For the second time I lied, and escaped.
THE VETERANS' RACE
Uncle Jake ran up from the beach. "Yer!" he said, "there's a race to Saltmeadow, a veteran's race, for men over fifty. Yu come wi' me, an' I'll go in for it—an' beat the lot, I will. I knows I can." Off we went, Uncle Jake in a high excitement. At the centre of the big oblong ring, two clean-built jumpers, men in the heyday of their strength, were making a local record for the high jump. Uncle Jake shouted out praise and sympathy to them. We found our way to where the veterans were grouped together, encouraging each other to enter with much foul language—which made them feel young again, no doubt. What a lot they were! some aged to thinness, others become fat and piggish. Only Uncle Jake appeared quite sound in wind and limb. He took off his boots and stockings, walked into the ring with a fine imitation of the athlete's swagger combined with a curious touch of shyness. "Go it Uncle Jake!" they shouted. At the end of the first lap, he found himself so far ahead that he threw his old round sailor's cap high into the air and caught it, and he skipped along to the winning-post like a young lamb. A great cheer was echoed from cliff to cliff. Uncle Jake has not spoken his mind all his life for nothing. Seacombe does not unanimously like him, but it has the sense to be rather proud of him. A veterans' race is usually a sad spectacle, a grotesque memento mori: for Uncle Jake 'twas a triumph.
The next great sight of the evening was to watch the fishermen from other villages put off to their boats. Most of them were 'half seas over,' some nearly helpless. They were thrown aboard from the punts and had their sails hoisted for them; or, if they did it themselves, it was with most comic jerks. The gods, who undoubtedly have a tenderness for drunkards—why not?—must have looked after them, for no news has come of any accident.
On returning in house, I met Tony with several of his men relatives. He drew me aside. "Maybe I'll come home drunk to-night, but I promise 'ee I won't disturb 'ee, an' if yu hears ort—well, yu'll know, won' 'ee?"
For some reason not easily to be fathomed his kindly warning made me feel ashamed of my own sobriety, ashamed that I dared not 'go on the bust' with him. I firmly believe that it does a man good to 'go on the bust' occasionally. It develops fellow-feeling. And besides, who has the right to cast a stone at a man for snatching a little jollity when he may, be it alcoholic or not? The truth is, that Tony, who has no craving for drink, was prepared to plunge into the fastest current of the life around him, and to take his chance, whilst I, for niggardly, self-preservative, prudential reasons, was not.
However, he came home quite sober.
27
THE SQUARE'S AWAKENING
Up-country, next week, I shall greatly miss my window overlooking Alexandra Square. I have lived (rebelliously) in suburban streets where only clattering feet, tradesmen's carts and pitiful street singers broke the monotony; in a Paris chambre à garçon, au sixième, where the view was roofs and the noise of the city was attenuated to a murmur; in country houses which looked out on sweeps of hill, down, vale and sea, so changeable and lovely that they were dreamlike and as a dream abide in the memory.... Here I have quick human life just below my window, and—up the Gut—a view of the sea unbroken hence to the horizon; a patch of water framed on three sides by straight walls and on the fourth by the sky-line; a miniature ocean across which the drifters sail to the western offing, and the little boats curvet to and fro, and