Here, There and Everywhere Part 11

I like the name "The Tavern of the Ocean," formerly given to Capetown; and what a welcome break it must have afforded in the wearisome voyage from Europe to the Dutch East Indies, or to India proper! The Netherlands Dutch seem only to have regarded it as a half-way house, a sort of unimportant railway "halt" between Europe and the East, where the necessary fresh water and green vegetables could be supplied to pa.s.sing vessels. It was not until Simon Van der Stel was appointed Governor in 1678 that any idea of developing the Cape as a colony was ever entertained. Van der Stel has left his impress deep on the country. Though the vine had been already introduced by Van Riebeck, it is to Van der Stel that the special features of Cape scenery are due, for we owe to him the splendid groves of oak of to-day, and he originated the Dutch Colonial type of building, of which so many fine specimens still remain. These old Dutch houses are a constant puzzle to me. In most new countries the original white settlers content themselves with the most primitive kind of dwelling, for where there is so much work to be done the ornamental yields place to the necessary; but here, at the very extremity of the African continent, the Dutch pioneers created for themselves elaborate houses with admirable architectural details, houses recalling in some ways the _chateaux_ of the Low Countries. Where did they get the architects to design these buildings? Where did they find the trained craftsmen to execute the architects' designs? Why did the settlers, struggling with the difficulties of an untamed wilderness, require such large and ornate dwellings? I have never heard any satisfactory answers to these questions. Groot Constantia, originally the home of Simon Van der Stel, now the government wine-farm, and Morgenster, the home of Mrs. Van der Byl, would be beautiful buildings anywhere, but considering that they were both erected in the seventeenth century, in a land just emerging from barbarism seven thousand miles away from Europe, a land, too, where trained workmen must have been impossible to find, the very fact of their ever having come into existence at all leaves me in bewilderment.

These Colonial houses, most admirably adapted to a warm climate, correspond to nothing in Holland, or even in Java. They are nearly all built in the shape of an H, either standing upright or lying on its side, the connecting bar of the H being occupied by the dining-room.

They all stand on stoeps or raised terraces; they are always one-storied and thatched, and owe much of their effect to their gables, their many-paned, teak-framed windows, and their solid teak outside shutters. Their white-washed, gabled fronts are ornamented with pilasters and decorative plaster-work, and these dignified, perfectly proportioned buildings seem in absolute harmony with their surroundings. Still I cannot understand how they got erected, or why the original Dutch pioneers chose to house themselves in such lordly fashion. At Groot Constantia, which still retains its original furniture, the rooms are paved with black and white marble, and contain a wealth of great cabinets of the familiar Dutch type, of ebony mounted with silver, of stinkwood and bra.s.s, of oak and steel; one might be gazing at a Dutch interior by Jan Van de Meer, or by Peter de Hoogh, instead of at a room looking on to the Indian Ocean, and only eight miles distant from the Cape of Good Hope. How did these elaborate works of art come there? The local legend is that they were copied by slave labour from imported Dutch models, but I cannot believe that untrained Hottentots can ever have developed the craftsmanship and skill necessary to produce these fine pieces of furniture. I think it far more likely to be due to the influx of French Huguenot refugees in 1689, the Edict of Nantes having been revoked in 1685, the same year in which Simon Van der Stel began to build Groot Constantia. Wherever these French Huguenots settled they brought civilisation in their train, and proved a blessing to the country of their adoption. In England they taught us silk-weaving and clock-making, starting the one in Spitalfields, the other in Clerkenwell. In Dublin, where a strong colony of them settled, they introduced the making of tabinet, or "Irish poplin," and I am told that the much-sought-after "Irish" silver was almost entirely the work of French Huguenot refugees. Here, at the far-off Cape, the Huguenots settled in the valleys of the Drakenstein, of the Hottentot's Holland, and at French Hoek; and they made the wilderness blossom, and transformed its barren s.p.a.ces into smiling wheatfields and oak-shaded vineyards. They incidentally introduced the dialect of Dutch known as "The Taal," for when the speaking of Dutch was made compulsory for them, they evolved a simplified form of the language more adapted to their French tongues. I suspect, too, that the artistic impulse which produced the dignified Colonial houses, and built so beautiful a town as Stellenbosch (a name with most painful a.s.sociations for many military officers whose memories go back twenty years) must have come from the French. Stellenbosch, with its two-hundred-year-old houses, their fronts rich with elaborate plaster scroll-work, all its streets shaded with avenues of giant oaks and watered by two clear streams, is such an inexplicable town to find in a new country, for it might have hundreds of years of tradition behind it! Wherever they may have got it from, the artistic instinct of the old Cape Dutch is undeniable, for a hundred years after Van der Stel's time they imported the French architect Thibault and the Dutch sculptor Anton Anreith. To Anreith is due the splendid sculptured pediment over the Constantia wine-house ill.u.s.trating the story of Ganymede, and all Thibault's buildings have great distinction; but still, being where they are, they are a perpetual surprise, for in a new country one does not expect such a high level of artistic achievement.

