A CHAT ON BOOKS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2667, 26 April 1905, Page 62

A CHAT ON BOOKS.

'•The RoacTmendn-," by Michael Fairless, is a little book whose name alone passed between vs — at Christinas time it was, I think — Vnen. we spoke of those books near and clear and intimate enough to be "Goodnight books." There are three delicately beautiful essays bound in the little volume of which "The Roadxnender," as being name-giver, comes first. Under his cruise of "roadman," as we should call him, or stonebreaker on an English country road, the writer finds a point of view as novel and unfamiliar to us as the characters whose pom-aits «'.s passers-by lie paints ■with tenderness, deep insight, and the sunshine of a Avhimsical humour. The little pictures stand, perfect, clear, and fine as a cameo cut in the days of Benvenuto Cellini, when men worked to the realisation that "Art is long, life is brief" ; and each small cameo is linked to its fellows by delicate chains of reflection, allusion, ■viliimsical philosophy, deep devotion. "All day I sit by the roadside on a stretch of grass under a high hedge of saplings and a tangle of traveller's joy,

woodbine, cweetbriar, and kite roses. Opposite me is a white gate, seldom used, if one may judge by the trail of honeysuckle growing tranquilly along it. I know now that whenever and wherever I die, my soul will nass out through this whits gate. . . . "On Sundays my feet take ever the same way," he says, and tells of his early tramp 'over the dewy fields, "with their ineffable earthy smell," till a little church at the foot- of the grey-green down is reached. "Here every Sunday a young priest from a neighbouring village says Mass for the tiny hamiet. where all are very old or very young — for the hey-day of life has no part under the long shadow of the lulls, tMt is away at sea or in service. There is a beaut if id seemliness in the extreme youth of the priest who serves these aged children of God." The Roadmendev comes right into my , innermost sympathies when, service over, he tramps cheerfully but longingly on ( through the fields and over the downs, till — "I stand on the summit, hatless. wind in _ my hair, smack of salt on my cheek, all around me rolling stretches of cloud shadowed down, no sound but the shrill mourn of the peewit and the gathering of the sea. The hours pass, the shadows lengthen, the sheep bell? clang ; and I lie in my niche under the stunted hawthorn . . . I love the sea, with its impene- ', trable fathoms, its wash and undeitow, and rasp of shingle sucked anew. I love it for its secret dead in the caverns of peace . . . Yet in 1113' love there is a paradox, for as I watch the restless, ineffective waves, I think of the measureless reflective depths of the still and silent sea of glass." "Monday brings the joy of work, second ! only to the Sabbath of "rest, and I settle to my heap by the white gate. . . Two tramps come and fling themselves by me as I eat my noonday meal. One, red-eyed, furtive, lies on his side with restless, clutching hands that tear and twist and torture the living grass . . The other sits stooped, bare-footed, his face almost las grey as his stubby beard ; and it is not |

long since death looked him in the eyes. Querulously he tells me of a 200-mile tramp since early spring, of search for work, casual jobs with more kicks than half-pence, and a brie? but blissful sojourn m a hospital bed, from which he was dismissed with sentence passed upon him. For himself, Le is detei mined to die on the road under a hedge, where a man can see and breathe. His anxiety is all for his, fellow" (I like our own friendly "mate better) : "he has said he will 'do for a man,' he wants to 'swing,' to escape from his dog's life. . . Ignorance, hunger, terror, the exhaustion of past generations have done their work — the man is mad.'

Another tlav's lecord begins with a fair omen. The first passer-by is a young girl cycling. She stops to ask for a piece of string to tighten her dress-guard, and in kindliest recognition of the Roadmender's help "she took a Niphetos rose from her belt and laid it shyly in my dirty, disfigured palm. I bared 'my head, and stood, hat in hand, looking- after her as she rode away up the hill."

Here is a touch of sentiment, courtly and knightly; but the next pas&er-by pricks the sense of humour : a fellowworker, who. loitering alone; to his day's toil, stays to peer at our friend's needless energy, and sympathetically queries, '\Seen better days?" to which the emphatic "never," fills him with pitying amazement. With pardonable pride he notes his own personal superiority, and with 9 few light touches of autobiography justifies it. " Xow I 'are seen better days : worked in a big Irewery over near Maidstone — a town that, aii' somethin' doin' : and now 'ere I am 'ammering me 'cart out on these blarsted stones for a bit o' bread

