Chapter: Up at the League, says a friend, there had been one night a brisk
conversational discussion, as to what would happen on the Morrow of the
Revolution, finally shading off into a vigorous statement by various
friends of their views on the future of the fully-developed new society.

Says our friend: Considering the subject, the discussion was
good-tempered; for those present being used to public meetings and after-
lecture debates, if they did not listen to each others' opinions (which
could scarcely be expected of them), at all events did not always attempt
to speak all together, as is the custom of people in ordinary polite
society when conversing on a subject which interests them.  For the rest,
there were six persons present, and consequently six sections of the
party were represented, four of which had strong but divergent Anarchist
opinions.  One of the sections, says our friend, a man whom he knows very
well indeed, sat almost silent at the beginning of the discussion, but at
last got drawn into it, and finished by roaring out very loud, and
damning all the rest for fools; after which befel a period of noise, and
then a lull, during which the aforesaid section, having said good-night
very amicably, took his way home by himself to a western suburb, using
the means of travelling which civilisation has forced upon us like a
habit.  As he sat in that vapour-bath of hurried and discontented
humanity, a carriage of the underground railway, he, like others, stewed
discontentedly, while in self-reproachful mood he turned over the many
excellent and conclusive arguments which, though they lay at his fingers'
ends, he had forgotten in the just past discussion.  But this frame of
mind he was so used to, that it didn't last him long, and after a brief
discomfort, caused by disgust with himself for having lost his temper
(which he was also well used to), he found himself musing on the subject-
matter of discussion, but still discontentedly and unhappily.  "If I
could but see a day of it," he said to himself; "if I could but see it!"

As he formed the words, the train stopped at his station, five minutes'
walk from his own house, which stood on the banks of the Thames, a little
way above an ugly suspension bridge.  He went out of the station, still
discontented and unhappy, muttering "If I could but see it! if I could
but see it!" but had not gone many steps towards the river before (says
our friend who tells the story) all that discontent and trouble seemed to
slip off him.

It was a beautiful night of early winter, the air just sharp enough to be
refreshing after the hot room and the stinking railway carriage.  The
wind, which had lately turned a point or two north of west, had blown the
sky clear of all cloud save a light fleck or two which went swiftly down
the heavens.  There was a young moon halfway up the sky, and as the home-
farer caught sight of it, tangled in the branches of a tall old elm, he
could scarce bring to his mind the shabby London suburb where he was, and
he felt as if he were in a pleasant country place--pleasanter, indeed,
than the deep country was as he had known it.

He came right down to the river-side, and lingered a little, looking over
the low wall to note the moonlit river, near upon high water, go swirling
and glittering up to Chiswick Eyot: as for the ugly bridge below, he did
not notice it or think of it, except when for a moment (says our friend)
it struck him that he missed the row of lights down stream.  Then he
turned to his house door and let himself in; and even as he shut the door
to, disappeared all remembrance of that brilliant logic and foresight
which had so illuminated the recent discussion; and of the discussion
itself there remained no trace, save a vague hope, that was now become a
pleasure, for days of peace and rest, and cleanness and smiling goodwill.

In this mood he tumbled into bed, and fell asleep after his wont, in two
minutes' time; but (contrary to his wont) woke up again not long after in
that curiously wide-awake condition which sometimes surprises even good
sleepers; a condition under which we feel all our wits preternaturally
sharpened, while all the miserable muddles we have ever got into, all the
disgraces and losses of our lives, will insist on thrusting themselves
forward for the consideration of those sharpened wits.

In this state he lay (says our friend) till he had almost begun to enjoy
it: till the tale of his stupidities amused him, and the entanglements
before him, which he saw so clearly, began to shape themselves into an
amusing story for him.

He heard one o'clock strike, then two and then three; after which he fell
asleep again.  Our friend says that from that sleep he awoke once more,
and afterwards went through such surprising adventures that he thinks
that they should be told to our comrades, and indeed the public in
general, and therefore proposes to tell them now.  But, says he, I think
it would be better if I told them in the first person, as if it were
myself who had gone through them; which, indeed, will be the easier and
more natural to me, since I understand the feelings and desires of the
comrade of whom I am telling better than any one else in the world does.





Well, I awoke, and found that I had kicked my bedclothes off; and no
wonder, for it was hot and the sun shining brightly.  I jumped up and
washed and hurried on my clothes, but in a hazy and half-awake condition,
as if I had slept for a long, long while, and could not shake off the
weight of slumber.  In fact, I rather took it for granted that I was at
home in my own room than saw that it was so.

When I was dressed, I felt the place so hot that I made haste to get out
of the room and out of the house; and my first feeling was a delicious
relief caused by the fresh air and pleasant breeze; my second, as I began
to gather my wits together, mere measureless wonder: for it was winter
when I went to bed the last night, and now, by witness of the river-side
trees, it was summer, a beautiful bright morning seemingly of early June.
However, there was still the Thames sparkling under the sun, and near
high water, as last night I had seen it gleaming under the moon.

I had by no means shaken off the feeling of oppression, and wherever I
might have been should scarce have been quite conscious of the place; so
it was no wonder that I felt rather puzzled in despite of the familiar
face of the Thames.  Withal I felt dizzy and queer; and remembering that
people often got a boat and had a swim in mid-stream, I thought I would
do no less.  It seems very early, quoth I to myself, but I daresay I
shall find someone at Biffin's to take me.  However, I didn't get as far
as Biffin's, or even turn to my left thitherward, because just then I
began to see that there was a landing-stage right before me in front of
my house: in fact, on the place where my next-door neighbour had rigged
one up, though somehow it didn't look like that either.  Down I went on
to it, and sure enough among the empty boats moored to it lay a man on
his sculls in a solid-looking tub of a boat clearly meant for bathers.  He
nodded to me, and bade me good-morning as if he expected me, so I jumped
in without any words, and he paddled away quietly as I peeled for my
swim.  As we went, I looked down on the water, and couldn't help saying--

"How clear the water is this morning!"

"Is it?" said he; "I didn't notice it.  You know the flood-tide always
thickens it a bit."

"H'm," said I, "I have seen it pretty muddy even at half-ebb."

He said nothing in answer, but seemed rather astonished; and as he now
lay just stemming the tide, and I had my clothes off, I jumped in without
more ado.  Of course when I had my head above water again I turned
towards the tide, and my eyes naturally sought for the bridge, and so
utterly astonished was I by what I saw, that I forgot to strike out, and
went spluttering under water again, and when I came up made straight for
the boat; for I felt that I must ask some questions of my waterman, so
bewildering had been the half-sight I had seen from the face of the river
with the water hardly out of my eyes; though by this time I was quit of
the slumbrous and dizzy feeling, and was wide-awake and clear-headed.

As I got in up the steps which he had lowered, and he held out his hand
to help me, we went drifting speedily up towards Chiswick; but now he
caught up the sculls and brought her head round again, and said--"A short
swim, neighbour; but perhaps you find the water cold this morning, after
your journey.  Shall I put you ashore at once, or would you like to go
down to Putney before breakfast?"

He spoke in a way so unlike what I should have expected from a
Hammersmith waterman, that I stared at him, as I answered, "Please to
hold her a little; I want to look about me a bit."

"All right," he said; "it's no less pretty in its way here than it is off
Barn Elms; it's jolly everywhere this time in the morning.  I'm glad you
got up early; it's barely five o'clock yet."

If I was astonished with my sight of the river banks, I was no less
astonished at my waterman, now that I had time to look at him and see him
with my head and eyes clear.

He was a handsome young fellow, with a peculiarly pleasant and friendly
look about his eyes,--an expression which was quite new to me then,
though I soon became familiar with it.  For the rest, he was dark-haired
and berry-brown of skin, well-knit and strong, and obviously used to
exercising his muscles, but with nothing rough or coarse about him, and
clean as might be.  His dress was not like any modern work-a-day clothes
I had seen, but would have served very well as a costume for a picture of
fourteenth century life: it was of dark blue cloth, simple enough, but of
fine web, and without a stain on it.  He had a brown leather belt round
his waist, and I noticed that its clasp was of damascened steel
beautifully wrought.  In short, he seemed to be like some specially manly
and refined young gentleman, playing waterman for a spree, and I
concluded that this was the case.

I felt that I must make some conversation; so I pointed to the Surrey
bank, where I noticed some light plank stages running down the foreshore,
with windlasses at the landward end of them, and said, "What are they
doing with those things here?  If we were on the Tay, I should have said
that they were for drawing the salmon nets; but here--"

"Well," said he, smiling, "of course that is what they _are_ for.  Where
there are salmon, there are likely to be salmon-nets, Tay or Thames; but
of course they are not always in use; we don't want salmon _every_ day of
the season."

