The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864

Various

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 / A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics

A TALK ABOUT GUIDES

Talk about guides! Let Independence, Self-Conceit, and Go-ahead undervalue them, if they will; but I, Sola Fœmina, (for that is the name I go by,) of Ignorance, (the place I hail from,) casting up my unbalanced accounts, (with a view to settling,) find a large credit due to this class of individuals, which (though I have not the means to meet) I have no intention to repudiate.

Now and then, to be sure, I, S. F., have been reminded in my journeyings of poor dear E., whose lively spirit was so chafed by the exactions made upon his purse and his temper at the hands of this imperturbable race, that at last he turned, like a stag at bay, and vented all his wrath in the face of a startled old woman by the abrupt and emphatic query, "What'll you take to clear out?"

Still, dogmatic and prosing as they sometimes proved, my experience on the whole was favorable; and from the motherly old portress of the English church at Honeybourne, who fed me with bread and butter under her cottage-roof, and sent me away laden with garden-flowers and a blessing, to faithful Michel, who held me over the blue fissures of the glaciers that I might get a glimpse of their secret waterfalls, who gathered violets for me on the margin of the icy sea, and, when I had carelessly dropped them by the way, treasured up the faded things to restore them to me at nightfall,—from the aged woman, with her "Good bye till we meet in heaven," to the rough mountaineer, with his hearty hand-pressure and God-speed at parting, I would not willingly lose one link out of the chain of such fast friends which stretched along my way.

There is Warwick Castle,—a written history, no doubt, to scholars, a mine of wealth to antiquaries and architects; but how incomplete would my associations be with the spot, were you banished from the picture, my sturdy friend, fit type of the female retainers of the household of the King-Maker, who, stationed within the ivied approach to the castle, presided at the brazen porridge-pot, once holding food enough to satisfy ten score of men, now empty, save for the volume of sound which stuns the ear when you strike it with your ponderous iron bar! Can I ever forget the scene of laughter and riot, when you installed me within the capacious vessel, dubbed me "Countess Guy, of the Porridge-Pot," and, the rest of my party having been induced to accept the hospitalities of the place, and mount my triumphal car, declared your intention to light a fire beneath and have the finest stew in all England? The castle is a stern place, perhaps; but how can I ever think it grim, with such a jolly old flatterer as you stationed at its portal?

And here, in my blundering way, I have stumbled on the secret spring of my whole subject; so I may as well make a merit of confession, and acknowledge frankly that the trap in which these wary guides entangled my affections was generally neither more nor less than a net of silken flattery. Your good guide, your dear guide, your pet guide, whom Neighbor So-and-so, going abroad, must look up immediately on his arrival, this invaluable creature, depend upon it, is an arrant flatterer. He does not go out of his way for you; he does not tell it you to your face; but, somehow or other, (if he knows his vocation,) he makes you believe, that, of all the travellers he ever escorted, (and he has been a travellers' escort from his infancy,) you are the first, the only one, in whose behalf duty became a privilege.

Do you suppose I put faith in Michel, when, on my second Alpine excursion, this companion of the previous day's peril placed himself in close proximity to my mule, took the bridle with an air of satisfaction, and whispered with an insinuating smile, "I go with you to-day; see, there is another guide for Mademoiselle"? He was mistaken. It was my young friend whom he was, on this occasion, destined to escort over the mountain. He was as devoted to her as if she had been the apple of his eye. Whether I followed next in the file, brought up the rear, or was dashed over the precipice, I doubt if he looked behind him to discover. Was I fool enough, then, to trust his professions? I acknowledge the weakness. I was but a novice, he a practised courtier in the guise of a mountaineer. To make a clean breast of it, I even suspect that his self-gratulatory whisper is still ringing in my ear, for I find that Mademoiselle and I are rivals in our devotion to Michel.