Many of the fine old Colonial homesteads are grouped together in what are now the Rhodes Fruit Farms in the Drakenstein. So attractive are they that I do not wonder that a very near relative of mine has bought one of them for his son; and I envy my great-nephew who will one day sit under the shadow of his own vines and fig trees at Lormarins, amongst groves of peaches, apricots and plums. I cherish pleasant recollections of a visit to Boschendaal, also in the Fruit Farm district, a delightful old house, standing over a jungle of a garden where a brook babbles through thickets of orange and lemon trees, and amongst great tangles of bougainvillaa and pink oleanders, and in whose shady dining-hall I was hospitably entertained by a Dutch farmer on an omelette of ostrich's egg (one egg is enough for six people), on "most-bolajie" (bread made with sweet new wine instead of with water), and other local delicacies, including "mabos," or alternate slices of dry salted peaches and dry sweetened apricots. This condiment is cynically known as married life. In the _voorhuis_ of Boschendaal lay nineteen fine leopard skins, and Mr. Louw, the courtly mannered old farmer, who would be described by his countrymen as an "oprechter Burger," explained to me in slow and laborious English that he had killed every one of these leopards with his own hand within one mile of his own house.

A most attractive land were it not for the aridity. Should I settle there I should be forever regretfully recalling the lush greenery of English meadows in June, or of English woods in spring-time.

Just conceive of Van der Stel's astonishment when he first reached the Cape! He must have been used to a small, dead-flat, water-logged land, with odoriferous ca.n.a.ls at every turn, and thousands of windmills pumping day and night for all they were worth to keep the country afloat at all; after a voyage of seven thousand miles he found himself in a land of mighty mountain ranges, of vast, illimitable distances, parched by a fierce sun, and nearly waterless. It must have needed immense courage to start the founding of a New Holland in such (to him) uncongenial surroundings. As a tribute to the adaptable South African climate, I may say that I have myself seen, on Sir Thomas Smartt's well-watered farm, apple trees and orange trees fruiting and ripening in the same field.

When I was invited to go surf-bathing at Muizenberg, I rubbed my eyes, for I had vague ideas that this pastime was confined to South Sea Islanders. Recollections of Ballantyne's books crowded in on me; of apparently harmless sandal-wood traders, who unblushingly doubled the part of bloodthirsty pirates with their peaceful avocations; of bevies of swarthy but merry maidens rolling in on their planks on the top of vast surges; of possibly some hideous banquet of taro roots and "long pig" (baked over hot stones under a cover of plantain leaves) to follow on these primitive pastimes; even perhaps of some coloured captive maiden, wreathed in hibiscus flowers, loudly proclaiming her distaste at the idea of being compulsorily converted into "long pig."

I should, of course, have had to rescue her after exhibiting prodigies of valour, to find this dumb but devoted damsel clinging to me like a leech, remaining a most embarra.s.sing appendage until she had learned sufficient English to answer "I will," when I could have united her to a suitable mate, a copper-coloured yet contented bride.

When Capetown swelters in heat, Muizenberg is generally ten degrees cooler, though, most obligingly, the water of the Indian Ocean at Muizenberg is ten degrees warmer than that of the Atlantic at Capetown, owing to the Antarctic current setting in to the latter.