I was going to say, "But is this the Thames?" but held my peace in my
wonder, and turned my bewildered eyes eastward to look at the bridge
again, and thence to the shores of the London river; and surely there was
enough to astonish me.  For though there was a bridge across the stream
and houses on its banks, how all was changed from last night!  The soap-
works with their smoke-vomiting chimneys were gone; the engineer's works
gone; the lead-works gone; and no sound of rivetting and hammering came
down the west wind from Thorneycroft's.  Then the bridge!  I had perhaps
dreamed of such a bridge, but never seen such an one out of an
illuminated manuscript; for not even the Ponte Vecchio at Florence came
anywhere near it.  It was of stone arches, splendidly solid, and as
graceful as they were strong; high enough also to let ordinary river
traffic through easily.  Over the parapet showed quaint and fanciful
little buildings, which I supposed to be booths or shops, beset with
painted and gilded vanes and spirelets.  The stone was a little
weathered, but showed no marks of the grimy sootiness which I was used to
on every London building more than a year old.  In short, to me a wonder
of a bridge.

The sculler noted my eager astonished look, and said, as if in answer to
my thoughts--

"Yes, it _is_ a pretty bridge, isn't it?  Even the up-stream bridges,
which are so much smaller, are scarcely daintier, and the down-stream
ones are scarcely more dignified and stately."

I found myself saying, almost against my will, "How old is it?"

"Oh, not very old," he said; "it was built or at least opened, in 2003.
There used to be a rather plain timber bridge before then."

The date shut my mouth as if a key had been turned in a padlock fixed to
my lips; for I saw that something inexplicable had happened, and that if
I said much, I should be mixed up in a game of cross questions and
crooked answers.  So I tried to look unconcerned, and to glance in a
matter-of-course way at the banks of the river, though this is what I saw
up to the bridge and a little beyond; say as far as the site of the soap-
works.  Both shores had a line of very pretty houses, low and not large,
standing back a little way from the river; they were mostly built of red
brick and roofed with tiles, and looked, above all, comfortable, and as
if they were, so to say, alive, and sympathetic with the life of the
dwellers in them.  There was a continuous garden in front of them, going
down to the water's edge, in which the flowers were now blooming
luxuriantly, and sending delicious waves of summer scent over the eddying
stream.  Behind the houses, I could see great trees rising, mostly
planes, and looking down the water there were the reaches towards Putney
almost as if they were a lake with a forest shore, so thick were the big
trees; and I said aloud, but as if to myself--

"Well, I'm glad that they have not built over Barn Elms."

I blushed for my fatuity as the words slipped out of my mouth, and my
companion looked at me with a half smile which I thought I understood; so
to hide my confusion I said, "Please take me ashore now: I want to get my
breakfast."

He nodded, and brought her head round with a sharp stroke, and in a trice
we were at the landing-stage again.  He jumped out and I followed him;
and of course I was not surprised to see him wait, as if for the
inevitable after-piece that follows the doing of a service to a fellow-
citizen.  So I put my hand into my waistcoat-pocket, and said, "How
much?" though still with the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps I was
offering money to a gentleman.

He looked puzzled, and said, "How much?  I don't quite understand what
you are asking about.  Do you mean the tide?  If so, it is close on the
turn now."

I blushed, and said, stammering, "Please don't take it amiss if I ask
you; I mean no offence: but what ought I to pay you?  You see I am a
stranger, and don't know your customs--or your coins."

And therewith I took a handful of money out of my pocket, as one does in
a foreign country.  And by the way, I saw that the silver had oxydised,
and was like a blackleaded stove in colour.

He still seemed puzzled, but not at all offended; and he looked at the
coins with some curiosity.  I thought, Well after all, he _is_ a
waterman, and is considering what he may venture to take.  He seems such
a nice fellow that I'm sure I don't grudge him a little over-payment.  I
wonder, by the way, whether I couldn't hire him as a guide for a day or
two, since he is so intelligent.

Therewith my new friend said thoughtfully:

"I think I know what you mean.  You think that I have done you a service;
so you feel yourself bound to give me something which I am not to give to
a neighbour, unless he has done something special for me.  I have heard
of this kind of thing; but pardon me for saying, that it seems to us a
troublesome and roundabout custom; and we don't know how to manage it.
And you see this ferrying and giving people casts about the water is my
_business_, which I would do for anybody; so to take gifts in connection
with it would look very queer.  Besides, if one person gave me something,
then another might, and another, and so on; and I hope you won't think me
rude if I say that I shouldn't know where to stow away so many mementos
of friendship."

And he laughed loud and merrily, as if the idea of being paid for his
work was a very funny joke.  I confess I began to be afraid that the man
was mad, though he looked sane enough; and I was rather glad to think
that I was a good swimmer, since we were so close to a deep swift stream.
However, he went on by no means like a madman:

"As to your coins, they are curious, but not very old; they seem to be
all of the reign of Victoria; you might give them to some
scantily-furnished museum.  Ours has enough of such coins, besides a fair
number of earlier ones, many of which are beautiful, whereas these
nineteenth century ones are so beastly ugly, ain't they?  We have a piece
of Edward III., with the king in a ship, and little leopards and fleurs-
de-lys all along the gunwale, so delicately worked.  You see," he said,
with something of a smirk, "I am fond of working in gold and fine metals;
this buckle here is an early piece of mine."

No doubt I looked a little shy of him under the influence of that doubt
as to his sanity.  So he broke off short, and said in a kind voice:

"But I see that I am boring you, and I ask your pardon.  For, not to
mince matters, I can tell that you _are_ a stranger, and must come from a
place very unlike England.  But also it is clear that it won't do to
overdose you with information about this place, and that you had best
suck it in little by little.  Further, I should take it as very kind in
you if you would allow me to be the showman of our new world to you,
since you have stumbled on me first.  Though indeed it will be a mere
kindness on your part, for almost anybody would make as good a guide, and
many much better."

There certainly seemed no flavour in him of Colney Hatch; and besides I
thought I could easily shake him off if it turned out that he really was
mad; so I said:

"It is a very kind offer, but it is difficult for me to accept it,
unless--"  I was going to say, Unless you will let me pay you properly;
but fearing to stir up Colney Hatch again, I changed the sentence into,
"I fear I shall be taking you away from your work--or your amusement."

"O," he said, "don't trouble about that, because it will give me an
opportunity of doing a good turn to a friend of mine, who wants to take
my work here.  He is a weaver from Yorkshire, who has rather overdone
himself between his weaving and his mathematics, both indoor work, you
see; and being a great friend of mine, he naturally came to me to get him
some outdoor work.  If you think you can put up with me, pray take me as
your guide."

He added presently: "It is true that I have promised to go up-stream to
some special friends of mine, for the hay-harvest; but they won't be
ready for us for more than a week: and besides, you might go with me, you
know, and see some very nice people, besides making notes of our ways in
Oxfordshire.  You could hardly do better if you want to see the country."

I felt myself obliged to thank him, whatever might come of it; and he
added eagerly:

"Well, then, that's settled.  I will give my friend a call; he is living in
the Guest House like you, and if he isn't up yet, he ought to be this
fine summer morning."

Therewith he took a little silver bugle-horn from his girdle and blew two
or three sharp but agreeable notes on it; and presently from the house
which stood on the site of my old dwelling (of which more hereafter)
another young man came sauntering towards us.  He was not so well-looking
or so strongly made as my sculler friend, being sandy-haired, rather
pale, and not stout-built; but his face was not wanting in that happy and
friendly expression which I had noticed in his friend.  As he came up
smiling towards us, I saw with pleasure that I must give up the Colney
Hatch theory as to the waterman, for no two madmen ever behaved as they
did before a sane man.  His dress also was of the same cut as the first
man's, though somewhat gayer, the surcoat being light green with a golden
spray embroidered on the breast, and his belt being of filagree silver-
work.

He gave me good-day very civilly, and greeting his friend joyously, said:

"Well, Dick, what is it this morning?  Am I to have my work, or rather
your work?  I dreamed last night that we were off up the river fishing."

"All right, Bob," said my sculler; "you will drop into my place, and if
you find it too much, there is George Brightling on the look out for a
stroke of work, and he lives close handy to you.  But see, here is a
stranger who is willing to amuse me to-day by taking me as his guide
about our country-side, and you may imagine I don't want to lose the
opportunity; so you had better take to the boat at once.  But in any case
I shouldn't have kept you out of it for long, since I am due in the hay-
fields in a few days."

The newcomer rubbed his hands with glee, but turning to me, said in a
friendly voice:

"Neighbour, both you and friend Dick are lucky, and will have a good time
to-day, as indeed I shall too.  But you had better both come in with me
at once and get something to eat, lest you should forget your dinner in
your amusement.  I suppose you came into the Guest House after I had gone
to bed last night?"

