CHAPTER VIII
HOSPITALITY
Hospitality, as generally practised in the three kingdoms, is a very delightful thing, but to the lecturer it is apt to be deadly, unless indeed he is churlish and refuses to reciprocate at all to the kindness shown him. Occasionally, of course, one meets with that most objectionable person whose only reason for giving you an invitation is that you may amuse his or her guests and incidentally shed lustre upon your host as being able to catch such a lion and induce him to roar to order. Happily such folks are rare and are becoming rarer, yet still many lecturers have a well-founded fear of being “entertained within an inch of their lives,” and make it a rule to refuse all invitations, preferring to go to an hotel where they can have what they like to eat, go to bed when they like, and get up ditto without fear of putting anybody out or appearing faddish.
I cannot help feeling glad though that I never reached that stage, for I cherish the most delightful memories of all my hosts and hostesses, save two or three, and those only during the South African War, when some of the best and most truthful of men seemed to lose their heads and forget what the truth was, deeming any falsehood believable if it would blacken the character of men who were giving their lives for their country. I certainly did have some bad times with those people, and have had to leave the company to avoid speaking my mind, but I hope that will soon all be forgotten now.
What I chiefly prize about the hospitality which I received is the numbers of good friends, not ephemera, but real friends that I made. I have gone into a house one day and left it the next, having in the meantime made friends whom I can never cease to love while I live and who I feel humbly grateful to think will never cease to love me until they can love no longer. But of all the hospitality I ever enjoyed the quaintest was at Rishton, a suburb of Blackburn, and the manner of it was as follows. I was lecturing at Blackburn in the Town Hall, and on arrival went to the principal hotel with the secretary of the society who met me at the station. There, however, I could only get a bathroom to change in, for they were full, and my friend sent a man round with my bag to another hotel, assuring me that I should be all right there.
After the lecture the secretary invited me to spend an hour at the club, and as I felt fresh I readily consented. There I was introduced to a number of genial clubmen, and the time flew rapidly by until one of those present said:
“I don’t want to break up this happy gathering, but I understand Mr. Bullen’s staying at the ——, and if he doesn’t go now he’ll get shut out. It’s eleven o’clock, and they’re mighty particular.”
I rose at once and began to shake hands, when one of the members said nonchalantly:
“Mr. Bullen isn’t stopping at the ——, he’s stopping with me. George, go over to the —— and ask for Mr. Bullen’s bag; tell ’em I sent you.”
There was some little, very little, palaver over this, but I laughed and said I was quite happy whichever way it was, and so we settled down again. It was something past two and only a few of the members remained when my host said cheerily:
“Now, Mr. Bullen, if you’re quite ready, don’t let me hurry you, I think we’ll be getting home.”
I rose with haste and professed my perfect readiness to go, indeed I had been wondering slightly how much longer this club séance was going to last. My host then shouted:
“George, call a hansom! An’ see what sort of a night it is, won’t ye?”
Anon George returned, having got a hansom, and the information that it was raining in torrents. Bah, what did that matter? It was dry inside the cab, and although I did feel some qualms about the driver being out in that downpour through four dark miles, I was not in a pessimistic mood, neither was my friend. So we bumped along, chatting gaily, until suddenly my friend smote his knee and uttered a resounding exclamation. Naturally I enquired what had bitten him. After anxiously feeling in all his pockets he replied:
“I’ve left my key in my office in Manchester, my family are at Bournemouth, and the old woman who does for me goes home at nine o’clock. Funny thing, won’t it be, if I can’t get into my own house?”
I made some banal reply, but even this was not sufficient to disturb my optimistic humour, and soon we were both laughing heartily at the episode. Meanwhile the horse plugged steadily on, and at last drew up outside the gate of a fine house. The rain was, if anything, worse, but out jumped my friend, bidding me stay where I was in the dry. I think I should have stayed there anyhow, for with all my good feelings I did not see how I could help matters by getting wet. After quite a long absence my friend returned to report that he had tried every possible door and window within reach only to find them all securely fastened. And the only thing to do now was to drive a mile further to the village where the old caretaker lived, rouse her up, get the key from her, and come back.
I acquiesced cheerfully, making no comment on my friend’s saturated condition but thinking ruefully of the poor cabman from whom we had not yet heard. When we arrived at the old lady’s house and while my friend was battering at her door to the consternation of the neighbourhood, I looked at my watch and found that it was 3.15. And I softly chuckled to myself until I thought of the poor fellow in the dickey. However, my friend got his key—I heard it fall from an upper window on to the pavement—returned to the cab, and we again started for home. The only reference to his condition made by my friend was that he felt as if he’d been in swimming, but he didn’t care, he rather enjoyed the adventure.
At last we reached his door and gained access without further trouble, he giving the cabby a big drink of whisky and I hope paying him well. He then made some coffee on the gas-stove and after we had drunk it we scurried to bed just as the clock struck four. Yet, in spite of that, he was up at seven, got breakfast ready, and we caught the Manchester train at about 8.30, none the worse, as far as I was concerned.
