"You said he was an Australian," said d.i.c.kson, casting back. "But I thought Australians had a queer accent, like the English."
"They"ve all kind of accents, but you can never mistake their voice.
It"s got the sun in it. Canadians have got grinding ice in theirs, and Virginians have got b.u.t.ter. So have the Irish. In Britain there are no voices, only speaking tubes. It isn"t safe to judge men by their accent only. You yourself I take to be Scotch, but for all I know you may be a senator from Chicago or a Boer General."
"I"m from Glasgow. My name"s d.i.c.kson McCunn." He had a faint hope that the announcement might affect the other as it had affected the bagman at Kilchrist.
"Golly, what a name!" exclaimed the young man rudely.
d.i.c.kson was nettled. "It"s very old Highland," he said. "It means the son of a dog."
"Which--Christian name or surname?" Then the young man appeared to think he had gone too far, for he smiled pleasantly. "And a very good name too. Mine is prosaic by comparison. They call me John Heritage."
"That," said d.i.c.kson, mollified, "is like a name out of a book. With that name by rights you should be a poet."
Gloom settled on the young man"s countenance. "It"s a dashed sight too poetic. It"s like Edwin Arnold and Alfred Austin and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Great poets have vulgar monosyllables for names, like Keats.
The new Shakespeare when he comes along will probably be called Grubb or Jubber, if he isn"t Jones. With a name like yours I might have a chance.
_You_ should be the poet."
"I"m very fond of reading," said d.i.c.kson modestly.
A slow smile crumpled Mr. Heritage"s face. "There"s a fire in the smoking-room," he observed as he rose. "We"d better bag the armchairs before these fishing louts take them." d.i.c.kson followed obediently. This was the kind of chance acquaintance for whom he had hoped, and he was prepared to make the most of him.
The fire burned bright in the little dusky smoking-room, lighted by one oil-lamp. Mr. Heritage flung himself into a chair, stretched his long legs and lit a pipe.
"You like reading?" he asked. "What sort? Any use for poetry?"
"Plenty," said d.i.c.kson. "I"ve aye been fond of learning it up and repeating it to myself when I had nothing to do. In church and waiting on trains, like. It used to be Tennyson, but now it"s more Browning. I can say a lot of Browning."
The other screwed his face into an expression of disgust. "I know the stuff. "Damask cheeks and dewy sister eyelids." Or else the Ercles vein--"G.o.d"s in His Heaven, all"s right with the world." No good, Mr.
McCunn. All back numbers. Poetry"s not a thing of pretty round phrases or noisy invocations. It"s life itself, with the tang of the raw world in it--not a sweetmeat for middle-cla.s.s women in parlours."
"Are you a poet, Mr. Heritage?"
"No, Dogson, I"m a paper-maker."
This was a new view to Mr. McCunn. "I just once knew a paper-maker," he observed reflectively. "They called him Tosh. He drank a bit."
"Well, I don"t drink," said the other. "I"m a paper-maker, but that"s for my bread and b.u.t.ter. Some day for my own sake I may be a poet."
"Have you published anything?"
The eager admiration in d.i.c.kson"s tone gratified Mr. Heritage. He drew from his pocket a slim book. "My firstfruits," he said, rather shyly.
d.i.c.kson received it with reverence. It was a small volume in grey paper boards with a white label on the back, and it was lettered: "_Whorls--John Heritage"s Book_." He turned the pages and read a little.
"It"s a nice wee book," he observed at length.
"Good G.o.d, if you call it nice, I must have failed pretty badly," was the irritated answer.
d.i.c.kson read more deeply and was puzzled. It seemed worse than the worst of Browning to understand. He found one poem about a garden ent.i.tled "Revue." "Crimson and resonant clangs the dawn," said the poet. Then he went on to describe noonday:
"Sunflowers, tall Grenadiers, ogle the roses" short-skirted ballet.
The fumes of dark sweet wine hidden in frail petals Madden the drunkard bees."
This seemed to him an odd way to look at things, and he boggled over a phrase about an "epicene lily." Then came evening: "The painted gauze of the stars flutters in a fold of twilight c.r.a.pe," sang Mr. Heritage; and again, "The moon"s pale leprosy sloughs the fields."
d.i.c.kson turned to other verses which apparently enshrined the writer"s memory of the trenches. They were largely compounded of oaths, and rather horrible, lingering lovingly over sights and smells which every one is aware of, but most people contrive to forget. He did not like them. Finally he skimmed a poem about a lady who turned into a bird. The evolution was described with intimate anatomical details which scared the honest reader.
He kept his eyes on the book for he did not know what to say. The trick seemed to be to describe nature in metaphors mostly drawn from music-halls and haberdashers" shops, and, when at a loss, to fall to cursing. He thought it frankly very bad, and he laboured to find words which would combine politeness and honesty.