I nodded, not caring to enter into a long explanation which would have
led to nothing, and which in truth by this time I should have begun to
doubt myself.  And we all three turned toward the door of the Guest
House.





I lingered a little behind the others to have a stare at this house,
which, as I have told you, stood on the site of my old dwelling.

It was a longish building with its gable ends turned away from the road,
and long traceried windows coming rather low down set in the wall that
faced us.  It was very handsomely built of red brick with a lead roof;
and high up above the windows there ran a frieze of figure subjects in
baked clay, very well executed, and designed with a force and directness
which I had never noticed in modern work before.  The subjects I
recognised at once, and indeed was very particularly familiar with them.

However, all this I took in in a minute; for we were presently within
doors, and standing in a hall with a floor of marble mosaic and an open
timber roof.  There were no windows on the side opposite to the river,
but arches below leading into chambers, one of which showed a glimpse of
a garden beyond, and above them a long space of wall gaily painted (in
fresco, I thought) with similar subjects to those of the frieze outside;
everything about the place was handsome and generously solid as to
material; and though it was not very large (somewhat smaller than Crosby
Hall perhaps), one felt in it that exhilarating sense of space and
freedom which satisfactory architecture always gives to an unanxious man
who is in the habit of using his eyes.

In this pleasant place, which of course I knew to be the hall of the
Guest House, three young women were flitting to and fro.  As they were
the first of the sex I had seen on this eventful morning, I naturally
looked at them very attentively, and found them at least as good as the
gardens, the architecture, and the male men.  As to their dress, which of
course I took note of, I should say that they were decently veiled with
drapery, and not bundled up with millinery; that they were clothed like
women, not upholstered like armchairs, as most women of our time are.  In
short, their dress was somewhat between that of the ancient classical
costume and the simpler forms of the fourteenth century garments, though
it was clearly not an imitation of either: the materials were light and
gay to suit the season.  As to the women themselves, it was pleasant
indeed to see them, they were so kind and happy-looking in expression of
face, so shapely and well-knit of body, and thoroughly healthy-looking
and strong.  All were at least comely, and one of them very handsome and
regular of feature.  They came up to us at once merrily and without the
least affectation of shyness, and all three shook hands with me as if I
were a friend newly come back from a long journey: though I could not
help noticing that they looked askance at my garments; for I had on my
clothes of last night, and at the best was never a dressy person.

A word or two from Robert the weaver, and they bustled about on our
behoof, and presently came and took us by the hands and led us to a table
in the pleasantest corner of the hall, where our breakfast was spread for
us; and, as we sat down, one of them hurried out by the chambers
aforesaid, and came back again in a little while with a great bunch of
roses, very different in size and quality to what Hammersmith had been
wont to grow, but very like the produce of an old country garden.  She
hurried back thence into the buttery, and came back once more with a
delicately made glass, into which she put the flowers and set them down
in the midst of our table.  One of the others, who had run off also, then
came back with a big cabbage-leaf filled with strawberries, some of them
barely ripe, and said as she set them on the table, "There, now; I
thought of that before I got up this morning; but looking at the stranger
here getting into your boat, Dick, put it out of my head; so that I was
not before _all_ the blackbirds: however, there are a few about as good
as you will get them anywhere in Hammersmith this morning."

Robert patted her on the head in a friendly manner; and we fell to on our
breakfast, which was simple enough, but most delicately cooked, and set
on the table with much daintiness.  The bread was particularly good, and
was of several different kinds, from the big, rather close,
dark-coloured, sweet-tasting farmhouse loaf, which was most to my liking,
to the thin pipe-stems of wheaten crust, such as I have eaten in Turin.

As I was putting the first mouthfuls into my mouth my eye caught a carved
and gilded inscription on the panelling, behind what we should have
called the High Table in an Oxford college hall, and a familiar name in
it forced me to read it through.  Thus it ran:

   "_Guests and neighbours_, _on the site of this Guest-hall once stood
   the lecture-room of the Hammersmith Socialists_.  _Drink a glass to
   the memory_!  _May 1962_."

It is difficult to tell you how I felt as I read these words, and I
suppose my face showed how much I was moved, for both my friends looked
curiously at me, and there was silence between us for a little while.

Presently the weaver, who was scarcely so well mannered a man as the
ferryman, said to me rather awkwardly:

"Guest, we don't know what to call you: is there any indiscretion in
asking you your name?"

"Well," said I, "I have some doubts about it myself; so suppose you call
me Guest, which is a family name, you know, and add William to it if you
please."

Dick nodded kindly to me; but a shade of anxiousness passed over the
weaver's face, and he said--"I hope you don't mind my asking, but would
you tell me where you come from?  I am curious about such things for good
reasons, literary reasons."

Dick was clearly kicking him underneath the table; but he was not much
abashed, and awaited my answer somewhat eagerly.  As for me, I was just
going to blurt out "Hammersmith," when I bethought me what an
entanglement of cross purposes that would lead us into; so I took time to
invent a lie with circumstance, guarded by a little truth, and said:

"You see, I have been such a long time away from Europe that things seem
strange to me now; but I was born and bred on the edge of Epping Forest;
Walthamstow and Woodford, to wit."

"A pretty place, too," broke in Dick; "a very jolly place, now that the
trees have had time to grow again since the great clearing of houses in
1955."

Quoth the irrepressible weaver: "Dear neighbour, since you knew the
Forest some time ago, could you tell me what truth there is in the rumour
that in the nineteenth century the trees were all pollards?"

This was catching me on my archaeological natural-history side, and I
fell into the trap without any thought of where and when I was; so I
began on it, while one of the girls, the handsome one, who had been
scattering little twigs of lavender and other sweet-smelling herbs about
the floor, came near to listen, and stood behind me with her hand on my
shoulder, in which she held some of the plant that I used to call balm:
its strong sweet smell brought back to my mind my very early days in the
kitchen-garden at Woodford, and the large blue plums which grew on the
wall beyond the sweet-herb patch,--a connection of memories which all
boys will see at once.

I started off: "When I was a boy, and for long after, except for a piece
about Queen Elizabeth's Lodge, and for the part about High Beech, the
Forest was almost wholly made up of pollard hornbeams mixed with holly
thickets.  But when the Corporation of London took it over about twenty-
five years ago, the topping and lopping, which was a part of the old
commoners' rights, came to an end, and the trees were let to grow.  But I
have not seen the place now for many years, except once, when we Leaguers
went a pleasuring to High Beech.  I was very much shocked then to see how
it was built-over and altered; and the other day we heard that the
philistines were going to landscape-garden it.  But what you were saying
about the building being stopped and the trees growing is only too good
news;--only you know--"

At that point I suddenly remembered Dick's date, and stopped short rather
confused.  The eager weaver didn't notice my confusion, but said hastily,
as if he were almost aware of his breach of good manners, "But, I say,
how old are you?"

Dick and the pretty girl both burst out laughing, as if Robert's conduct
were excusable on the grounds of eccentricity; and Dick said amidst his
laughter:

"Hold hard, Bob; this questioning of guests won't do.  Why, much learning
is spoiling you.  You remind me of the radical cobblers in the silly old
novels, who, according to the authors, were prepared to trample down all
good manners in the pursuit of utilitarian knowledge.  The fact is, I
begin to think that you have so muddled your head with mathematics, and
with grubbing into those idiotic old books about political economy (he
he!), that you scarcely know how to behave.  Really, it is about time for
you to take to some open-air work, so that you may clear away the cobwebs
from your brain."

The weaver only laughed good-humouredly; and the girl went up to him and
patted his cheek and said laughingly, "Poor fellow! he was born so."

As for me, I was a little puzzled, but I laughed also, partly for
company's sake, and partly with pleasure at their unanxious happiness and
good temper; and before Robert could make the excuse to me which he was
getting ready, I said:

"But neighbours" (I had caught up that word), "I don't in the least mind
answering questions, when I can do so: ask me as many as you please; it's
fun for me.  I will tell you all about Epping Forest when I was a boy, if
you please; and as to my age, I'm not a fine lady, you know, so why
shouldn't I tell you?  I'm hard on fifty-six."

In spite of the recent lecture on good manners, the weaver could not help
giving a long "whew" of astonishment, and the others were so amused by
his _naivete_ that the merriment flitted all over their faces, though for
courtesy's sake they forbore actual laughter; while I looked from one to
the other in a puzzled manner, and at last said:

"Tell me, please, what is amiss: you know I want to learn from you.  And
please laugh; only tell me."

