Part 8

"However, that does not signify now--what I was going to tell you was, that he was detained longer than he had expected, and wrote me to join him in a place called Cheyenne. So I started; but what I endured in those sleeping-cars I never told even my husband. It wasn't proper! The passengers were of the most ordinary type, mostly bagmen, I should say. And the women! Vulgar and overdressed. I must say, however, I was rather pleased with the black man who waited on the passengers. He was rather grotesque, but was the only one I saw who seemed to have at all the bearing of a servant, and even he had a habit of smiling when spoken to which looked like impudence, till one learned that the poor creature had never been properly trained. Well, at length we reached Cheyenne. I had been told that it was the capital of the State, or whatever the district was called, and you may imagine my disgust when I found that it was a mere jumble of miserable wooden houses.

"My husband was not there to meet me--he had gone into the mountains to inspect a mine, and there had been a 'wash-out' or a 'hot-box.' I am sure I do not know the difference; I only know it was either the one or the other which continually caused delays. So there I was, with no one to meet me, and it was night. I looked round for a porter, and of course there was none. I saw a rough-looking man leaning against the station-house, and said to him: 'My man, carry my portmanteau to the hotel, please.'"

The pause which followed was so long that I thought the story ended, or that the narrator had fallen asleep. But I was mistaken--her emotion choked her. Finally one of the others said:

"And what happened then?"

In a sepulchral tone she answered: "_He spat!_ Then, without a word, he picked up the bag and led the way to the hotel. I handed him a shilling, and instead of touching his cap--by the way, it was not a cap at all, but a hat with a huge brim--which, if you please, he took off with a flourish and, declining the tip, remarked: 'Always a pleasure to help a lady!' I thought I should have died of shame at his insolence!"

I nearly choked, but fortunately did not, for every one else was shocked. After a painful silence Lady Agatha continued: "I must say some people have a peculiar sense of humor. I told this shocking story to Charlie Beresford, and he laughed till the tears ran down his face, and asked me to let him put it into a book he is writing on America. But I would not consent. It might give offense--Americans are very sensitive--and I think it most important that nothing should be done to cause ill-feeling between the two countries, for, as Sir George was saying at dinner, one cannot tell how soon we may need one another's help."

Here Gertrude, who had been walking on the terrace with the complacent secretary, came in and took me to her room to talk about the blue-eyed Guy.

Now you see why I do not want John to see this letter. He thinks he has a strong sense of humor, but it is ten to one he would no more understand the dowager than she understood the gentleman in the sombrero. How I should like to meet Sir Charles Beresford and hear him on dowagers and cowboys!

But, honestly, are not the English the most impossible people! I do not mean ridiculous--no one would accuse them of being that--but funny as the camel is. "There ain't no sich animal." Only there is!

XXIV

"BY PURENESS, BY KINDNESS, BY LOVE UNFEIGNED"

Before leaving Shrewsbury I had told Ruth on which train I would leave Saltbridge, and, as I had to change trains at Manchester, she could send a wire to the station there if she had any special orders to give me. The wire was awaiting me, and from it I found that not only had Ruth gone off "on her own" to Deepford, but that she had received an invitation from the Sanfords asking us both to come to them. She said that she was proceeding to London, and that she would go to the Sanfords' by train, and hoped I would meet her there with the car.

So I returned to Shrewsbury, where we had left the car, and the next day drove slowly through Stratford-on-Avon, where I had been before, and so did not stop, waiting till Ruth and I could make the pilgrimage together. I caught a glimpse of the spire of the parish church and could "visualize" the smug bust in the chancel, which an ungrateful town permits to be called Shakespeare!

I stopped the night at Banbury, where there is one of those old coaching inns which affect the imagination like an old print. The following day I went on to Oxford, where I left the car, and ran up to London for some necessary shopping. This, I know, will make you indignant, but I am going to "do" Oxford when Ruth, that lover of "Lost Causes," is with me. Besides, as my next journey is to the northeast, it was better to leave the car at Oxford than to go through London.

When I returned to Oxford I went again on my way and spent the night at Ipswich, in the same inn in which Mr. Pickwick had the compromising adventure with the lady in curl-papers. But there was nothing seen to recall that joyous night. No one I saw looked as if he had ever heard of the most distinguished guest the inn had ever entertained!

The next day I reached the Sanfords' for tea. I understand now why the heroine in an English novel always arrives at tea-time! It is the ideal hour. One does not have to dress for a function and is received into the family at once.