an' a pipe o' "baccy once a week — it ain't good enough." Which :onversatiop. leaves our gentle Roadmaker ruminating on many things — how labour might be a joy, and is a curse. " The swift stride of civilisation," he reflects, "is leaving behind individual effort, ancl turning msn into the Dseinon of a machine. To and fro in front of the long loom, lifting a lever at mher end. paces he who onoe with painstaking intelligence drove the shuttle. Then he tasted the joy of completed work • that Avhich his eye had looked upon and his hand had handled ; now his work is ns> little finished as the web of Penelope. Once the reaper grasped the golden corn stems, and with dexterous sweep of sickle set free the treasure of the earth. Once the creatures of the field were known to him, and his eye caught the flare of scarlet and blue as the fi ail poppies and sturdy corn-cockles laid down their beauty at hi^ i'eet ; now he sits serene on Juggernaut's Car, its guiding Daemon, and the field is silent to him." So the day wears on, the heavy waggons and carts pass slowly by, the hoises sweating, straining, and fly-ridden, their drivers drowsing lazily on the shaft, dozing in the warm shadow of the load — one of them only tramped patiently through the white dust beside his horses, and found time for a cheery word ancl a friendly hand sometimes upon the tired shatter's neck— and noon brings the Roadmaker a welcome hour of rest. Presently his shady refuge under the lee of the hedge attracts two weary travellers, who pause and sit down beside him — an old woman, seventy if a day, but tall, orect, and facing the world with dauntless spirit yet ; and a little child of four — just a wee girl, — whose small wardrobe exactly t copies in miniature the grandmother's : ! like her she wc.a-s an enormous sunbonnet; like her she carries a basket, but her load is increased by the safe cariiagc of a little black kitten. It was impossible for the grandmother to leave the little orphan grandchild at home alone ; the child in her turn felt it [as impossible to leave the kitten ! Just

a little sad story of life : the son who waaway soldiering : of death, the young mother who died in childbirth : of love, which took the little one to feed and clothe and begin anew for her life s burdens when it was tune to lay them down !

The child is left by the Roadmender, who promises to take care of the tired, old-fashioned little being until the old woman finishes her errand and returns. "Presently an old man came by, lame and bent, with gnarled, twisted hands, leaning heavily on. his stick.'" He is attracted by the child, and siis down to rest beside' her. explaining that she is like a little grandchild he has just left. "It's "ard on us old folks when were one too many ; but the little mouths must be filled, and my son "c said 'c didn't see they could keep me, with another child on the war. so I'm tramping it * - the House — but it's a 'ard pinch. lot the little uns !"

A typical countryman — white hrtir. mild blue eyes, and a rosy, childish, unwrinkled face. '"I'm eighty-four." •he went on. "and terrible bad with the rheumatics and my chest. Maybe it'll not he long before the Lord remembers me."

The child, hearing the sad thin voice, creeps close and puts a stiekv little hand into the tired old palm, and oft'eis him the freedom of her friendship vith "'Ook at mv kitty."

"The two under the hedgerov had everything in common, and were boundlessly content t-mether : the sting of the knowledge of good and evil past for the one, and for the other still to come '" The ending of this little incident in the lives of the poor and patient is like a wintrygleam of sunshine beautiful with suggestion. The old grandmother, returning from her errand, recognises in the »veary tramp a friend and comrade of her dead husband. All her kind heart and peasant - pride rise in sympathetic protest against his ending his life in the abhorred workhouse.

"No. Richard Hunt on. you don't ao to the House while I'm above ground ; it'd make my good man turn to think of it. You'll come 'ome with me and the little un there. I've my washin' and a bit put by for a rainy day, and a bed to spare, and the Lord and the parson '11 see I don't come to want." So the old man slowly accepts the friendly hospitality which saves him from the hated "House" in the pathetic, grudging phrase of the poor, which veils their gratitude while it. testifies their independence — ''" VI "" 1-°1 -° 1 might as well,' he says. The climax of this eventful day of varied chance companionships comes as the three odds-and^-eTlcls of humanity moke ready to take the road together. "'"Mrs Jakes had been fumbling in her pockp* extracted a penny, which she -n me.

'" "It's little enough, mister,' she said

"Then as I tried to return it : ' Nay, I've enough, and yours is poor paid work.' " The day that began with the kindly offering of the Niphetos rose ends with the homely generosity of the permy — • truly a day to temember ; and so our friend feels, for "I hope I shall always be able to keep that penny ; and as I watched the three going down the dusty white road, with the child in the middle. I thanked God for the Brotherhood of the Pool."

To reproduce for you these little cameos of a country day and road has taken longer than I anticipated — my thought in doing it was dual : to give you the freedom of a delightful book, and to let the Roadmender read us a sermon in stone that he himself has preached unintentionally. Just the impulse to thankfulness for our fair new land of peace and plenty, where no shadows of patient, sorrowful, hopeless poverty need dim the sunshine of our happy life. There are so many fresh, fragrant, and appealing passages in the remaining essays —'put of the Shadow" and "At the White Gale" — that we may perhaps spend another spare half -hour in this quiet company.