Well, they _did_ laugh, and I joined them again, for the above-stated
reasons.  But at last the pretty woman said coaxingly--

"Well, well, he _is_ rude, poor fellow! but you see I may as well tell
you what he is thinking about: he means that you look rather old for your
age.  But surely there need be no wonder in that, since you have been
travelling; and clearly from all you have been saying, in unsocial
countries.  It has often been said, and no doubt truly, that one ages
very quickly if one lives amongst unhappy people.  Also they say that
southern England is a good place for keeping good looks."  She blushed
and said: "How old am I, do you think?"

"Well," quoth I, "I have always been told that a woman is as old as she
looks, so without offence or flattery, I should say that you were
twenty."

She laughed merrily, and said, "I am well served out for fishing for
compliments, since I have to tell you the truth, to wit, that I am forty-
two."

I stared at her, and drew musical laughter from her again; but I might
well stare, for there was not a careful line on her face; her skin was as
smooth as ivory, her cheeks full and round, her lips as red as the roses
she had brought in; her beautiful arms, which she had bared for her work,
firm and well-knit from shoulder to wrist.  She blushed a little under my
gaze, though it was clear that she had taken me for a man of eighty; so
to pass it off I said--

"Well, you see, the old saw is proved right again, and I ought not to
have let you tempt me into asking you a rude question."

She laughed again, and said: "Well, lads, old and young, I must get to my
work now.  We shall be rather busy here presently; and I want to clear it
off soon, for I began to read a pretty old book yesterday, and I want to
get on with it this morning: so good-bye for the present."

She waved a hand to us, and stepped lightly down the hall, taking (as
Scott says) at least part of the sun from our table as she went.

When she was gone, Dick said "Now guest, won't you ask a question or two
of our friend here?  It is only fair that you should have your turn."

"I shall be very glad to answer them," said the weaver.

"If I ask you any questions, sir," said I, "they will not be very severe;
but since I hear that you are a weaver, I should like to ask you
something about that craft, as I am--or was--interested in it."

"Oh," said he, "I shall not be of much use to you there, I'm afraid.  I
only do the most mechanical kind of weaving, and am in fact but a poor
craftsman, unlike Dick here.  Then besides the weaving, I do a little
with machine printing and composing, though I am little use at the finer
kinds of printing; and moreover machine printing is beginning to die out,
along with the waning of the plague of book-making, so I have had to turn
to other things that I have a taste for, and have taken to mathematics;
and also I am writing a sort of antiquarian book about the peaceable and
private history, so to say, of the end of the nineteenth century,--more
for the sake of giving a picture of the country before the fighting began
than for anything else.  That was why I asked you those questions about
Epping Forest.  You have rather puzzled me, I confess, though your
information was so interesting.  But later on, I hope, we may have some
more talk together, when our friend Dick isn't here.  I know he thinks me
rather a grinder, and despises me for not being very deft with my hands:
that's the way nowadays.  From what I have read of the nineteenth century
literature (and I have read a good deal), it is clear to me that this is
a kind of revenge for the stupidity of that day, which despised everybody
who _could_ use his hands.  But Dick, old fellow, _Ne quid nimis_!  Don't
overdo it!"

"Come now," said Dick, "am I likely to?  Am I not the most tolerant man
in the world?  Am I not quite contented so long as you don't make me
learn mathematics, or go into your new science of aesthetics, and let me
do a little practical aesthetics with my gold and steel, and the blowpipe
and the nice little hammer?  But, hillo! here comes another questioner
for you, my poor guest.  I say, Bob, you must help me to defend him now."

"Here, Boffin," he cried out, after a pause; "here we are, if you must
have it!"

I looked over my shoulder, and saw something flash and gleam in the
sunlight that lay across the hall; so I turned round, and at my ease saw
a splendid figure slowly sauntering over the pavement; a man whose
surcoat was embroidered most copiously as well as elegantly, so that the
sun flashed back from him as if he had been clad in golden armour.  The
man himself was tall, dark-haired, and exceedingly handsome, and though
his face was no less kindly in expression than that of the others, he
moved with that somewhat haughty mien which great beauty is apt to give
to both men and women.  He came and sat down at our table with a smiling
face, stretching out his long legs and hanging his arm over the chair in
the slowly graceful way which tall and well-built people may use without
affectation.  He was a man in the prime of life, but looked as happy as a
child who has just got a new toy.  He bowed gracefully to me and said--

"I see clearly that you are the guest, of whom Annie has just told me,
who have come from some distant country that does not know of us, or our
ways of life.  So I daresay you would not mind answering me a few
questions; for you see--"

Here Dick broke in: "No, please, Boffin! let it alone for the present.  Of
course you want the guest to be happy and comfortable; and how can that
be if he has to trouble himself with answering all sorts of questions
while he is still confused with the new customs and people about him?  No,
no: I am going to take him where he can ask questions himself, and have
them answered; that is, to my great-grandfather in Bloomsbury: and I am
sure you can't have anything to say against that.  So instead of
bothering, you had much better go out to James Allen's and get a carriage
for me, as I shall drive him up myself; and please tell Jim to let me
have the old grey, for I can drive a wherry much better than a carriage.
Jump up, old fellow, and don't be disappointed; our guest will keep
himself for you and your stories."

I stared at Dick; for I wondered at his speaking to such a
dignified-looking personage so familiarly, not to say curtly; for I
thought that this Mr. Boffin, in spite of his well-known name out of
Dickens, must be at the least a senator of these strange people.  However,
he got up and said, "All right, old oar-wearer, whatever you like; this
is not one of my busy days; and though" (with a condescending bow to me)
"my pleasure of a talk with this learned guest is put off, I admit that
he ought to see your worthy kinsman as soon as possible.  Besides,
perhaps he will be the better able to answer _my_ questions after his own
have been answered."

And therewith he turned and swung himself out of the hall.

When he was well gone, I said: "Is it wrong to ask what Mr. Boffin is?
whose name, by the way, reminds me of many pleasant hours passed in
reading Dickens."

Dick laughed.  "Yes, yes," said he, "as it does us.  I see you take the
allusion.  Of course his real name is not Boffin, but Henry Johnson; we
only call him Boffin as a joke, partly because he is a dustman, and
partly because he will dress so showily, and get as much gold on him as a
baron of the Middle Ages.  As why should he not if he likes? only we are
his special friends, you know, so of course we jest with him."

I held my tongue for some time after that; but Dick went on:

"He is a capital fellow, and you can't help liking him; but he has a
weakness: he will spend his time in writing reactionary novels, and is
very proud of getting the local colour right, as he calls it; and as he
thinks you come from some forgotten corner of the earth, where people are
unhappy, and consequently interesting to a story-teller, he thinks he
might get some information out of you.  O, he will be quite
straightforward with you, for that matter.  Only for your own comfort
beware of him!"

"Well, Dick," said the weaver, doggedly, "I think his novels are very
good."

"Of course you do," said Dick; "birds of a feather flock together;
mathematics and antiquarian novels stand on much the same footing.  But
here he comes again."

And in effect the Golden Dustman hailed us from the hall-door; so we all
got up and went into the porch, before which, with a strong grey horse in
the shafts, stood a carriage ready for us which I could not help
noticing.  It was light and handy, but had none of that sickening
vulgarity which I had known as inseparable from the carriages of our
time, especially the "elegant" ones, but was as graceful and pleasant in
line as a Wessex waggon.  We got in, Dick and I.  The girls, who had come
into the porch to see us off, waved their hands to us; the weaver nodded
kindly; the dustman bowed as gracefully as a troubadour; Dick shook the
reins, and we were off.





We turned away from the river at once, and were soon in the main road
that runs through Hammersmith.  But I should have had no guess as to
where I was, if I had not started from the waterside; for King Street was
gone, and the highway ran through wide sunny meadows and garden-like
tillage.  The Creek, which we crossed at once, had been rescued from its
culvert, and as we went over its pretty bridge we saw its waters, yet
swollen by the tide, covered with gay boats of different sizes.  There
were houses about, some on the road, some amongst the fields with
pleasant lanes leading down to them, and each surrounded by a teeming
garden.  They were all pretty in design, and as solid as might be, but
countryfied in appearance, like yeomen's dwellings; some of them of red
brick like those by the river, but more of timber and plaster, which were
by the necessity of their construction so like mediaeval houses of the
same materials that I fairly felt as if I were alive in the fourteenth
century; a sensation helped out by the costume of the people that we met
or passed, in whose dress there was nothing "modern."  Almost everybody
was gaily dressed, but especially the women, who were so well-looking, or
even so handsome, that I could scarcely refrain my tongue from calling my
companion's attention to the fact.  Some faces I saw that were
thoughtful, and in these I noticed great nobility of expression, but none
that had a glimmer of unhappiness, and the greater part (we came upon a
good many people) were frankly and openly joyous.