This family consists of but two--the husband and wife--a lovely couple. I do not know which of them we loved best when the visit was over. An ancestor of Mr. Sanford's was one of the non-jurors--and that night I lay in his bed. As a bed it was a good bed, but as a place for sleeping it was naught--as Touchstone would have said. As I lay awake I thought of the noble folly of the non-jurors, and of Macaulay's unsympathetic picture of them, though, curiously enough, the only time he speaks well of a bishop, so far as I remember, is when he praises the "seven bishops." How characteristic this is! They are admirable when they defy the Stuart, but contemptible when they refuse to bow the knee to his Dutch hero! These thoughts led me on to Henry Esmond--that most interesting prig--and so on, hour after hour, the mind wandered through the history of England till I longed for the scenery of the land of Nod!

I would not have you think that my wakefulness was due solely to the imagination awakened by the old non-juror's bed. It was due to a more modern and more material cause, namely the strong Ceylon tea, which was so good that I had taken more than I am accustomed to. What we call "English Breakfast," the English call "China" tea, and, so far as my experience goes, is seldom served. Certainly it could not have been expected in this house, because Mr. Sanford is largely interested in the cultivation of Ceylon tea and, not unnaturally, thinks it superior to China. It is undoubtedly good, but so strong that it is apt to be followed by a sleepless night on the part of the uninitiated.

The next day was Sunday, which began, I need not say, with a bountiful breakfast, at which, of course, we served ourselves, Mr. Sanford walking around the room with a little blue bowl in his hand, eating porridge and talking delightfully. By the way, do you believe the story of the American "Belle Mère," who, arriving at the castle of her noble son-in-law late at night and therefore coming to the dining-room for the first time at breakfast, and, seeing no servants, said to her daughter: "Honey, can't you get no 'help' at all over here?" I do not. Ruth does, and begged me not to tell the story here lest it be thought that the good lady was typical!

I do not think Mrs. Sanford would have believed it. But, if she had, she would have understood, for she has many American friends and a more sympathetic understanding of our problems than any one I have so far met in England. Mr. Sanford was rather inclined to be depressed about England, and deplored the present policy of the Liberal Government--especially in regard to land. Of course I know nothing about the matter, but I could not help thinking I heard a faint echo of the old non-juror's voice. This, however, is sure, he is the quintessence of the feudal system at its best, having its deep sense of responsibility.

We walked to the little church, which is at their gate, and as we drew near and met the people on their way to worship, I was struck by the affection--so much better than perfunctory respect--with which my hosts were greeted both by farmers and tenants alike.

Mr. Sanford showed Ruth and me into the second pew in the transept, while he and his wife occupied the one in front of it, which is the squire's. He read the lessons, and I wished I could read as well! I once heard a distinguished minister at home praised for his reading of the Bible because it "sounded so modern--as if he were reading the morning paper." Well, his reading was not in the least like that! He read with deep reverence, as "The covenant made with our fathers" and now delivered unto us.

The rector, a cousin of our host's, was indisposed, and his place was taken by a near-by vicar. The sermon had neither the interest of the morning paper nor the awe of an ancient revelation! Indeed, it was a stupid thing, which I guessed was one of those which, it is said, can be bought "ready made," and of any shade of churchmanship. This one had no color at all!

The preacher was invited to dine with the squire and accepted. He must be a survival. He explained the difficulty the country parson has in collecting his tithes. Turning to his host, he said: "I had a most disagreeable task last week; Scroston was in arrears again, and I had to distrain his cow."

Mr. Sanford looked much distressed, and said: "I don't think I should have done that."

"Neither should I, had it been a personal matter; but one must consider one's successor. If a precedent were once established, it might lead to much trouble." And to this there seemed to be no reply!

After dinner, when the neighboring parson had left, Mr. Sanford suggested a "look round." Ruth said she had some letters to write, which in England means a nap, so we started off together. In my ignorance I supposed a "look round" meant a stroll about the place. I soon found it meant something more like what we call a "hike."

There is a wide-spread impression among Americans that England is a small place. Let any one go with an English gentleman after a good Sunday dinner, for a "look round," and I venture to say he will change his mind! I suppose I am "soft" from motoring, but I know I was "all in" when we at length reached home. But my host, no longer a young man, seemed as fresh as when we started.

He had been much amused by my attempts to make up to a farmer, whom we met--also "taking a look round." We were crossing a beautiful field, in which were some noble oaks whose wide-spread branches cast so deep a shadow that it looked black, and, by way of making myself agreeable, I remarked to him: "I have been telling Mr. Sanford how much I admire your trees. You must be proud of them."

"Aye, they look well to a town dweller, but I never notice them except at hayin', and then I wish they was anywhere else."

"But you turn your cattle into this field sometimes, I suppose, and they must enjoy the shade on a hot day."

"Well, if they stand under one of them on a hot day, they'll be in a draft, and get a chill, and maybe die."

This certainly was not encouraging, but I did not know enough to stop. Just then some heifers came nosing around, and I said: "That's a beautiful heifer."

"Which one?" said the farmer.

"The white one," said I.

"I wish you lived about here and I could sell her to you. No _farmer_ would buy her."

