Part 7

However, my mind was soon diverted by the charming scenery and the unfamiliar sights on every side. But about an hour later an unfamiliar sound called me from the beauties of England to the motor which I was driving.

Ruth said: "What can that be?"

I confessed I did not know. It came at regular intervals. When the car ran fast it was quick, when I slowed down it lessened in frequency but not in volume. I stopped and looked under the hood, but could find nothing amiss. So we continued on our way. It seemed to grow worse, and soon the whole car was shaken by the jar. Then I remembered I had never tested the valves to see if they leaked, so I again lifted the hood and dropped a few drops of oil on each of the valves in turn and started the engine up. Yes, that was the trouble, Nos. 2 and 4 were not quite tight. I was much pleased with myself, and when I had tightened them took my place at the wheel, congratulating myself on being such a good mechanic. Indeed, I did not think Ruth overstated the case when she said: "I think you are wonderful." But, alas! the noise and the jar continued, and I began to fear that some serious injury had been sustained.

When I opened the hood once more I showed Ruth how to start the engine so that I could test the engine better than when it was at rest. I put my head down so near the cylinder that I nearly burned my ear, and found that there was no noise at all! I then told her to let in the clutch and let the car run on the road slowly. "I said 'slowly'!" I cried, as the motor nearly ran over me. So Ruth tried again. I hopped along by the side of the car as best I could, hearing the distressing noise more plainly than ever, coming, I was now convinced, from the interior of the cylinder.

"We have broken a piston-rod," I said in a calm but desperate tone, "and the car will have to be laid up for an indefinite time to replace it."

"But how could we break a piston-rod when we have met with no accident that could break anything?" exclaimed Ruth.

Like a doctor who has diagnosed a case to his own satisfaction, I could afford to be patient with a layman, so I replied: "Well, you see there is sometimes a flaw in the metal, and the mere expansion and contraction by heat and cold may cause the metal to break without any concussion at all."

It was a tiny village in which we had stopped, but all the inhabitants had assembled, and it was surprising to see how many of them there were!

"What's the trouble?" said one.

"A broken piston-rod," I replied tersely. Indeed, annoying as it was, I felt a certain pride in the gravity of the situation! I was like a man seized with a sudden pain in the night, whose trouble the doctor declares to be "appendicitis"; he is alarmed, but still has the satisfaction of feeling that the family will now know that he did not call them from their beds for a vulgar stomach-ache!

I was about to inquire if there was any one in the village who had a horse which could tow us to the nearest garage, when Ruth remarked: "There is one funny thing about it----"

This did irritate me, and I sarcastically remarked: "I am glad your sense of humor is so keen. I suppose I am dull, but a broken piston-rod does not strike me as 'humorous."

Her eyes filled with tears, as they always do when my ill temper takes the form of sarcasm, and I felt like the brute I am. So I hurriedly added: "It's all right, honey, what were you going to say?"

"I was only going to say," said she, with a gulp, and tactfully changing the form of her remark, "that it seems strange that we should hear no sound when we are standing still and the engine running if the trouble is a piston-rod."

I pondered this for a moment and then said: "Well, let's see if that is so." I started the engine and it ran as sweetly as one could wish, but as soon as the car began to move--bump, bump, bump was heard louder than ever.

At that moment an urchin, who had been doing some investigating on his own hook, called out: "Your tire's flat!"

The announcement was as reassuring and as humiliating as to have the doctor say, when you were convinced you had appendicitis, "What the deuce have you been eating?" This tiny layman had diagnosed correctly a case which the learned of the faculty had failed to understand! He promptly received his fee and scampered off with his companions to spend it before Ruth and I had reached the back of the car and were gazing at a long nail protruding from the tire of one of the rear wheels.

I had never changed a rim before, but I remembered the agent had told me that it took three minutes. It did--and twenty-seven more--but what was that compared with a week's waiting to have a broken piston-rod replaced?

When we were again under way, I said: "We were talking this morning about the guarantee on tires, and I ought to have explained that the guarantee, of course, refers only to the bursting of a tire and not to an accident like this." Why is it we men cannot make up our minds to tell the truth to the wives of our bosoms? I have not in mind now our wickedness but our folly. Ruth knew as well as I did that this great truth had not dawned on my clouded brain until the rusty nail had punctured the tire and my ignorance at the same time! Of course she expressed her gratification at this bit of valuable information. What would women do with their spare time if they did not have to waste so much of it in "saving the faces" of their lords!