At Muizenberg we found half the population of South Africa in the water in front of the biggest bathing-house I have ever seen. The handling of the surf-plank requires some care, for it is a short, heavy board, and in the back-wash is apt to fly back on the unwary, hitting them on their food-receptacle, and effectually (to use a schoolboy term) "bagging their wind." You walk out in the shoal water up to your shoulders, and as a big sea comes in, you throw yourself chest foremost on to your plank, and are then carried along on the top of the roller at the pace of a leisurely train (an Isle of Wight train), to be deposited with a bang on the sandy beach. It is really capital fun, but alas for my flower-wreathed South Sea Island maidens!

Excluding our own party I only saw many amply waisted ladies disporting themselves staidly in the water, and the surrounding cinemas and tea-shops might have been at Brighton, except that they were far smarter and much better kept. Owing to the strongly marked facial characteristics of some of the customers in these places, who were mostly from Johannesburg, I at first imagined that I must have wandered inadvertently into Jerusalem, or that I had perhaps drifted to some fashionable health resort on the sh.o.r.es of the Dead Sea.

Groote Schuur, the stately house built by Cecil Rhodes for himself, and by his will bequeathed as the official home of the Premier of South Africa, became very familiar to me. These modern adaptations of the Dutch Colonial style have one marked advantage over their originals. In the old houses the stoep is merely an uncovered terrace on which the house stands. In the modern houses the stoep is a shady, pillared, covered gallery, which in hot weather becomes the general living-room of the family. Having built his house, Cecil Rhodes employed agents to hunt up in Holland fine specimens of genuine old Dutch furniture with which to plenish it. Some of these agents surely exceeded their instructions in the matter of grandfather clocks. They must have absolutely denuded the Low Countries of these useful timepieces, for at every step at Groote Schuur a fresh solemn-faced Dutch clock ticks gravely away, to remind one how time is pa.s.sing.

Rhodes collected a very fine library, but he had a curious fad for typewritten copies of his favourite books, which fill an entire bookcase in the library. Rhodes paid an immense price for the splendid set of seventeenth-century Brussels tapestries in the dining-room, ill.u.s.trating the "Discovery of Africa," and the magnificent Cordova leather in the drawing-room must also have been a costly acquisition.

The deep ravine running beside the house he had planted with blue hydrangeas throughout its length; when these are in flower, interspersed with scarlet and orange cannas, they form the most glorious ma.s.s of colour imaginable, as do the hedges of pink and white oleanders in the garden, each one with its smaller, attendant clipped hedge of pale-blue plumbago.

To me, I confess, the most interesting thing in the house was General Botha himself. When he talked of the future of South Africa in slow, rather laboured English (for this medium was always a little difficult for him), one felt that one was in the presence of a really great man.

His transparent honesty, and his obvious sincerity of purpose, stood out as clearly as his strong common sense. On looking at his powerful, almost stern, face, one realised that here was a man who would allow nothing to turn him from his purpose once he was convinced that he was right; a man, too, to whom anything in the way of underhand intrigue, or backstairs negotiations, would be temperamentally repugnant. The chivalrous foeman had become the most loyal ally, and an ally of whom the entire British Empire should be proud. There was nothing tortuous about the farmer turned soldier, and the soldier turned statesman.

Of Mrs. Botha I should not like to say too much, lest I might be accused of flattery. As I shall presently relate, she was wonderfully kind to a very sick lad whom I brought out to Africa with me.

There is a curious custom in South Africa of drinking tea at eleven o'clock in the morning. So engrained is the habit that the streets of Capetown at eleven o'clock are black with business men rushing from their offices to the nearest tea-shop in search of this reviving draught; in fact, I believe that in offices there is a rigid line of demarcation between the seniors who go out for this indispensable cup of tea and the juniors who have to have it brought them.

At Groote Schuur at eleven o'clock there was always a great gathering for this important ceremony, and naturally the Dutch element usually predominated. I could never find any trace of racial bitterness amongst the men; with some of the women it was rather different.

Onlookers are apt to be more bitterly partisan than those who have taken actual part in the conflict.

