Chimney-Pot Papers

by Charles S. Brooks

In my country walks I usually carry a book in the pocket opposite to my lunch. I seldom read it, but it is a comfort to have it handy. I am told that at one of the colleges, students of smaller application, in order that they may truthfully answer as to the length of time they have spent upon their books, do therefore literally sit upon a pile of them, as on a stool, while they engage in pleasanter and more secular reading. I do not examine this story closely, which rises, doubtless, from the jealousy of a rival college. Rather, I think that these students perch upon the books which presently they must read, on a wise instinct that this preliminary contact starts their knowledge. And therefore a favorite volume, even if unopened in the pocket, does nevertheless by its proximity color and enhance the enjoyment of the day. I have carried Howell, who wrote the "Familiar Letters," unread along the countryside. A small volume of Boswell has grown dingy in my pocket. I have gone about with a copy of Addison with long S's, but I read it chiefly at home when my feet are on the fender.

I had by me once as I crossed the Devon moors a volume of "Richard Feverel." For fifteen miles I had struck across the upland where there is scarcely a house in sight—nothing but grazing sheep and wild ponies that ran at my approach. Sometimes a marshy stream flowed down a shallow valley, with a curl of smoke from a house that stood in the hollow. At the edge of this moorland, I came into a shady valley that proceeded to the ocean. My feet were pinched and tired when I heard the sound of water below the road. I pushed aside the bushes and saw a stream trickling on the rocks. I thrust my head into a pool until the water ran into my ears, and then sat with my bare feet upon the cool stones where the runnel lapped them, and read "Richard Feverel." To this day, at the mention of the title, I can hear the pleasant brawl of water and the stirring of the branches in the wind that wandered down the valley.

Hazlitt tells us in a famous passage with what relish he once read "The New Eloise" on a walking trip. "It was on the 10th of April, 1798," he writes, "that I sat down to a volume of the New Eloise, at the inn at Llangollen, over a bottle of sherry and a cold chicken." I am quite unfamiliar with the book, yet as often as I read the essay—which is the best of Hazlitt—I have been teased to buy it. Perhaps this springs in part from my own recollection of Llangollen, where I once stopped on a walking trip through Wales. The town lies on the river Dee at the foot of fertile hills patched with fences, on whose top there stand the ruins of Dinas Bran, a fortress of forgotten history, although it looks grimly towards the English marches as if its enemies came thence. Thrown across the river there is a peaked bridge of gray stone, many centuries old, on which the village folk gather at the end of day. I dined on ale and mutton of such excellence that, for myself, a cold volume of the census—if I had fallen so low—must have remained agreeably in memory. I recall that a street-organ stopped beneath the window and played a merry tune—or perhaps the wicked ale was mounting—and I paused in my onslaught against the mutton to toss the musician a coin.

I applaud those who, on a walking trip, arise and begin their journey in the dawn, but although I am eager at night to make an early start, yet I blink and growl when the morning comes. I marvel at the poet who was abroad so early that he was able to write of the fresh twilight on the world—"Where the sandalled Dawn like a Greek god takes the hurdles of the hills"—but for my own part I would have slept and missed the sight. But an early hour is best, despite us lazybones, and to be on the road before the dew is gone and while yet a mist arises from the hollows is to know the journey's finest pleasure.

Persons of early hours assert that they feel a fine exaltation. I am myself inclined to think, however, that this is not so much an exaltation that arises from the beauty of the hour, as from a feeling of superiority over their sleeping and inferior comrades. It is akin to the displeasing vanity of those persons who walk upon a boat with easy stomach while their companions lie below. I would discourage, therefore, persons that lean toward conceit from putting a foot out of bed until the second call. On the other hand, those who are of a self-depreciative nature should get up with the worm and bird. A man of my own acquaintance who was sunk in self-abasement for many years, was roused to a salutary conceit by no other tonic.

And it is certain that to be off upon a journey with a rucksack strapped upon you at an hour when the butcher boy takes down his shutters is a high pleasure. Off you go through the village with swinging arms. Off you go across the country. A farmer is up before you and you hear his reaper across the field, and the neighing of his horses at the turn. Where the hill falls sharp against the sky, there he stands outlined, to wipe the sweat. And as your nature is, swift or sluggish thoughts go through your brain—plots and vagrant fancies, which later your pencil will not catch. It is in these earliest hours while the dew still glistens that little lyric sentences leap into your mind. Then, if at all, are windmills giants.

There are cool retreats where you may rest at noon, but Stevenson has written of these. "You come," he writes, "to a milestone on a hill, or some place where deep ways meet under trees; and off goes the knapsack, and down you sit to smoke a pipe in the shade. You sink into yourself, and the birds come round and look at you; and your smoke dissipates upon the afternoon under the blue dome of heaven; and the sun lies warm upon your feet, and the cool air visits your neck and turns aside your open shirt. If you are not happy, you must have an evil conscience."

And yet a good inn at night holds even a more tranquil joy. M—— and I, who frequently walk upon a holiday, traversed recently a mountain road to the north of West Point. During the afternoon we had scrambled up Storm King to a bare rock above the Hudson. It was just such an outlook as Rip found before he met the outlandish Dutchmen with their ninepins and flagon. We lay here above a green world that was rimmed with mountains, and watched the lagging sails and puffs of smoke upon the river. It was late afternoon when we descended to the mountain road that runs to West Point. During all the day there had been distant rumbling of thunder, as though a storm mustered in a far-off valley,—or perhaps the Dutchmen of the legend still lingered at their game,—but now as the twilight fell the storm came near. It was six o'clock when a sign-board informed us that we had seven miles to go, and already the thunder sounded with earnest purpose. Far below in the dusk we saw the lights of West Point. On a sudden, while I was still fumbling for my poncho which was rolled inside my rucksack, the storm burst upon us. We put up the umbrella and held the poncho against the wind and driving rain. But the wind so whisked it about and the rain was so eager to find the openings that presently we were drenched. In an hour we came to West Point. Luckily the cook was up, and she served us a hot dinner in our rooms with the washstand for a table. When we started there was a piece of soap in the dish, but I think we ate it in our hunger. I recall that there was one course that foamed up like custard and was not upon the bill. It was a plain room with meager furniture, yet we fell asleep with a satisfaction beyond the Cecils in their lordly beds. I stirred once when there was a clamor in the hall of guests returning from a hop at the Academy—a prattle of girls' voices—then slept until the sun was up.

But my preference in lodgings is the low sagging half-timbered building that one finds in the country towns of England. It has leaned against the street and dispensed hospitality for three hundred years. It is as old a citizen as the castle on the hill. It is an inn where Tom Jones might have spent the night, or any of the rascals out of Smollett. Behind the wicket there sits a shrewish female with a cold eye towards your defects, and behind her there is a row of bells which jangle when water is wanted in the rooms. Having been assigned a room and asked the hour of dinner, you mount a staircase that rises with a squeak. There is a mustiness about the place, which although it is unpleasant in itself, is yet agreeable in its circumstance. A long hall runs off to the back of the house, with odd steps here and there to throw you. Your room looks out upon a coach-yard, and as you wash you overhear a love-passage down below.

In the evening you go forth to see the town. If it lies on the ocean, you walk upon the mole and watch the fisher folk winding up their nets, or sitting with tranquil pipes before their doors. Maybe a booth has been set up on the parade that runs along the ocean, and a husky fellow bids you lay out a sixpence for the show, which is the very same, he bawls, as was played before the King and the Royal Family. This speech is followed by a fellow with a trombone, who blows himself very red in the face.