"Well?" said the poet.
"There"s a lot of fine things here, but--but the lines don"t just seem to scan very well."
Mr. Heritage laughed. "Now I can place you exactly. You like the meek rhyme and the conventional epithet. Well, I don"t. The world has pa.s.sed beyond that prettiness. You want the moon described as a Huntress or a gold disc or a flower--I say it"s oftener like a beer barrel or a cheese. You want a wealth of jolly words and real things ruled out as unfit for poetry. I say there"s nothing unfit for poetry. Nothing, Dogson! Poetry"s everywhere, and the real thing is commoner among drabs and pot-houses and rubbish heaps than in your Sunday parlours. The poet"s business is to distil it out of rottenness, and show that it is all one spirit, the thing that keeps the stars in their place.... I wanted to call my book "_Drains_," for drains are sheer poetry, carrying off the excess and discards of human life to make the fields green and the corn ripen. But the publishers kicked. So I called it "_Whorls_," to express my view of the exquisite involution of all things. Poetry is the fourth dimension of the soul.... Well, let"s hear about your taste in prose."
Mr. McCunn was much bewildered, and a little inclined to be cross. He disliked being called Dogson, which seemed to him an abuse of his etymological confidences. But his habit of politeness held.
He explained rather haltingly his preferences in prose.
Mr. Heritage listened with wrinkled brows.
"You"re even deeper in the mud than I thought," he remarked. "You live in a world of painted laths and shadows. All this pa.s.sion for the picturesque! Trash, my dear man, like a schoolgirl"s novelette heroes.
You make up romances about gipsies and sailors and the blackguards they call pioneers, but you know nothing about them. If you did, you would find they had none of the gilt and gloss you imagine. But the great things they have got in common with all humanity you ignore. It"s like--it"s like sentimentalising about a pancake because it looked like a b.u.t.tercup, and all the while not knowing that it was good to eat."
At that moment the Australian entered the room to get a light for his pipe. He wore a motor-cyclist"s overalls and appeared to be about to take the road. He bade them good night and it seemed to d.i.c.kson that his face, seen in the glow of the fire, was drawn and anxious, unlike that of the agreeable companion at dinner.
"There," said Mr. Heritage, nodding after the departing figure. "I dare say you have been telling yourself stories about that chap--life in the bush, stock-riding and the rest of it. But probably he"s a bank-clerk from Melbourne.... Your romanticism is one vast self-delusion and it blinds your eye to the real thing. We have got to clear it out and with it all the d.a.m.nable humbug of the Kelt."
Mr. McCunn, who spelt the word with a soft "C," was puzzled. "I thought a kelt was a kind of a no-weel fish," he interposed.
But the other, in the flood-tide of his argument, ignored the interruption. "That"s the value of the war," he went on. "It has burst up all the old conventions, and we"ve got to finish the destruction before we can build. It is the same with literature and religion and society and politics. At them with the axe, say I. I have no use for priests and pedants. I"ve no use for upper cla.s.ses and middle cla.s.ses.
There"s only one cla.s.s that matters, the plain man, the workers, who live close to life."
"The place for you," said d.i.c.kson dryly, "is in Russia among the Bolsheviks."
Mr. Heritage approved. "They are doing a great work in their own fashion. We needn"t imitate all their methods--they"re a trifle crude and have too many Jews among them--but they"ve got hold of the right end of the stick. They seek truth and reality."
Mr. McCunn was slowly being roused.
"What brings you wandering hereaways?" he asked.
"Exercise," was the answer. "I"ve been kept pretty closely tied up all winter. And I want leisure and quiet to think over things."
"Well, there"s one subject you might turn your attention to. You"ll have been educated like a gentleman?"
"Nine wasted years--five at Harrow, four at Cambridge."
"See here, then. You"re daft about the working-cla.s.s and have no use for any other. But what in the name of goodness do you know about working-men?... I come out of them myself, and have lived next door to them all my days. Take them one way and another, they"re a decent sort, good and bad like the rest of us. But there"s a wheen daft folk that would set them up as models--close to truth and reality, says you. It"s sheer ignorance, for you"re about as well acquaint with the working-man as with King Solomon. You say I make up fine stories about tinklers and sailor-men because I know nothing about them. That"s maybe true. But you"re at the same job yourself. You ideelise the working-man, you and your kind, because you"re ignorant. You say that he"s seeking for truth, when he"s only looking for a drink and a rise in wages. You tell me he"s near reality, but I tell you that his notion of reality is often just a short working day and looking on at a footba"-match on Sat.u.r.day.... And when you run down what you call the middle-cla.s.ses that do three-quarters of the world"s work and keep the machine going and the working man in a job, then I tell you you"re talking havers. Havers!"