A mile or so from Groote Schuur House stands the beautiful Rhodes Memorial, on the slopes of the Devil's Peak. This austere temple of milk-white granite, with the great flight of steps flanked by bronze lions leading up to it, and its backing of pine trees, is in absolute harmony with its surroundings, and its very severity seems typical of the rugged energy of the man whose memory it commemorates. I cannot help wishing, though, that Mr. Herbert Baker, its architect, had built it on rather a larger scale, for its gigantic environment appears to dwarf the monument when seen from a few miles off. Watts's figure of "Physical Energy," to be appreciated, must be seen here in the position for which it was designed. Standing at the foot of the great flight of stairs, with its background of purple mountain, and Africa stretching away endlessly below it, it is really magnificent. The replica erected in Kensington Gardens, and placed with singular infelicity on gra.s.s between an avenue of elm trees, gives but little idea of the effect of the original, towering high over what Rhodes maintained was the finest view in the world, a view extending over the immense expanse of the Cape Flats, and embracing two oceans, with the splendid mountains of Hottentot's Holland in the background. If the bronze rider, gazing with shaded eyes over the Africa that Rhodes loved, is typical of his life, the calm white austerity of the temple in the background seems symbolical of the peace which that restless soul has now found.

The vineyards, oaks and wheatfields of the comparatively well-watered Cape peninsula are not representative of the rest of the Union. Once the train has laboriously clambered 3,000 feet up the Hex River Pa.s.s, real Africa commences. Endless tracts of rolling arid veld, with an atmosphere so clear that it is impossible for a newcomer to determine whether the kopje seen in the distance is five miles, ten miles, or twenty miles away. I quite understand the fascination of these bare stretches of veld and the irresistible attraction which Africa exercises over her children, for it is unlike anything else in the world.

I have a theory that when Moses "removed the swarms of flies from Pharaoh," he banished them to the southern extremity of the continent, where the flies, imagining that their services might some day be required again to plague the Egyptians, have kept themselves in a constant state of mobilisation ever since. In no other way can the plague of flies in South Africa be accounted for.

The wonderful effect of the dry air of the Cape peninsula, and of the drier air of the High Veld in cases of tuberculosis is a matter of common knowledge, for was not Cecil Rhodes himself a standing example of an almost miraculous recovery? All of which brings me to the episode of the Sick Boy, and if I dwell on it at some length I do so intentionally for the comfort and better encouragement of those battling with the same disease. I first met the Sick Boy (hereinafter for the sake of brevity termed the "S.B.") at the house of one of my oldest friends, who had an annual cricket-party for the benefit of his son. Amongst the schoolboy eleven staying in the house was a tall and very thin lad of sixteen, who showed great promise as a bowler. My hostess told me that this boy was suffering from tuberculosis, that he had had to leave Eton at fifteen to undergo a very severe internal operation from which he had only just recovered, and that when the party broke up, he was going straight into a nursing-home to prepare for another equally severe operation. Every time he played cricket he had to be put to bed at once after the match, and to be fed on warm milk. The lad had tremendous pluck; in spite of his weakness he insisted on taking part in the games and amus.e.m.e.nts of the other boys, and proved very good at all of them.

Three years later I met the S.B. again. He had spent the interval entirely in sanatoria and nursing-homes, except for a few months at St. Moritz in the Engadine, and had undergone six major operations, the last one entailing the removal of his left ear, though the external ear had been left. The unfortunate lad, who seemed to have had most of the working "spare parts" of his anatomy removed, was a walking triumph of modern operative surgery, but his disease had clearly made advances. He was then living in an open-air hut at his father's place, and his condition was obviously critical. As I was myself going to South Africa, I proposed to his father (he had lost his mother as a child) that the boy should accompany me, pointing out the wonders the dry South African climate had effected in similar cases, and the advantages of a long sea-voyage. So it was settled. As I was fully alive to the responsibilities I was incurring I took my valet with me, in case additional help should be required. Billy, the S.B., came on board, long, lanky, and pitiably emaciated. His abnormally brilliant colour, and his unnaturally bright eyes betrayed the progress the disease had made with him. He revived at once in the warmth, and I had considerable difficulty in restraining his super-abundant vitality, for he played deck-cricket all day, and entered himself for every single event in the ship's sports, regardless of his very narrow available margin of strength. After arriving in Africa, as the S.B. could not have stood the noise and racket of a big hotel, we found most comfortable quarters in a quiet little place in the delightful suburb of Rondebosch. I wished to go up-country, and as it was obvious that the S.B. could never have stood the heat, fatigue, and dust of long railway journeys during the height of the South African summer, I found myself in a difficult position. I had the most stringent directions from the doctors as to what the S.B.

