Chapter XIV: Rural England

On leaving "Barchester" we took the road to Gloucester. I think it safe to say that it is the finest road for motoring in England, which is equivalent to saying in the world. The French roads, I am told, are in some ways superior, but so straight and hard and white that travelling on them soon becomes monotonous. Then they are so artificial, running like the road the Tsar is said to have laid out with a ruler, between Petersburg and Moscow! But the English roads run naturally, with many a turn from town to town, just as man first found it easy to walk. Of course we now have roads at home equal to any--for the first year or two--but think how many generations have used these roads, and always, I imagine, kept them in repair. The difference is like that between a granite bridge and one of our new concrete ones. At first there seems nothing to choose between them; but when the rain and frost of a few seasons have done their work, the one has begun to look dingy and shabby, while the other has gained in dignity.

Of course it is not only the surface of the road which makes motoring on it so delightful; it is the continuous succession of lovely rural scenes. For example, we had not gone many miles when we met a horseman--an ancient groom we supposed--riding along the grass by the roadside and followed by a pack of hounds, which he was "walking." Ruth jumped from the car and begged to be allowed to take a kodak of them. He smilingly called them together, the older ones looking up into his face and the pups still nosing about the grass. The light was good and the promise of a satisfactory picture excellent.

The "groom" asked if he might have a picture when the film had been developed, which Ruth said she would be delighted to send if he would give her his address.

"Just address it, ma'am, to 'James the Huntsman, The Kennels, Blankshire.'"

"But your last name?" she asked.

"That is my name, ma'am, James the Huntsman."

So we learned that not only was he not a groom but that we were not in the twentieth century but still in feudal England, where a man's occupation was his designation--the individual not having yet emerged! That his status should be fixed for life was evidently as satisfactory to "James the Huntsman" as, it is to be presumed, was his master's, whether knight or baronet, to him.

"It is like a scene from 'Ivanhoe,'" said Ruth, when we were again under way. "If we were a little farther to the east, in Northamptonshire, where Sherwood Forest lies, I have no doubt we should meet Gurth the serf, or Robin Hood!"

"No," said I, "the serfs are working in factories, and Robin Hood is in the 'city.'"

"You talk like William Jennings Bryan," mocked Ruth.

A few miles farther on we came to another England. Again we met a horseman. I said this time a "groom," but Ruth said she was sure he would call himself "chevalier."

Whoever he was he looked noble enough to be a duke. He was riding a seal-brown horse whose coat shone like a chestnut in the sunlight. I noticed that the horse was restive, and so shut off the engine till he should pass. The rider thanked me, touching his cap--so I suppose he could not have been a duke--and remarked that the horse was "full of beans."

I said it was a superb animal, and the groom, leaning forward to pat his neck, for the horse was still nervous, replied: "He ought to be, sir, for he's own brother to"--I am sorry to say I have forgotten the name--"winner of the Derby." So we had met the aristocracy, after all!

Not long after this we met a flock of sheep. Again we stopped. But we got no thanks from the surly shepherd--Ruth said because he was so tired--but the panting dog, who ran from side to side on the road, gave us a grateful glance, as much as to say: "I am glad you did that, for had you kept on, these fools would have been all over the road, and I should have been beaten."

But it was not only the passengers on the "king's highway" who kept us entertained--not to say entranced--but houses and gardens on either side made it hard to keep the tenth commandment!

When I said this to Ruth, she replied that it could hardly be my neighbor's wife whom I coveted, which was true, if cattish, for the ones we saw were more worthy than alluring! The ox and the ass were not in evidence, but I suspect Ruth coveted the man servant, and specially the maid servant, of whom we caught glimpses from time to time, flitting across the well-trimmed lawns or standing at the servants' entrance, gossiping with the butcher or the baker or the candlestick-maker--what difference can it make to a young woman who is forbidden to have "followers"?

