I resolved that I would not be a slave any more. For a few weeks I used to fancy it was only by a chance I had lost her, and every now and then as I mused over it I got heated and my thoughts raced forward as if in the hope of overtaking and averting that very evil chance which had already befallen, and had in fact caused the train of thought.
“I saved every penny that I could from my salary. In six months I had saved twenty pounds. Out of this I bought a new black suit, a pair of boots and a hat, and gave them to my landlady and asked her to take care of them until I returned, which might be at the end of October. It was then April. I gave notice to my employers and left them. The next day very early I left London, and walked all day and all night until I reached the sea. There I bathed and ate a hearty meal, and walking along the cliffs till I came to a small farmhouse I engaged a bedroom, and there I slept and thought and slept undisturbed for twenty-four hours. I was free. I was free to dream myself no longer one of the mob-led mob. With care my money would last until mid-summer, even if I did no work.
“It was a warm, wet May, and by the end of the month there was a plentiful crop of weeds, and I had no difficulty in getting work at hoeing. Strawberry picking and cherry picking followed. I was very slow and earned little, but it was now warm enough to sleep out, and I earned my food. By the end of July, as I liked the work, I was as useful with my hayrake as any of the women and better than most of the odd hands. I wore my fingers raw at tying up barley and oats and, later on, at feeding the threshing machine. But before the end of October the weather drove me back to London, with ten shillings in my pocket.
“I put on my new clothes and got as good a berth as my first one, and in the hope of another spring and summer out of doors I passed the winter cheerfully. To save more money I went to bed as soon as I got back to my lodgings, and read myself to sleep.
“In May a spell of fine weather drove me to give notice again, and I walked as far as Maidstone the first day. My second summer was like my first. I was already known at half-a-dozen farms. When they could not give me work at once they gave me leave to fish in the three or four ponds to be found on all the farms in the Weald of Kent, and I had many a large, if not always savoury, meal of tench and eels. At the end of the summer I had three pounds in my pocket, and little less by the end of October.
“The winter I passed as before. For five years I lived in this way. Then, for the sake of going abroad on my savings, I worked for a whole year at a desk, and spent four months along the Loire and down to Bordeaux; from there I worked my passage to Newport. Since then I have gone back to my old plan.”
Here he paused and mused. I asked him if he still found it easy to get work in London.
“No, that’s it,” he replied; “my handwriting is worse and it is slow. The first weeks in London seem to undo all the good of my summer outing, especially as my salary is less than it used to be. They begin to ask me if I am a married man when I apply for work. The November rains remind me that I have rheumatism. It is my great fear that I may need a doctor, and so spend my savings, and be unable to leave London until field work is plentiful in June. But I have my freedom; I could, if necessary, take an under-cowman’s place and live entirely on the land. They begin to look at my hands when I apply for clerical work, and I can’t wear gloves.”
“And ten years hence?”
“That is ten years too far ahead for me to look, though I am less cheerful than I used to be. I realize that I belong to the suburbs still. I belong to no class or race, and have no traditions. We of the suburbs are a muddy, confused, hesitating mass, of small courage though much endurance. As for myself, I am world-conscious, and hence suffer unutterable loneliness. I know what bitterness it is to be lacking in those strong tastes and impulses which, blinding men to what does not concern them, enables them to live with a high heart. For example, I have a sensitive palate and am glad of my food, yet whenever I taste lamb—which I do when I can—my pleasure is spoilt by the sight of the butcher carrying a lamb under his arm. There it is. I am sensitive on all sides. Your true man would either forget the sight or he would be moved to a crusade. I can do neither.