I thought I knew the Broadway by the lie of the roads that still met
there.  On the north side of the road was a range of buildings and
courts, low, but very handsomely built and ornamented, and in that way
forming a great contrast to the unpretentiousness of the houses round
about; while above this lower building rose the steep lead-covered roof
and the buttresses and higher part of the wall of a great hall, of a
splendid and exuberant style of architecture, of which one can say little
more than that it seemed to me to embrace the best qualities of the
Gothic of northern Europe with those of the Saracenic and Byzantine,
though there was no copying of any one of these styles.  On the other,
the south side, of the road was an octagonal building with a high roof,
not unlike the Baptistry at Florence in outline, except that it was
surrounded by a lean-to that clearly made an arcade or cloisters to it:
it also was most delicately ornamented.

This whole mass of architecture which we had come upon so suddenly from
amidst the pleasant fields was not only exquisitely beautiful in itself,
but it bore upon it the expression of such generosity and abundance of
life that I was exhilarated to a pitch that I had never yet reached.  I
fairly chuckled for pleasure.  My friend seemed to understand it, and sat
looking on me with a pleased and affectionate interest.  We had pulled up
amongst a crowd of carts, wherein sat handsome healthy-looking people,
men, women, and children very gaily dressed, and which were clearly
market carts, as they were full of very tempting-looking country produce.

I said, "I need not ask if this is a market, for I see clearly that it
is; but what market is it that it is so splendid?  And what is the
glorious hall there, and what is the building on the south side?"

"O," said he, "it is just our Hammersmith market; and I am glad you like
it so much, for we are really proud of it.  Of course the hall inside is
our winter Mote-House; for in summer we mostly meet in the fields down by
the river opposite Barn Elms.  The building on our right hand is our
theatre: I hope you like it."

"I should be a fool if I didn't," said I.

He blushed a little as he said: "I am glad of that, too, because I had a
hand in it; I made the great doors, which are of damascened bronze.  We
will look at them later in the day, perhaps: but we ought to be getting
on now.  As to the market, this is not one of our busy days; so we shall
do better with it another time, because you will see more people."

I thanked him, and said: "Are these the regular country people?  What
very pretty girls there are amongst them."

As I spoke, my eye caught the face of a beautiful woman, tall,
dark-haired, and white-skinned, dressed in a pretty light-green dress in
honour of the season and the hot day, who smiled kindly on me, and more
kindly still, I thought on Dick; so I stopped a minute, but presently
went on:

"I ask because I do not see any of the country-looking people I should
have expected to see at a market--I mean selling things there."

"I don't understand," said he, "what kind of people you would expect to
see; nor quite what you mean by 'country' people.  These are the
neighbours, and that like they run in the Thames valley.  There are parts
of these islands which are rougher and rainier than we are here, and
there people are rougher in their dress; and they themselves are tougher
and more hard-bitten than we are to look at.  But some people like their
looks better than ours; they say they have more character in them--that's
the word.  Well, it's a matter of taste.--Anyhow, the cross between us
and them generally turns out well," added he, thoughtfully.

I heard him, though my eyes were turned away from him, for that pretty
girl was just disappearing through the gate with her big basket of early
peas, and I felt that disappointed kind of feeling which overtakes one
when one has seen an interesting or lovely face in the streets which one
is never likely to see again; and I was silent a little.  At last I said:
"What I mean is, that I haven't seen any poor people about--not one."

He knit his brows, looked puzzled, and said: "No, naturally; if anybody
is poorly, he is likely to be within doors, or at best crawling about the
garden: but I don't know of any one sick at present.  Why should you
expect to see poorly people on the road?"

"No, no," I said; "I don't mean sick people.  I mean poor people, you
know; rough people."

"No," said he, smiling merrily, "I really do not know.  The fact is, you
must come along quick to my great-grandfather, who will understand you
better than I do.  Come on, Greylocks!"  Therewith he shook the reins,
and we jogged along merrily eastward.





Past the Broadway there were fewer houses on either side.  We presently
crossed a pretty little brook that ran across a piece of land dotted over
with trees, and awhile after came to another market and town-hall, as we
should call it.  Although there was nothing familiar to me in its
surroundings, I knew pretty well where we were, and was not surprised
when my guide said briefly, "Kensington Market."

Just after this we came into a short street of houses: or rather, one
long house on either side of the way, built of timber and plaster, and
with a pretty arcade over the footway before it.

Quoth Dick: "This is Kensington proper.  People are apt to gather here
rather thick, for they like the romance of the wood; and naturalists
haunt it, too; for it is a wild spot even here, what there is of it; for
it does not go far to the south: it goes from here northward and west
right over Paddington and a little way down Notting Hill: thence it runs
north-east to Primrose Hill, and so on; rather a narrow strip of it gets
through Kingsland to Stoke-Newington and Clapton, where it spreads out
along the heights above the Lea marshes; on the other side of which, as
you know, is Epping Forest holding out a hand to it.  This part we are
just coming to is called Kensington Gardens; though why 'gardens' I don't
know."

I rather longed to say, "Well, _I_ know"; but there were so many things
about me which I did _not_ know, in spite of his assumptions, that I
thought it better to hold my tongue.

The road plunged at once into a beautiful wood spreading out on either
side, but obviously much further on the north side, where even the oaks
and sweet chestnuts were of a good growth; while the quicker-growing
trees (amongst which I thought the planes and sycamores too numerous)
were very big and fine-grown.

It was exceedingly pleasant in the dappled shadow, for the day was
growing as hot as need be, and the coolness and shade soothed my excited
mind into a condition of dreamy pleasure, so that I felt as if I should
like to go on for ever through that balmy freshness.  My companion seemed
to share in my feelings, and let the horse go slower and slower as he sat
inhaling the green forest scents, chief amongst which was the smell of
the trodden bracken near the wayside.

Romantic as this Kensington wood was, however, it was not lonely.  We
came on many groups both coming and going, or wandering in the edges of
the wood.  Amongst these were many children from six or eight years old
up to sixteen or seventeen.  They seemed to me to be especially fine
specimens of their race, and enjoying themselves to the utmost; some of
them were hanging about little tents pitched on the greensward, and by
some of these fires were burning, with pots hanging over them gipsy
fashion.  Dick explained to me that there were scattered houses in the
forest, and indeed we caught a glimpse of one or two.  He said they were
mostly quite small, such as used to be called cottages when there were
slaves in the land, but they were pleasant enough and fitting for the
wood.

"They must be pretty well stocked with children," said I, pointing to the
many youngsters about the way.

"O," said he, "these children do not all come from the near houses, the
woodland houses, but from the country-side generally.  They often make up
parties, and come to play in the woods for weeks together in summer-time,
living in tents, as you see.  We rather encourage them to it; they learn
to do things for themselves, and get to notice the wild creatures; and,
you see, the less they stew inside houses the better for them.  Indeed, I
must tell you that many grown people will go to live in the forests
through the summer; though they for the most part go to the bigger ones,
like Windsor, or the Forest of Dean, or the northern wastes.  Apart from
the other pleasures of it, it gives them a little rough work, which I am
sorry to say is getting somewhat scarce for these last fifty years."

He broke off, and then said, "I tell you all this, because I see that if
I talk I must be answering questions, which you are thinking, even if you
are not speaking them out; but my kinsman will tell you more about it."

I saw that I was likely to get out of my depth again, and so merely for
the sake of tiding over an awkwardness and to say something, I said--

"Well, the youngsters here will be all the fresher for school when the
summer gets over and they have to go back again."

"School?" he said; "yes, what do you mean by that word?  I don't see how
it can have anything to do with children.  We talk, indeed, of a school
of herring, and a school of painting, and in the former sense we might
talk of a school of children--but otherwise," said he, laughing, "I must
own myself beaten."

Hang it! thought I, I can't open my mouth without digging up some new
complexity.  I wouldn't try to set my friend right in his etymology; and
I thought I had best say nothing about the boy-farms which I had been
used to call schools, as I saw pretty clearly that they had disappeared;
so I said after a little fumbling, "I was using the word in the sense of
a system of education."

"Education?" said he, meditatively, "I know enough Latin to know that the
word must come from _educere_, to lead out; and I have heard it used; but
I have never met anybody who could give me a clear explanation of what it
means."

You may imagine how my new friends fell in my esteem when I heard this
frank avowal; and I said, rather contemptuously, "Well, education means a
system of teaching young people."

"Why not old people also?" said he with a twinkle in his eye.  "But," he
went on, "I can assure you our children learn, whether they go through a
'system of teaching' or not.  Why, you will not find one of these
children about here, boy or girl, who cannot swim; and every one of them
has been used to tumbling about the little forest ponies--there's one of
them now!  They all of them know how to cook; the bigger lads can mow;
many can thatch and do odd jobs at carpentering; or they know how to keep
shop.  I can tell you they know plenty of things."