"Why not?" said I.

"We think the white ones is 'saft,'" he replied.

This, as I say, gave great satisfaction to Mr. Sanford, who recounted it at tea with great gusto.

The servants all went to evening service, but the family did not, so I "wrote letters"!

Supper was served at nine o'clock, and then all the servants came in for prayers--"cook" first, and the kitchen-maid last, the butler standing aside to close the door, and then solemnly taking his place.

Mr. Sanford read a chapter, and after that a beautiful prayer that all might be faithful in their duties, kind, and considerate to one another, honor the King and love the church. Then Mrs. Sanford took her place at the harmonium and played several hymns, in which all the servants joined--I thought the footman's tenor worthy of a church choir, and I suspect he thought so too! and I am sure the housemaid agreed with us both! Altogether the singing was beautiful.

When the service was over, Mr. Sanford said, very simply: "My friends, we have now come to the beginning of another week, and I wish to thank you all for faithful service. If, at any time I have been impatient with any of you, I ask your forgiveness. And now I bid you all good night."

The butler showed them all out, looking at the footman, I thought, as much as to say: "Have you any complaint to make about the master? If so, kindly address yourself to me!" As for me, I confess I had a "lump" in my throat.

As we drove away next morning, Ruth said: "I suppose by this time you have become a Tory!"

"No," I said, "not quite, but if you ever hear me say a word against England again say 'Sanford,' and I will cry 'Peccavi.' How cheap and self-conscious democracy seems after this glimpse of English gentle people. Where can their like be found?"

XXV

THE COUNTY FAMILIES

John should be writing this, but he says he is tired. I am sure he must be. But there is another reason, which is that he is cross, poor dear, and you, no doubt, will think with good reason when you hear what he has been through.

On leaving Sharrow--the Sanfords' place--we drove to the village where still stands the inn known as "The Maypole" in "Barnaby Rudge." Willit is dead, and I saw nothing as attractive as Dolly Varden, nor anything as horrible, I am thankful to say, as Hugh. In other words, we felt as Thackeray says he felt when he visited Tours--it had none of the charm which he had expected after reading "Quentin Durward"!

I urged John to leave the car at the Maypole and go to town by train, for I knew it would be an exhausting experience to drive through the city. But no. He was determined to see if he was enough of a chauffeur to accomplish a feat which tries the nerve of a professional! So we started.

The road led us to the east side of the city, which we entered with the late market-carts. No words can describe the congestion. It was not only the innumerable wagons of every description which made progress almost impossible, but the swarms of creatures which I suppose one must call "human," though there was little indication of their humanity except the power of speech, and when one had heard that, one was tempted to wish they were without it! There are veritably two Englands, the one we had just left, of green fields and clear brooks and kind hearts and noble deeds, and now this sink of iniquity. There is nothing in New York to compare with it, for, shocking as our tenement-house district is, one is comforted by the thought that it is temporary, that there is an upward trend, and that the children of the tenements--almost exclusively of foreign-born parentage--are destined to escape. But these poor creatures are predestined to "damnation" before they are born. There is all the difference between the East Side of New York and the East End of London that there is between a stream which has been defiled by the drainage of factories, but which will purify itself after it has flowed a certain number of miles, and a malarial swamp, whose stagnant waters have no power of movement and, therefore, no hope of cleansing, but will breed sickness from generation to generation. This is the reverse of the medal inscribed "As it was in the beginning," etc.

Through this seething mass, then, we made our way into White Chapel, the nursery of crime, into Cannon Street, where the great wholesale houses distribute the wealth of the empire, and where the great dray-horses, almost as large as elephants, block the way, past St. Paul's, the silent witness to a faith which the life around seems to have forgotten--if it ever heard of it!--into Holborn, with its restaurants and shops and law-courts, and at last into Leicester Square, with its foreign population and its palatial music-halls.

It has taken but a few moments to write this, but it took hours to drive it, and I confess when it was over I felt like the Irishman in the bottomless Sedan chair: "If it wasn't for the honor of the thing, I'd as lief walk." I had the good sense not to ask John how he felt. I could tell by looking at him: his face was white and drawn.

Before we started from the Maypole, John had suggested wiring to the "Holland" for rooms, but I induced him to come here--"Garvin's Private Hotel"--instead, and now I wish I had not!

The Slocums had advised me to come here rather than to one of the great caravansaries, which they said are so "Cooksy." They told me that they always stopped here, and that I should like the class of people one meets here--the county families--and also that one received that personal attention which formerly made English hotels unique, and which Americans and Germans were killing.

Well, I found it good enough. The bedrooms may have been dingy--to speak the truth they were--but the maid was pleasant and efficient, and the dinner, if not exciting, was palatable. But John said it "had nothing on a Lexington Avenue boarding-house." The truth is, he was tired out, and vexed because a telegram, which he had expected to find here, had not arrived.

