Chapter 11

"Well, I see 'em, quarter of a mile oop the road, crouching oonder t'hedge"--he spoke Yorkshire[4]--"wet to skin, and she nowt on but a cotton blouse. So I sez to her, 'My dear, ye'll get yer death o' cold,' 'Yes,' she says, 'and me with a weak chest.' Pore young thing, I'm fair sorry for her. I towd t'young man to tek his co-at off and put it ra-ownd her. 'That'll do no good,' he sez; 'she's wet through a'ready.' 'Well,' I sez, 'she's not been wet through all her life, has she? Why didn't you put it on her while she were dry? Sense? You've got no more sense nor a blind rabbit.' But it was no good. My! What rain! Nivver see nothing like it. They'll be fair drownded. I think I'll go and fetch 'em in. Holy potatoes!" (Will anyone explain this expression? It was evoked by a crash of thunder which burst immediately above the box and seemed to hurl us into space.)

[Footnote 4: The reader who would get the full flavour of Macbeth's conversation should translate it, if he can, into a broad Yorkshire dialect. This I have indicated here and there by the spelling of a word, which is as far as, or perhaps farther than, my own competence extends.]

"No good fetching 'em in now," I replied, taking a point of view which I afterwards saw to have been that of the Priest and the Levite. "They'd suffer more damage getting here than staying where they are. Besides, where would you put 'em?"

"That's trew," said Macbeth. "This ain't no place for ladies, anyhow." (It wasn't!) "But just think of that pore young thing--nowt on, I tell yer, but a cotton blouse. Hello! there's a cart coming. I'll tell t'man to tek 'em oop."

Out jumped Macbeth into the pelting rain, and presently I heard him shouting to the man in charge: "Hey, mister! There's a young man and woman crouching under t'hedge oop t'ro-ad. She nowt on but a cotton blouse! It isn't sa-afe, yer know, in this thoonder and lightnin'. Tek her oop, and put a sack or two on her."

I gathered the result of the interview was satisfactory to Macbeth, for presently he came back, steaming, into the box. For some minutes he continued to mutter with the thunder, about "poor young things," "cotton blouses," and "weak chests."

But the altruistic passion in the man had spent itself for the moment, and now the conversation began to take other forms. Banquo began to enter into the dialogue. His contributions so far had been mainly interjectory and blasphemous--a department of which he was obviously a more versatile exponent than the other, who was by no means a 'prentice hand. And here I must note a curious thing. Whether it was that the box afforded no proper theatre for exhibiting the natural dignity of my carriage, or that the light was not good, or that I am a ruffian at heart and had been caught at an unguarded moment--whatever the true cause may have been, I am certain that up to this moment my two companions had no suspicion that I was not a tramp like themselves.

It was Banquo who unmasked the truth. His mind was less preoccupied with the sufferings of the "poor young thing," and no doubt had been taking observations. The result of these he proceeded to communicate to Macbeth by a series of nudges and winks which, in the close proximity of the moment, I felt rather than saw. On the whole, I am sorry that their first delusion--if, indeed, it was a delusion, of which I am genuinely doubtful--was not maintained. However, the discovery opened the way to fresh developments. They ceased to address me as "Johnny," "Old Joker," or something worse; ceased swearing, for which, lover of originality as I am, I was thankful; and began generally to pay me the respect due to the fact that the soles of my boots were intact. Theirs were in a very different condition.

I can't disguise that there was something like an awkward pause. But I exerted myself to bridge the chasm, and, thanks to them rather than to me, it was bridged.

"Where are you going to-night?" I asked as soon as the _modus vivendi_ was assured.

"Ain't going nowhere in particular," said Banquo. "We just go anywhere."

"What!" I said, "don't you know where you'll pass the night?"

"Well, it's just this way," returned the other. "Me and my mate here are musicians, and we just go this way and that according to where the publics are. It's in the publics we makes what living we gets--singing in the bars and cadging for drink and coppers."