As a contrast to this, let me set off an amazing experience I had in the brave West Country. I was booked to lecture at Plymouth on a certain date, and as I was visiting a relative at Crewkerne some days previously, I was taking my father down with me. A lady wrote to me—and a most charming letter it was—offering the hospitality of her house during my stay in Plymouth, but as I was to have my father’s company I regretfully refused, telling her why. A few posts later a letter arrived from her saying that her husband had been suddenly ordered off to Egypt by his doctor and in consequence she would be unable to receive me. But she placed her house and servants and carriage at my disposal, begging me to bring my father and not only to treat the place as if it were my own as regarded us two, but to give entertainment to as many friends as I liked. Indeed she stipulated that I should give at least one dinner-party!
Well, what could I say to such a princely offer as this? Only accept it gratefully, and in due course father and I arrived at the Great Western Station to find a beautiful carriage and pair awaiting us. We were driven to a stately house on the Hoe and received by the housekeeper with the assurance that in accordance with her instructions she would spare no pains to keep us comfortable. Nor did she. Never can I forget the splendour of that dinner-party, all the guests being friends of my hostess, or the agony of my father who having against my advice loaded up with sandwiches and cake at the five o’clock tea was unable to touch a slice of the noble turkey he carved so well at the head of the table.
I need hardly say that our stay of two days there was all too brief for me, but business called me away, and I had to go. But now that I feel elated when I have eaten one egg and two small slices of toast for my breakfast, I often think of that board spread for us two the morning we left. A noble uncut ham, an untouched glazed tongue, cooked on the premises, and innocent of any tin or glass, half a dozen eggs, a huge brawn, a great jar of Devonshire cream—it was a banquet for a boarding school, and the sight of it almost satisfied our healthy hunger. That was an episode to be remembered, yea, to carry with me, as Kipling says, “to the hungry grave.”
It has often given me much food for wondering thought, this practice of hospitality which is carried to a length of which I had never before dreamed. For instance, I have known of quite fierce competition between two families for the honour (?) of putting me up for one night only, and in some cases the matter has only been settled by my consenting to dine in one house and sleep in another. It was always my practice on revisiting a place to stay with the same hosts, if it were convenient for them to have me; indeed, I always had a standing invitation to do so, but on several occasions I have received letters from other parties, informing me that they had been in negotiation with my former hosts, and had succeeded in inducing them to allow the writers to entertain me this time! And, do what I would, the thought would assert itself, How pleasant it is to be thus sought after, but why? I have never found any definite answer.
But several times I have heard rumours to the effect that some lions are not at all easy to cater for. Apropos of that, I remember reading in an American skit upon William Elbert Hubbard, the eccentric genius who founded the Roycroft Brotherhood of Aurora, New York, that upon being offered a sandwich by his trembling hostess, he threw back his mane and said loftily, “It is ten dollars extra if I eat.”
Then, without another word, he stalked from the room, and presently there was heard a crash, he had flung a chambermaid downstairs. Humbly asked why, he replied in effect, “It is my humour; let no one question me.” Now this is obviously only a caricature, yet I have heard tales which I could not refuse to credit of public men retiring to bed after luncheon with a bottle of whisky; this in a temperance family too! And of a man who is an exceedingly prominent Nonconformist minister who treated his host and hostess with far less courtesy than was due to any hotel-keeper, refusing to eat with them or associate with anybody during his stay, save his secretary, who was accommodated in the same house.
It hardly seems credible that such practices should, not to say endear a man to his hosts, but admit of his being ever entertained again, yet so strangely are people constituted, that behaviour of that kind is condoned and excused as being the hall-mark of genius. On the same principle I suppose as the being possessed of the poetical faculty is held by some to excuse a man from behaving with either cleanliness, decency, sobriety or honesty. Perhaps then it was because I always felt grateful to my hosts and endeavoured to give them as little trouble as possible, while making myself as agreeable as I knew how to be, that I have so many happy recollections of hospitality received.
Once, indeed, my host failed me through no fault of his own, I am sure, although the letter he wrote telling me of his sudden forced departure for London did not reach me until some time after the trouble. The lecture was at Abergwynfi, South Wales, and I arrived there in the gloom of a winter evening, amid a drizzling rain. A less inviting place I have never seen, for the station seemed to end in a black wall of rock, and nothing could be seen around but the grimy cañon along which we had come. Enquiry at the station whether anyone was waiting for anybody only elicited a stare and a curt “no.” Further enquiries presently as to whether I could find a hotel and where, brought the stationmaster, who told me of two, and directed me to them.
