The Chequers Part 10

The whole Raveloe scene is full of typical errors. It is too pretty, too decent, too neat, too humourous. There is very little fun to be got out of public-house humours, because the vanity of the various talkers is offensive, and their stupidity has not the charm of simplicity. If such a man as, say, Mr. Matthew Arnold wanted to test the accuracy of the "Silas Marner" chapter for critical purposes, he would scarcely recover the ordeal of a night spent in a haunt of the hardened toper. If the company happened to be unembarra.s.sed, their ribaldry would sicken the philosopher; their coa.r.s.e manners would revolt him; their political talk--well, that would probably stupefy him and cause him to flee.

Here are my notes of one specimen conversation, given without any dramatic nonsense or idealisation. My memory can be trusted absolutely, and I have often reported a long interview in such a way that the person interviewed saw nothing to alter.

Bowman guffawed, and his purple face swelled with merriment, for he had been hearing a whispered story told by Bill Preston, an elderly retired tradesman. Bill is a most respectable man whose daughters hold quite a leading position in the society of our district. He is great on church business, and he is the vicar's right-hand man. It is a n.o.ble sight to see him on Sundays when he stalks down the aisle, nattily dressed in black, and wearing a devotional air; but in our parlour his sole aim is to tell the queerest stories in the greatest possible number, and his collection--ama.s.sed by years of loving industry--is large and various.

He cannot hear the simplest speech without trying to extract some bawdy significance from it, and when he has scored a thoroughly indecent success, his clean, rosy, jolly face is lit up by a fascinating smile.

Ah! if ladies only heard these sober fathers of families when conversational high jinks are in progress, they would be decidedly enlightened.

When Bowman ended his guffaw he said, with admiration, "You naughty old man! How dare you go for to corrupt my morals?" And Bill received the tribute with modest gratification. Then a loud voice silenced us all, and Joe Pidgeon, our great logician, began to hold forth.

"Wot did old Disraely do? Why, they was all frightened of him. He was a masterpiece, I tell you. What was that there heppigram as he made?--'Inebriated with the hexuberance of his own verbosity.' There's langwidge for you! And he kep' it up, too, he did. He was the brightest diadem in England's crown, he was. But this Gladstone!--wot's he? Show me any trade as he's benefited! Ain't he taken the British Flag to the bloomin' p.a.w.nshop? Gord love me, he oughter be 'ung, he did! I tell you he ought to be 'ung. If you was to say to me to-morrow 'Will you 'ang old Gladstone?' I'd 'andle the rope. He's a blank robber and a scoundrel, he is.

"What's this new man, Lord Churchill, goin' to do? He's a red-hot 'un.

He does slip into 'em, and no mistake. He's a coming man, I reckon. I never see such a flow of language as that bit where he called old Gommy a superannuated Pharisee. That was up against him, wasn't it?"

An old man spoke. He is feeble, but he is regarded as an authority on literature, politics, and other matters. "There's never been a good day for anybody since the old-fas.h.i.+oned elections was done away with. All the houses was open, fun going on for days, and the candidates was free as free could be. Your vote was worth something then. I remember when Horsley put up against Palmer. A rare man was Palmer! Why, that Palmer drove down with a coach-and-four and postilions, and he kept us all alive for a week. He'd kiss the children in the streets, and he'd set all the taps free in any inn that he went into. It's all purity and that sort of thing now.

"I don't see no good in talking politics. One of the jiggers says one thing, and one of them says another thing. I think the first one's right, then I think the other one's right, and then I think nothing at all. I say, give us something good for trade, and let us have a fair chance of making money. That's my motto.

"And, I say, let's have a law to turn those d----d Germans out of the country. They come over here--the hungry, poverty-stricken brutes--and they take the bread out of Englishmen's mouths, and they talk about education. Education! who cares for education? I never could read a book in my life without falling asleep, and I can give some of the educated ones a start in my small way. Why, I've got a tenant--a literary man--and he has about six pound of meat sent home in a week. There's education for you. I say, out with the Germans!"

Rullock, the cultured man, was hurt when he heard education mentioned lightly. He said, "Excuse _me_, friend Bowler, but I think we must reckonise the claims of edgication. We all know you; we all respect you, and we know you'll cut up well at the finish; but I must disagree with you on that one subject. I'm a edgicated man--I may say that much.

My father paid sixty pound a year at boarding-school for me.

Sixty--pounds--a--year; so if I'm not edgicated, I should like to know who is. It's a great advantage to you. Look at the position you take when you go into a public room, and talk about any subject that comes up. Suppose you're ignorant; well, there you sit; and what are you?