XX

FALSTAFF

We were destined to have another experience with the car that day before we reached our destination. As we drew near Shrewsbury there was a sharp shower, which, though it did not last many minutes, was enough to make the roads rather greasy. As we had, however, such a short distance to go, it did not seem worth while to put on the chains. As we drove along the main street I was very careful, fearing we might skid. There is a tramway running through the street, which did not make things easier, for the rails were wet and shining in the rain. The street is lined with trees, and on one side is a high brick wall. My subconscious mind was noting all these things and perhaps allowing me to drive a little faster than I had intended, when suddenly the car, as if it were possessed of a devil, shot from the track to the sidewalk, passing between two trees, grazing the wall, and was back again on the rails before one could say "Jack Robinson," or even the English equivalent, "Knife"! It was not the rear wheels which had slipped but the front ones! No one had ever told me that could happen, nor should I have known how to guard against it if they had. Was it not fortunate that it was the tea hour that the car chose for this little side-trip? All the tradespeople were in the back rooms behind their shops, and the street was almost deserted. I trembled to think what might have happened had children been on their way to or from school, or feeble folk had failed to jump like grasshoppers! I never was more thankful than when I turned the motor into the garage of the "Raven."

Our first business in Shrewsbury was, of course, to visit the battle-field. I reminded Ruth as we drove out of the town the following morning of a saying of yours: that the best investment any nation or town could make was to breed a genius! "Sir Walter Scott," you said, "had brought more money to Scotland than all the ship-building on the Clyde, and that the money spent each year in Marseilles, by men and women who came from all over the world to look at the Château d'If, and speculate as to which side of it a man, who had never lived, had escaped could not be counted for multitude!" It is the same here. What a triumph of the imagination it is that after four hundred years pilgrims should still be wending their way to the field of Shrewsbury, as many were doing that morning! Not because it was historical--as the French say--"they mock themselves well of that." It is Shakespeare who is the Pied Piper that led us all to the spot where Harry Monmouth and Hotspur fought indeed, but where Falstaff bore off the honors of the day!

What a futile fight it was! Would not England have been better off if Percy had won? Did not the triumph of Henry IV sow the dragon's teeth that were harvested in the Wars of the Roses? Did it not lead to the desolation of France and the crime of Jeanne d'Arc's death? It is the genius of Shakespeare alone which lends glamour to this stupidity. Look at the heroes! Has any figure in history, except the miserable Stuarts, called forth such sympathy as the reckless Hotspur? How much Percy resembles our national hero! It is the feminine in us that admires Henry V--the reformed rake! It would seem as if the prudent, calculating world reacts in shame from Henry IV, as if it saw in him a picture of itself, and admires the reckless Percy just because it dare not follow him! Falstaff is the real hero. The fool at the feast of folly! Gross and witty, brave enough but cynical--what genius to draw respectable people to such companionship and compel them to enjoy it though they are ashamed to be seen with him! I suppose the real explanation of this moral paradox is that human nature esteems a sinner more than it does a hypocrite. The Lord Chancellor was a more respectable man than Falstaff, but he was a humbug, and we are glad the fat knight flouted him.

While I was thus moralizing and, no doubt, boring Ruth, we had reached the battle-field, and she exclaimed: "Why, there is Mr. Rhodes!" the historian, whom she had known in Boston--and ran to meet him.

"Oh, Mr. Rhodes," she cried, "I am sure you have made some new historical discovery!"

"I have, indeed," he gravely replied, but with a twinkle in his eye.

"Tell me at once what it is," she asked eagerly.

"I have discovered a new lie of Falstaff's--he 'fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock,' and the clock is not visible from the battle-field!"

Shrewsbury was one of the ancient and is still one of the modern gates into Wales, and had we been tied to a route we should have entered the kingdom of Glendower from there, but we received two letters which changed our plans, and led us to leave the motor, and depart in different directions by train. Of which you will hear in due time.