might or might not do. He was on no account to ride, either a horse or a bicycle; bathing might prove instantly fatal to him; he was only to play cricket, golf, or lawn-tennis in strict moderation, followed each time by a compulsory rest. I knew the S.B. well enough by now to realise that, the moment my back was turned, he would want to do all these things, if merely to show that he could do them as well as anybody else, quite regardless of consequences. Mrs. Botha came to the rescue, and with extraordinary kindness, told me to send the S.B. to Groote Schuur, where she would undertake to look after him. As I have hinted earlier, I have seldom come across so delightful a family as the Bothas, father, mother, sons and daughters alike; so fortunate Billy the S.B. was transferred with his belongings to Groote Schuur, where he was immensely elated at being allowed to use Cecil Rhodes'

sumptuous private bathroom. This bathroom was entirely lined with Oriental alabaster; the bath itself was carved out of a solid block of green marble, and the very bath-taps were exquisitely chiselled bronze Tritons, riding on dolphins. When I returned to Capetown I found the S.B. quite one of the Botha family, being addressed by everybody by his Christian name. He played lawn-tennis and billiards daily with the General, and should he prove refractory (a not infrequent occurrence) the General had only to threaten, "I shall have to make you smoke another of my black cigars, Billy," for the S.B. to capitulate instantly with a shudder, for he had gruesome recollections of the effects one of these powerful home-grown cigars had produced on him upon a previous occasion.

When we sailed from South Africa, Mrs. Botha came down herself to the liner to see that Billy's cabin was comfortable, and that he had all the appliances he required, such as hot-water bottles, etc., and she presented him with a large parcel of home-made delicacies for his exclusive use on the voyage home. Nothing could have exceeded her kindness to this afflicted lad, of whose very existence she had been unaware three months earlier.

Before we had been at sea a week, the S.B. managed to get a sunstroke.

He grew alarmingly ill, and the ship's doctor told me that he had developed tubercular meningitis, and that his recovery was impossible.

I gave the S.B. a hint as to the gravity of his case, but the boy's pluck was indomitable. "I am going to sell that doctor," he said, "for I don't mean to die now. I have sold the doctors twice already when they told me I was dying, and I am going to make this chap look silly, too, for I don't intend to go out." Soon after he relapsed into unconsciousness. Meningitis affects the eyes, and the poor S.B. could not bear one ray of light, so the cabin was carefully darkened, and the electrician replaced the white bulbs in the cabin and alley-way with green ones. As we were approaching the equator the heat in that closed-up cabin was absolutely suffocating, the thermometer standing at over 100 degrees. Still the sick lad felt chilly, and had to be surrounded with hot-water bottles, whilst an ice-pack was placed on his head. I and my valet took it in turns to sit up at nights with him, as every quarter of an hour we had to trickle a teaspoonful of iced milk and brandy into his mouth. As each morning came round, the doctor's astonishment at finding his patient still alive was obvious, and he a.s.sured me again and again that it could only be a question of hours.

One morning my valet, whose turn as night-nurse it was, awoke me at 4 a.m. with the news that "Mr. William has come to again, and is screaming for beef-tea." I went into the cabin, where I found the S.B.

quite conscious, and insistently demanding beef-tea. By sheer grit and force of will the lad had pulled himself out of the very Valley of the Shadow. We got him the best subst.i.tute for beef-tea to be obtained on a liner at 4.30 a.m., and two hours later he was clamouring for more.

