Bones and I

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

I sprang at his throat like a wolf of the wood,

And I dipped my hands in the smoking blood,

Hurrah!”

Kingsley had not written Hypatia then. Kingsley never went moose-hunting in his life. How could he so vividly describe the gait and bearing of a forest elk stalking warily, doubtfully, yet with a kingly pride through his wintry haunts? Probably from the instinctive sense of fitness, the intuition peculiar to poets, that enabled him to feel alike with a fierce Goth sheltering in his snow-trench, and a soft, seductive southern beauty, languishing, lovely and beloved, in spite of dangerous impulses and tarnished fame, in spite of wilful heart, reckless self-abandonment, woman weakness, and the fatal saffron shawl.

I tell you that I could not have been more completely alone in Robinson Crusoe’s island than I found myself here within a rifle-shot of Kensington Palace, during a twenty minutes’ walk, to and fro, up and down, threading the stems of those tall, metropolitan trees; nor when my solitude was at last disturbed could I find it in me to grudge the intruders their share of my retreat. More especially as they were themselves thoroughly unconscious of everything but their own companionship, sauntering on, side by side, with murmured words, and loving looks, and steps that dwelt and lingered on the path, because impossible roses seemed springing into bloom beneath their very feet, and that for them Kensington Gardens were indeed as the gardens of Paradise.

I knew right well for me the mist was gathering round, ghostly and damp and chill. It struck through my garments, it crept about my heart, but for these, thank God! the sky was bright as a midsummer noon. They were basking in the warmth and light of those gleams that come once or twice in a lifetime to remind us of what we might be, to reproach us, perhaps, gently for what we are. They did not speak much, they laughed not at all. Their conversation seemed a little dull, trite, and commonplace, yet I doubt if either of them has forgotten a word of it yet. It was pleasant to observe how happy they were, and I am sure they thought it was to last for ever. Indeed I wish it may!

But the reflections of a man on foot are to those of a man on horseback as the tortoise to the hare, the mouse to the lion, tobacco to opium, chalk to cheese, prose to poetry.

“As moonshine is to sunshine, and as water is to wine.”

Get into the saddle, leap on a thorough-bred horse, if you have got one. Never mind his spoiling you for every other animal of meaner race, and come for a “spin” up the Ride from Hyde Park Corner to Kensington Gate, careful only to steady him sufficiently for the safety of Her Majesty’s subjects, and the inquisition, not very rigorous, of the policemen on duty. For seven months in the year, at least, this is perhaps the only mile and a half in England over which you may gallop without remorse for battering legs and feet to pieces on the hard ground. Away you go, the breeze lifting your whiskers from the very roots (I forgot, you have no whiskers, nor indeed would such superfluities be in character with the severe style of your immortal beauty). Never mind, the faster you gallop the keener and cooler comes the air. Sit well down, just feel him on the curb, let him shake his pretty head and play with his bridle, sailing away with his hind-legs under your stirrup-irons, free, yet collected, so that you could let him out at speed, or have him back in a canter within half-a-dozen strides; pat him lovingly just where the hair turns on his glossy neck like a knot in polished woodwork, and while he bends to meet the caress, and bounds to acknowledge it, tell me that dancing is the poetry of motion if you dare!

Should it not be the London season—and I am of opinion that the rus in urbe is more enjoyable to both of us at the “dead time of year” than during the three fashionable months—do not, therefore, feel alarmed that you will have the ride to yourself, or that if you come to grief there will be nobody to pick you up! Here you will meet some Life-Guardsman “taking the nonsense” out of a charger he hates; there some fair girl, trim of waist, blue of habit, and golden of chignon, giving her favourite “a breather,” ready and willing to acknowledge that she is happier thus, speeding along in her side-saddle, than floating round a ball-room to Coote and Tinney’s softest strains with the best waltzer in London for a partner.