And Ann Harris, of Honeybourne, widow, portress of the ancient village-church, surrounded by villagers' graves, approached by four foot-paths over four stiles, perfect model of all the churches in all the novels of English literature,—was it partiality for me, ancient matron, or an eye to a silver sixpence, which made you, and makes you still, the heroine of my day of romance? At any rate, I shall never cease to invoke a blessing on that immaculate railway-company which decoyed me from London into the heart of England, and, with a coolness unexampled in the new districts of Iowa, dropped me at the sweetest nook under the sun, there to wait three hours for the train which should have taken me at once to Stratford,—three golden hours, in which I might bask like a bee in a Honeybourne beyond my hopes.

Not that my Honeybourne was precisely the spot where the railway-train left me standing deserted and alone,—alone save for a Stratford furniture-dealer, who, unceremoniously set down in the midst of his new stock of tables and chairs, and with nothing else in sight but a platform, a shed, and me, looked at the last-mentioned object for sympathy, while he cursed the departing train and swore the usual oath of vengeance, namely, that he would never travel that road again.

He got red with passion and cursed the road; I stared round me and kept cool. Was I more philosophical than he? No, but there was this difference: he was bent on business, I on pleasure; he was in a hurry, I could afford to wait.

Three hours,—and only a platform, a shed, and an infuriated furniture-dealer to keep me company! This was the Honeybourne station, but not Honeybourne. I found a railway-official hard by, had my baggage stowed in the shed, crossed the platform, looked at my watch to make sure of the time, then struck out into the open country. Through shady lanes, over stiles, across the fields, on I went, in the direction pointed out to me by two laborers whom I met at starting. The sweet white may smiled at me from the hedges; the great sober eyes of the cattle at pasture reflected my sense of contentment; the nonchalant English sheep showed no signs of disturbance at my approach (unlike the American species, which invariably take to their heels); the children set to watch them lifted their heads from the long grass and looked lazily after me, never doubting my right to tread the well-worn foot-path with which every green field beguiled me on. I came out in the vegetable-garden of a rustic cottage, one of some dozen thatched-roofed dwellings, which, with the church and simple parsonage, constituted sweet Honeybourne. "Oh that it were the bourne from which no traveller returns!" was the thought of my heart, as, with a dreamy sense of longings fulfilled, I wandered through the miniature village, across it, around it, beyond it, and back to it again, as a bee saturated with sweets floats round the hive.

And now to my queen-bee, Ann Harris, aforesaid!

"All the way from Lunnon! Alone, and such a distance! Bless my heart!" cried the primitive Ann, with hands and eyes uplifted. "Come in and rest you, and have something to eat! I have bread and butter, sweet and good, and will boil the kettle and make you a cup of tea, if you say so."

I had already made the circuit of the church, strolled among the ancient gravestones, crossed the moss-covered bridge, threaded the paths beneath the hawthorn, had a vision of boundless beauty, drunk in the silence, and dreamed out my dream of solitude, independence, and the joy of being no one but myself knew where. Could I do better than accept this invitation to enter the humble cottage, with the prospect of an admittance also to an old woman's heart? Did I win the latter? or did I only fancy it? Did the motherly creature believe me lost? or was her astonishment only feigned? Was she really, despite her poverty, ready to share her last crust with a stranger? or was the benignant glance which gave me in my loneliness the sense of adoption merely an eye to self-interest?

Dear old soul! One of us, at least, was simple-hearted and true,—either she in her innocent professions, or I in my silly credulity. I have faith that it was she. At all events, I do so cherish the memory of her kindness, that, so far from treasuring the notion of the silver sixpence, I hereby pledge myself, that, if ever the reminiscence I am penning should be worth half as much to me in gold as it is in memory, I will send Ann Harris at least one shining guinea, as a token how willingly I would go shares with her in something.

And the guinea would not come amiss, for Ann was poor; her clay-floored cottage boasted only its exquisite neatness, her furniture was of the humblest, her dress the cheapest. She was too old for hard work; her duties at the little church were light,—the profits, I fear, were lighter; for that visitors to the remote sanctuary were rare her reception of me was sufficient proof. As she guided me through the church, I asked her if it was well attended. She shook her head sadly, and, pointing in the direction of a neighboring village, answered,—

"Most of 'em go to chapel, yonder,—the more's the pity."

