Chapter V: Part 5

In 1887 we took a large house and shop in Scotland Street, a poor district of the town; and opened a café, using the large room above for a meeting and lecture room, and the house for a joint residence for some of us who were more immediately concerned in carrying on the business. We had all sorts of social gatherings, lectures, teas, entertainments in the Hall—the wives and sisters of the “comrades” helping, especially in the social work; we had Annie Besant, Charlotte Wilson, Kropotkin, Hyndman, and other notables down to speak for us; we gave teas to the slum-children who dwelt in the neighboring crofts and alleys (but these had at first to be given up on account of the poor little things tearing themselves and each other to pieces, perfect mobs of them, in their frantic attempts to gain admittance—a difficulty which no arrangement of tickets or of personal supervision seemed to obviate); and we organized excursions into municipal politics; and country propaganda. This last was often amusing as well as interesting. While, in the towns, as time went on, audiences grew in numbers and attentiveness, it still remained very difficult to capture the country districts. The miners would really not be uninterested, but in their sullen combative way they would take care not to show it. Many a time we have gone down to some mining village and taken up our stand on some heap of slag or broken wall, and the miners would come round and stand about or sit down deliberately _with their backs to the speaker_, and spit, and converse, as if quite heedless of the oration going on. But after a time, and as speaker succeeded speaker, one by one they would turn round—their lower jaws dropping—fairly captivated by the argument. It was much the same with the country rustics—but as a rule less successful. I remember on one occasion seven or eight of us, armed with literature, going for a long country walk to Hathersage in the Derbyshire dales. We had Tom Maguire with us, from Leeds, an excellent speaker, full of Irish wit and persuasiveness. We set him upon a stoneheap in the middle of the village and standing round him ourselves while he spoke, acted as decoy ducks to bring the villagers together. The latter full of curiosity came, in moderate numbers, but not one of them would approach nearer than a distance of twenty or thirty yards—just far enough to make the speaker despair of really reaching them. In vain we separated and going round tried to coax them to come nearer. In vain the speaker shouted himself hoarse and fired off his best jokes. Not a bit of it—they weren’t going to be fooled by us! and at last red in the face and out of breath and with a string of curses, Tom descended from his cairn, and we all, shaking the dust of the village off our feet, departed!

I meanwhile and during these years, not only took part in our local work, but spoke and lectured in the Socialist connection all round the country—at Bradford, Halifax, Leeds, Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Hull, Liverpool, Nottingham and other places—my subjects the failures of the present Commercial system, and the possible reorganization of the future. As to the Café, we were only able to hold to it for a year. Though quite a success from the propagandist point of view, financially it was a failure. The refreshment department was not patronized nearly enough to make it pay. The neighborhood was an exceedingly poor one. And so we were obliged to surrender the place, and retire to smaller quarters. During that year however I really lived most of the time at the Scotland Street place. I occupied a large attic at the top of the house, _almost_ high enough to escape the smells of the street below, but exposed to showers of blacks which fell from the innumerable chimneys around. In the early morning at 5 a.m. there was the strident sound of the ‘hummers’ and the clattering of innumerable clogs of men and girls going to their work, and on till late at night there were drunken cries and shouting. Far around stretched nothing but factory chimneys and foul courts inhabited by the wretched workers. It was, I must say, frightfully depressing; and all the more so because of tragic elements in my personal life at the time. Only the enthusiasm of our social work, and the abiding thoughts which had inspired _Towards Democracy_ kept me going. I spent my spare time during the year in arranging and editing the collection of songs and music called _Chants of Labour_—a thing which might have been much better done by some one else, but I could find no one to do it. And it was a queer experience, collecting these songs of hope and enthusiasm, and composing such answering tunes and harmonies as I could, in the midst of these gloomy and discordant conditions.

As I say, we only stayed a year here, and as far as my health was concerned I don’t think I could have endured it much longer. I realized the terrible drawback to health and vitality consequent on living in these slums of manufacturing towns, and the way these conditions are inevitably sapping the strength of our populations.

VIII
TRADE AND PHILOSOPHY

In 1887 or 1888 I turned over the organization and commercial side of the garden at Millthorpe to my friend Albert Fearnehough. During the first four years or so I had taken the responsibility, and by many mistakes bought some valuable experience—but now I found that my literary and social work demanded so much time that I wanted my brain free from agricultural cares. So after this, while still contributing a fair amount of manual labour I left the organization alone.