"Yes, but their mental education, the teaching of their minds," said I,
kindly translating my phrase.

"Guest," said he, "perhaps you have not learned to do these things I have
been speaking about; and if that's the case, don't you run away with the
idea that it doesn't take some skill to do them, and doesn't give plenty
of work for one's mind: you would change your opinion if you saw a
Dorsetshire lad thatching, for instance.  But, however, I understand you
to be speaking of book-learning; and as to that, it is a simple affair.
Most children, seeing books lying about, manage to read by the time they
are four years old; though I am told it has not always been so.  As to
writing, we do not encourage them to scrawl too early (though scrawl a
little they will), because it gets them into a habit of ugly writing; and
what's the use of a lot of ugly writing being done, when rough printing
can be done so easily.  You understand that handsome writing we like, and
many people will write their books out when they make them, or get them
written; I mean books of which only a few copies are needed--poems, and
such like, you know.  However, I am wandering from my lambs; but you must
excuse me, for I am interested in this matter of writing, being myself a
fair-writer."

"Well," said I, "about the children; when they know how to read and
write, don't they learn something else--languages, for instance?"

"Of course," he said; "sometimes even before they can read, they can talk
French, which is the nearest language talked on the other side of the
water; and they soon get to know German also, which is talked by a huge
number of communes and colleges on the mainland.  These are the principal
languages we speak in these islands, along with English or Welsh, or
Irish, which is another form of Welsh; and children pick them up very
quickly, because their elders all know them; and besides our guests from
over sea often bring their children with them, and the little ones get
together, and rub their speech into one another."

"And the older languages?" said I.

"O, yes," said he, "they mostly learn Latin and Greek along with the
modern ones, when they do anything more than merely pick up the latter."

"And history?" said I; "how do you teach history?"

"Well," said he, "when a person can read, of course he reads what he
likes to; and he can easily get someone to tell him what are the best
books to read on such or such a subject, or to explain what he doesn't
understand in the books when he is reading them."

"Well," said I, "what else do they learn?  I suppose they don't all learn
history?"

"No, no," said he; "some don't care about it; in fact, I don't think many
do.  I have heard my great-grandfather say that it is mostly in periods
of turmoil and strife and confusion that people care much about history;
and you know," said my friend, with an amiable smile, "we are not like
that now.  No; many people study facts about the make of things and the
matters of cause and effect, so that knowledge increases on us, if that
be good; and some, as you heard about friend Bob yonder, will spend time
over mathematics.  'Tis no use forcing people's tastes."

Said I: "But you don't mean that children learn all these things?"

Said he: "That depends on what you mean by children; and also you must
remember how much they differ.  As a rule, they don't do much reading,
except for a few story-books, till they are about fifteen years old; we
don't encourage early bookishness: though you will find some children who
_will_ take to books very early; which perhaps is not good for them; but
it's no use thwarting them; and very often it doesn't last long with
them, and they find their level before they are twenty years old.  You
see, children are mostly given to imitating their elders, and when they
see most people about them engaged in genuinely amusing work, like house-
building and street-paving, and gardening, and the like, that is what
they want to be doing; so I don't think we need fear having too many book-
learned men."

What could I say?  I sat and held my peace, for fear of fresh
entanglements.  Besides, I was using my eyes with all my might, wondering
as the old horse jogged on, when I should come into London proper, and
what it would be like now.

But my companion couldn't let his subject quite drop, and went on
meditatively:

"After all, I don't know that it does them much harm, even if they do
grow up book-students.  Such people as that, 'tis a great pleasure seeing
them so happy over work which is not much sought for.  And besides, these
students are generally such pleasant people; so kind and sweet tempered;
so humble, and at the same time so anxious to teach everybody all that
they know.  Really, I like those that I have met prodigiously."

This seemed to me such very queer talk that I was on the point of asking
him another question; when just as we came to the top of a rising ground,
down a long glade of the wood on my right I caught sight of a stately
building whose outline was familiar to me, and I cried out, "Westminster
Abbey!"

"Yes," said Dick, "Westminster Abbey--what there is left of it."

"Why, what have you done with it?" quoth I in terror.

"What have _we_ done with it?" said he; "nothing much, save clean it.  But
you know the whole outside was spoiled centuries ago: as to the inside,
that remains in its beauty after the great clearance, which took place
over a hundred years ago, of the beastly monuments to fools and knaves,
which once blocked it up, as great-grandfather says."

We went on a little further, and I looked to the right again, and said,
in rather a doubtful tone of voice, "Why, there are the Houses of
Parliament!  Do you still use them?"

He burst out laughing, and was some time before he could control himself;
then he clapped me on the back and said:

"I take you, neighbour; you may well wonder at our keeping them standing,
and I know something about that, and my old kinsman has given me books to
read about the strange game that they played there.  Use them!  Well,
yes, they are used for a sort of subsidiary market, and a storage place
for manure, and they are handy for that, being on the waterside.  I
believe it was intended to pull them down quite at the beginning of our
days; but there was, I am told, a queer antiquarian society, which had
done some service in past times, and which straightway set up its pipe
against their destruction, as it has done with many other buildings,
which most people looked upon as worthless, and public nuisances; and it
was so energetic, and had such good reasons to give, that it generally
gained its point; and I must say that when all is said I am glad of it:
because you know at the worst these silly old buildings serve as a kind
of foil to the beautiful ones which we build now.  You will see several
others in these parts; the place my great-grandfather lives in, for
instance, and a big building called St. Paul's.  And you see, in this
matter we need not grudge a few poorish buildings standing, because we
can always build elsewhere; nor need we be anxious as to the breeding of
pleasant work in such matters, for there is always room for more and more
work in a new building, even without making it pretentious.  For
instance, elbow-room _within_ doors is to me so delightful that if I were
driven to it I would most sacrifice outdoor space to it.  Then, of
course, there is the ornament, which, as we must all allow, may easily be
overdone in mere living houses, but can hardly be in mote-halls and
markets, and so forth.  I must tell you, though, that my
great-grandfather sometimes tells me I am a little cracked on this
subject of fine building; and indeed I _do_ think that the energies of
mankind are chiefly of use to them for such work; for in that direction I
can see no end to the work, while in many others a limit does seem
possible."





As he spoke, we came suddenly out of the woodland into a short street of
handsomely built houses, which my companion named to me at once as
Piccadilly: the lower part of these I should have called shops, if it had
not been that, as far as I could see, the people were ignorant of the
arts of buying and selling.  Wares were displayed in their finely
designed fronts, as if to tempt people in, and people stood and looked at
them, or went in and came out with parcels under their arms, just like
the real thing.  On each side of the street ran an elegant arcade to
protect foot-passengers, as in some of the old Italian cities.  About
halfway down, a huge building of the kind I was now prepared to expect
told me that this also was a centre of some kind, and had its special
public buildings.

Said Dick: "Here, you see, is another market on a different plan from
most others: the upper stories of these houses are used for guest-houses;
for people from all about the country are apt to drift up hither from
time to time, as folk are very thick upon the ground, which you will see
evidence of presently, and there are people who are fond of crowds,
though I can't say that I am."

I couldn't help smiling to see how long a tradition would last.  Here was
the ghost of London still asserting itself as a centre,--an intellectual
centre, for aught I knew.  However, I said nothing, except that I asked
him to drive very slowly, as the things in the booths looked exceedingly
pretty.

"Yes," said he, "this is a very good market for pretty things, and is
mostly kept for the handsomer goods, as the Houses-of-Parliament market,
where they set out cabbages and turnips and such like things, along with
beer and the rougher kind of wine, is so near."

Then he looked at me curiously, and said, "Perhaps you would like to do a
little shopping, as 'tis called."

I looked at what I could see of my rough blue duds, which I had plenty of
opportunity of contrasting with the gay attire of the citizens we had
come across; and I thought that if, as seemed likely, I should presently
be shown about as a curiosity for the amusement of this most
unbusinesslike people, I should like to look a little less like a
discharged ship's purser.  But in spite of all that had happened, my hand
went down into my pocket again, where to my dismay it met nothing
metallic except two rusty old keys, and I remembered that amidst our talk
in the guest-hall at Hammersmith I had taken the cash out of my pocket to
show to the pretty Annie, and had left it lying there.  My face fell
fifty per cent., and Dick, beholding me, said rather sharply--

"Hilloa, Guest! what's the matter now?  Is it a wasp?"

"No," said I, "but I've left it behind."

"Well," said he, "whatever you have left behind, you can get in this
market again, so don't trouble yourself about it."

