Ruggles of Red Gap/Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ALTHOUGH fond of rural surroundings and always interested in nature, the adventure in which I had become involved is not one I can recommend to a person of refined tastes. I found it little enough to my own taste even during the first two hours of travel when we kept to the beaten thoroughfare, for the sun was hot, the dust stifling, and the language with which the goods-animals were berated coarse in the extreme.
Yet from this plain roadway and a country of rolling down and heather which was at least not terrifying, our leader, the Tuttle person, swerved all at once into an untried jungle, in what at the moment I supposed to be a fit of absent-mindedness, following a narrow path that led up a fearsomely slanted incline among trees and boulders of granite thrown about in the greatest disorder. He was followed, however, by the goods-animals and by the two cow-persons, so that I soon saw the new course must be intended.
The mountains were now literally quite everywhere, some higher than others, but all of a rough appearance, and uninviting in the extreme. The narrow path, moreover, became more and more difficult, and seemed altogether quite insane with its twistings and fearsome declivities. One's first thought was that at least a bit of road-metal might have been put upon it. But there was no sign of this throughout our toilsome day, nor did I once observe a rustic seat along the way, although I saw an abundance of suitable nooks for these. Needless to say, in all England there is not an estate so poorly kept up.
There being no halt made for luncheon, I began to look forward to tea-time, but what was my dismay to observe that this hour also passed unnoted. Not until night was drawing upon us did our caravan halt beside a tarn, and here I learned that we would sup and sleep, although it was distressing to observe how remote we were from proper surroundings. There was no shelter and no modern conveniences; not even a wash-hand-stand or water-jug. There was, of course, no central heating, and no electricity for one's smoothing-iron, so that one's clothing must become quite disreputable for want of pressing. Also the informal manner of cooking and eating was not what I had been accustomed to, and the idea of sleeping publicly on the bare ground was repugnant in the extreme. I mean to say, there was no vie intime. Truly it was a coarser type of wilderness than that which I had encountered near New York City.
The animals, being unladen, were fitted with a species of leather bracelet about their forefeet and allowed to stray at their will. A fire was built and coarse food made ready. It is hardly a thing to speak of, but their manner of preparing tea was utterly depraved, the leaves being flung into a tin of boiling water and allowed to stew. The result was something that I imagine etchers might use in making lines upon their metal plates. But for my day's fast I should have been unequal to this, or to the crude output of their frying-pans.
Yet I was indeed glad that no sign of my dismay had escaped me, for the cow-persons, Hank and Buck, as I discovered, had given unusual care to the repast on my account, and I should not have liked to seem unappreciative. Quite by accident I overheard the honest fellows quarrelling about an oversight: they had, it seemed, left the finger-bowls behind; each was bitterly blaming the other for this, seeming to feel that the meal could not go forward. I had not to be told that they would not ordinarily carry finger-bowls for their own use, and that the forgotten utensils must have been meant solely for my comfort. Accordingly, when the quarrel was at its highest I broke in upon it, protesting that the oversight was of no consequence, and that I was quite prepared to roughen it with them in the best of good fellowship. They were unable to conceal their chagrin at my having overheard them, and slunk off abashed to the cooking-fire. It was plain that under their repellent exteriors they concealed veins of the finest chivalry, and I took pains during the remainder of the evening to put them at their ease, asking them many questions about their wild life.
Of the dangers of the jungle by which we were surrounded the most formidable, it seemed, was not the grizzly bear, which I had read, but an animal quaintly called the "high-behind," which lurks about camping-places such as ours and is often known to attack man in its search for tinned milk of which it is inordinately fond. The spoor of one of these beasts had been detected near our campfire by the cow-person called Buck, and he now told us of it, though having at first resolved to be silent rather than alarm us.
As we carried a supply of the animal's favourite food, I was given two of the tins with instructions to hurl them quickly at any high-behind that might approach during the night, my companions arming themselves in a similar manner. It appears that the beast has tushes similar in shape to tin openers with which it deftly bites into any tins of milk that may be thrown at it. The person called Hank had once escaped with his life only by means of a tin of milk which had caught on the sabrelike tushes of the animal pursuing him, thus rendering him harmless and easy of capture.