I cannot say that, adopting the commercial standard, the experiment at Millthorpe could at any time be called _paying_. At the same time it was never (to me) disheartening. Taking strawberries as our main crop, we found, with several years’ experience, that £40 per acre was a fair estimate of the gross produce. (And I do not think that this is excessive since I know that £60 or £70 is a not uncommon estimate.) If we had put, say, 5 acres out of our 7½ under strawberries, this would have yielded £200 a year, which, allowing for extra labour, manure, etc., would still have maintained a man and his family; 100 fowls would probably have paid the rent (if it had not been a freehold); and the 2½ acres would have gone far to keep a horse or pony. But I had not the time to give to a complete organization, nor perhaps felt the necessary interest in it; and my friend had hardly the required energy; so we just paddled along, keeping two or three acres only under spade cultivation, and making a small sum, but not sufficient to meet expenses. I think, as I say, that the thing might have been made to pay in the commercial sense—but there is no doubt that under prevailing conditions and prices in England, agriculture of any kind requires pretty hard work and long hours to make it fairly successful. One of the reasons of this is the want of a prosperous country population and the local markets which this would afford. With industrial villages scattered over the land, eggs, fruits, vegetables would be in great demand—even in country districts—prices would be fair, the middleman would be dispensed with; even the horse and cart might not be needed. But it is quite a different matter when the stuff has to be sent to a distant market, there to be bought by hucksters, and to feed middlemen and railway shareholders, before it feeds either the producer or consumer. This trouble is really one of the great troubles of modern civilization—and while there is no doubt a certain advantage gained by division of labour among nations and provinces, and by the raising of products in the most suitable localities, it is a matter quite open to question whether the enormous expenses of the present world-wide exchange and the maintenance of these swarms of merchants, traders, shipping and railroad companies, with their innumerable shareholders and employees, does not quite obliterate or absorb the advantage so gained. Indeed when one thinks of the immense numbers of people in this way withdrawn from any direct service in production and made systematically dependent on the others, one may question whether the gain does not at times come very near a loss; and one ceases to wonder that the condition of the actual producers, agricultural and others, remains so poor and unimproved.

In ’86 and ’87 I prepared for the Press and published the volume called _England’s Ideal_. The papers composing it had been written at different times during the two or three years preceding—some of them at Brighton, during intervals when family affairs had taken me back there for a time. Especially I remember writing _Desirable Mansions_ in this way in an interval when I was tangled in family business and the idiotic life of the place—and with a kind of savage glee as I sought to tear the whole sickly web to pieces. Descended from the transcendental generative thought of _Towards Democracy_ on the one hand, and my new-found acquaintance with intensely practical life on the other, these papers, though crude in some respects, bear I believe a certain impetus about them. Once or twice, by the violent opposition they have excited (always a reassuring thing for an author), I have had evidence of this. When _Desirable Mansions_ was first issued, as a separate pamphlet, I received a copy, anonymously sent and written all over with the most furious and scurrilous denials, challenges, abuse, etc.; and after the publication of _England’s Ideal_ as a volume, a friend of mine had a letter from a lady, in which she said that her husband had been reading the book, and that she had got hold of it and “poked it into the fire, as she found it was unsettling him so!” I have always regretted that I did not get hold of that letter, with leave to publish it. It would have made such a splendid advertisement.

The influences of Ruskin, in style and moral bias, and of Marx in economics, are very apparent in the volume; and though I do not think that I ever gave myself ‘hand and foot’ to Marx in his views; yet I was very willing to adopt his theory of surplus value as a working hypothesis. The truth is that though no exact measure of ‘surplus value’ or of the amount of which the workman is ‘defrauded’ by the capitalist, is possible—and though any theory which attempts to exactly define this amount is sure to be open to criticism[15]; yet, the general fact of surplus value, namely that the workman does _not_ get the full value of his labours, and that he is taken advantage of by the capitalist is obvious—and serious—enough. And it is on this general position that _England’s Ideal_—like the whole Socialist movement—is founded. The seriousness of the matter may be seen from the fact that from this original falsity (of the appropriation of other folks’ labour) are flowing to-day by a perfectly logical evolution two other great falsities or failures—Commercial Crises and shopkeeping Imperialism—which are now threatening ruin to all the Western Civilizations.

Commercial Crises, as has been often explained (see _England’s Ideal_, pp. 42, 43) flow primarily from the fact that the working masses for their wages only receive a fraction of the value of the goods produced, and therefore can only _buy back_ a fractional part of the same, while the capitalist classes (though with their share of the swag they _could_ buy back the remainder) do not want more than a part of the remainder. Consequently there occurs every year on the one hand an accumulation of goods unused and on the other an accumulation of capital waiting for reinvestment; and these two things from time to time clog the Commercial Machine so as to render it hardly workable, and will probably in the end bring it to a standstill. As to modern Imperialism it is a logical outcome of the last-mentioned item, the accumulation of capital waiting for reinvestment. For all the openings for capital in the mother country having been filled up there remains nothing but to invest it in manufactures abroad. And since other Western countries are similarly filled up, there further remains nothing but to go to savage and outlying nations and force _them_ to become our employees and our customers. But to do this with safety requires military occupation and the country’s flag. Hence in a nutshell the flag-waving and Imperialism of the day.