I had come to my senses by this time, and remembering the astounding
customs of this country, had no mind for another lecture on social
economy and the Edwardian coinage; so I said only--

"My clothes--Couldn't I?  You see--What do think could be done about
them?"

He didn't seem in the least inclined to laugh, but said quite gravely:

"O don't get new clothes yet.  You see, my great-grandfather is an
antiquarian, and he will want to see you just as you are.  And, you know,
I mustn't preach to you, but surely it wouldn't be right for you to take
away people's pleasure of studying your attire, by just going and making
yourself like everybody else.  You feel that, don't you?" said he,
earnestly.

I did _not_ feel it my duty to set myself up for a scarecrow amidst this
beauty-loving people, but I saw I had got across some ineradicable
prejudice, and that it wouldn't do to quarrel with my new friend.  So I
merely said, "O certainly, certainly."

"Well," said he, pleasantly, "you may as well see what the inside of
these booths is like: think of something you want."

Said I: "Could I get some tobacco and a pipe?"

"Of course," said he; "what was I thinking of, not asking you before?
Well, Bob is always telling me that we non-smokers are a selfish lot, and
I'm afraid he is right.  But come along; here is a place just handy."

Therewith he drew rein and jumped down, and I followed.  A very handsome
woman, splendidly clad in figured silk, was slowly passing by, looking
into the windows as she went.  To her quoth Dick: "Maiden, would you
kindly hold our horse while we go in for a little?"  She nodded to us
with a kind smile, and fell to patting the horse with her pretty hand.

"What a beautiful creature!" said I to Dick as we entered.

"What, old Greylocks?" said he, with a sly grin.

"No, no," said I; "Goldylocks,--the lady."

"Well, so she is," said he.  "'Tis a good job there are so many of them
that every Jack may have his Jill: else I fear that we should get
fighting for them.  Indeed," said he, becoming very grave, "I don't say
that it does not happen even now, sometimes.  For you know love is not a
very reasonable thing, and perversity and self-will are commoner than
some of our moralists think."  He added, in a still more sombre tone:
"Yes, only a month ago there was a mishap down by us, that in the end
cost the lives of two men and a woman, and, as it were, put out the
sunlight for us for a while.  Don't ask me about it just now; I may tell
you about it later on."

By this time we were within the shop or booth, which had a counter, and
shelves on the walls, all very neat, though without any pretence of
showiness, but otherwise not very different to what I had been used to.
Within were a couple of children--a brown-skinned boy of about twelve,
who sat reading a book, and a pretty little girl of about a year older,
who was sitting also reading behind the counter; they were obviously
brother and sister.

"Good morning, little neighbours," said Dick.  "My friend here wants
tobacco and a pipe; can you help him?"

"O yes, certainly," said the girl with a sort of demure alertness which
was somewhat amusing.  The boy looked up, and fell to staring at my
outlandish attire, but presently reddened and turned his head, as if he
knew that he was not behaving prettily.

"Dear neighbour," said the girl, with the most solemn countenance of a
child playing at keeping shop, "what tobacco is it you would like?"

"Latakia," quoth I, feeling as if I were assisting at a child's game, and
wondering whether I should get anything but make-believe.

But the girl took a dainty little basket from a shelf beside her, went to
a jar, and took out a lot of tobacco and put the filled basket down on
the counter before me, where I could both smell and see that it was
excellent Latakia.

"But you haven't weighed it," said I, "and--and how much am I to take?"

"Why," she said, "I advise you to cram your bag, because you may be going
where you can't get Latakia.  Where is your bag?"

I fumbled about, and at last pulled out my piece of cotton print which
does duty with me for a tobacco pouch.  But the girl looked at it with
some disdain, and said--

"Dear neighbour, I can give you something much better than that cotton
rag."  And she tripped up the shop and came back presently, and as she
passed the boy whispered something in his ear, and he nodded and got up
and went out.  The girl held up in her finger and thumb a red morocco
bag, gaily embroidered, and said, "There, I have chosen one for you, and
you are to have it: it is pretty, and will hold a lot."

Therewith she fell to cramming it with the tobacco, and laid it down by
me and said, "Now for the pipe: that also you must let me choose for you;
there are three pretty ones just come in."

She disappeared again, and came back with a big-bowled pipe in her hand,
carved out of some hard wood very elaborately, and mounted in gold
sprinkled with little gems.  It was, in short, as pretty and gay a toy as
I had ever seen; something like the best kind of Japanese work, but
better.

"Dear me!" said I, when I set eyes on it, "this is altogether too grand
for me, or for anybody but the Emperor of the World.  Besides, I shall
lose it: I always lose my pipes."

The child seemed rather dashed, and said, "Don't you like it, neighbour?"

"O yes," I said, "of course I like it."

"Well, then, take it," said she, "and don't trouble about losing it.  What
will it matter if you do?  Somebody is sure to find it, and he will use
it, and you can get another."

I took it out of her hand to look at it, and while I did so, forgot my
caution, and said, "But however am I to pay for such a thing as this?"

Dick laid his hand on my shoulder as I spoke, and turning I met his eyes
with a comical expression in them, which warned me against another
exhibition of extinct commercial morality; so I reddened and held my
tongue, while the girl simply looked at me with the deepest gravity, as
if I were a foreigner blundering in my speech, for she clearly didn't
understand me a bit.

"Thank you so very much," I said at last, effusively, as I put the pipe
in my pocket, not without a qualm of doubt as to whether I shouldn't find
myself before a magistrate presently.

"O, you are so very welcome," said the little lass, with an affectation
of grown-up manners at their best which was very quaint.  "It is such a
pleasure to serve dear old gentlemen like you; especially when one can
see at once that you have come from far over sea."

"Yes, my dear," quoth I, "I have been a great traveller."

As I told this lie from pure politeness, in came the lad again, with a
tray in his hands, on which I saw a long flask and two beautiful glasses.
"Neighbours," said the girl (who did all the talking, her brother being
very shy, clearly) "please to drink a glass to us before you go, since we
do not have guests like this every day."

Therewith the boy put the tray on the counter and solemnly poured out a
straw-coloured wine into the long bowls.  Nothing loth, I drank, for I
was thirsty with the hot day; and thinks I, I am yet in the world, and
the grapes of the Rhine have not yet lost their flavour; for if ever I
drank good Steinberg, I drank it that morning; and I made a mental note
to ask Dick how they managed to make fine wine when there were no longer
labourers compelled to drink rot-gut instead of the fine wine which they
themselves made.

"Don't you drink a glass to us, dear little neighbours?" said I.

"I don't drink wine," said the lass; "I like lemonade better: but I wish
your health!"

"And I like ginger-beer better," said the little lad.

Well, well, thought I, neither have children's tastes changed much.  And
therewith we gave them good day and went out of the booth.

To my disappointment, like a change in a dream, a tall old man was
holding our horse instead of the beautiful woman.  He explained to us
that the maiden could not wait, and that he had taken her place; and he
winked at us and laughed when he saw how our faces fell, so that we had
nothing for it but to laugh also--

"Where are you going?" said he to Dick.

"To Bloomsbury," said Dick.

"If you two don't want to be alone, I'll come with you," said the old
man.

"All right," said Dick, "tell me when you want to get down and I'll stop
for you.  Let's get on."

So we got under way again; and I asked if children generally waited on
people in the markets.  "Often enough," said he, "when it isn't a matter
of dealing with heavy weights, but by no means always.  The children like
to amuse themselves with it, and it is good for them, because they handle
a lot of diverse wares and get to learn about them, how they are made,
and where they come from, and so on.  Besides, it is such very easy work
that anybody can do it.  It is said that in the early days of our epoch
there were a good many people who were hereditarily afflicted with a
disease called Idleness, because they were the direct descendants of
those who in the bad times used to force other people to work for
them--the people, you know, who are called slave-holders or employers of
labour in the history books.  Well, these Idleness-stricken people used
to serve booths _all_ their time, because they were fit for so little.
Indeed, I believe that at one time they were actually _compelled_ to do
some such work, because they, especially the women, got so ugly and
produced such ugly children if their disease was not treated sharply,
that the neighbours couldn't stand it.  However, I'm happy to say that
all that is gone by now; the disease is either extinct, or exists in such
a mild form that a short course of aperient medicine carries it off.  It
is sometimes called the Blue-devils now, or the Mulleygrubs.  Queer
names, ain't they?"

"Yes," said I, pondering much.  But the old man broke in:

"Yes, all that is true, neighbour; and I have seen some of those poor
women grown old.  But my father used to know some of them when they were
young; and he said that they were as little like young women as might be:
they had hands like bunches of skewers, and wretched little arms like
sticks; and waists like hour-glasses, and thin lips and peaked noses and
pale cheeks; and they were always pretending to be offended at anything
you said or did to them.  No wonder they bore ugly children, for no one
except men like them could be in love with them--poor things!"

