business is business" and that in this wilderness of London it is no dishonour to be unknown and no discredit to be formally discredited; but yet ... And here was a man I had never seen before and who had never seen me, who was prepared to execute my order without any sordid a.s.surances of character on my side--simply on my name. Such a tribute needed some recognition. "It will save trouble," said I, "if I pay the account now." And I did so. I fancy the action was a little childish, but I couldn't help it. I really couldn't. I simply had to do something civil, and this was the only civil thing that occurred to me.

And then I went out of the shop feeling that I had come suddenly into an unexpected and pleasing inheritance. I knew now something of the emotion of Mr. Sholes, the eminent author:

Whenever down Fleet Street he strolls The policemen look hurriedly up And say "There's the great Mr. Sholes, Who writes such delectable gup."

I might not be able to write such delectable gup as Mr. Sholes, but I could write gup good enough to make that fellow in the shop trust me for a six-guinea suit. I did not observe that the policeman took any particular notice of me as I pa.s.sed along. But--"Give me time," said I, addressing the shade of Mr. Sholes. "Give me time. I have made a start in the handicap of the famous. I am known to that excellent shopman. I may yet be known (favourably and admiringly) to the police.

I may yet walk the Strand with a nimbus that will challenge Mr. Horatio Bottomley and Mr. Pemberton Billing and the ill.u.s.trious great. I may yet have the agreeable consciousness that heads are turning in my direction, and that the habitual Londoner is saying to his country cousin: 'That, my dear Jane, is the eminent Mr. Alpha of the Plough who writes those articles in _The Star_.' ... Give me time, Mr. Sholes.

Give me time."

But as I walked on and as that momentary flash of the limelight faded from me I became less confident that I wanted to live in it. I became sensible of the pleasures of obscurity. I strolled along untroubled by the curious, and enjoyed the pageant of the pavement, the display of dress, the diversity of faces, the play of light in the eyes, the incidents of the streets. I paused in front of shops and fell into a reverie before the window of the incomparable Mr. b.u.mpus--the window of stately books in n.o.ble bindings. I was submerged in the tide of the common life and felt the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the obscure. I could walk which way I pleased and no one would remark me; pause when I liked and be un.o.bserved. But--why, here is Lord French of Ypres coming along.

See how heads are turning and fingers are pointing and tongues are wagging--"That, my dear Jane..." What a nuisance this limelight must be!

And if you are really conspicuous you cannot trust yourself out of doors--unless you have the courage of John Burns, who does not care two pins who sees him or talks about him. The King, poor man, could no more walk along this pavement as I am doing, rubbing shoulders with the people and enjoying the comedy of life, than he could write to the newspapers, or address a crowd from the plinth of the Nelson Monument, or go to a booking-office and take a ticket for the Tube, or into an A.B.C. shop and ask for a cup of tea, or any of the thousand and one things that I am at liberty to do and enjoy doing without let or hindrance, comment or disturbance. He is the prisoner of publicity.

He is pursued by the limelight, as the fleeing soul of the poet was pursued by the hound of heaven. He can't look in b.u.mpus's. He can't go on to an allotment and dig undisturbed. You cannot have limelight playing about an allotment. In fact, the more one thinks of it the more impoverished his life seems, and so in a lesser degree with all the eminent people who are pursued by the photographer, mobbed in the streets, fawned on by their friends, slandered by their enemies, exalted or defamed in the Press, and dissected in every club smoking-room and bar parlour.

But, you will say, think of the glory of having your name handed down to posterity. It is a very questionable privilege. I am not much concerned about posterity. I respect it, as Wordsworth respected it.

"What has posterity done for me that I should consider it?" some one said to him, and he replied, "No, but the past has done much for you."

It was a just reminder of our obligations. But it is a lean ambition to pose for posterity. I cannot thrill to the vision of the trumpeter Fame blowing my name down the corridors of time while I sleep on unheeding in

My patrimony of a little mould And entail of four planks.

I am not warmed by the idea of a marble image standing with outstretched arm in the Abbey or sitting on a horse for ever in the streets, wet or fine, or perched up on a towering column to be a convenience to vagrant birds. If fame is often a nuisance to the living, it is only an empty echo for the dead. Spare me marble trappings, good friends, and give me the peace of forgetfulness.

By the time I had reached the end of my walk and my ruminations, I felt less cordial towards that man in the shop. I wished, on the whole, that he had asked for the deposit.

ON A MAP OF THE OBERLAND

I was rummaging among my books this morning when I came across Frey's map of the Bernese Oberland, and forthwith forgot the object of my search in the presence of this exhilarating discovery. Mr. Chesterton, I think, once described how he evoked the emotions of a holiday by calling a cab, piling it up with luggage, and driving to the station.

Then, having had his sensation, he drove home again. It seemed to me rather a poor way of taking an imaginative holiday. One might as well heat an empty oven in order to imagine a feast. The true medium of the spiritual holiday is the map. That is the magic carpet that whisks you away from this sodden earth and unhappy present to sunny lands and serener days.

There are times when books offer no escape from the burden of things, when, as Mr. Biglow says

I'm as unsoshul as a stone, And kind o' suffercate to be alone;

but there are no circ.u.mstances in which a map will not do the trick. I do not care whether it is a map of the known or the unknown, the visited or the unvisited, the real or the fanciful. It was the jolly map which Stevenson invented in an idle hour which became the seed of "Treasure Island." That is how a map stimulated his fancy and sent it out on a career of immortal adventure. And though you have not Stevenson's genius for describing the adventure, that is what a map will do for you if you have a spark of the boy's love of romance left in your soul. It is the "magic cas.e.m.e.nt" of the poet. I have never crossed the Atlantic in the flesh, but, lord, what spiritual adventures I have had with maps in the enchanted world on the other side! I have sailed with Drake in Nombre Dios Bay, and navigated the grim straits with Magellan, and lived with the Incas of Peru and the b.l.o.o.d.y Pizarro, and gone up the broad bosom of the Amazon into fathomless forests, and sailed through the Golden Gates on golden afternoons, and stood with Cortes "silent upon a peak in Darien." I know the Shenandoah Valley far better than I know Wimbledon Common, and have fought over every inch of it by the side of Stonewall Jackson, just as I have lived in the mazes of the Wilderness with Grant and Lee.