"And a bloomin' shame we should have to do it!" chimed in Macbeth. "But what can yer do? My trade's a mason; Leeds is where I come from; but when they're short of work, if you've got _two_ grey hairs and another chap's got only _one_, you gets the sack, and has to live as best yer can.

"God knows I don't want this beastly life. But it's a good thing I've got it to turn to. Most on 'em has nowt but their trades, and them's the ones as has to starve. But me and my mate here happens to be moosical. Used to sing in St. ---- Church in Leeds. Leading bass, I was--a bit irregular, I'll own, and that's why they wouldn't keep me on. My mate plays the cornet. He used to be in the band of the ---- Fusiliers. Served in South Africa, he did, and got a sock in the face from a shell; yer can see the 'ole under his eye. Good thing it didn't 'it him in the ma-outh, or he wouldn't ha' been able to play the cornet any more. Know Yorkshire, mister?"

I replied that I did.

"Well, if yer knows Yorkshire, yer knows there's plenty of music up there. They can tell music, when they hear it, in Yorkshire, _that_ they can! But these caownties down here, why, the people knows no more about music nor pigs. They can't tell the difference between a man what really _can_ sing and one of these 'ere 'owlin' 'umbugs that goes draggin' little children up and daown t' streets. That sort makes more money than we does. And I tell you, him 'ere"--indicating Banquo--"is a good cornet player. 'Ere, Banquo, fetch it out o' your pocket, lad, and play the gentleman a toon."

As far as I could judge, Banquo's pocket was situated somewhere in the middle of his back, for it was from a region in that quarter, where I had already felt a hard excrescence, due as I might have thought to an unextracted cannon-ball received in South Africa, that the cornet was produced.

"Play the gentleman 'The Merry Widder,'" said Macbeth, "and wait till the thunder's stopped rolling before you begin."

The "Merry Widder" was well and duly played, and fully bore out Macbeth's eulogy of the player. It was followed by something from _Maritana_, and other things which I forget. Though the mouth of the trumpet was only a few inches from the drum of my ear, yet the din of the rain on the roof was such that the effect was not unpleasant--at all events, it was a welcome relief from the frightful strains on the olfactory organ. The man, I say, was a good player, and I remember wishing, as I listened to him, that there was anything in life that I could do half as well.

As he finished one of his selections, the gloom deepened, it became almost as dark as night, the rain ceased for a moment, and there was silence; and then there shot in upon us a blast of fire and a bolt of thunder, so near and so overwhelming that I verily believe it was a narrow escape from death.

"That's something to put the fear of God into a man," said Macbeth, as the volley rolled into distance. "My crikey! But I've heard say, mister, that the thunder is the voice of the wrath of God."

"I'm sure it is," I replied.

"Sounds like it anyhow. I wonder if that there chap with the cart has got the young woman under cover. She'll be scared out of her life. Eh, but isn't it dark? It might be half-past ten. Here, matey"--to Banquo--"let's have something in keepin' loike. Give us 'Lead, Kindly Light,' lad, on t' cornet, and I'll sing the bass. I want t' gentleman to hear my voice."

The hymn was sung in a voice as good as some that have made great fortunes, but with a depth of emotion which occasionally spoilt the notes; and I can say little more than that the singing, in that strange setting, with muttering thunder for an undertone, was a thing I shall not forget.

"Do you know anything about that hymn?" said Macbeth (the tears made watercourses down his dirty face) when it was over.

"Yes," I said, "a little."

"But I know _all_ about it," replied Macbeth. "Him as wrote that hymn was Cardinal Newman. They say he wrote it at sea, maybe he wrote it in a storm--like this. He was a Protestant, and was just turning into a Catholic. Didn't know whether he would or whether he wouldn't, loike. That's what he means when he says, 'Lead, Kindly Light.' He was i' th' dark, and wanted lightin'. It was _all_ dark, don't you see, just loike it is naow."