She told me that she had no provision for the coming winter, and feared she must go to the Union. (It was not our own, then prosperous and unbroken, Union, to which she dreaded emigrating.) She merely meant the work-house; and as she spoke, her face wore a shadow that still clouds my recollections of Honeybourne. I do not know if her fears were realized,—if her cottage is forsaken,—if she dwells among paupers, or sleeps in the village church-yard; but I cannot think of her as lonely or poor or dead. Her saintly face told of blessed communion; I know that she was rich in faith and hope; and were I assured that her spirit had left the flesh, I should only picture her to myself standing erect at heaven's doorway, welcoming strangers with the same serenity with which she said to me at parting,—"I shall meet you there."

She offered me a farewell gift of flowers from her garden. It was a beautiful cottage-garden, and many of the flowers were brilliant and even rare, giving proof of careful, if not scientific culture. Still I hesitated. My hands were full of sweet may, red campion, and other native field-blossoms, which had introduced themselves to me anonymously. They were the children of the green sod which I had been treading so lightly on my way to the village; and, in the quiet of my ramble, they had seemed to me like whispers from Him who made them, and with whom I had never felt so utterly alone. I could not bear to see them displaced by Ann's garden-belles, tempting as the latter would have been at any other moment. She saw my indifference to her offer. I knew she saw it working in my face. I attempted to apologize for my preference, but she did not understand me; so I blurted out my thought, awkwardly enough, saying,—

"Yours are beautiful; but God made these, you know,—and—and—I like them best."

She looked down upon me gravely, pityingly, smiling, too, with a tenderness which was neither grave nor pitying. I have seen long-visioned people look with just that expression at the eyes of the short-sighted, on the latter's confessing their inability to detect an object at no great distance.

"He made them all," she said; and her words were an ascription of praise.

They come to me often now. They bid me look farther and see more. They tell me how mine and thine have no place in this world of His. False distinctions shrink away from the light of the old woman's clearer faith; I see how the ablest workers are but instruments in higher hands,—how science, culture, inspiration itself, are but gifts to be laid on His altar.

I need scarcely say that I at once found room for Ann's flowers in my hand, as for her lesson in my heart. Some of the former are pressed and laid away as a sacred memento, and something of the latter is treasured up among good seed sown by the way-side.

I would gladly have lingered longer in this little nook, into which I seemed to have been drifted by chance; but my time was up,—I had a mile or two to walk over the fields in the direction of the railway,—my friends were to meet me at Stratford. Should I miss the train this time, my philosophy might fail me as signally as that of the above-mentioned furniture-dealer failed him.

A few hours after I bade my old friend farewell, I was at my destination. Millions have shared my experiences at the tomb of the great poet. Everybody is familiar with William Shakspeare and Stratford-on-Avon, but I hug the thought that nobody but I knows anything about Ann Harris and Honeybourne.

I have dwelt upon an occasion in which the humble office of a guide resulted in companionship, friendship, instruction. A brief sojourn in Alpine regions has furnished me with a similar reminiscence.

We were setting forth for a day's ride across the Tête-Noire. Our party consisted of five, and we had two guides. Our baggage, which was for the most part light, was strapped on the backs of the mules behind the riders. One article, however, a square box of considerable proportions, proved refractory, and, veering from side to side, refused to maintain the even balance which, owing to the rough nature of the bridle-path, was essential to the safety of both mule and rider. We were obliged to halt again and again, that the box might be restrapped, always with doubtful success. Each time that we drew up in line for this purpose we were overtaken by a Swiss youth, who had perceived our dilemma, and who hoped, by following us up closely, to make a job out of it. There was but a limited knowledge of French among us, (the language in which the youth spoke,) still, by aid of his vehement gestures, he made us understand that he was ready, for a consideration, to accompany us on our toilsome journey, and carry the box on his back.

"Eight francs, Monsieur,—I will do it for eight francs!" But the box was righted, his services seemed superfluous, and we moved on, regardless of his beseeching looks.