XXI

THE BLACK COUNTRY

My letter was from Archdeacon Williams. I had never met him but had read his books and been much influenced by them, as I know you have been. To tell the truth, I hesitated about accepting his invitation to spend the "week-end," for I feared I might be disappointed! Authors are like miners: they put the precious metal into their books, but when one gets to the mine there is apt to be a lot of "slag" lying about! But it was not so in this case. The books are the man--he lives as he talks.

England is the land of contrasts. Shropshire seems to belong to another planet, when one gets into the dark and chilly atmosphere of the black country. It was most depressing. Instead of the charming vicarage I had pictured, I found a plain brick house on the street of the town, and instead of a blooming garden, a few sickly shrubs, blackened, like everything else, by the smoke from the mills.

But within all was sweetness and light. The house was overflowing with delightful children, and every one seemed to be at work. Or, perhaps I should say, every one seemed to have a purpose, for as I arrived at tea-time, work had been suspended.

There was but one drawback: the archdeacon does not smoke, and does not seem to have heard that any one else does! I thought that three days would be more than I could bear. But, indeed, mind and body were kept so busy that I hardly missed my pipe at all! Can I say more?

The archdeacon and I sat up until all hours of the night, talking of the things which are most worth while.

He is an extraordinary man--not only a good classical scholar but also a notable mathematician. He is quite at home in all the scientific theories which are the vogue to-day, and insisted that theology can have no interest for the modern mind until theologians abandon the mediæval, _a priori_ method for the inductive, and use words as the symbols of truths which can be verified. Then it will be found that the "faith" for which the saints contended was the reality without which man cannot live. He said many things of which I will tell you when we meet; but one I send you now, for you might have said it yourself! "Men are forever talking about 'faith' as if the important thing were the _quantity_ of it, whereas the thing that matters is its _quality_. The faith which overcame the world is not the mass of opinion which has accumulated through the ages, but the deep conviction that God is Spirit, and that the character of that Spirit has been revealed in the person of Jesus."

The way the man works would, I think, astonish you. This is what we did on Saturday: breakfast at 8, then prayers in the parish church at 9. He agrees with Bishop Creighton that it is better to have many of the parish come together for prayers each day than to have family prayers, with which, I am sure, you will no more agree than I do! At 9.30 he shut himself in his study and did not appear again until 1 o'clock. Then we had dinner, all the family taking part in the talk, which was good, and I listened. The last you will not believe, but it is true!

Mrs. Williams is as remarkable in her way as he, and is a real intellectual companion. When I spoke to him of her, he said: "Think of the men who are asphyxiated by dull wives!" I did!

The children adore their father, though Rose--a girl of about twelve--told me they could have a pony if their father did not give so much to the poor. When I suggested that this was a good way to use money, she agreed, but added: "It seems a pity there is not enough for both." In which opinion, no doubt, many will agree.

At 2.30 a large van drove up to the door, and into it we all piled, except the very little ones, to go to the Sunday-school treat. We stopped at many a corner to pick up the teachers--all of whom were workers in the mills--and drove to a grove some miles away, where the feast was spread.

I sat next a man of about fifty years of age, who, when he learned that I was an American, "let himself go." He had friends who had migrated to the "States," and admitted that the wages were much larger than in England, but added that, as the expense of living was so much greater, there was not much in it. I did not remind him that the greater expense meant also better living conditions, for I wanted to hear him talk. He complained that our people worked longer hours than they did, and were so tired at the end of the day that they could not enjoy the rest when it came. He wanted to know if the tariff helped our trade. I laughed and told him there was great difference of opinion on that subject, and that I did not pretend to be an authority, but was inclined to think that the willingness of the workers to use new machinery had more to do with our prosperity than anything the government did.

"Ay," said he, "that is what the masters tell us, but we do not heed them. We know that this new machinery can be speeded up till a man's heart is broke."

It was not the man's opinion that interested me so much as his willingness to talk; for I had heard frequent complaints that the working men would talk freely only with their mates. But I got a new light on that, for, when we had risen and sung "God Save the King," my neighbor turned to me and said: "You will excuse me if I have talked too free, but this is the first time in my life that I ever talked with a gentleman."

I could have wept. "But," I said, "you must often have talked to the vicar?"

"Ay," he replied, "but he is a _man_." And with this cryptic saying I had to be content!