In 1889 I got off _Civilization: Its Cause and Cure_—another series of reprints. And here too the philosophical position, though often crudely expressed, and with more attempt at _suggestion_ than finish, is I think in the main well-founded and valuable. The attacks on Civilization and on Modern Science were both wrung from me, as it were by some inner evolution or conviction and against my will; but in both cases the position once taken became to me fully justified. In neither case did I take any great precautions to guard against misunderstanding, and in consequence I have been freely accused of blinding myself—in respect of Civilization—to modern progress, and of desiring to return to the state of primitive man; and in respect to Science—of preferring ignorance to intelligence. But no careful reader would make these mistakes. The monumental, patient, one may almost say heroic, work which has been done by Science during the nineteenth century, in the way of exact observation, classification, and detailed practical application, can never be ignored and can hardly be over-estimated. None the less the very decided criticism in _Civilization: Its Cause and Cure_, of the limits of scientific theorizing and authority has been quite necessary; as well as the forcible insistence on the fact that Science only deals with the surface of life and not with its substance. As to Civilization the advances of Humanity during the Civilization period have been largely bound up with the advance of Science and have chiefly consisted perhaps in increase of technical mastery over Nature and materials. Like every increase of power this has led to greater opportunity of good and greater opportunity of evil. On the moral side however, we may believe that men’s sympathies _have_ broadened and widened during the civilization period—so that there is a larger and more general sense of Humanity. On the other hand during this period something of the intensity of the old tribal kinship and community of life has been lost, as well as something of the instinctive kinship of each individual to Nature. It is obvious enough that there can be no _return_ to pre-scientific or pre-civilization conditions—though it may be hoped that a later age may combine some of the virtues of the more primitive man with the powers that have been gained during civilization.

In the year following [1890] something happened which in a curious vague way I had been expecting to happen for some time. It almost amounted to my making the acquaintance of a pre-civilization man of a very high type. I have mentioned how the _Bhagavat Gita_ falling into my hands at a certain date, gave the clue to and precipitated the crystallization of _Towards Democracy_. From that time of course I was intensely interested in the wise men of the East, and that germinal thought which in various ages of the world has become the nucleus and impulse of new movements. During the years ’80 to ’90 there was a great deal of Theosophy and Oriental philosophy of various sorts current in England, and much talk and speculation, sometimes very ill-founded, about ‘adepts,’ ‘mahatmas,’ and ‘gurus.’ I too felt a great desire to see for myself one of these representatives of the ancient wisdom. But it did not seem very clear how the thing would come about. However at last there came a very pressing letter from my friend Arunáchalam in Ceylon (the very friend who had given me the _Bhagavat Gita_ at an earlier date), asking me to come out and meet a certain Gñani to whose discourses and teaching he was himself already deeply indebted, and who was willing to give some time to me if I should come. So the way was made plain, and I immediately made arrangements to go.

I have given a careful account of this Gñani, his personality and teaching, in my book _Adam’s Peak to Elephanta_—and I need not repeat the material here. As I say, he was in some respects a high type of pre-civilization man. For, like most men of this class in India, he identified himself so closely with the ancient religious tradition that one could almost feel him to be one of the old Vedic race of two thousand or three thousand years back. His modes of thought, appearance, personality, all suggested this. And here in this man it was of absorbing interest to feel one came in contact with the root-thought of all existence—the intense _consciousness_ (not conviction merely) of the oneness of all life—the germinal idea which in one form or another has spread from nation to nation, and become the soul and impulse of religion after religion. However one might differ from him in points of detail, in matters of modern science or of politics, one felt that he, and his predecessors three thousand years ago, had seized the central stronghold, and were possessors of an outlook and of intuitions which the modern might truly envy. After seeing Whitman, the amazing representative of the same spirit in all its voluminous modern unfoldment—seven years before—this visit to the Eastern sage was like going back to the pure lucid intensely transparent source of some mighty and turbulent stream. It was a returning from West to East, and a completing of the circle of the Earth.

It is curious that _his_ teacher (Tilleinathan Swamy) seems to have told this Gñani many years before that an Englishman or Englishmen would come to him. Probably he foresaw, from the growth of the English mind, that the time was not very far distant when the English would rise to an understanding of the great Indian tradition and would come over to study it.

Looking back now [1901] after ten years, on my personal experiences of the Eastern teachings, I seem to realize more and more that the true line is that (first adequately pointed out by Whitman) which consists in combining and harmonizing _both_ body and soul, the outer and the inner. They are the eternal and needful complements of each other. The Eastern teaching has or has had a tendency to err on one side, the Western on the other. The Indian methods and attitude cause an ingathering and quiescence of the mind, accompanied often by great illumination; but if carried to excess they result in over-quiescence, and even torpor. The Western habits tend towards an over-activity and external distraction of the mind, which may result in disintegration. The true line (as in other cases) is not in mediocrity, but in a bold and sane acceptance of both sides, so as to make them offset and balance each other, and indeed so that each shall make the extension of the other more and more possible. Growth is the method and the solution. The soul goes out and returns, goes out and returns; and this is its daily, almost hourly, action—just as it is an epitome of the æonian life-history of every individual.