It was the houses which tempted me. There was an infinite variety to choose from--Elizabethan, Tudor, Jacobean (I am not sure I am always right about the period)--but I recognized the real Queen Anne. Here was a "gentleman's residence" and there a tiny cottage covered with climbing roses. I noted scores of Elizabethan houses with chimneys as graceful as the smoke which curled from them. Why cannot a modern architect design a chimney which will draw the eye as well as the smoke? And the gardens! Those of the poor as well as of the rich were a riot of color. There were dogs and ponies and "governess-carts," and all the things we are familiar with in the illustrated papers. As I looked at all these delectable things, it seemed to me that England was an earthly paradise; as old Gaunt says, "A second Eden." I grew melancholy as I remembered the "L" and the crowded subway, and the noise and the dirt of our chief city, the struggle for existence and the prevailing discontent--every man striving to surpass his neighbor--no one content with that station in life to which "it had pleased God to call him." How many Americans, I said to myself, believe God has called them to anything? Here, I continued, is peace and contentment. Would God that I were there!

Now Ruth has an uncanny way of knowing of what one is thinking, so I was not startled when she broke into my revery by saying:

"Yes, it is all beautiful, but how long could you stand it? I do not mean what you now see, but what you do not see! How many people have taken off their caps to us this morning simply because they believe us to belong to the 'gentry'? In that last village through which we passed, did the children 'bob' to us because they recognized our superiority in character or education? You would not have been the vicar of that lovely Norman church we passed five miles back one month before there would have been trouble! The 'servility' of the 'lower classes' would so have gotten on your nerves that you would have insulted some laborer for the satisfaction of having him answer you like a man! You would find another thing, which is that 'kowtowing' is not confined to one class. If the laborer 'kowtows' to the vicar, the vicar must 'kowtow' to the lord of the manor."

"Why, Ruth," I cried, "where is Bryan now? You talk like the ladies on the soap-boxes in Union Square!"

"You forget," she said, "that I am not talking about myself. I should adore to have the school children 'bob' to me, and would be quite willing in turn to 'bob' to the Lady Emeline or to the Dowager Countess. But you! Really, John, I sometimes think you know yourself less than any one I ever met!"

"It's lucky I have you to show me what I am like," I growled.

"Indeed it is," she cheerfully replied. "I'll tell you whom you are like: you are exactly like Crugan!"

To show you how absurd the comparison is, I must tell you something about Tom Crugan. He lived in our ward before he made his fortune, and was a good fellow--is still, so far as I know! More than once he had helped me when some poor wretch had got into trouble and needed a little "influence." When he got the contract for a section of the subway, he made a lot of money--I hope honestly! Then he made a lucky investment in real estate, which, curiously enough, the city found it must have--at an advance in price--and then Tom and his family made the grand tour. Mrs. Crugan kept herself in the background, but the girls, who were real Irish beauties, had a _succès fou_. One of them married an Italian prince, and the other a German count. Well, Tom stayed abroad about two years and then suddenly returned. He came down to our part of the town soon after, to look after some property he held there, and I saw him.

"Hello, Crugan," I said. "I am glad to see you back. Did you like Europe?"

"I did for a while," he replied, "but the best day of the trip was when I set foot in Hoboken. The carriage was there to meet us, and when I had put my wife in, she says to me: 'Ain't you comin' too, Tom?'

"'Not in a carriage, I ain't,' says I. 'And what is more, if that coachman touches his hat to me again, I'm liable to do him an injury! You go on up, mother, and I'll be there most as soon as you, anyway.'

"So I got onto a Christopher Street ferry, and caught a crosstown and swung onto a Fourth Avenue and went out onto the front platform to smoke a cigar and watch the driver handle his team. Pretty soon a mail-wagon got across the tracks, and he had to pull up pretty sharp, and the handle of his brake caught me in the stomach. Did he throw a fit because he had hit a man who was smoking a twenty-five-cent cigar? He did not. He turns to me and says: 'Why the hell can't you keep your belly out of my brake?' Say, I could have kissed that man!"