One other thing he told me that I am sure will interest you. He said that in the dark days of the cotton famine, during our Civil War, he could remember as a little boy seeing his father go, with many others, to receive the food distributed to the poor. "That was the only time any of my name received anything from the rates, and it was bitter hard for father. There were men who came up from Liverpool and told us that if the working men of Lancashire would send a deputation to Parliament, the war would be stopped, and we could get cotton to open the mills. But my father was one of those who said that it was the cause of free labor you were fighting for, and that if the men would hold on a bit, God would come to our help. He learned that, I now know, from John Bright. And so the men held out. But it was hard." Isn't that fine? And doesn't it make Lord John Russell and Gladstone look cheap?

By some ill chance Rose and I got separated from the rest of the party, and the van drove off without us. When Rose learned this, she thought it a huge joke, and said we should have to walk. I said: "Not on your life!" This familiar saying filled her with delight, and she cried: "Oh, I say, that is a jolly saying; I must tell that to Dick, and he can take it back to school!"

"That is all very well," said I, "but what is going to take us back to home?"

She suggested a "fly." I solemnly remarked that I did not believe there was a fly big enough to carry us both.

She looked at me for a moment in astonishment and then cried: "Why, I believe you are thinking of an _insect_!"

I asked what else one could think of. She pondered this a moment and then said she believed I was making game of her. Nothing, I assured her, was farther from my thoughts.

"Well," she said, "if you are sure you don't know, I will tell you; a fly is something that a horse pulls."

I asked if it was a cart. But apparently she had given me up as hopeless, and taking me by the hand, led me to a livery-stable, where the proprietor produced a fly and announced that the price would be ten shillings, and asked if he should "put it down" to the vicar. Rose looked much alarmed at this, and was proportionately relieved when I paid the amount.

There was silence for a little space after we started, and then Rose said, as if to herself: "Daddy would have walked."

"Yes," I replied, "but you must remember he is over six feet tall, and his stride is about three-foot-three, whereas I step only about two-foot-six; so you can calculate how much longer it would take me to walk seven miles than it would him."

"Don't you hate arithmetic?" she exclaimed.

I admitted that I was not fond of it.

"I simply _loathe_ it," she declared. "Such a silly thing, I call it! Why should one spend _hours_ in trying to find out how many yards of carpet it takes to cover the schoolroom floor, when all one has to do is to run through Tod Lane and ask Mr. Small, who keeps the shop, and he can tell in a moment, without even looking at a book."

"But suppose Mr. Small thought it to his advantage to sell you more carpet than you needed?"

"Why, he wouldn't do such a thing," she indignantly replied; "he is a churchwarden."

There was another short silence and then she began again: "Ten shillings is a lot of money."

I agreed.

"However," she continued, "I suppose it doesn't signify. Americans are very rich, are they not?"

I said some were.

"But you must be to hand out ten shillings just like that."

"Oh, I don't know. My share is only five shillings. You will pay half, will you not?"

"_Not living!_" she hastily exclaimed. "There, I have that wrong. Please say it again." When I had repeated the familiar slang, she echoed it. Evidently it gave her great satisfaction, for I heard her muttering it to herself over and over again. Finally she said: "That _is_ a jolly saying." Then, with apparent irrelevance--but that no doubt was due to my slowness in following her mental processes--"I am glad you came."

I laughed and said I was glad too.

"Not," continued this artless young person, "that we were glad when we first heard you were coming--I mean except daddy. Mother said: 'Dear me! I fear he will expect a bathroom to himself!' And Dick said: 'Is he as dirty as all that?' Even daddy laughed at that. And Dick was so much pleased with himself that he got a bit above himself, and went on to say that all Americans were 'bounders.' So daddy stopped his 'sweet,' and he _did_ look silly! But it seems to me you are just like other people, only rather '_droll_.'"

As we drew near the house she evidently began to think that, after all, Dick might be an authority on "bounders," for she remarked, with studied carelessness: "I shouldn't think it necessary to repeat at home everything we have been talking about."

I gravely assured her that I made it a rule never to repeat the conversation I had had with the young lady I took buggy-riding.

"Buggy-riding?" she cried; "what is that?"

"Why, what you call a fly, we call a buggy."

Her reaction was rather deliberate, but finally she exclaimed: "Oh, I see. 'Bug' and 'fly.' That's awfully good. I must tell Dick that!"

XXII

AN "AVERAGE" SUNDAY