Needless to say, I was greatly interested in this animal of the quaint name, and resolved to remain on watch during the night in the hope of seeing one, but at this juncture we were rejoined by the Tuttle person, who proceeded to recount to Hank and Buck a highly coloured version of my regrettable encounter with Mr. C. Belknap-Jackson back in the New York wilderness, whereat they both lost interest in the high-behind and greatly embarrassed me with their congratulations upon this lesser matter. Cousin Egbert, it seemed, had most indiscreetly talked of the thing, which was now a matter of common gossip in Red Gap. Thereafter I could get from them no further information about the habits of the high-behind, nor did I remain awake to watch for one as I had resolved to, the fatigues of the day proving too much for me. But doubtless none approached during the night, as the two tins of milk with which I was armed were untouched when I awoke at dawn.
Again we set off after a barbarous breakfast, driving our laden animals ever deeper into the mountain fastness, until it seemed that none of us could ever emerge, for I had ascertained that there was not a compass in the party. There was now a certain new friendliness in the manner of the two cow-persons toward me, born, it would seem, of their knowledge of my assault upon Belknap-Jackson, and I was somewhat at a loss to know how to receive this, well intentioned though it was. I mean to say, they were undoubtedly of the servant-class, and of course one must remember one's own position, but I at length decided to be quite friendly and American with them.
The truth must be told that I was now feeling in quite a bit of a funk and should have welcomed any friendship offered me; I even found myself remembering with rather a pensive tolerance the attentions of Mr. Barker, though doubtless back in Red Gap I should have found them as loathsome as ever. My hump was due, I made no doubt, first, to my precarious position in the wilderness, but more than that to my anomalous social position, for it seemed to me now that I was neither fish nor fowl. I was no longer a gentleman's man—the familiar boundaries of that office had been swept away; on the other hand, I was most emphatically not the gentleman I had set myself up to be, and I was weary of the pretence. The friendliness of these uncouth companions, then, proved doubly welcome, for with them I could conduct myself in a natural manner, happily forgetting my former limitations and my present quite fictitious dignities.
I even found myself talking to them of cricket as we rode, telling them I had once hit an eight—fully run out it was and not an overthrow—though I dare say it meant little to them. I also took pains to describe to them the correct method of brewing tea, which they promised thereafter to observe, though this I fear they did from mere politeness.
Our way continued adventurously upward until mid-afternoon, when we began an equally adventurous descent through a jungle of pine trees, not a few of which would have done credit to one of our own parks, though there were, of course, too many of them here to be at all effective. Indeed, it may be said that from a scenic standpoint everything through which we had passed was overdone: mountains, rocks, streams, trees, all sounding a characteristic American note of exaggeration.
Then at last we came to the wilderness abode of Cousin Egbert. A rude hut of native logs it was, set in this highland glen beside a tarn. From afar we descried its smoke, and presently in the doorway observed Cousin Egbert himself, who waved cheerfully at us. His appearance gave me a shock. Quite aware of his inclination to laxness, I was yet unprepared for his present state. Never, indeed, have I seen a man so badly turned out. Too evidently unshaven since his disappearance, he was gotten up in a faded flannel shirt, open at the neck and without the sign of cravat, a pair of overalls, also faded and quite wretchedly spotty, and boots of the most shocking description. Yet in spite of this dreadful tenue he greeted me without embarrassment and indeed with a kind of artless pleasure. Truly the man was impossible, and when I observed the placard he had allowed to remain on the waistband of his overalls, boastfully alleging their indestructibility, my sympathies flew back to Mrs. Effie. There was a cartoon emblazoned on this placard, depicting the futile efforts of two teams of stout horses, each attached to a leg of the garment, to wrench it in twain. I mean to say, one might be reduced to overalls, but this blatant emblem was not a thing any gentleman need have retained. And again, observing his footgear, I was glad to recall that I had included a plentiful supply of boot-cream in my scanty luggage.
Three of the goods-animals were now unladen, their burden of provisions being piled beside the door while Cousin Egbert chatted gayly with the cow-persons and the Indian Tuttle, after which these three took their leave, being madly bent, it appeared, upon penetrating still farther into the wilderness to another cattle farm. Then, left alone with Cousin Egbert, I was not long in discovering that, strictly speaking, he had no establishment. Not only were there no servants, but there were no drains, no water-taps, no ice-machine, no scullery, no central heating, no electric wiring. His hut consisted of but a single room, and this without a floor other than the packed earth, while the appointments were such as in any civilized country would have indicated the direst poverty. Two beds of the rudest description stood in opposite corners, and one end of the room was almost wholly occupied by a stone fireplace of primitive construction, over which the owner now hovered in certain feats of cookery.
