Hints to Pilgrims. Charles Brooks

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СКАЧАТЬ castle, to hear the shrill cry of Duncan's murder in the night, to watch for witches on the stormy moor. I shall sit on the bench where Johnson sat with Boswell on his journey to the Hebrides. I shall see the wizard of the North, lame of foot, walking in the shade of ruined Dryburgh. With drunken Tam, I shall behold in Alloway Kirk warlocks in a dance. From the gloomy house of Shaws and its broken tower David Balfour runs in flight across the heather. Culloden echoes with the defeat of an outlaw prince. The stairs of Holyrood drip with Rizzio's blood. But also, I wish to follow the Devon lanes, to rest in villages on the coast at the fall of day when fishermen wind their nets, to dream of Arthur and his court on the rocks beyond Tintagel. Merlin lies in Wales with his dusty garments pulled about him, and his magic sleeps. But there is wind tonight in the noisy caverns of the sea, and Spanish pirates dripping with the slime of a watery grave, bury their treasure when the fog lies thick.

      Thousands of years have peopled these English villages. Their pavements echo with the tread of kings and poets. Here is a sunny bower for lovers when the world was young. Bishops of the Roman church – Saint Thomas himself in his robes pontifical has walked through these broken cloisters. Here is the altar where he knelt at prayer when his assassins came. From that tower Mary of Scotland looked vainly for assistance to gallop from the north.

      Here stretches the Pilgrims' Way across the downs of Surrey – worn and scratched by pious feet. From the west they came to Canterbury. The wind stirs the far-off traffic, and the mist covers the hills as with an ancient memory.

      How many thirsty elbows have rubbed this table in the forgotten years! How many feasts have come steaming from the kitchen when the London coach was in! That pewter cup, maybe, offered its eager pledge when the news of Agincourt was blown from France. Up that stairway Tom Jones reeled with sparkling canary at his belt. These cobbles clacked in the Pretender's flight. Here is the chair where Falstaff sat when he cried out that the sack was spoiled with villainous lime. That signboard creaked in the tempest that shattered the Armada.

      My fancy mingles in the past. It hears in the inn-yard the chattering pilgrims starting on their journey. Here is the Pardoner jesting with the merry Wife of Bath, with his finger on his lips to keep their scandal private. It sees Dick Turpin at the crossroads with loaded pistols in his boots. There is mist tonight on Bagshot Heath, and men in Kendal green are out. And fancy rebuilds a ruined castle, and lights the hospitable fires beneath its mighty caldrons. It hangs tapestry on its empty walls and, like a sounding trumpet, it summons up a gaudy company in ruff and velvet to tread the forgotten measures of the past.

      Let Wyoming go and hang itself in its muddy riding-boots and khaki shirt! Let its tall horses leap upward and click their heels upon the moon! I am for England.

      It is my preference to land at Plymouth, and our anchor – if the captain is compliant – will be dropped at night, in order that the Devon hills, as the thrifty stars are dimmed, may appear first through the mists of dawn. If my memory serves, there is a country church with stone-embattled tower on the summit above the town, and in the early twilight all the roads that climb the hills lead away to promised kingdoms. Drake, I assert, still bowls nightly on the quay at Plymouth, with pins that rattle in the windy season, but the game is done when the light appears.

      We clatter up to London. Paddington station or Waterloo, I care not. But for arrival a rainy night is best, when the pavements glisten and the mad taxis are rushing to the theatres. And then, for a week, by way of practice and to test our boots, we shall trudge the streets of London – the Strand and the Embankment. And certainly we shall explore the Temple and find the sites of Blackfriars and the Globe. Here, beyond this present brewery, was the bear-pit. Tarlton's jests still sound upon the bank. A wherry, once, on this busy river, conveyed Sir Roger up to Vauxhall. Perhaps, here, on the homeward trip, he was rejected by the widow. The dear fellow, it is recorded, out of sentiment merely, kept his clothes unchanged in the fashion of this season of his disappointment. Here, also, was the old bridge across the Fleet. Here was Drury Lane where Garrick acted. Tender hearts, they say, in pit and stall, fluttered to his Romeo, and sighed their souls across the candles. On this muddy curb link-boys waited when the fog was thick. Here the footmen bawled for chairs.