This visit to the East in some sense completed the circle of my experiences. It took two or three years for its results to soak and settle into my mind; but by that time I felt that my general attitude towards the world was not likely to change much, and that it only remained to secure and define what I had got hold of, and to get it decently built out if possible into actual life and utterance.

With regard to this process of “building out” into the actual world I should feel very ungrateful if I did not acknowledge my indebtedness to the Nature-conditions around me. For any sustained and more or less original work it seems almost necessary that one should have the quietude and strength of Nature at hand, like a great reservoir from which to draw. The open air, and the physical and mental health that goes with it, the sense of space and freedom in the Sky, the vitality and amplitude of the Earth—these are real things from which one can only cut oneself off at serious peril and risk to one’s immortal soul. And there is somewhat of the same potency and vitality in the very life of the mass-peoples who are in touch with these foundation-facts and outdoor occupations. It was a true instinct or a gracious Fate—and I realized this more and more—which had compelled me to locate myself in the midst of such surroundings.

I should feel ungrateful too if I did not express my indebtedness to the lovely little stream which like a live thing ran night and day, winter and summer, full of grace and music at the foot of my garden. It entered into my life and became part of it.[16] The hut, which I had built at Bradway to write the earlier part of _Towards Democracy_ in, I transported with me to Millthorpe, and planked it down on the edge of the brook, facing the sun and the south; and thenceforth it served a double purpose—that of a study in which, a hundred yards away from the house, I could write in comparative safety from interruption; and that of a bathing shelter with its feet almost in the water. Here through uncounted hours I continued the production of _Towards Democracy_ and my other books, avoiding always the act of writing within the house except when absolutely forced to retire by stress of weather or other causes, and rejoicing always to get the sentiment of the open free world into my pages; and here I came, either alone or with friends, to rest from labour in the garden, or to bathe and be refreshed after the heat of the day.

THE HUT AND THE BROOK.
]

IX
MILLTHORPE AND HOUSEHOLD LIFE

It must be admitted, however, that the acclimatization to the new and somewhat limited and strenuous life at Millthorpe did not take place all at once; and perhaps the fact of my having burnt my boats, as it were, and committed myself as I had done, was after all a good thing. For some little time I felt restive and unsettled at the enchainment—partly, as I have said, because the Thoreau ideal, opening out _underneath_, took the bottom out of the commercial and rather materialistic life in the way of Trade in which I was embarking; and partly because anyhow the latter sort of life—though valuable as an experience—was not by its nature likely to hold my interest for long. The rustics too and farmfolk around me were on my first arrival a little strange, and inclined, as often happens in such cases, to hold off and be suspicious of a newcomer; my reputation as a Socialist alarmed them; there was none of the cordiality of little Bradway; the climate was damp and the winters were long; and I had occasional relapses of feeling about it all.

Yet if I _had_ cut the painter and floated my little boat away onto the great deep I doubt whether the result would have been favorable. After all, all life means a denial of _part_ of oneself. It is obviously impossible to find a situation or conditions which will satisfy _all the demands_ of one’s nature—millionfold complex as they are. Some must be sacrificed. To moan over that necessity or to pose as a martyr is absurd. All one can reasonably do is to find a situation which will satisfy the _root_-demands, and the _rooting_ demands—those that have the power of growth in them. Then the seed, though it seem to die in its prison-house, will assuredly find its outlet and quicken into a new life.

I could not complain in this case that the root-needs of my temperament were unsatisfied. Quite the contrary. I was plunged in the very heart of Nature—that Nature which for many years I had felt the need of—in a singularly beautiful Derbyshire valley with plentiful woods, streams and moors; I had already become familiar with the mass-folk of Sheffield, and found friends among the workers in many trades; and was beginning to know the rustics of my own neighborhood. I was leading an outdoor life, and my health was every day becoming firmer and more consolidated. I had escaped from the domination of Civilization in its two most fatal and much-detested forms, respectability and cheap intellectualism. In my happy valley there was no resident squire of any kind, nor even a single “villa,” while the church, more than a mile distant, was quite amiably remote! We were just a little population of manual workers, sincerely engrossed in our several occupations. And finally, and perhaps more than all, I had found a firm basis and secure vantage-ground for my literary and productive work.

People have often asked me if I did not miss the life I had left behind. I cannot truly say that I ever did. At Brighton and at Cambridge and partly in London I had had my fill of balls and dinner-parties and the usual entertainments, and when at the close of those two dispensations (somewhere in the early ’eighties) _I gave my dress clothes away_, I did so without any misgiving and without any fear that I should need them again. The fact is that though it is perfectly true that by steadily and persistently going to evening parties and social functions one may come into touch with interesting or remarkable people of sorts, yet the game is hardly worth the candle. Through leagues of boredom, platitudes and general futility one occasionally has the satisfaction of exchanging a wink of recognition, so to speak, with some really congenial and original woman or man; but at all such functions the severe flow of amiable nonsense soon cuts any real conversation short, and if one wants to continue the latter the only way is to arrange a meeting quite outside and apart—which after all one might have done in other and simpler ways. As to the matter of dress, the adoption of a pleasant yet not strictly conventional evening garb of one’s own has the useful effect of automatically closing doors which are not “worth while” and opening those that _are_—so in that way it is much to be recommended!