A fresh delay soon ensued, the boy came panting up, and this time it was "Seven francs,"—nay, as we rode away from him, he frantically shouted, "Six!" His prospects seemed hopeless, but destiny and perseverance were on his side,—the box gave another alarming lurch,—the heated and almost discouraged youth made one last appeal,—

"Four francs, Monsieur! I will do it for four francs!" and the day was his.

He was not a regular guide, appointed by Government and furnished with a certificate, as is the law of the Alpine district for all who serve in this responsible capacity. We had engaged him simply as a porter. Still, the docile youth had no sooner strapped the box on his back than, seeing that I was the only lady unprovided with an attendant, he drew my mule's bridle through his arm, and quietly took me in charge.

No matter how charming a travelling-party you belong to, the moment they are all mounted and climbing a mountain, single file, you feel yourself a unit in creation. Everybody has turned his back upon you, and you have turned your back upon everybody. You are a solitary traveller. Are you aghast at your own situation on the steep slope of a mule's back, with a precipice above your head and your feet dangling over a gulf below? There is no help for it. Imagine yourself a sack of meal, if you can, and expect as little sympathy as would be accorded to that article. Are you moved to a keen sense of the ridiculous, as a curve in the road discloses the figures of your elongated party, unused to riding, and rendered the more grotesque by their mountain-equipment? A laugh unshared is no laugh at all, so you may as well smother it at once. Does the scenery through which you are passing awaken emotions of sublimity? It would be sacrilege to shout out your sentiments to the occupant of the next mule in such tones as a watchman would employ to cry, "Fire!" No,—if you are essentially a social creature, there is nothing for it but to bottle up your sensibilities and await the opportunity for an explosion when you reach your inn.

Something like this result occurred, I remember, on the evening of that very day, when Mademoiselle, who, under the charge of Michel, led the van, met me at the hotel at Martigny, at which place she had of course arrived a little in advance. We were not usually more demonstrative in our manners than is customary among New-England women, but the moment I could alight we rushed into each other's embrace, regardless of a crowd of astonished porters and guides, mutually insisting, by way of apology, that it seemed as if we had not met for a year.

Having dwelt upon this peculiar isolation experienced by the Alpine traveller, it may be conjectured, that, when the boy, Auguste, drew my bridle through his arm, I felt very much as Robinson Crusoe did when he was joined by his man Friday. Auguste and I soon became friends. He was a large, round-faced, mild-eyed youth, who, the instant the excitement of securing his employment was past, subsided into a soft, even pace like that of a dog. Now and then, too, he looked up at the mule and me, precisely as a dog, accompanying his master, looks up to see if all is right.

I did not talk to him at first. His mere presence was satisfaction enough. After a while we grew more sociable. He spoke a French patois. So did I. His was peculiar to the province,—mine wholly original,—but both answered the purpose of communication, and so were satisfactory. He had the essential characteristic of his profession,—he was one of the oily-tongued tribe, simple as he seemed, and I the willing victim; for I am confident that I straightened in my saddle, and talked more glibly than ever in the language peculiar to myself, on the strength of his naïve surprise at learning the place of my nativity, and his polite exclamation, "De l'Amèrique! O! j'avais cru que vous étiez de Paris!"

The conversation you hold with your guide has this advantage,—you can suspend it at will. There are miles of travel, in crossing the Tête-Noire, when, if your most sympathizing friend walked beside you, the thought of both hearts would be, "Let all the earth keep silence!" and in the absence of such unspoken sympathy, the next best thing is the innocent gravity of an attendant hired for so many francs a day, and not presuming to speak unless spoken to.