      But there are bookshops still in Charing Cross Road. And, for frivolous moments, haberdashery is offered in Bond Street and vaudeville in Leicester Square.

      And then on a supreme morning we pack our rucksacks.

      It was a grievous oversight that Christian failed to tell us what clothing he carried in his pack. We know it was a heavy burden, for it dragged him in the mire. But did he carry slippers to ease his feet at night? And what did the Pardoner put inside his wallet? Surely the Wife of Bath was supplied with a powder-puff and a fresh taffeta to wear at the journey's end. I could, indeed, spare Christian one or two of his encounters for knowledge of his wardrobe. These homely details are of interest. The mad Knight of La Mancha, we are told, mortgaged his house and laid out a pretty sum on extra shirts. Stevenson, also, tells us the exact gear that he loaded on his donkey, but what did Marco Polo carry? And Munchausen and the Wandering Jew? I have skimmed their pages vainly for a hint.

      For myself, I shall take an extra suit of underwear and another flannel shirt, a pair of stockings, a rubber cape of lightest weight that falls below the knees, slippers, a shaving-kit and brushes. I shall wash my linen at night and hang it from my window, where it shall wave like an admiral's flag to show that I sleep upon the premises. I shall replace it as it wears. And I shall take a book, not to read but to have ready on the chance. I once carried the Book of Psalms, but it was Nick Carter I read, which I bought in a tavern parlor, fifteen pages missing, from a fat lady who served me beer.

      We run to the window for a twentieth time. It has rained all night, but the man in the lift was hopeful when we came up from breakfast. We believe him; as if he sat on a tower with a spy-glass on the clouds. We cherish his tip as if it came from Æolus himself, holding the winds in leash.

      And now a streak of yellowish sky – London's substitute for blue – shows in the west.

      We pay our bill. We scatter the usual silver. Several senators in uniform bow us down the steps. We hale a bus in Trafalgar Square. We climb to the top – to the front seat with full prospect. The Haymarket. Sandwich men with weary step announce a vaudeville. We snap our fingers at so stale an entertainment. There are flower-girls in Piccadilly Circus. Regent Street. We pass the Marble Arch, near which cut-throats were once hanged on the three-legged mare of Tyburn. Hammersmith. Brentford. The bus stops. It is the end of the route. We have ridden out our sixpence. We climb down. We adjust our packs and shoe-strings. The road to the western country beckons.

      My dear sir, perhaps you yourself have planned for a landaulet this summer and an English trip. You have laid out two swift weeks to make the breathless round. You journey from London to Bristol in a day. Another day, and you will climb out, stiff of leg, among the northern lakes. If then, as you loll among the cushions, lapped in luxury, pink and soft – if then, you see two men with sticks in hand and packs on shoulder, know them for ourselves. We are singing on the road to Windsor – to Salisbury, to Stonehenge, to the hills of Dorset, to Lyme-Regis, to Exeter and the Devon moors.

      It was a shepherd who came with a song to the mountain-top. "The sun shone, the bees swept past me singing; and I too sang, shouted, World, world, I am coming!"

      At a Toy-Shop Window

      IN this Christmas season, when snowflakes fill the air and twilight is the pleasant thief of day, I sometimes pause at the window of a toy-shop to see what manner of toys are offered to the children. It is only five o'clock and yet the sky is dark. The night has come to town to do its shopping before the stores are shut. The wind has Christmas errands.

      And there is a throng of other shoppers. Fathers of families drip with packages and puff after street cars. Fat ladies – Now then, all together! – are hoisted up. Old ladies are caught in revolving doors. And the relatives СКАЧАТЬ