So I climbed the steep, muddy stairs into the black, foul road, and after a tiring drag, with my heavy bag, of a few hundred yards, I reached a public-house, crammed with drunken miners, who were making a tremendous noise. This surprised me, for I had always thought of the Welsh miner as a quiet man, except in religious fervour, and certainly given to temperance. However, I pushed through the reeking crowd, and enquired at the bar if I could have a room. No! they had no rooms to let, used to have two, but there was no call for them now. Disheartened, I begged the landlord to let me know where the nearest place was that I could get a room, and he directed me still farther up that hopeless thoroughfare to another place, where they did have rooms.
I trudged up there, very wearily, noting as I went the fine Workmen’s Institute, where I was to lecture, because of the posters displayed outside and bearing my name. Alas, when I reached the hostelry, which was even more dreary and deplorable looking than the first, but had not so many drunken men in it, I was told that their two spare beds were occupied by two young women with the smallpox, a daughter of the landlord’s and a sewing-maid. Of course I lost no time in retreating, and being thus driven, took refuge in the Institute, where I was received by the caretaker with open arms.
I felt at once as if I had accidentally touched the right spring, for my new friend summoned a myrmidon from below, giving him some orders in fluent Welsh, which resulted in the appearance in a very few minutes of a robust man whom I took to be a superior workman or foreman of sorts, but who could not do enough for me. He took me to his home, apologising volubly all the way, and in a very short time his good wife had loaded the little kitchen table with tea, toast, cake, jam and sardines, to all of which I did as much justice, I hope, as was reasonable.
At my suggestion of changing into dress clothes he turned a puzzled, appealing look upon his wife, and a brief colloquy in Welsh passed between them. Then he said that he hoped I would not trouble to change, for as it was the first time they had ventured upon a lecture or address in English, nobody would expect it. And would I please come along to the Institute and meet the committee? I rose with alacrity, and together we marched up the muddy street towards that building.
The strains of a brass band in the distance saluting my ears, I made some trivial remark about it, to which he replied:
“Oh, yes. I quite forgot to ask you, do you mind the band playing for a few minutes before you begin—by way of introduction like? You see, they’ve offered, and they’re very keen—they do it all for love, and we don’t like to discourage them.”
Well, what could I do but acquiesce with as much appearance of heartiness as I could muster, though I did begin to wonder whither this affair was tending. But we now met the committee, all working men, who greeted me with enthusiasm, and did their best to make me feel welcome, although the English that some of them spoke was quaint; and we chatted on until that band played itself in and stopped all conversation. The leader ranged his merry men on the stage behind the sheet, and as the clock struck eight the band burst into a triumphal march. Merciful powers, may I never have such an experience again! Every executant, especially big drum, was determined that his instrument should be heard, no matter what happened, and there were thirty of them! I felt as if the drums of my ears would burst, but feared to offend by going out.
Still, I hoped that the uproar would be brief, indeed, I had been told of ten minutes as the limit. Alas, no! Though their faces were crimson and streamed with sweat, they felt no fatigue, and they clashed, blared and banged on until a quarter to nine, forty-five minutes. There was a hubbub of Welsh congratulations, after which I bowed to the leader of the band (his instrument was the bombardon), and said without emphasis, “Thank you so much.” Then I went before the sheet, there being no chairman.
The hall was packed, 600 I should think being present, and of them at least 590 were miners. Not a sound was heard, every face was filled with blank amazement. Not being used to such a reception, I was a bit daunted, but plunged in and talked my best for an hour and a quarter. Still not a sound nor a movement, until one of the committee went before the screen and said something in Welsh, upon which the hall emptied, noisily, it is true, but in most orderly fashion. On joining the committee I expressed a fear that I had not pleased my audience, but my host of teatime hastened to assure me that my efforts were beyond praise.
“Only,” he said, “you must remember that very few of the chaps understand English!”
And then, indeed, I was filled with admiration for their good behaviour. To sit and listen to unintelligible explanations of pictures representing something they had never even dreamed of before,—sit for seventy-five minutes and make no protest, then go out in such orderly fashion,—well, it spoke volumes for their characters in the direction of self-restraint.
“Now, sir,” broke in my kind guardian again, “if you will come along with us to Blaengwynfi, we have found you a hotel there. This village has no public accommodation at all.”
Of course I signified my delighted acquiescence. What else could I do? But I hoped it was not very far, and I was at once assured that it was less than a mile. So we strolled, about eight of us, my bag being carried by one of the party, and soon arrived at the hotel, where I was solicitously attended to in the matter of food, and given quite a decent room. My meal over, I was invited to join my committee, who were evidently out for the evening. Well, what a gay crowd it was, to be sure. They sang and they drank and they smoked—the eleven o’clock rule having been suspended for their benefit apparently, until at about midnight I begged off, and retired to my bedroom. But as it was next to the room in which were the revellers, it was long before I got to sleep, though I have no idea when the merry party broke up.
Next day, however, I found that my bill had been paid, and that everybody was delighted with my behaviour and with the evening generally. Also I found a good train from a station almost opposite to the hotel, and passed away from the district never to visit it again, but to bear it in memory all my life.