Thanks to my famished state I was in no mood to criticise his efforts, which he presently set forth upon the rough deal table in a hearty but quite inelegant manner. The meal, I am bound to say, was more than welcome to my now indiscriminating palate, though at a less urgent moment I should doubtless have found the bread soggy and the beans a pernicious mass. There was a stew of venison, however, which only the most skilful hands could have bettered, though how the man had obtained a deer was beyond me, since it was evident he possessed no shooting or deer-stalking costume. As to the tea, I made bold to speak my mind and succeeded in brewing some for myself.
Throughout the repast Cousin Egbert was constantly attentive to my needs and was more cheerful of demeanour than I had ever seen him. The hunted look about his eyes, which had heretofore always distinguished him, was now gone, and he bore himself like a free man.
"Yes, sir," he said, as we smoked over the remains of the meal, "you stay with me and I'll give you one swell little time. I'll do the cooking, and between whiles we can sit right here and play cribbage day in and day out. You can get a taste of real life without moving."
I saw then, if never before, that his deeper nature would not be aroused. Doubtless my passing success with him in Paris had marked the very highest stage of his spiritual development. I did not need to be told now that he had left off sock-suspenders forever, nor did I waste words in trying to recall him to his better self. Indeed for the moment I was too overwhelmed by fatigue even to remonstrate about his wretched lounge-suit, and I early fell asleep on one of the beds while he was still engaged in washing the metal dishes upon which we had eaten, singing the while the doleful ballad of "Rosalie, the Prairie Flower."
It seemed but a moment later that I awoke, for Cousin Egbert was again busy among the dishes, but I saw that another day had come and his song had changed to one equally sad but quite different. "In the hazel dell my Nellie's sleeping," he sang, though in a low voice and quite cheerfully. Indeed his entire repertoire of ballads was confined to the saddest themes, chiefly of desirable maidens taken off untimely either by disease or accident. Besides "Rosalie, the Prairie Flower," there was "Lovely Annie Lisle," over whom the willows waved and earthly music could not waken; another named "Sweet Alice Ben Bolt" lying in the churchyard, and still another, "Lily Dale," who was pictured "'neath the trees in the flowery vale," with the wild rose blossoming o'er the little green grave.
His face was indeed sad as he rendered these woful ballads and yet his voice and manner were of the cheeriest, and I dare say he sang without reference to their real tragedy. It was a school of American balladry quite at variance with the cheerful optimism of those I had heard from the Belknap-Jackson phonograph, where the persons are not dead at all but are gayly calling upon one another to come on and do a folkdance, or hear a band or crawl under—things of that sort. As Cousin Egbert bent over a frying-pan in which ham was cooking he crooned softly:
"In the hazel dell my Nellie's sleeping,
Nellie loved so long,
While my lonely, lonely watch I'm keeping,
Nellie lost and gone."
I could attribute his choice only to that natural perversity which prompted him always to do the wrong thing, for surely this affecting verse was not meant to be sung at such a moment.
Attempting to arise, I became aware that the two days' journey had left me sadly lame and wayworn, also that my face was burned from the sun and that I had been awakened too soon. Fortunately I had with me a shilling jar of Ridley's Society Complexion Food, "the all-weather wonder," which I applied to my face with cooling results, and I then felt able to partake of a bit of the breakfast which Cousin Egbert now brought to my bedside. The ham was of course not cooked correctly and the tea was again a mere corrosive, but so anxious was my host to please me that I refrained from any criticism, though at another time I should have told him straight what I thought of such cookery.
When we had both eaten I slept again to the accompaniment of another sad song and the muted rattle of the pans as Cousin Egbert did the scullery work, and it was long past the luncheon hour when I awoke, still lame from the saddle, but greatly refreshed.
It was now that another blow befell me, for upon arising and searching through my kit I discovered that my razors had been left behind. By any thinking man the effect of this oversight will be instantly perceived. Already low in spirits, the prospect of going unshaven could but aggravate my funk. I surrendered to the wave of homesickness that swept over me. I wanted London again, London with its yellow fog and greasy pavements, I wished to buy cockles off a barrow, I longed for toasted crumpets, and most of all I longed for my old rightful station; longed to turn out a gentleman, longed for the Honourable George and our peaceful if sometimes precarious existence among people of the right sort. The continued shocks since that fateful night of the cards had told upon me. I knew now that I had not been meant for adventure. Yet here I had turned up in the most savage of lands after leading a life of dishonest pretence in a station to which I had not been born—and, for I knew not how many days, I should not be able to shave my face.