On the whole, though just the first few years at Millthorpe were somewhat isolated I believe my independent life there has really enabled me to see more of the great world than I should otherwise have done. Visitors from a distance have often many and intimate things to tell one, and questions can be discussed in a more leisurely way than in a great centre where every one stands watch in hand, counting the minutes. And on the other hand, by going myself to London for a fortnight or so three or four times a year, I found I could get into touch with all sorts of cliques and circles—such as I perhaps should not have cared to be involved in if I had been permanently living there! The country became a splendid basis for literary work, with the opportunity it afforded (so priceless to me) of writing in the open air and in close contact with the ordinary realities of life; it supplied a good basis for my lecturing and other excursions into the Northern Towns; and with its market-gardening and sandal trades kept my hands busy when my head required a rest.

Of the many years mainly spent here at Millthorpe, the first fifteen—from 1883 to 1898—were somewhat handicapped for me by the presence of a small working-family in the house; first, for ten years, the Fearnehoughs of whom I have already spoken; and afterwards, for five years, the Adams’. No other arrangement was at that time possible. Both families were charming and interesting in their different ways; but necessarily they hampered my freedom a good deal. With children in the house (in both cases) the domestic arrangements had largely to be suited to their necessities and convenience, and my interests had to come very decidedly second. This did not so much matter at the beginning of the time, but later with the expansion of my own sphere of operations a different household arrangement became imperative.

Fearnehough, as I have said, was of a “powerful uneducated” type—a good specimen of the British worker—a bit slow in brain, but exceedingly thorough and downright in all his dealings. His wife possessed the infinite patience and kindliness of the household guardian—going always about her work with untiring forethought and industry—even when, as often happened, she was silently suffering from bad headaches. There was a certain native grace about her, and dignity about him, which well became them. The two children, boy and girl of about nine and ten when they first arrived, were sensible and natural too. To have this family living with me—though it may have been hampering in some ways—was for some years very helpful. Whether at meals, or working in the fields, or sitting round the fire of an evening, to be in close touch with so sane and simple an outlook on life, and one so entirely different from that to which I had generally been accustomed, was in itself an education. The very downrightness of daily existence among those who live close upon absolute necessity is a thing hardly realized even by the most well-meaning of the well-to-do, unless they positively share that existence. Of course it cuts away a vast deal of sentimentalism, æstheticism, and all that. But on the whole it is rather healthy.

I remember one day—in later years when Annie, the daughter, had gone away to work in Sheffield—speaking to her mother about the girl (whose absence I knew she felt) and saying rather sentimentally, “I expect you miss Annie a good deal nowadays.” The answer was characteristic, and in its way quite lovely: “_Yes, I do miss her—especially on washing days!_” It was not that Mrs. Fearnehough cared one whit less for her daughter than many a very cultured mother might, but simply that her answer allowed the bed-rock of human nature to be seen. At any rate it took the wind out of my sentimentality! Not long ago I was asking a neighboring farmer—whose son had just got married and migrated on to a little farm of his own—how the son “liked his new place.” “Like it?” said the old man with a dryish sort of laugh—“well, I guess he’ll like it if he can any way make a living out of it—and if he can’t he won’t; he’ll be better able to say in a year or two.” It is from answers like these that one perceives how close on the rocks the lives of the mass peoples are thrust—too close indeed to allow much scope for expression of their real life or liking.

Fearnehough and I stumbled away at our market-gardening for a good many years. Being both to begin with quite ignorant of the trade we made our full complement of mistakes and purchased our experience sometimes dearly. Yet by degrees we got the land into good order. We dug it over, made drains to carry off the water, planted a hundred or two of fruit and forest trees, built bits of walls and fences, kept a horse, and fowls, and grew our crops, and took our produce into market—a strenuous time, but greatly interesting in its way. My commercial instinct was weak, but Albert’s was perhaps even weaker! With his real love of good work he would spend as much time preparing an onion-bed as could only be paid for by ten times the value of the crop; and at one period he insisted on rooting every bit of rock and stone out of the subsoil so persistently that I began to think the garden would be turned into a quarry! It was characteristic of him when I remonstrated, to say: “I can’t help it—if I didn’t do my work thorough when I’m at it, I should only keep awake at night thinking about it.” I have already given some of the general results and conclusions of our labours of that time. When the period of our experiment came to an end, Fearnehough returned again to his scythe-making trade in Sheffield, which he still carries on, hale and hearty, down to this day [1915].