His progress to recovery was uninterrupted as soon as we were able to carry him into the open air, his eyes protected by some most ingenious light-proof goggles, cleverly fashioned on board by the second engineer. The S.B. had learnt from the doctor of some strictly private arrangements which I had made with the captain of the ship should his disease unfortunately take a fatal turn. I found him one morning rolling about in his bunk with laughter. "It is really the most comical idea I ever heard of in my life," he spluttered, shaking with merriment. "Fancy carrying me home in the meat-safe! Just imagine father's face when you told him that you had got me down in the refrigerator! I never heard anything so d----d funny," and as fresh humorous possibilities of this novel form of home-coming occurred to him, he grew quite hysterical with laughter. He was immensely amused, too, at learning that during the most critical period of his illness I had got the captain to stop the ship's band, and to rope-off the deck under his cabin window. I will not deny that the S.B. required a good deal of supervision; for instance, when at length allowed a little solid food, I found that he had selected as a suitable invalid repast, some game-pie and a strawberry ice, which had, of course, to be sternly vetoed; he had entered, too, for every event in the ship's sports, and though he was so weak that he could barely stand, he had every intention of competing. I have seldom met any one with such wonderful personal courage as that boy, and he would never yield one inch to his enemy; the strong will was for ever dominating the frail body.

On this voyage we had a number of young people on board who were crossing the equator for the first time, so Neptune kindly offered to leave his ocean depths and to board the ship in the good old-fashioned orthodox style to further these young folks' education. Just as we crossed the Line, the ship was hailed from the sea, her name and destination were ascertained, and she was peremptorily ordered to heave to, Neptune naturally imagining that he was still dealing with sailing ships. The engines were at once stopped, and Neptune, with his Queen, his Doctor, his Barber, his Sea Bears and the rest of his Court, all in their traditional get-up, made their appearance on the upper deck, to the abject terror of some of the little children, who howled dismally at this alarming irruption of half-naked savages with painted faces. I myself enacted Neptune in an airy costume of fish-scales, a crown, and a flowing beard and wig of bright sea-green.

Of course my Trident had not been forgotten. Amphitrite, my queen, was the star-comedian of the South African music-hall stage, and the little man was really extraordinarily funny, keeping up one incessant flow of rather pungent gag, and making the spectators roar with laughter. All the traditional ceremonies and good-natured horseplay were scrupulously adhered to, and some twenty schoolboys and five adults were duly dosed, lathered, shaved, hosed, and then toppled backwards into a huge canvas tank of sea-water, where the boys persisted in swimming about in all their clothes. The proceedings were terminated by Neptune and his entire Court following the neophytes into the tank, and I am afraid that we induced some half-dozen male spectators to accompany us into the tank rather against their will, one old German absolutely fuming with rage at the unprecedented liberty that was being taken with him. During these revels the S.B., though only just convalescent, and still in his bunk, had to be locked into his cabin, or he would have insisted on taking part in them, and would have certainly died an hour afterwards.

Upon the outbreak of war in August, 1914, the S.B. made three attempts to obtain a commission, only to be promptly rejected by the medical officers when they examined him. He then tried to enlist as a private, under a false name, but no doctor would pa.s.s him, so he went as a workman into a Small Arms' Factory, and made rifle-stocks for a year.

The indoor life and the lack of fresh air aggravating his disease, he was forced to abandon this work, when, by some means which I have never yet fathomed, he managed to get a commission in the Royal Air Force. The doctors, being much overworked, let him through without a medical examination, and in due time the S.B. qualified as a pilot, when, owing to engine trouble, he promptly crashed in his seaplane into the North Sea, in January, and was an hour in the water before being rescued. This icy bath somehow arrested the progress of his disease, and he was subsequently sent to the Dardanelles. Here, whilst attempting to bomb Constantinople, the S.B. got shot down and captured by the Turks. During his eighteen months of captivity he underwent the greatest privations from cold and hunger, being insufficiently clad and most insufficiently fed. Upon his release after the Armistice, he was examined by a British doctor, who told him, to his amazement, that every trace of his dire disease had vanished, nor were the most eminent specialists of Harley Street subsequently able to distinguish the faintest lingering signs of tuberculosis. He was completely cured, or rather by his strong willpower he had completely cured himself.

Billy (the term of S.B. being clearly no longer applicable) is now married to a pretty and charming wife; he is the proud father of a st.u.r.dy son, and is putting on weight at an alarming rate, his waistcoat already exhibiting a convexity of outline that would be justifiable only in the case of an alderman. He is a partner in a prosperous West End business, and will be most happy to book any orders you may give him for wine.