He stopped, and seemed to be musing on his past life, and then said:

"And do you know, neighbours, that once on a time people were still
anxious about that disease of Idleness: at one time we gave ourselves a
great deal of trouble in trying to cure people of it.  Have you not read
any of the medical books on the subject?"

"No," said I; for the old man was speaking to me.

"Well," said he, "it was thought at the time that it was the survival of
the old mediaeval disease of leprosy: it seems it was very catching, for
many of the people afflicted by it were much secluded, and were waited
upon by a special class of diseased persons queerly dressed up, so that
they might be known.  They wore amongst other garments, breeches made of
worsted velvet, that stuff which used to be called plush some years ago."

All this seemed very interesting to me, and I should like to have made
the old man talk more.  But Dick got rather restive under so much ancient
history: besides, I suspect he wanted to keep me as fresh as he could for
his great-grandfather.  So he burst out laughing at last, and said:
"Excuse me, neighbours, but I can't help it.  Fancy people not liking to
work!--it's too ridiculous.  Why, even you like to work, old
fellow--sometimes," said he, affectionately patting the old horse with
the whip.  "What a queer disease! it may well be called Mulleygrubs!"

And he laughed out again most boisterously; rather too much so, I
thought, for his usual good manners; and I laughed with him for company's
sake, but from the teeth outward only; for _I_ saw nothing funny in
people not liking to work, as you may well imagine.

 Discussion and Bed At a meeting of the Socialist League, men argue over the future of society. One man, a friend of the narrator, sat silent in the beginning but becomes involved in the arguing to the point of calling the others fools and leaving. He travels home by public transportation, discontent with society and thinking about arguments he should have made at the meeting. The train station is five minutes from the man's house, and as he walks home he looks at an "ugly suspension bridge" over the Thames. He repeats to himself, "If I could but see it!" . Suddenly, the man is overtaken by the beauty of the moon and its illumination of the river. This puts the man in a very good mood, and he goes into his house and falls asleep in his bed. He falls asleep quickly but then wakes up soon after. He stays awake for a few hours and then falls back asleep. The narrator says that they will now take over the story in first person, even though the story did not actually happen to them, because they understand the thoughts and feelings of their friend and it will be more natural to write. Chapter 2: A Morning Bath When the narrator awakes, it is a sunny and hot morning. He feels as if he has been sleeping for a long time and seeks to shake off his grogginess. He hurries outside to get some fresh air and finds that, while it was winter when he went to sleep, it now seems to be summer. However, he is definitely in the same place, since he sees the Thames right outside. The narrator decides to clear his head with a swim. He goes down to a nearby dock and finds a man sitting in a boat. After a quick conversation, the narrator jumps into the water. However, he chokes on water due to his surprise at not seeing an ugly bridge over the river anymore. He decides that he will ask some questions to the man in the boat. The man helps him into the boat and starts rowing. The boatman asks him whether he'd like to be put straight ashore or whether he'd like to be taken to Putney for breakfast. The narrator is surprised by how handsome the boatman is and how good his speaking and manners are. The narrator comes to believe that the man must be a "refined young gentleman, playing waterman for a spree" . The narrator and the boatman have another brief dialogue, with the narrator trying to decide how many questions to ask about the astounding changes since last night; many of the factories that used to line the Thames are gone, and in place of the old metal bridge there is a beautiful stone one. When the narrator asks how old the bridge is, the man replies that it is not very old, since it was built in 2003. The narrator is dumbstruck. The narrator asks to be taken ashore to have breakfast. When they arrive, the narrator asks "How much?" and the boatman is confused, seeming to not understand the idea of exchanging money for services. The boatman refuses what he can only conceptualize as a special gift, and the narrator begins to think that the man could be crazy. The men talk about old coins for a while, and then the boatman declares that he can tell the narrator must be "from a place very unlike England" and suggests that he can be his guide. The narrator protests, thinking but not saying that he wouldn't want to do this without paying the man; he tells the man instead that he wouldn't want to take him away from his work. The boatman tells the narrator that he actually has a friend who would like to take over his job, and that he was planning to go up-stream to do work for the harvest anyway. The narrator agrees to be guided by the boatman, and the boatman wakes his friend who is sleeping in the Guest House by playing a bugle. Another young man emerges from the Guest House. He greets his friend, meets the narrator, and tells them both that they'd ought to come in for breakfast. Chapter 3: The Guest House and Breakfast Therein The narrator follows the two men inside, pausing to admire the architecture of the Guest House. They enter the hall of the Guest House and find three women arranging breakfast. The narrator inwardly praises their looks and especially their dress, comparing it to women of his time and finding these women dressed more simply and beautifully. They set out a breakfast of fruit, bread, and other simple yet well-prepared foods. As the narrator eats, he spies an inscription on the wall of the hall: "Guests and neighbours, on the site of this Guest-hall once stood the lecture-room of the Hammersmith Socialists. Drink a glass to the memory! May 1962" . As they eat, people begin to ask the narrator questions about who he is and where he is from. He tells them to call him "William Guest." As for where he is from, he is wise enough to not tell them he is from Hammersmith, since he has been acting as if he doesn't know the place or its customs, so he tells them that he was born near Epping Forest. Hearing this, they engage him in a conversation about nature, and he talks comfortably for a while until mistakenly making a reference to the year and having to stop in confusion. Robert asks how old he is, and he tells them honestly that he is 56. They are amazed by this because by their society's standards, he looks much older than 56. They invite him to ask questions now, and he begins to ask Robert a question about weaving, but he must stop when another elegant, attractive man enters. This man, Boffin, says that he has questions to ask William, but Dick begs him not to ask William any questions for now and announces that he plans to take the narrator to talk to his great-great-grandfather in Bloomsbury. Boffin goes out to prepare the carriage. In a few minutes, Dick and William leave the Guest House and head off in their carriage, with the women and Boffin seeing them off. Chapter 4: The Market by the Way As they ride, William examines the new landscape of Hammersmith. There are small, pretty houses dotted all over, brightly dressed people, and a bustling market. William remarks on how there don't seem to be "country-looking people" around at the market as he'd expect, but Dick is confused by what he means. When William clarifies that he means poor people, Dick interprets this to mean sick people. Chapter 5: Children on the Road William and Dick keep on their journey toward Bloomsbury. They go through Kensington and continue on through thick woods. William becomes curious when he sees many groups of people playing and hanging around in the woods, especially groups of children ranging from quite young to teenagers. Dick tells him that children often go off to camp in the woods together for weeks at a time in the summer, and that this is something encouraged by the adults in society since it teaches the youngsters to do things for themselves. William adjusts to this knowledge and tries to support it with the idea that the students must be refreshed when they return to school after the summer. Dick is again confused, and describes the system of education they now have in England, which consists of children learning what they like from adults. Because of the general interests of the children, most learn to cook, build, and farm, and many learn to read and speak other languages, but few study literature or mathematics intensively. Dick and William travel by Westminster Abbey and the old Houses of Parliament. While Westminster Abbey has been preserved in its original form, the Houses of Parliament are now used as a market and a storage place for manure. Dick talks disdainfully of architecture of these old buildings, but notes that nobody has found a strong reason to tear them down and that they serve to contrast newer, more artfully built buildings. Chapter 6: A Little Shopping Dick and William emerge from the forest into Piccadilly. William watches as people go into shops and come out with items, though we already know that this society no longer buys and sells goods for money. Dick suggests that they do some shopping, and William thinks to himself that he could use some new clothes. He is momentarily upset when he remembers he doesn't have any money, but he reminds himself the rules of this society and suggests to Dick that they get him some new clothes. Dick urges him not to get new clothes yet, since he'd like his great-great-grandfather to see him how he is. They settle on getting William a pipe and some tobacco. They get out of the carriage and Dick asks a young woman to hold their horse for them. They enter a shop and find a young girl and boy working there. The girl waits on Dick and William very maturely, providing him with a large amount of good tobacco, a beautiful new bag to hold it in, and an elegant, hand-crafted pipe. Though he tries to resist, William protests that he could not pay for such a thing, that he might lose it, and that it is too grand for him. However, with a look from Dick, he realizes that he should simply accept what the girl is offering and give her thanks. The boy brings out wine for them to drink, and then they head back out to their carriage. When Dick and William arrive at their carriage, there is a man holding the horse instead of the young woman they left there. The man offers to go along to Bloomsbury and Dick welcomes him along. They talk about children working jobs like shopkeeping, with Dick explaining how children generally like to do this kind of work, especially because it isn't very taxing on the body. He gives a long speech about "a disease called Idleness" which existed back when people were forced to do certain kinds of work they didn't enjoy and consequently became ugly and had ugly children.