But here again a ferment stirred in my blood, some electric thrill of anarchy which had come from association with these Americans, a strange, lawless impulse toward their quite absurd ideals of equality, a monstrous ambition to be in myself some one that mattered, instead of that pretended Colonel Ruggles who, I now recalled, was to-day promised to bridge at the home of Mrs. Judge Ballard, where he would talk of hunting in the shires, of the royal enclosure at Ascot, of Hurlingham and Ranleigh, of Cowes in June, of the excellence of the converts at Chaynes-Wotten. No doubt it was a sort of madness now seized me, consequent upon the lack of shaving utensils.
I wondered desperately if there was a true place for me in this life. I had tasted their equality that day of debauch in Paris, but obviously the sensation could not permanently be maintained upon spirits. Perhaps I might obtain a post in a bank; I might become a shop-assistant, bag-man, even a pressman. These moody and unwholesome thoughts were clouding my mind as I surveyed myself in the wrinkled mirror which had seemed to suffice the uncritical Cousin Egbert for his toilet. It hung between the portrait of a champion middle-weight crouching in position and the calendar advertisement of a brewery which, as I could not fancy Cousin Egbert being in the least concerned about the day of the month, had too evidently been hung on his wall because of the coloured lithograph of a blond creature in theatrical undress who smirked most immorally.
Studying the curiously wavy effect this glass produced upon my face, I chanced to observe in a corner of the frame a printed card with the heading "Take Courage!" To my surprise the thing, when I had read it, capped my black musings upon my position in a rather uncanny way. Briefly it recited the humble beginnings of a score or more of the world's notable figures.
"Demosthenes was the son of a cutler," it began. "Horace was the son of a shopkeeper. Virgil's father was a porter. Cardinal Wolsey was the son of a butcher. Shakespeare the son of a wool-stapler." Followed the obscure parentage of such well-known persons as Milton, Napoleon, Columbus, Cromwell. Even Mohammed was noted as a shepherd and camel-driver, though it seemed rather questionable taste to include in the list one whose religion, as to family life, was rather scandalous. More to the point was the citation of various Americans who had sprung from humble beginnings: Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, Garfield, Edison. It is true that there was not, apparently, a gentleman's servant among them; they were rail-splitters, boatmen, tailors, artisans of sorts, but the combined effect was rather overwhelming.
From the first moment of my encountering the American social system, it seemed, I had been by way of becoming a rabid anarchist—that is, one feeling that he might become a gentleman regardless of his birth—and here were the disconcerting facts concerning a score of notables to confirm me in my heresy. It was not a thing to be spoken lightly of in loose discussion, but there can be no doubt that at this moment I coldly questioned the soundness of our British system, the vital marrow of which is to teach that there is a difference between men and men. To be sure, it will have been seen that I was not myself, having for a quarter year been subjected to a series of nervous shocks, and having had my mind contaminated, moreover, by being brought into daily contact with this unthinking American equality in the person of Cousin Egbert, who, I make bold to assert, had never for one instant since his doubtless obscure birth considered himself the superior of any human being whatsoever.
This much I advance for myself in extenuation of my lawless imaginings, but of them I can abate no jot; it was all at once clear to me, monstrous as it may seem, that Nature and the British Empire were at variance in their decrees, and that somehow a system was base which taught that one man is necessarily inferior to another. I dare say it was a sort of poisonous intoxication—that I should all at once declare:
"His lordship tenth Earl of Brinstead and Marmaduke Ruggles are two men; one has made an acceptable peer and one an acceptable valet, yet the twain are equal, and the system which has made one inferior socially to the other is false and bad and cannot endure." For a moment, I repeat, I saw myself a gentleman in the making—a clear fairway without bunkers from tee to green—meeting my equals with a friendly eye; and then the illumining shock, for I unconsciously added to myself, "Regarding my inferiors with a kindly tolerance." It was there I caught myself. So much a part of the system was I that, although I could readily conceive a society in which I had no superiors, I could not picture one in which I had not inferiors. The same poison that ran in the veins of their lordships ran also in the veins of their servants. I was indeed, it appeared, hopelessly inoculated. Again I read the card. Horace was the son of a shopkeeper, but I made no doubt that, after he became a popular and successful writer of Latin verse, he looked down upon his own father. Only could it have been otherwise, I thought, had he been born in this fermenting America to no station whatever and left to achieve his rightful one.