I have purposely dwelt at length on the case of the S.B. in order to encourage other sufferers from this disease to realise how strong the personal factor is in their cases, and how much they can help themselves. Here was an apparently hopeless case of tuberculosis, and yet a lad by his indomitable grit and personal courage fought his enemy, continued to fight him, and finally conquered him, all by sheer determination never to give in. Let others in his position take heart of grace and continue the struggle, and may they, too, rout their enemy as the S.B. did. Nil desperandum! I may add that an ice-cold bath of an hour in the North Sea in January, and eighteen months'

incarceration in a Turkish prison, are not absolutely essential items in the cure.

CHAPTER X

In France at the outbreak of war--The _tocsin_--The "Voice of the Bell" at Harrow--Canon Simpson's theory about bells--His "five-tone"

principle--Myself as a London policeman--Experiences with a celebrated church choir--The "Grillroom Club"--Famous members--Arthur Cecil--Some neat answers Sir Leslie Ward--Beerbohm Tree and the vain old member--Amateur supers--Juvenile disillusionment--The Knight--The Baron--Age of romance pa.s.sed.

In July, 1914, I was in Normandy, undergoing medical treatment for a bad leg. Black as the horizon looked towards the end of that month, I personally believed that the storm would blow over, and that the clouds would disperse, as had happened so often previously when the relations between Germany and France had been strained almost to the breaking-point by the megalomaniac of Potsdam.

On the fateful Sat.u.r.day, August 1, 1914, I was at a little old Norman chateau standing on the banks of the placid river Mayenne. It was a glorious afternoon, and I was in a boat on the river fishing with the two daughters of the house. We suddenly saw the local station-master running along the bank in a state of great agitation, brandishing a telegram in his hands. He asked us where he could find "M. le Maire,"

for my host, amongst other things, was mayor of the little neighbouring town, and added with a despairing gesture, "Helas! C'est la guerre!" showing us the official telegram from Paris. We at once landed and accompanied the station-master up to the house, where our host was dumbfounded at the news, for, like me, he had continued to hope against hope. Five minutes later he was knotting the official tricolour scarf round his waist, for it fell to his duty as Maire to read the Decree of Mobilisation in the town, and I accompanied him there. I shall never forget that sight. Sobbing and weeping women everywhere; the older men, who remembered 1870 and knew what this mobilisation meant, endeavouring to master their emotion and to keep up an appearance of calm; the younger men, who were to be thrust into the furnace, standing dazed and anxious-eyed at the prospect of the unknown to-morrow which they were to face. My host, after reading the Decree, added a few words of his own, such words as appeal to the French temperament; brief, full of hope and courage, and breathing that intensely pa.s.sionate love of France which lies at the bottom of every French soul. The Maire then ordered the _tocsin_ to be sounded in half an hour's time, when it would also ring out from every church steeple in France.

The rolling Normandy landscape lay bathed in golden sunshine, the wheatfields ripe for the sickle, and the apple orchards rich in their promise of fruit. There was not one breath of wind to ruffle the sleek surface of the Mayenne, and the wealth of timber of leafy Normandy stood out faintly blue over the tawny stretches of the wheatfields.

The whole scene, flooded with mellow sunshine, seemed to breathe absolute peace.

Suddenly, from a distant church steeple, came two sharp strokes from a bell, then a pause, and then two strokes were repeated. The town we had just left rang out two louder notes, also followed by a pause. It was the _tocsin_ ringing out its terrible message; and yet another steeple sounded its two notes, and another and another. The news rung out by those two sharp strokes is always bad news. The _tocsin_ rings for great fires, for revolution, or, as in this case, for a Declaration of War. Before us lay Normandy, looking inexpressibly peaceful in the evening sunlight, and over that quiet countryside the _tocsin_ was sending its tidings of woe, as it was from every church tower in France. Next morning the only son, the gardener, the coachman, and the man-servant left the old Norman chateau to join their regiments; the son and the gardener never to return to it. To the end of my life I shall remember the weeping women, and the haggard-eyed men in that little town, and the two sharp strokes of the _tocsin_, sounding like the knell of hope.