You're n.o.body. No, I approve of edgication--it improves the mind. It does undoubtedly improve the mind. Look now at this Randolph Churchill that's come to the front. What is it but edgication that brought him forward? I should venture to say he's a learned man, and knows lots of languages and sciences, else how'd he shut up such a wonderful orator as Gladstone? We all know as old Beaky was edgicated. Look at his books.

How'd he write a book without it? I began "Cohningsby," and, I tell you, it's grand--sublime. No, friend B., I think you must give in I'm right."

"And I think you're a lot of ---- fools."

This interruption came from the devout Billy--Billy Preston. That pious man liked to have the talk mainly to himself, and he thought that anything not obscene was tame. By the way, these abrupt and insolent remarks are characteristic of public-house wit. A favourite joke is to ask a friend a serious question. When he fails to answer, then the joker shouts some totally irrelevant and indecent word, and the questioned man is regarded as "sold." I cannot repeat the interlude with which Billy Preston favoured us, but it was very spicy indeed, and referred to some of those sacred secrets which are known to all. For a pillar of the Church, Billy displayed rather amazing tastes and abilities. Then the talk fell into decency after the regulation merriment had greeted Mr.

Preston's closing effort.

"How long will you give Jobson to hold out?"

"I don't know. He's into everybody's books all round. I should like to pick up that pony if he does smash."

"I heard Charley Dunn say that Mrs. Jobson was round at old Burdett's asking for time. Jimmy Burdett's got a lot of Jobson's paper, and I shouldn't wonder if he stole a march on the other creditors."

"Well, Jobson's a good sort, but he couldn't last. He's too free with his money. I never wanted his champagne and his suppers, but you had to drop in like the others, and there you are."

A strident voice drowned the scandal, and an admiring group ceased smoking and listened spellbound to a characteristic anecdote. I cannot put in all the expletives, but I may say that the speaker modelled his style on that of the more eloquent betting men whom he knew.

"I says to him, you'll trot me, will you? Why, go on with you, run and see your grandmother, and get her to wipe your nose for you. Strike me, I could sweep the blank chimney with you! You want to get on to me, and you know my cob can't go more than eleven at the outside. I was kiddin'

him on, do you see? Then I winks at old Sammy, and he says, very solemn, 'It's absurd for you, sir, to talk of trotting this gentleman. The cob's out of condition, and rough as a badger.' You see I let the cob keep his winter coat, and he was an object and no error. So this bloke was a fly flat, don't you know, and I could see he bit. He says, 'I'd like to have a match with you.' So I tips the office to Sammy, and blanked if he didn't go and knock in a slice of bloomin' flint a little way between the shoe and the near fore foot. I says very timid, 'Well, sir, I don't mind having a try just for a bit of sport, if you'll lay 30 to 20.' He says, 'Done with you,' and we staked. When I sees my pony walking gingerly, I made as if I was took aback. He saw the same thing, and says, 'Pony's wrong.' 'Yes,' says I, 'worse luck.' He says, 'I lay you 50 to 30 I beat you.' I says, 'You have me at a disadvantage, sir, but I'm on,' and I pulls out my three tenners. Then Sammy got the flint out, and we went into the road. I let him go away, and after we'd done five mile he waves and cries good-bye. I never hustled my cob, for I found I could go by when I liked. Two mile from Dorking I gives the cob his head. Lord love you, he can do seventeen inside the hour, and he left that juggins as if he was standing still. When he drove up at Dorking, he says, 'You're a red-hot member!' and, by G.o.d, I think I am!"

This interesting yarn was received with rapture, and a remarkably strong anecdote of a lady and her footman fell flat, much to Mr. Preston's disgust. Then came the hour for personalities. As the drink takes effect our parlour customers attempt satire, and their efforts are always of a strongly personal nature.

"If I'd a boiled beetroot face like you, I'd never show my 'ed in a public room again."

"What's your wrong end like, you bloomin' Dutchman?"

"You shouldn't kiss and tell." (Rapturous applause.)

"Get away. You're too mean and miserable to do anything but count your dibs. He's so mean, gentlemen, that when he dropped a sixpence into the plate at church instead of a fourpenny-piece, he stopped his wife's cat's-meat allowance for a week to make up."

"If I had a voice like you I'd have it stuffed."

"If I had a nose like you I'd pay no more gas bills. You know your wife emptied the water-jug on you that night when you were lying boozed, because she thought it was a red-hot cinder on the floor."

And so on. The company part without any goodwill, and a night of odious stupidity is over. Personally, I regard every hour I have spent in this public-house as wasted. I never in my life heard a word of real fun, or real sense, excepting from men who were merely casual visitors. The person whose mind is satisfied by the parlour dullness of that nightly foolery only becomes animated when he is indecent. In tracing the natural history of a public-house I have found the respectable dullards the most revolting of my subjects.

