News from Nowhere; Or, An Epoch of Rest<br />Being Some Chapters from a Utopian Romance, William Morris [best big ereader TXT] 📗

backing up the slayer in cold blood, as this prison business is.  Prisons, indeed!  O no, no, no!”

He stopped, and began to cool down, and said in a kind voice: “But forgive me!  I needn’t be so hot about it, since there are not any prisons: I’m afraid you will think the worse of me for losing my temper.  Of course, you, coming from the outlands, cannot be expected to know about these things.  And now I’m afraid I have made you feel uncomfortable.”

In a way he had; but he was so generous in his heat, that I liked him the better for it, and I said:

“No, really ’tis all my fault for being so stupid.  Let me change the subject, and ask you what the stately building is on our left just showing at the end of that grove of plane-trees?”

“Ah,” he said, “that is an old building built before the middle of the twentieth century, and as you see, in a queer fantastic style not over beautiful; but there are some fine things inside it, too, mostly pictures, some very old.  It is called the National Gallery; I have sometimes puzzled as to what the name means: anyhow, nowadays wherever there is a place where pictures are kept as curiosities permanently it is called a National Gallery, perhaps after this one.  Of course there are a good many of them up and down the country.”

I didn’t try to enlighten him, feeling the task too heavy; but I pulled out my magnificent pipe and fell a-smoking, and the old horse jogged on again.  As we went, I said:

“This pipe is a very elaborate toy, and you seem so reasonable in this country, and your architecture is so good, that I rather wonder at your turning out such trivialities.”

It struck me as I spoke that this was rather ungrateful of me, after having received such a fine present; but Dick didn’t seem to notice my bad manners, but said:

“Well, I don’t know; it is a pretty thing, and since nobody need make such things unless they like, I don’t see why they shouldn’t make them, if they like.  Of course, if carvers were scarce they would all be busy on the architecture, as you call it, and then these ‘toys’ (a good word) would not be made; but since there are plenty of people who can carve—in fact, almost everybody, and as work is somewhat scarce, or we are afraid it may be, folk do not discourage this kind of petty work.”

He mused a little, and seemed somewhat perturbed; but presently his face cleared, and he said: “After all, you must admit that the pipe is a very pretty thing, with the little people under the trees all cut so clean and sweet;—too elaborate for a pipe, perhaps, but—well, it is very pretty.”

“Too valuable for its use, perhaps,” said I.

“What’s that?” said he; “I don’t understand.”

I was just going in a helpless way to try to make him understand, when we came by the gates of a big rambling building, in which work of some sort seemed going on.  “What building is that?” said I, eagerly; for it was a pleasure amidst all these strange things to see something a little like what I was used to: “it seems to be a factory.”

“Yes,” he said, “I think I know what you mean, and that’s what it is; but we don’t call them factories now, but Banded-workshops: that is, places where people collect who want to work together.”

“I suppose,” said I, “power of some sort is used there?”

“No, no,” said he.  “Why should people collect together to use power, when they can have it at the places where they live, or hard by, any two or three of them; or any one, for the matter of that?  No; folk collect in these Banded-workshops to do hand-work in which working together is necessary or convenient; such work is often very pleasant.  In there, for instance, they make pottery and glass,—there, you can see the tops of the furnaces.  Well, of course it’s handy to have fair-sized ovens and kilns and glass-pots, and a good lot of things to use them for: though of course there are a good many such places, as it would be ridiculous if a man had a liking for pot-making or glass-blowing that he should have to live in one place or be obliged to forego the work he liked.”

“I see no smoke coming from the furnaces,” said I.

“Smoke?” said Dick; “why should you see smoke?”

I held my tongue, and he went on: “It’s a nice place inside, though as plain as you see outside.  As to the crafts, throwing the clay must be jolly work: the glass-blowing is rather a sweltering job; but some folk like it very much indeed; and I don’t much wonder: there is such a sense of power, when you have got deft in it, in dealing with the hot metal.  It makes a lot of pleasant work,” said he, smiling, “for however much care you take of such goods, break they will, one day or another, so there is always plenty to do.”

I held my tongue and pondered.

We came just here on a gang of men road-mending which delayed us a little; but I was not sorry for it; for all I had seen hitherto seemed a mere part of a summer holiday; and I wanted to see how this folk would set to on a piece of real necessary work.  They had been resting, and had only just begun work again as we came up; so that the rattle of the picks was what woke me from my musing.  There were about a dozen of them, strong young men, looking much like a boating party at Oxford would have looked in the days I remembered, and not more troubled with their work: their outer raiment lay on the road-side in an orderly pile under the guardianship of a six-year-old boy, who had his arm thrown over the neck of a big mastiff, who was as happily lazy as if the summer-day had been made for him alone.  As I eyed the pile of clothes, I could see the gleam of gold and silk embroidery on it, and judged that some of these workmen had tastes akin to those of the Golden Dustman of Hammersmith.  Beside them lay a good big basket that had hints about it of cold pie and wine: a half dozen of young women stood by watching the work or the workers, both of which were worth watching, for the latter smote great strokes and were very deft in their labour, and as handsome clean-built fellows as you might find a dozen of in a summer day.  They were laughing and talking merrily with each other and the women, but presently their foreman looked up and saw our way stopped.  So he stayed his pick and sang out, “Spell ho, mates! here are neighbours want to get past.”  Whereon the others stopped also, and, drawing around us, helped the old horse by easing our wheels over the half undone road, and then, like men with a pleasant task on hand, hurried back to their work, only stopping to give us a smiling good-day; so that the sound of the picks broke out again before Greylocks had taken to his jog-trot.  Dick looked back over his shoulder at them and said:

“They are in luck to-day: it’s right down good sport trying how much pick-work one can get into an hour; and I can see those neighbours know their business well.  It is not a mere matter of strength getting on quickly with such work; is it, guest?”

“I should think not,” said I, “but to tell you the truth, I have never tried my hand at it.”

“Really?” said he gravely, “that seems a pity; it is good work for hardening the muscles, and I like it; though I admit it is pleasanter the second week than the first.  Not that I am a good hand at it: the fellows used to chaff me at one job where I was working, I remember, and sing out to me, ‘Well rowed, stroke!’  ‘Put your back into it, bow!’”

“Not much of a joke,” quoth I.

“Well,” said Dick, “everything seems like a joke when we have a pleasant spell of work on, and good fellows merry about us; we feels so happy, you know.”  Again I pondered silently.

CHAPTER VIII: AN OLD FRIEND

We now turned into a pleasant lane where the branches of great plane-trees nearly met overhead, but behind them lay low houses standing rather close together.

“This is Long Acre,” quoth Dick; “so there must once have been a cornfield here.  How curious it is that places change so, and yet keep their old names!  Just look how thick the houses stand! and they are still going on building, look you!”

“Yes,” said the old man, “but I think the cornfields must have been built over before the middle of the nineteenth century.  I have heard that about here was one of the thickest parts of the town.  But I must get down here, neighbours; I have got to call on a friend who lives in the gardens behind this Long Acre.  Good-bye and good luck, Guest!”

And he jumped down and strode away vigorously, like a young man.

“How old should you say that neighbour will be?” said I to Dick as we lost sight of him; for I saw that he was old, and yet he looked dry and sturdy like a piece of old oak; a type of old man I was not used to seeing.

“O, about ninety, I should say,” said Dick.

“How long-lived your people must be!” said I.

“Yes,” said Dick, “certainly we have beaten the threescore-and-ten of the old Jewish proverb-book.  But then you see that was written of Syria, a hot dry country, where people live faster than in our temperate climate.  However, I don’t think it matters much, so long as a man is healthy and happy while he is alive.  But now, Guest, we are so near to my old kinsman’s dwelling-place that I think you had better keep all future questions for him.”

I nodded a yes; and therewith we turned to the left, and went down a gentle slope through some beautiful rose-gardens, laid out on what I took to be the site of Endell Street.  We passed on, and Dick drew rein an instant as we came across a long straightish road with houses scantily scattered up and down it.  He waved his hand right and left, and said, “Holborn that side, Oxford Road that.  This was once a very important part of the crowded city outside the ancient walls of the Roman and Mediæval burg: many of the feudal nobles of the Middle Ages, we are told, had big houses on either side of Holborn.  I daresay you remember that the Bishop of Ely’s house is mentioned in Shakespeare’s play of King Richard III.; and there are some remains of that still left.  However, this road is not of the same importance, now that the ancient city is gone, walls and all.”

He drove on again, while I smiled faintly to think how the nineteenth century, of which such big words have been said, counted for nothing in the memory of this man, who read Shakespeare and had not forgotten the Middle Ages.

We crossed the road into a short narrow lane between the gardens, and came out again into a wide road, on one side of which was a great and long building, turning its gables away from the highway, which I saw at once was another public group.  Opposite to it was a wide space of greenery, without any wall or fence of any kind.  I looked through the trees and saw beyond them a pillared portico quite familiar to me—no less old a friend, in fact, than the British Museum.  It rather took my breath away, amidst all the strange things I had seen; but I held my tongue and let Dick speak.  Said he:

“Yonder is the British Museum, where my great-grandfather mostly lives; so I won’t say much about it.  The building on the left is the Museum Market, and I think we had better turn in there for a minute or two; for Greylocks will be wanting his rest and his oats; and I suppose you will stay with my kinsman the greater part of the day; and to say the truth, there may be some one there whom I particularly want to see, and perhaps have a long talk with.”

He blushed and sighed, not altogether with pleasure, I thought; so of course I said nothing, and he turned the horse under an archway which brought us into a very large paved quadrangle, with a big sycamore tree in each corner and a plashing fountain in the midst.  Near the fountain were a few market stalls, with awnings over them of gay striped linen cloth, about which some people, mostly women and children, were moving quietly, looking