Some minutes elapsed, during which neither Banquo nor I said a word. I stole a glance at the "'ole under his eye," and saw that it was no laughing matter to "get a sock in the face from a shell." The human profile, on that side, had virtually disappeared; jaw and cheek-bone were smashed in; there was neither nostril nor ear; the lower eyelid was missing; the eye itself was evidently sightless, and a constant trickle of tears ran down into the hideous scar below.

I thought of this man wandering over the earth, abhorred of all beholders; I thought of the music he managed to make with the remnant of his mutilated face; I thought also of the rigour of Destiny and the kindliness of Death. I remember the words running in my head, "He hath no form nor comeliness. Yet he was wounded for our transgressions, and the chastisement of our peace was upon him."

I averted my glance, but not before Banquo had discovered that I was looking at him. "Ha," he said; "you're lookin' at my face. It's a beauty, isn't it? They ought to put it on the board outside the recruitin' stations, as a sort of inducement to good-lookin' young men. Help to make the Army popular wi' the young women, don't you see? 'George, why don't you join the Army and get a face like that? You'd be worth lookin' at then.' Can't you hear 'em saying it? Oh, yes, I'm proud o' my face, _that_ I am! So's my old gal. That's why she left me and the kids the day I come home--never seen her since. Every time I draws my pension I says to myself, 'Bill, my lad, that face o' yours is cheap at the price. Keep up your pecker, my hearty; you'll make yer fortune when Mr. Barnum sees yer! It's a bloomin' good investment, that's what I calls it. Give yer a sort o' start in life. Makes folks glad to see yer when you drops in to tea. And then I'm always feelin' as though I wanted to have my photograph taken--and that's nice, too. So you see takin' it all round, it's quite a blessin' to have a face like mine."

I was silent, not knowing what to say. Banquo went on:

"I thought when I come out o' the 'orspital as it were all up wi' playin' the cornet. But I made up my mind as I'd try. So I kep' up practice all the way home from the Cape, and when we got to Southampton I could just manage to blow into the mouthpiece. It hurt a bit, too, I can tell you. You see, I can only play on one side o' my mouth--like this. But I got used to it after a time; and now I can play a'most as well wi' half a mouth as I used to do wi' a whole un."

Again I was silent, for there was a tangle of thoughts in my mind, and behind it all a vague, uncomfortable sense that I was come to judgment. From this sprang a sudden resolve to change the subject, which was unpleasant to me in more senses than one. So I said, after the pause, "What about your pension?"

"Pension, did you say? Well, you see, sir, I've been in a bit o' trouble since I come home. There was a kind old gent as give me three months in the choke-hole for not behavin' quite as handsome as I ought to. 'It'll spile all my good looks, your Worship,' I says when he sentenced me. 'Remove the prisoner, officer!' he says; and I thinks to myself, 'I'd like to remove _you_, old gentleman, and see what you'd look like on a hammynition waggon, wi' two dead pals under your nose, and a pom-pom shell a-burstin' in your ear-'ole.' But I've had one good friend, anyhow; and I don't want a better--and that's him there" (indicating Macbeth). "He's a _man_, he is! I can tell you one thing!--if it hadn't been for him there, I'd ha' sent the other half o' my head to look for the first long ago--and that's the truth!"

While this conversation was proceeding Macbeth, _more suo_, continued to mutter like a man in a troubled dream, now humming a bar of the tune, now drawling out a phrase from the words, "O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till the night is gone"--this, I believe, he repeated several times, lighting his pipe in the intervals and spitting out of the door. Then he went on more articulately: "Rum go, ain't it--me singing that hymn in a place like this? Sung it in church 'undreds o' times. We give it sometimes in the streets. It's part of our _répertoire_" (he pronounced this word quite correctly). "But I can't help makin' a babby o' mysen whenever I think o' what it means. I don't think of it, as a rewle. I should break down if I did; like as I nearly did just naow. Oh Lor'! I can get on all right till I comes to th' end. It's them 'angel faces' wot knocks the stuffing out o' _me_!"

