A Poor Man's House Part 17

The farmer has his rent to pay, Blow, winds, blow!

And seeds to purchase every day, Row, boys, row!

But he who farms the rolling deep, He never sows, can always reap, The ocean's fields are fair and free, There ain't no rent days on the sea; The fisher's is a merry life!

Blow, winds, blow!

Blow, d.a.m.n ye, blow!

"Aye!" said Tony with conviction, "thic's one side o'it."

[Sidenote: "_ROLLING HOME_"]

He tried a note or two at different pitches, then struck with energy into the fine song, "Rolling Home." (Who that has steered for England in a s.h.i.+p--and by s.h.i.+p I do not mean a bustling steam-packet or a floating hotel, but a s.h.i.+p to whose crew England stands for fresh food, women, wine, home.... Who that has so steered the course for England, does not feel a catch at his vitals on hearing the melody, at once plaintive and triumphant, of "Rolling Home?")

Pipe all hands to man the capstan, see your cables run down clear; Soon our s.h.i.+p will weigh her anchor, for old England's sh.o.r.es we steer; If we heave round with a will boys, soon our anchor it will trip, And across the briny ocean we will steer our gallant s.h.i.+p: Rolling home, rolling home!

Rolling home across the sea!

Rolling home to Merrie England!

Rolling home, true love, to thee!

Man the bars then with a will, boys, clap all hands that can clap on; As we heave around the capstan, we will sing this well-known song; It will bring back scenes and changes of this parting gift so rare; We shall hear sweet songs of music softly whispering through the air.

Rolling home, rolling home!

Rolling home across the sea!

Rolling home to Merrie England!

Rolling home, true love, to thee!

Up aloft amid the rigging, as we sail the waters blue, Whilst we cross the briny ocean, we will always think of you; We will leave you our best wishes as we leave this rocky sh.o.r.e; We are bound for Merrie England, to return to you no more!

Rolling home, rolling home!

Rolling home, across the sea!

Rolling home to Merrie England!

Rolling home, my love to thee!

To Mrs Widger's great disgust, Tony has been learning _in bed_ the correct words (he knew the tune) of "Gay Spanish Ladies." That he gave us as a finale.

Farewell and adieu to you, gay Spanish Ladies.

Farewell and adieu to you, Ladies of Spain!

For we've received orders for to sail for old England.

But we hope in a short time to see you again.

We'll rant and we'll roar like true British heroes, We'll rant and we'll roar across the salt seas, Until we strike soundings in the Channel of old England.

From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues....

How we did rant and roar the wonderful up-Channel verse, with its clever use of the high-sounding promontories of the south!

The first land we made, it was called the Deadman, Next Ram Head off Plymouth, Start, Portland and Wight, We pa.s.sed up by Beachy, by Parley and Dungeness, And hove our s.h.i.+p to off the South Foreland light....

Our gla.s.ses were empty. We drove out the cat, gutted some fish, extinguished the lamp, and came upstairs to the tune, repeated, of "Rolling Home." All the tunes are ringing in my head.

[Sidenote: _ART THAT IS LIVED_]

There is something about this singing of sea-songs by a seafarer which makes them grip one extraordinarily. They are far from perfect in execution, they are not always quite in tune, especially on Tony's high notes, yet, I am certain, they are as artistic in the best sense as any of the fine music I have heard. Tony sings with imagination: he sees, _lives_ what he is singing. Between this sort of song and most, there is much the same difference as between going abroad, and reading a book of travels; or between singing folk-songs with the folk and twittering bowdlerised versions in a drawing-room. However imperfect technically, Tony's songs are an expression of the life he lives, rather than an excursion into the realms of art--into the expression of other kinds of life--with temporarily stimulated and projected imagination. His art is perpetual creation, not repet.i.tion of a thing created once and for all.

The art that is _lived_, howsoever imperfect, has an advantage over the most finished art that is merely repeated. Next after the music of, as one might say, superhuman creative force--like Bach's and Beethoven's--comes this kind, of Tony's.

Cultured people talk about the artistic tastes of the poor, would have them read--well, they don't quite know what--something 'good,'

something namely that appeals to the cultured. It has always been my experience in much lending of books, that the poor will read the literature of life's fundamental daily realities quickly enough, once they know of its existence. What they will not read, what in the struggle for existence they cannot waste time over, is the literature of the _etceteras_ of life, the decorations, the vapourings. Sane minds, like healthy bodies, crave strong meats, and the strong meats of literature are usually the worst cooked. I am inclined to think that the taste of the poor, the uneducated, is on the right lines, though undeveloped, whilst the taste of the educated consists of beautifully developed wrongness, an exquisite secession from reality. As Nietzsche pointed out, degenerates love narcotics; something to make them forget life, not face it. Their meats must be strange and peptonized.

Therefore they hate, they are afraid of, the greatest things in life--the commonplace. Much culture has debilitated them. Rank life would kill them--or save them.

VI

SALISBURY, _October_.

1

It is just at dawn that the coming day declares itself most plainly; not earlier, not later. This morning at peep o' day the wind was NNW., the air delicate and peaceful. A band of dirty red water washed in fantastic outline along the cliffs. The sea, with its calm great rollers, bore upon it only the rags of last night's fury; as if it had been less a part of the storm than a thing buffeted by the storm, and now glad to sink into tranquillity. The air was scented with land smells. Shafts of the dawn's sunlight beamed across it. Three punts put off to find out if the lobster-pots had been washed away; the sea had its little boats upon it again. But the sky, to the SW., was looking very wild. The wind was SW. in the offing.

While we were at breakfast a southerly squall burst open the kitchen door. Mrs Widger got up to see what child it was. A screaming sea-gull mocked her.

The storm came. The trees by the railway bowed and tossed. Rain spattered against the carriage windows. Dead leaves scurried by. I wanted to get out, to go back. I wanted to know whether Tony was at sea. Here, at Salisbury they are already talking about the 'great storm'; some of the beautiful elms are down. What must the storm have been at Seacombe!

Curiously, I felt, the first time for years, as if I were leaving home for boarding school--the warmth behind, the chill in front. I smelt again the rank soft-soap in the great bare schoolrooms.

2

A postcard from Tony--

"quite please to get your letter this morning it as been rough ever since you left Seacombe it was a gale the night you went Back the sea was all in over and knocking the boats about the road. I haven been out sea sinsce it is still rough hear now it is blowing a gale of wind I expect we shall get some witing and herring in the bay when the weather get fine the sea hear is like the cliff now red.

Us aven catched nort n.o.body cant go to sea.

"TONY.

"I will write a letter soon.

"P.S. Tony just waked up. George is coming home, Tony mazed with excitement and wishes you was here.

"MAM W."

So do I!

3

[Sidenote: _TONY OFF TO SEA_]

The evening before I left Seacombe, Tony was telling us how upset and miserable he was, how he cried, when his two elder brothers left home to join the Navy. Also he told us what I knew nothing of before--his own one attempt to go to sea aboard a merchantman. When he was at Cloade's he looked on fis.h.i.+ng as a refuge from groceries, and when he had given up groceries for fis.h.i.+ng, he looked on a s.h.i.+p's fo'c'stle as a refuge from that. Fis.h.i.+ng was very bad one summer. He and d.i.c.k Yeo agreed to run away together:

"Us was doin' nort noway wi' the fis.h.i.+ng--nort 't all. Father, Granfer that is, wer away to his drill wi' the Royal Naval Reserves. So d.i.c.k Yeo an' me agreed to go off together. Where he went, I was to go tu, an' where I went, he was to come. He had two pounds put away, in gold.

I only had half a crown, an' cuden't see me way to get no more nuther.