Old lamps for new

by E. V. Lucas

As for the High Street, I can tell you about that very quickly. The best house in it, a superb red Georgian mansion, is now the office of the Gas Company. That gives you the High Street, does it not? There are two book and paper shops, and both supply “Punch” only to order. That gives you the class of town, does it not? There are assembly-rooms where an occasional entertainment is given, and an electric theatre has just been opened. (The assembly-rooms, by the way, have a name pretty enough for a heroine in a novel by Mr. Hardy—Amity Hall.) At night, however, in spite of the absence of organized harmony, the High Street is full of melody from upper windows and tap-rooms, or from the white building at the foot, close to the Custom House—famous in history for a smugglers’ raid which led to the recapture of a tremendous haul of run-goods—where the town band practises. The little town is rich in small inns, as maritime towns always are; and it has also two large ones, with spacious yards, relics of the brave days when gentlemen posted, and billiard-tables whose cloth is yellow and whose cushions have some of the inflexibility of a sea-wall.

Such is the High Street of my little town, which, while always a scene of animation, rises to its greatest social height on Saturday nights, when the country people come in to market, and the town-people market too, and the youths walk up the middle four and five abreast, and the girls walk down the middle four and five abreast, and jokes are made, and hearts, I doubt not, are lost, and the little tap-rooms get fuller and fuller.

And now the third thing and the best—the quay. A little Georgian town with a quay cannot go far wrong. In its electric theatres the cinematoscope may buzz and dazzle; sixpenny-halfpenny bazaars may be opened; its beautiful old mansions may house gas clerks; the latest novelties may effloresce in its shop-windows; but the quay will keep it sweet. Ships and mariners will arrest the meddling hand of Time. For there is something about the sea that will ever refuse to come into line. Wherever wind-tanned men with level eyes live all day in blue jerseys, there the lover of ancient peace may safely abide. And the quay of my little town and the boats in her great, spreading harbour are populous with such men. They arrest progress. Even the arrival of petrol and the spectacle of a fishing-boat gaining the open sea in the teeth of a headwind at a rate of ten knots an hour has not injured them. The sea remains the sea in spite of petrol: still the capricious, dangerous mistress, never the same for two minutes together, never quite to be trusted, and so jealous that in no other direction may the eyes of her subjects rove.

Two little tugs trot in and out of the harbour all day long, often enough dragging in some three-master that they have found in the bay; and at the moment that I write a big German barque with a green hull lies at one wharf; a Dutch tjalck at another; and a variety of coasters thrust their masts and spars and cordage against the evening sky and make it more wonderful still. And in one of the shipwrights’ yards a huge schooner into whose way a man-of-war casually loafed in the Channel a month ago is being fitted with a new bowsprit and prow; and since the bowsprit that the man-of-war left her resembles a birchbroom, there is no doubt that she needs them.

I had a little talk with one of the blue jerseys about smuggling. He, like myself, thought of the past with some regret. “I’ve no quarrel with a little smuggling,” he said, in his caressing, rich Southern voice. “No harm in smuggling, I says. I don’t say but what I’ve done some in my time. I don’t say that I should have any objection to running over to Guernsey any day and bringing back a ton of tubs. But the difficulty is, what to do with them? And you would look so blue if you were caught.” “True,” I said; “but surely there are safe landings all about there?” waving my hand towards the southern borders of this vast and mysterious harbour, so rich in creeks and sandy shores. “Yes,” he said, “yes. But that’s not it. You couldn’t do it alone: that’s the real trouble. And in smuggling it doesn’t do to trust any one. No,” he said, “not even your own brother. Not in smuggling.”

Mus Penfold—and Billy

Every man, however unobservant or incapable of correlating experiences, must learn something in the course of his life. Some little thing. Circumstances will force it into his intelligence. And a truth that has just been forced into mine is this—that it is a foolish thing to lend your sheep-dog to a shepherd, for the simple reason that the shepherd will at once insidiously and surely make it his own. You may reclaim it in the evening, fondle it, call it “Good old Bob, then!” receive its half-hearted caresses, and feed it; but it will be yours no longer. That is to say, its soul will be yours no longer, however you may cherish the husk. The cause is twofold—first, that the sheep-dog is a noble animal, who prefers work to sloth and a master to an owner; and, secondly, that shepherds are clever men, hiding under a simple exterior much shrewdness and quite a little guile.

At any rate the shepherd to whom recently I made the mistake of lending my sheep-dog is a clever man, hiding under a simple exterior much shrewdness and quite a little guile; and the moment for which he is living I know perfectly well is the moment when I shall say to him (as surely I shall), “Well, shepherd, you’d better call Bob yours after this and keep him altogether.” He knows as well as I do that I shall say that, although Bob has a pedigree like a duke and the shepherd is accustomed to very plebeian assistants.

Just for fun I intend to postpone that announcement as long as I can, because the shepherd and I understand each other and we shall both subterraneously enjoy the suspense. He knows that he is a bit of a schemer, and he knows that I know it; I know that I am a bit of an ass, and I know that he knows it. As to bearing him any grudge for his act of subtle alienation—that is absurd. I like him too much, and I recognize too that he is fulfilling Nature’s wish, Nature having devised Bob to round up sheep, and every minute that he spends in idleness walking at my heels being a defiance to her.