"Same 'ere," I replied; and I put my head out of the aperture for a breath of fresh air.

* * * * *

"When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain?"

END

* * * * *

VIOLA BURHANS'S THE CAVE-WOMAN

A novel of to-day that commences in a cave so dark that the hero can see nothing of the woman he meets there. It ends in the same cave, and much of the action occurs in and near a neighboring summer hotel. Robbery and mystery, as well as love, figure in the plot.

"An excellent detective.... The action moves quickly.... Many sidelights fall upon newspaperdom, and the author tells her story cleverly."--_Boston Herald._

"The most delightful of grown-up fairy-tales of modern times.... The characters ... are finely various and their conversations piquantly fresh and edifying ... a dramatic climax of great strength and beauty ... clean, clever, captivating."--_The Boston Common._

"A very charming, very elusive and quite modern young lady ... a very delightful story."--_Bellman._

M. LITTLE'S AT THE SIGN OF THE BURNING BUSH

A novel of such universal human appeal that locality makes little difference. It starts as a satire on Scotch divinity students, tho there is said to be "not a word of preaching in it".

"Characters drawn with a sure hand, and with unusual subtlety. The story broadens and strikes deep roots into human nature and human life ... a story that seems as if it might have been made out of the real experiences of flesh and blood, told with humor that is sometimes biting and sometimes gentle, and with very great humanness."--_The New York Times Review._

GERTRUDE HALL'S THE UNKNOWN QUANTITY

A young widow comes to New York to investigate various business interests of her late husband, and finds herself face to face at the outset with the two most vital problems of a woman's life.

"Her people are alive. They linger in the imagination."--_Boston Transcript._

"Seeing life with sincerity and truth ... she has a rather big idea for a working basis."--_The Bookman._

"Retains the charmed interest ... the quiet, thoughtful style, and the vivid, if restrained, humanity. The tale is so natural, so lifelike.... The author's evident faith in the eternal rightness of things."--_Chicago Record-Herald._

GEORGE GARY EGGLESTON'S RECOLLECTIONS OF A VARIED LIFE

By the author of "A Rebel's Recollections," "Captain Sam," "A Daughter of the South," "Long Knives," etc. With portrait.

These reminiscences of the veteran author and editor are rich in fields so wide apart as the experiences of a Hoosier schoolmaster (the basis for the well-known story), a young man's life in Virginia before the War, a Confederate soldier, a veteran in the literary life of New York.

"Jeb Stuart," "Fitz Lee," Beauregard, Grant, Frank R. Stockton, John Hay, Stedman, Bryant, Parke Godwin, "Mark Twain," Gosse, Pulitzer, Laffan, and Schurz, are among the many who appear.

The author was born at Vevay, Indiana, 1839, practiced law in Virginia; served in the Confederate Army, was Literary Editor of the _New York Evening Post_ for 6 years, Editor of the _Commercial Advertiser_ (now the _Globe_); and for 11 years Editorial writer for _The World_.

"There are few American men of letters whose reminiscences would seem to promise more. The man's experiences cover so wide a period; he has had such exceptional opportunities of seeing interesting men and events at first hand."--_Bookman._

"Has approached the emergencies of life with courage and relish ... qualities that make for readableness ... this autobiography, despite a tendency to anecdotal divagations ... is thoroughly entertaining."--_Nation._

"Told with the convincing force of actual experience ... has all the excellences, and not many of the defects, of the trained journalist ... tells us rapidly and effectively what sort of a life he has led ... full of interest."--_Dial._

"Its cozily intimate quality.... One of those books which the reviewer begins to mark appreciatively for quotation, only to discover ere long that he cannot possibly find room for half the passages selected."--_New York Tribune._

"Very pleasant are these reviews of the days that are gone."--_Sun._

"He has much to say and says it graphically."--_Times-Review._

"The most charming and useful of his many books ... sympathetic, kindly, humorous, and confidential talk ... laughable anecdotes ... a keen observer's and critic's comment on more than half a century of American development."--_Hartford Courant._