But the mere fact that our one wretched hole is stupid and sometimes revolting by no means proves that all other places are of the same sort.

I know one quiet, cleanly room where many smart young fellows go; their trade compels them to be decorous, and you see nothing but courtesy, and hear much good-natured and sensible chat.

The riverside 'Arry is always an awful being, but the gentle, respectful lad who takes his lemonade and enjoys himself in German fas.h.i.+on is nice company. I have seen all sorts, and, while I would gladly burst a 13-inch sh.e.l.l in such a cankered doghole as The Chequers, I am bound to say that there are a few cosy, harmless places whereof the loss would be a calamity.

I grow weary now, and often at nights, when the vast shadow of the lamp shudders on the ceiling and the wind moans hoa.r.s.ely outside, I fall back in sheer luxury on the fine, straight, cut-and-thrust of old Boswell's conversations as a relief from the slavering babble which I often hear.

Being a Loafer is all very good so far; but some of the men (and women) who address me use a kind of familiarity that makes me long to lie down and die. A man never loses the dandy instinct, and when you come to be actually addressed in familiar, or even impudent, terms by a sort of promoted housemaid, it makes you long for the soft-voiced, quiet ladies to whom a false accent or a shrill word would be a horror.

So long as you are a Loafer you must be prepared to put up with much.

The better-cla.s.s artisan is always a gentleman who never offers nor endures a liberty; but some of the flash sort are unendurable, and their womenkind are worse. With costers and bargemen one can always get on familiarly: it is the pretentious, vulgar men and females who are horrible.

Often and often I am tempted to creep back among the lights again, and feel the old delicate joy from cultured talk, lovely music, steady refinement, and beauty. Then comes the reckless fit, and I am off to The Chequers. Here is a rhyme which takes my fancy. I suppose it is my own, but have quite forgotten:--

This is the skull of a man, Soon shall your head be as empty: Laugh and be glad while you can.

Where, from the silver that rims it, Glows the red spirit of wine, Once there was longing and pa.s.sion, Finding a woman divine; Blurred is the finished design, This was the scope of the plan: Death, the dry Jester's old bauble-- Drink and be glad while you can.

Sorry and cynical symbol, Ghastly old caricature, We, too, must walk in thy footsteps, We but a little endure.

Bah! since the end is so sure, Let us out-frolic our span, Death is a hush and a darkness-- Drink and be glad while you can.

A QUEER CHRISTMAS.

The Loafer seems to have fancied the company of seamen a great deal. At The Chequers few of the salt.w.a.ter fellows fore-gathered, but when they did our Loafer was never long in picking them up. Here is one of the yarns which he heard. It is stuck in the Diary without reference to date, place of hearing, or anything else.

Joe Glenn used to say that the queerest Christmas Day he ever spent fell in 1883, the year of the great gale. In that year there was cruel trouble, and the number of folks wearing mourning that one met in Hull and Yarmouth, and the other places, was enough to make the most light-hearted man feel miserable. Black everywhere--nothing but black at every turn; and then the women's faces looked so wistful, and the children seemed so quiet, that I couldn't bear to walk the streets. The women would question any stranger that came from the quays, and they scorned to think that there was not always a chance for their men; but the dead seamen were swinging about in the ooze far down under the grey waves, and the poor souls who went gaping and gazing day after day had all their trouble for nothing.

Glenn towed out on the 20th of October, and he cried, "Good-bye, Sal; back for Christmas!" as they surged away toward Gorleston. Joe was mate of the Esperanza, and he was a very promising chap. He knew his way about the North Sea blindfold, and all he didn't know about his trade wasn't worth knowing. If you had asked him who Mr. Gladstone was he would probably have said, "I've heerd on him," but he could not have told you anything about Mr. Gladstone or any other statesman. So far as the world ash.o.r.e went, Joe was as ignorant as a five-year-old child, and you would have laughed till you cried had you seen his delight when the pictures in a nursery-book were explained to him. It is hardly possible to imagine the existence of a grown man who is ignorant of things that are known to a child in the infant school; but there are many such knocking about at sea. What can you expect? They live amid the moaning desolation of that sad sea all the year round; they never used to have any schooling, and their world even now is limited by the blank horizon, with the rail of their boat for inner barrier. Glenn could very nearly read Moore's Almanac, and, as that great work was the only literature on board, he often interpreted it, and he was counted a great scholar.

Then, he could actually use a s.e.xtant, and his way of working out his lat.i.tude was chaste and picturesque. Supposing he made the sun 29 deg.

18 min., and the declination for the day was 6 deg. 34 min. 22 sec., then he put down his figures this way:--

8948 2918 6300 634 5356