I cannot pass this period by without dwelling for a moment on another friend at that time a member of the household. I mean my dog Bruno[17]—so called not from his colour, for he was a very handsome black spaniel, but from some fanciful association with Giordano Bruno the Italian. That dog—like so many black animals, black horses, black cats, black poodles, black-plumaged birds, rooks, jackdaws, starlings, and so forth—had something _demonic_ about him. The tenderness and gentleness of his spirit, combined with a penetrative vision which searched one’s very soul, was almost superhuman. I came first to know him when he was merely a puppy at a friend’s house. We almost fell in love with each other then and there, and I was not altogether surprised when a few weeks afterwards he arrived at my door, sent on as a present from the said friends. He never doubted for a moment that he had come to his true home, and he settled down at once, a most loving member of the household. The Fearnehoughs took to him right cordially, and Albert himself a year or so later had the great satisfaction of saving him from a horrible death.

I had been out somewhere on foot with Bruno and arriving back within a couple of hundred yards of my gate I perceived the local pack of foxhounds (the pests of this as of all countrysides!) scattered about the road between me and home—the huntsmen having gone into the public-house for a moment to have a drink. But that moment was more than sufficient—for hounds are dangerous things unless under severe control. Something occurred—I know not what. A hound gave cry; the others joined in; and in an instant, to my horror and despair, the whole pack was yelling in pursuit, and Bruno flying for his life—in the only direction he _could_ at the moment fly, away from home! The dog was swift and active, but what chance had he? I gave him up for lost. With extraordinary agility however and much presence of mind he doubled and, clearing ever so many garden walls and gates, dashed through the little hamlet back again, finally racing across one of my fields with the whole pack close behind and of course gaining on him. Most luckily Albert was in our yard at the moment, and hearing the hullabaloo rushed out with a pitchfork in his hand, just in time to check the ravening horde while Bruno rushed past him to safety. A moment more and the dog would have been torn to fragments.

Bruno showed in high degree that curious quality resembling _conscience_ in man, by which dogs, having contracted and adopted a new standard of life from their masters, betray an emotional conflict going on within them. Sometimes—as is often the case where fowls are kept—we would have a nest of newly-hatched chicks being kept warm and dry in a basket on the hearth. On such occasions Bruno was torn by conflicting passions. The very sight and smell of the chicks roused the old primitive hunting instinct, and he would creep nearer and nearer to the basket in a very ecstasy of excitement—his limbs trembling and his nose quivering as he sniffed the prey. Yet he knew perfectly well that he must not touch; and his fidelity was so absolute that I firmly believe he harboured no intention of doing so. But who can tell? We felt that possibly a sudden frenzy of the animal nature might overtake him; and we could not do otherwise than keep on the watch. As a matter of fact he never did do anything rash; but the tension on him, poor dog, was so great that sometimes for two or three days he would hardly touch his food, and he positively grew quite thin under the strain. It was really a relief for all of us when the hatching days were over.

There is something strangely touching in the fact that dogs not only thus develop a conscience and a morality foreign to their canine nature, but that also from their intense devotion to their so-called ‘masters’ they are severed and alienated to some degree from the natural loves of their race—at any rate on the affectional side. I think Bruno nourished in his heart a strange susceptibility to beauty. His amours with other dogs were only of the ordinary kind; but he cherished for a certain white kitten a positive adoration. The kitten was certainly beautiful—snow-white and graceful to a degree—and to Bruno obviously a goddess; but alas! like other goddesses only too fickle and even cruel. When Bruno arrived on the scene, the kitten would skip on to the vantage-ground of a chair-seat; and from thence torment the pathetic and pleading nose of the dog with naughty scratches. Again and again would Bruno—wounded in his heart as well as in his head—return to his ineffectual suit, only to have his advances rejected as before. At last he had to abandon this quest, but it was curious that a year or two later he fell in love with _another_ white kitten in much the same way and with much the same result.

“Everything however comes to him who waits”; and the most curious and pathetic part of this story is its ending. For, a good many years afterwards when Bruno had become quite an old dog and had lost much of his activity, a _cat_ came and fell in love with him! This cat used to come from a neighboring farm and spend much of its time with the dog, and frequently at night would stay with him in the little outhouse which he used as a kennel, sleeping between the dog’s paws. Ultimately the cat was there when Bruno died.

Fearnehough’s place, when he returned to Sheffield, was taken by George Adams, who (also with wife and two children) came to share the Millthorpe Cottage with me. Adams was in most ways the very reverse of Albert Fearnehough. Town bred, rather slight and thin, with a forward stoop and a shock of black hair, he was of an impetuous humorous and rather artistic temperament—not too exact or precise about details, but one who could cover a good deal of ground in a day. Born in the poorest slums of Sheffield he told me more than once how, after his mother died, he was left alone a mere urchin in a tiny lodging with his father. His father was a cobbler by trade rather given to drink, and in the habit of going out early of a morning to work as a wage-slave in some shop, and returning late. When he went out he left a _halfpenny_ on the table for the boy to find his food with during the day! Not a very good start in life. The boy roamed about, half-starved, cadging or ‘snaking’ what he could—but developed, perhaps in consequence, a singular resourcefulness. When about thirteen his father died, and he was left absolutely alone in the world. The neighbours may have been kind in their way, but he was alone and without refuge to flee to. Then something pathetic happened. An orphanage for little _girls_ had lately been opened in the neighborhood, and the boy knew one or two of these girls. One evening, at closing time, the matron discovered among her little flock this large-eyed, thin-legged almost rickety ragamuffin sitting! Asked what he was doing there he replied that he wanted to be taken in. “But the orphanage is for girls only,” said the matron, “and you are not a girl.” It was no use, he would not go; tears ran down his face; he told his plight; and they were fain to find him a bed in an attic for the night. Needless to say he remained a second and a third night. The pale mobile face made friends; and the end of it was that a boys’ _side_ was created in the orphanage and added to that of the girls!