"Seldom does one come upon so companionable a volume of reminiscences ... the author has good materials galore and presents them with so kindly a humor that one never wearies of his chatty history ... the whole volume is genial in spirit and eminently readable."--_Chicago Record-Herald._

"Deserves to rank high in the literature of American autobiography, even though that literature boasts the masterpiece of Benjamin Franklin."--_San Francisco Argonaut._

WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S JOSEPH VANCE

A touching story, yet full of humor, of lifelong love and heroic sacrifice. While the scene is mostly in and near the London of the fifties, there are some telling glimpses of Italy, where the author lives much of the time.

"The book of the last decade; the best thing in fiction since Mr. Meredith and Mr. Hardy; must take its place as the first great English novel that has appeared in the twentieth century."--Lewis Melville in _New York Times Saturday Review_.

"If the reader likes both 'David Copperfield' and 'Peter Ibbetson,' he can find the two books in this one."--_The Independent._

WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S ALICE-FOR-SHORT

This might paradoxically be called a genial ghost-and-murder story, yet humor and humanity again dominate, and the most striking element is the touching love story of an unsuccessful man. The reappearance in Nineteenth Century London of the long-buried past, and a remarkable case of suspended memory, give the dramatic background.

"Really worth reading and praising ... will be hailed as a masterpiece. If any writer of the present era is read a half century hence, a quarter century, or even a decade, that writer is William De Morgan."--_Boston Transcript._

"It is the Victorian age itself that speaks in those rich, interesting, over-crowded books.... Will be remembered as Dickens' novels are remembered."--_Springfield Republican._

WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S SOMEHOW GOOD

The purpose and feeling of this novel are intense, yet it is all mellowed by humor, and it contains perhaps the author's freshest and most sympathetic story of young love. Throughout its pages the "God be praised evil has turned to good" of the old Major rings like a trumpet call of hope. This story of to-day tells of a triumph of courage and devotion.

"A book as sound, as sweet, as wholesome, as wise, as any in the range of fiction."--_The Nation._

"Our older novelists (Dickens and Thackeray) will have to look to their laurels, for the new one is fast proving himself their equal. A higher quality of enjoyment than is derivable from the work of any other novelist now living and active in either England or America."--_The Dial._

WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN

This novel turns on a strange marital complication, and is notable for two remarkable women characters, the pathetic girl Lizarann and the beautiful Judith Arkroyd, with her stage ambitions. Lizarann's father, Blind Jim, is very appealingly drawn, and shows rare courage and devotion despite cruel handicaps. There are strong dramatic episodes, and the author's inevitable humor and optimism.

"De Morgan at his very best, and how much better his best is than the work of any novelist of the past thirty years."--_Independent._

"There has been nothing at all like it in our day. The best of our contemporary novelists ... do not so come home to our business and our bosoms ... his method ... is very different in most important respects from that of Dickens. He is far less the showman, the dashing prestidigitator ... more like Thackeray ... precisely what the most 'modern' novelists are striving for--for the most part in vain ... most enchanting ... infinitely lovable and pathetic."--_The Nation._

"Another long delightful voyage with the best English company ... from Dukes to blind beggars ... you could make out a very good case for handsome Judith Arkroyd as an up-to-date Ethel Newcome ... the stuff that tears in hardened and careless hearts are made of ... singularly perceiving, mellow, wise, charitable, humorous ... a plot as well defined as if it were a French farce."--_The Times Saturday Review._

"The characters of Blind Jim and Lizarann are wonderful--worthy of Dickens at his best."--Professor William Lyon Phelps, of Yale, author of "Essays on Modern Novelists."

WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S AN AFFAIR OF DISHONOR

A dramatic story of England in the time of the Restoration. It commences with a fatal duel, and shows a new phase of its remarkable author. The movement is fairly rapid, and the narrative absorbing, with occasional glints of humor.