So I mused thus licentiously until one clear conviction possessed me: that I would no longer pretend to the social superiority of one Colonel Marmaduke Ruggles. I would concede no inferiority in myself, but I would not again before Red Gap's county families vaunt myself as other than I was. That this was more than a vagrant fancy on my part will be seen when I aver that suddenly, strangely, alarmingly, I no longer cared that I was unshaven and must remain so for an untold number of days. I welcomed the unhandsome stubble that now projected itself upon my face; I curiously wished all at once to be as badly gotten up as Cousin Egbert, with as little thought for my station in life. I would no longer refrain from doing things because they were "not done." My own taste would be the law.
It was at this moment that Cousin Egbert appeared in the doorway with four trout from the stream nearby, though how he had managed to snare them I could not think, since he possessed no correct equipment for angling. I fancy I rather overwhelmed him by exclaiming, "Hello, Sour-dough!" since never before had I addressed him in any save a formal fashion, and it is certain I embarrassed him by my next proceeding, which was to grasp his hand and shake it heartily, an action that I could explain no more than he, except that the violence of my self-communion was still upon me and required an outlet. He grinned amiably, then regarded me with a shrewd eye and demanded if I had been drinking.
"This," I said; "I am drunk with this," and held the card up to him. But when he took it interestedly he merely read the obverse side which I had not observed until now. "Go to Epstein's for Everything You Wear," it read in large type, and added, "The Square Deal Mammoth Store."
"They carry a nice stock," he said, still a bit puzzled by my tone, "though I generally trade at the Red Front." I turned the card over for him and he studied the list of humble-born notables, though from a point of view peculiarly his own. "I don't see," he began, "what right they got to rake up all that stuff about people that's dead and gone. Who cares what their folks was!" And he added, "'Horace was the son of a shopkeeper'—Horace who?" Plainly the matter did not excite him, and I saw it would be useless to try to convey to him what the items had meant to me.
"I mean to say, I'm glad to be here with you," I said.
"I knew you'd like it," he answered. "Everything is nice here."
"America is some country," I said.
"She is, she is," he answered. "And now you can bile up a pot of tea in your own way while I clean these here fish for supper."
I made the tea. I regret to say there was not a tea cozy in the place; indeed the linen, silver, and general table equipment were sadly deficient, but in my reckless mood I made no comment.
"Your tea smells good, but it ain't got no kick to it," he observed over his first cup. "When I drench my insides with tea I sort of want it to take a hold." And still I made no effort to set him right. I now saw that in all true essentials he did not need me to set him right. For so uncouth a person he was strangely commendable and worthy.
As we sipped our tea in companionable silence, I busy with my new and disturbing thoughts, a long shout came to us from the outer distance. Cousin Egbert brightened.
"I'm darned if that ain't Ma Pettingill!" he exclaimed. "She's rid over from the Arrowhead."
We rushed to the door, and in the distance, riding down upon us at terrific speed, I indeed beheld the Mixer. A moment later she reigned in her horse before us and hoarsely rumbled her greetings. I had last seen her at a formal dinner where she was rather formidably done out in black velvet and diamonds. Now she appeared in a startling tenue of khaki riding-breeches and flannel shirt, with one of the wide-brimmed cow-person hats. Even at the moment of greeting her I could not but reflect how shocked our dear Queen would be at the sight of this riding habit.
She dismounted with hearty explanations of how she had left her "round-up" and ridden over to visit, having heard from the Tuttle person that we were here. Cousin Egbert took her horse and she entered the hut, where to my utter amazement she at once did a feminine thing. Though from her garb one at a little distance might have thought her a man, a portly, florid, carelessly attired man, she made at once for the wrinkled mirror where, after anxiously scanning her burned face for an instant, she produced powder and puff from a pocket of her shirt and daintily powdered her generous blob of a nose. Having achieved this to her apparent satisfaction, she unrolled a bundle she had carried at her saddle and donned a riding skirt, buttoning it about the waist and smoothing down its folds—before I could retire.
"There, now," she boomed, as if some satisfying finality had been brought about. Such was the Mixer. That sort of thing would never do with us, and yet I suddenly saw that she, like Cousin Egbert, was strangely commendable and worthy. I mean to say, I no longer felt it was my part to set her right in any of the social niceties. Some curious change had come upon me. I knew then that I should no longer resist America.