Nothing can carry a more poignant message than a bell. In my time at Harrow, should a member of the school actually die at Harrow during the term, the school bell was tolled at minute intervals, from 10 to 10.30 p.m., with the great ba.s.s bell of the parish church answering it, also at minute intervals. The school bell, which rang daily at least ten times for school, for chapel, for Bill, or for lock-up, had an exceedingly piercing voice. We were used to hearing it rung quickly, so when it sent out its one shrill note into the unaccustomed night, a note answered in half a minute by the great boom of the bourdon from the Norman church steeple, the effect was most impressive. In my house it was the custom to keep absolute silence during the tolling of the pa.s.sing-bell. The British schoolboy is really a highly emotional creature, though he would sooner die than betray the fact. When the tolling began, boys would troop in their night-clothes into one another's rooms for companionship, and remain there in silence, ill at ease, until the tolling, to every one's relief, ceased. There was another ordeal to be faced, too, at the final concert. Amongst our school songs was one called "The Voice of the Bell," describing the various occasions on which the school bell rang. It had a bright, cheery tune, and was very popular, but there was a special verse, only sung when a boy had actually died at Harrow during the term. The melody of the special verse was the same as that of the other verses, but the harmonies were quite different. It was sung very slowly as a solo to organ accompaniment, and it touched every one. The words were:

"Hard to the stroke, another and another, Ding, ding, ding.

Tolling at night for the pa.s.sing of a brother, Ding, ding, ding, One more life from our life is taken, Work all done, and fellowship forsaken, Playmate sleep--and far away awaken, Ding, ding, ding;"

the "ding, ding, ding" being taken up by the chorus.

All the boys dreaded the singing of this verse, at least I know that I did, for no one felt quite sure of himself, and the little fellows cried quite openly. Three times it was sung during my Harrow days, and always by the same boy, chosen on account of his very sweet voice. He was a friend of mine, and he used to tell me how thankful he was to get through his solo without breaking down, or, as he preferred to put it, "without making an utter a.s.s of myself." I think that this special verse is no longer sung, as being too painful for all concerned.

Whilst on the subject of bells, I may say that the late Canon Simpson of Fittleworth was a great friend of mine. Canon Simpson was an enthusiast about bells, not only about "change-ringing," on which subject he was a recognised authority, but also about the designing and casting of bells. He would talk to me for hours about them, though I know about as much of bells as Nebuchadnezzar knew about jazz-dancing. The Canon maintained that very few bells, either in England or on the continent, were in tune with themselves, and therefore could obviously not be in tune with the rest of the peal.

Every bell gives out five tones. The note struck, or the "tonic"

(which he called the "fundamental"), the octave above it, termed the "nominal," and the octave below it, which he called the "hum note." In a perfect bell these three octaves must be in perfect unison, but they very seldom are. The "nominal," or upper octave, is nearly always sharper than the "fundamental," and the "hum note" is again sharper than that, thus producing an unpleasant effect. Any one listening for it can detect the upper octave, or "nominal," even in a little handbell. Let them listen intently, and they will catch the sharp "ting" of the octave above. The "hum note" in a small bell is almost impossible to hear, but let any one listen to a big ba.s.s bell, and they cannot miss it. It is the "hum note" which sustains the sound, and makes the air quiver and vibrate with pulsations. For many years I have lived under the very shadow of Big Ben, and I can hear its "hum note" persisting for at least ten seconds after the bell has sounded.

Big Ben is a notable instance of a bell out of tune with itself. In addition to the three octaves, every bell gives out a "third" and a "fifth" above the tonic, thus making a perfect chord, and for the bell to be perfect, all these five tones must be in absolute tune with each other. s.p.a.ce prevents my giving details as to how this result can be attained. Under the Canon's tuition I learnt to distinguish the "third," which is at times quite strident, but the "fifth" nearly always eludes me. During Canon Simpson's lifetime he could only get one firm of bell-founders to take his "five-tone" principle seriously.

I may add that English bell-founders tune their bells to the "nominal," whilst Belgian and other continental founders tune them to the "fundamental," both, according to Canon Simpson, essentially wrong in principle.