BUCKLER'S.
To acquire an estate is, even in these days of inflated prices and competitive house-hunters, an easy matter compared with finding a name for it when it is yours. It is then that the real trouble sets in.
Take the case of my friend Buckler.
A little while ago he purchased a property, a few acres on the very top of a hill not too far from London and only half-a-mile from his present habitation, and there he is now building a home. At least the plans are done and the ground has been pegged out. "Here," he will say, quite unmindful of the clouds emptying themselves all over us—with all an enthusiast's disregard for others, and an enthusiast, moreover, who has his abode close by, full of changes of raiment—"here," setting his foot firmly in the mud, "is where the dining-room will be. Here," moving away a few yards through the slush, "is the billiard-room." Then, pointing towards the zenith with his stick, "Above it"—here you look up into the pitiless sky as well as the deluge will permit—"are two spare rooms, one of which will be yours when you come to see us." And so forth.
He then leads the way round the place, through brake fern wetter than waves, to indicate the position of the tennis-courts, and in course of time you are allowed to return to the dry and spend the rest of the day in borrowed clothes.
Everyone knows these Kubla Khans decreeing pleasure domes and enlarging upon them in advance of the builders, and never are they so eloquent and unmindful of rain and discomforts as when their listeners are poor and condemned to a squalid London existence for ever.
But that is beside the mark. It is the naming of these new country seats that leads to such difficulties.
That night at dinner the question arose again.
"As it is on the top of the hill," said a gentle wistful lady, "why not call it 'Hill Top'? I'm sure I've seen that name before. It is expressive and simple."
"So simple," said Buckler, "that my nearest neighbour has already appropriated it."
"I suppose that would be an objection," said the lady, and we all agreed.
"Why not," said another guest, "call it 'The Summit'? or, more concisely, just 'Summit'?"
"Or why not go further," said a frivolous voice, "and suggest hospitality too—and Buckler's hospitality is notorious—by calling it 'Summit-to-Eat'?"
Our silence was properly contemptuous of this sally.
"If you didn't like that you might call it 'Summit-to-Drink,'" the frivolous voice impenitently continued. "Then you would get all the Americans there too."
The voice's glass having been replenished (which, I fancy, was its inner purpose) we became serious again.
"As it is on the top of the hill," said the first lady, "there will probably be a view. Why not call it, for example, 'Bellevue'? 'Bellevue' is a charming word."
"A little French, isn't it?" someone inquired.
"Oh, yes, it's French," she admitted. "But it's all right, isn't it? It's quite nice French."
We assured her that, for a French phrase, it was singularly free from impropriety.
"But of course," she said, "there's an Italian equivalent, 'Bella Vista.' 'Bella Vista' is delightful."
"I passed a 'Bella Vista' in Surbiton yesterday," said the frivolous voice, "and an errand-boy had done his worst with it with a very black lead pencil."
"What could he do?" the gentle lady asked wonderingly, with big violet eyes distended.
"It is not for me to explain," said the frivolous voice; "but the final vowel of the first word dissatisfied him and he substituted another. The capabilities of errand-boys with pencil or chalk should never be lost sight of when one is choosing a name for a front gate."
"I am all at sea," said the lady plaintively. Then she brightened. "Is there no prominent landmark visible from the new house?" she asked. "It is so high there must be."
Our hostess said that by cutting down two trees it would be possible to see Windsor Castle.
"Oh, then, do cut them down," said the lady, "and call it 'Castle View.' That would be perfect."
During the panic that followed I made a suggestion. "The best name for it," I said, "is 'Buckler's.' That is what the country people will call it, and so you may as well forestall them and be resigned to it. Besides, it's the right kind of name. It's the way most of the farms all over England once were named—after their owners, and where the owner was a man of character and force the name persisted. Call it 'Buckler's' and you will help everyone, from the postman to the strange guest who might otherwise tour the neighbourhood for miles searching for you long after lunch was finished."
"But isn't it too practical?" the first lady asked. "There's no poetry in it."
"No," I said, "there isn't. The poetry is in its owner. Any man who can stand in an open field under a July rainstorm and show another man where his bedroom is to be in a year's time is poet enough."
E.V.L.