After remaining in the orphanage for a year or two a place was found for George Adams in the villa-residence of a Sheffield manufacturer, where he went first as knife and boot boy and afterwards as under-gardener. The good people of the villa discovered his taste for drawing and painting, and sent him to a School of Art for lessons; and so when at the age of twenty or so he left ‘service’ and started for himself as an insurance-collector (most depressing of occupations) he had a fair knowledge of gardening and a fair artistic ability at his command. He married, and joining the Socialist movement became one of our most lively and adventurous spirits. The departure of the Fearnehoughs gave me the opportunity of offering their place at Millthorpe to him (and his family)—which he accepted as a joyful exchange from the dismal trade of eternally dunning the needy denizens of mean streets for their funeral and coffin monies.

With his arrival at Millthorpe things took on a more lively air there. His knowledge of gardening was a decided help, and the financial side of the venture—if not exactly a success from the purely commercial point of view—did certainly under the circumstances (absence of any rent, etc.) yield a small profit to the good. He took up cordially with the sandal-making, which I had at first carried on alone, and which came in useful in winter when the outdoor work was slack; and he added bee-keeping to our activities. My literary work and connections were increasing, and the place became more social, and more especially socialistic, than it had been before—so much so indeed that the country folk (or some of them at any rate) became a little alarmed!

A year or two after George Adams’ arrival the Parish Councils Act came into operation, and the first election was the cause of much excitement in the villages. Adams and I—though knowing perfectly well that we had no chance of success—decided—chiefly for the fun of the thing—to come forward as candidates; and almost a panic ensued among the larger farmers and the parson as to what we might possibly do or propose. Strange stories were circulated of the Socialist programme, and of the expenses into which the community would certainly be plunged if it were adopted. But the finishing touch to our chances was given by an election address printed and circulated by one candidate of decidedly Conservative type, in which he did not hesitate to say that “it is reported publicly in Holmesfield that one of our opponents advocates the burning of the Bible, and also working on the Sabbath Day.” After that we had no prospect of success! _Which_ of us two was really pointed at in this accusation we never quite knew, though we entered into a sort of friendly rivalry for the honour. But the printed card containing the address I retain to this day, and it is a treasured possession.

Adams was certainly not mealy-mouthed, and I am afraid he made very blasphemous remarks at times, but his intense sense of fun and his twinkling delight over ‘good stories’ quite redeemed any such deficiencies. His courageous humour was all the more remarkable because, poor thing, he was always suffering from ill-health. Dating from the early life which I have described, his internal arrangements, as can easily be imagined, never worked really properly; and at times he would suffer a lot of pain, and become seriously emaciated. How he managed to keep up his gardening and other activities in spite of frequent illness was always a wonder; but his vivid imagination carried him on, and if he were downcast at times, new plans and enterprises were sure to come in and disperse the pessimistic mood.

The gardening work, however, at Millthorpe _was_ too much for his slight frame; and after some five years’ stay there he elected to retire with his family into a cottage not far off in the same parish and devote himself to the sandal-trade and to the occasional sale of his water-colour drawings. This he did; and after remaining for four or five years moved on to the Letchworth Garden City where his labours and his personality were much appreciated, and where he occupied a little home of his own until his death in 1910.

The Adams’ left Millthorpe early in February ’98; and the next day—trundling with the help of two boys all his worldly goods in a handcart over the hills, and through a disheartening blizzard of snow—George Merrill arrived. This extraordinary being, in many ways so kindred a spirit to my own, had now been known to me for some years. I had met him first on the outskirts of Sheffield immediately after my return from India, and had recognized at once a peculiar intimacy and mutual understanding. Bred in the slums quite below civilization, but of healthy parentage of comparatively rustic origin, he had grown so to speak entirely out of his own roots; and a singularly affectionate, humorous, and swiftly intuitive nature had expanded along its own lines—subject of course to some of the surrounding conditions, but utterly untouched by the prevailing conventions and proprieties of the upper world. Always—even in utmost poverty—clean and sweet in person and neat in attire, he was attractive to most people; and children (of whom he was especially fond) would congregate round him. Yet being by temperament loving and even passionate—to a degree indeed which sometimes scandalized the “unco’ guid”—he was, it may safely be said, never ‘respectable.’ Fortunately he was either too careless or too unconscious of public opinion to trouble much about that; and despite the shafts of occasional criticism he remained always fairly assured of himself—with the same sort of unconscious assurance that a plant or an animal may have in its own nature. What struck me most, however, on my first meeting with him, was the pathetic look of wistfulness in his face. Whatever his experiences up to then may have been, it assured me that the desire of his _heart_ was still unsatisfied.