The next day he went to the manager, and an investigation was begun which led to the discovery that the telegram, which had arrived the day before, was in the porters' rack! It seems that Garvin's has doors on two streets, and the porter of the door by which we did _not_ enter had received it. When John asked why it had not been sent to his room, he was informed, first, that no one had told _that_ porter that we were in the house, and, second, that telegrams were sent only to private sitting-rooms! I don't know which excuse made him the more angry. It was then he made his remark about the Lexington Avenue boarding-house. Not that he knows anything about them, for he has never stayed in one in his life, but because it was the first thing he thought of. It was an example of what I once heard you call "the universe of discourse." But, "you bet," I didn't tell him so!

At dinner John looked round the dreary dining-room and asked where were the "county families"?

I also was feeling the strain of the day, and said "I hoped to meet them later."

He replied he hoped he might be out when they called.

By this time I was well-nigh desperate, and suggested that he go outside and smoke his cigar in the street, for I had caught a glimpse of the "Smoke Room," which looks out on a mews, and is more like a dog-kennel than a room, and I did not feel I could stand any more remarks about "private hotels"! _Entre nous_, I advise you never to go to one. I have no doubt if you were a "county family," and came up every year as your father had done before you, and took the "first floor front," with a private sitting-room, they would "do you well." But it is no place for transients.

As we had no sitting-room, I went to the dreary parlor to read and, if possible, to quiet my mind before going to bed. But instead of reading, I began to think of John, and the more I thought of him the sadder I grew. I know no one who bears the great troubles of life more patiently than he, but a petty thing, like this telegram, poisons him as the black flies poisoned me in the Adirondacks! They only bite most people, but they send me to bed with a temperature! And the worst of it is he suffers such remorse after one of these attacks. Why should we laugh at Mrs. Gummage? There are people who "feel it more than others." However, I reflected that there was nothing I could do about it, and so turned to my book.

It was one of those dreary books of Benson's, which are conducive to intellectual and moral indigestion--wallowing in imaginary emotions--and I did not see how I could read it in the frame of mind I was then in. But I did not have to, for I was suddenly startled by a voice saying: "If you won't think me rude, I _should_ like to know where you got that hat?"

My first thought was that Garvin's was another sort of private institution, but peering into the dim corner, I saw a typical "county family," or rather the head of one. He was a hale and hearty old man, somewhat over sixty, and had the ruddy complexion which only English country life can give. I saw he was not dangerous, and also that he was unquestionably a "gentleman," so I replied: "I am glad you like it. I got it at Bonwit Teller's."

"I don't know the shop," he said, in a disappointed tone.

"Well, that is not surprising, for it is in New York."

"Really! And are you an American? I never should have," etc.

"Did you want a hat like this for yourself?" I demurely asked.

"Oh, I say! Now you are trying to pull my leg."

I looked at the solid limb in question, and assured him I had no such purpose.

"No, I didn't want it for myself. The truth is, I saw you at dinner--by the way, why do they call that leather they served to-night 'mutton'? I wonder if they have ever tasted mutton? Awful food they give one at these hotels nowadays! Poison, I call it! I always stop at my club when I come up to town, but this time I have my wife and daughter with me. Couldn't take them to the club, of course, so came here. Family been coming here forever, I should say; came when the father of this man had it. This man married the French maid, and she has put on the table a lot of kickshaws, and calls them a '_menu_.' Silly stuff. There was no such nonsense in the father's time. One just called the waiter and said, 'What's the joint?' and that was all there was to it. But, as I was saying, I saw you at dinner, and said to my daughter: 'That's a deuced pretty-looking girl over there, and I wish you had a hat like hers.' You don't mind my telling you this? Wouldn't do for a young man, but an old man has his privileges."

I assured him I was flattered, and the simple-hearted old squire replied: "Not at all. The simple truth."

I was rather confused at this and, not quite thinking what I was saying, asked what his daughter said.

"'Why,' she said, 'if you admire the lady's hat, you had better ask her where she got it.' And, by George, I said I would, never dreaming, you understand, that I should really ever speak to you.

"You see, they have gone to the play, but as I have taken a cold, something I never have at home, I thought I would stop in and write some letters. But the fire in my sitting-room (though it is August, the evenings are chill) smokes so I came in here, and no sooner got settled down than I heard some one come in and, looking round, saw it was you. Matilda _will_ be surprised when she learns that I have asked about the hat." And he chuckled to himself at the thought.

I turned again to my book but the old man was not done with me. "So you are an American. Is it true that Americans have baths in their drawing-rooms?"

"I have never seen one there, but as they have them generally about the house, I should not be surprised."

"Oh, you must not take me too seriously," he said in a sorrowful tone; "I was only ragging you a bit!"

I laughed, not, I fear, with, but at, the simple old soul.