To George Merrill the arrival at Millthorpe was the fulfilment of a dream; and a blizzard ten times as bad as the actual one would not I believe have daunted him. The departure of the Adams’ had left the house largely denuded of furniture, and for some days we bivouacked with a trestle table for meals and a sanded floor. By degrees we got things into order, acquired the necessaries of life and comfort; and started housekeeping on a new footing. For seven years the possibility of this arrangement had I believe wavered before George’s eyes, and it had certainly been considered by me. But we had hardly spoken about it. It was too remote. On my side other arrangements and engagements precluded the plan; on his, the various situations he had found—once in a newspaper office, once in an hotel, and lastly in an ironworks—were not to be lightly thrown aside. It was only now, when the Adams’ were leaving and George at the same time was out of work, that the Fates pointed favorably and the thing was done.

GEORGE MERRILL.

(_Photo: Lena Connell._)
]

If the Fates pointed favorably I need hardly say that my friends (with a few exceptions) pointed the other way! I knew of course that George had an instinctive genius for housework, and that in all probability he would keep house better than most women would. But most of my friends thought otherwise. They drew sad pictures of the walls of my cottage hanging with cobwebs, and of the master unfed and neglected while his assistant amused himself elsewhere. They neither knew nor understood the facts of the case. Moreover they had sad misgivings about the moral situation. A youth who had spent much of his early time in the purlieus of public-houses and in society not too reputable would do me no credit, and would only by my adoption be confirmed in his own errant ways. Such was their verdict. For myself if I entertained any of these misgivings it was but very faintly. Of the fellow’s essential goodness I felt no doubt. What rather troubled me was the question whether _he_ would be able to endure the dulness and quiet of a country life.

With a remarkably good ear for music, and a sympathetic baritone voice, he had a ready talent which would have taken him far on the music-hall stage. In fact I hardly know how it was that he did not find a vocation on that stage. Anyhow he was known in not a few circles for his musical quips and his comic or sentimental songs; and was pretty familiar with the doings and _personnel_ of the theatres. To take such an one away into the depths of rustic life might have been a great mistake. Probably if this had been the prevailing side of his character it _would_ have been a mistake. As it was the move proved a complete success. In a few months or a year my friend was quite acclimatized, and while enjoying (like myself) a day or two in town was always genuinely glad to get back again to our little home in Cordwell Valley.

As I have said, the families I had with me before were both kindly and good sorts, and in their different ways helpful and useful. But a time had come with the growing expansion of my work when it became quite impossible to continue running things on the old footing, and quite necessary for me to have the house really at my own command. The arrival of George Merrill rendered this possible. And immediately a new order of things began. Merrill from the first developed quite a talent for housework. He soon picked up the necessary elements of cookery, vegetarian or otherwise; he carried on the arts of washing, baking and so forth with address and dispatch; he took pride in making the place look neat and clean, and insisted on decorating every room that was in use with flowers. I, for my part, finally gave up the market garden business and contracted the garden ground into merely sufficient to supply the needs of the house. This I cultivated partly myself and partly with the occasional help of an outsider; and in addition I made it a rule to dust my own study and light the fire in it every morning. These little garden and household works—if not amounting to much—I have still always found very helpful and rather pleasant—as giving the bodily side of life some decent expression, and at the same time rendering the mental perspective more just.

Thus we settled down, two bachelors: keeping the mornings intact for pretty close and rigorous work; and the afternoons and evenings for more social recreation. As a rule I find the housekeeper who is a little particular and ‘house-proud’ is inclined, not unnaturally, to be somewhat set against visitors—especially those who may bring some amount of dirt and dishevelment with them. But George—though occasionally disposed that way—was so genuinely sociable and affectionate by nature that the latter tendency overcame the former. The only people he could not put up with were those whom he suspected (sometimes unjustly) of being pious or puritanical. For these he had as keen a _flair_ as the orthodox witch-finder used to have for heretics; and I am afraid he was sometimes rude to them. On one occasion he was standing at the door of our cottage, looking down the garden brilliant in the sun, when a missionary sort of man arrived with a tract and wanted to put it in his hand. “Keep your tract,” said George. “I don’t want it.” “But don’t you wish to know the way to heaven?” said the man. “No, I don’t,” was the reply, “can’t you see that _we’re in heaven here_—we don’t _want_ any better than this, so go away!” And the man turned and fled. Like the archdeacon in Eden Phillpotts’ _Human Boy_ “he flew and was never heard of again.”