But when these sublimer passages are passed, when the path skirts the edge of the valley, when the giant mountains have retired a little and you slacken the tense cord of emotion which for a while has held you spell-bound, it is a relief to loosen the tongue also, and reassure yourself with the sound of the human voice. Thus Auguste and I had frequent dialogues. He told me something of his past life, which I do not remember very well. I think its chief incident was his having been drafted for the army, and having served his term. Of his future, however, he spoke with an earnestness which has left its impression on my mind. He said that the next winter he meant to go to Paris and seek a service; and his perseverance in wringing employment out of us inclines me to think that he fulfilled his intention. Savoy, to which province he belonged, had just been annexed to France. A party of guides from Chamouni had the day before succeeded, with difficulty, in planting the imperial flag on the summit of Mont Blanc. Was it this which had awakened the ambition of the young Savoyard to share the spoils of the empire of which he had so suddenly become a member? Perhaps (I never thought of it before, but perhaps) he was already seeking means for his journey to the capital. Perhaps the price of his hard-won service was to be the nucleus of his savings. Have I, then, aided your purpose, Auguste? helped to transform you from a simple mountain-lad to a mere link in a chain of street-sweepers, an artful official of a third-rate billiard-saloon, or a roystering cab-driver with his perpetual entreaty for an extra fee in the form of "Quelque chose à boire"? My mind shrinks from the possibility, for I cannot bear to think of him as other than he then seemed,—a child of Nature and of the truth.

In the course of our day's journey we drew near a little village. I had been chatting with Auguste and felt in a loquacious mood, but paused as I found myself passing through the village,—in other words, sneaking round the corner of one shabby hut, and straight through the farm-yard of the next, and close by the windows of a third,—the three, and a few other stray buildings, constituting the hamlet. As it seemed an impertinence to follow such an intrusive, inquisitive little road at all, we could, of course, do no less than maintain a dumb propriety in the presence of the children and kitchen-utensils, but, as we left them behind and struck across an open field, my eye fell on one of those way-side shrines common in all Roman-Catholic districts. It was a miniature arch of plastered or whitewashed stone, and contained, as nearly as I could judge from the glimpse I had in passing, two coarse dolls, intended to represent the Virgin and Child.

"What is that, Auguste?" I asked, with feigned ignorance.

"A place of worship," he answered; "the people come there to pray."

"But what do they come there for?" I continued.

"God is there," he answered, with emphasis, pointing at the same time to the gayly dressed puppets.

"No, He is not," I replied.

He turned round and looked at me defiantly. His mild face became that of a fanatic, and I actually quailed beneath his angry eye, as he retorted,—

"He is there."

My mistake flashed upon me, too, at the instant, and I hastened to explain myself in the simplest manner my poor French would allow, saying,—

"Oui, Auguste, Il est là, c'est vrai; mais Il est là aussi!"—and I pointed to the snow-capped mountains on my right,—"et là!"—and I waved my hand towards the deeply shadowed heights on the opposite side of the valley.

He caught my meaning as by an inspiration. His fierce frown melted instantly into an intelligent smile.

"Il est partout!" exclaimed the youth, with enthusiasm, his childlike, eager eyes seeking a response in mine.

I nodded in affirmation of the truth. It was enough. Catholic and Protestant had met on common ground,—we understood each other,—we were reconciled.

Has he carried his large faith with him into the great metropolis? and have I kept mine unshaken in spite of the storm that is raging in my native land? Armed in his simplicity only, he has gone to meet the gusts of temptation; and I have lived to see the Republic, which I believed inviolable as Mother Earth herself, tremble and totter, as one after another of her rotten pillars has fallen away. God grant that we may both, in this day of our peril, be able, as then, to realize that "Il est partout"!

During my short Alpine journey I held the office of paymaster for our party, my election being due not so much to proficiency in the queer dialect above alluded to as to courage in the use of it. It is always a pleasant office to disburse the funds, but was never more so than when, late at night, Michel and Auguste came to the hotel at Martigny to receive the reward of their day's toil. Michel had his full dues in money, and plenty of praise to boot; Auguste, evidently much to his surprise, a trifle more than his minimum price. Each of them then grasped my hand in his horny palm,—an unexpected salutation, but not a harsh one, for each hand had a heart in it, or I believed it had, which was all the same to me. They made the customary promise not to forget me, but credulity must stop somewhere, and at this point I must confess my easy faith gave out, and left me skeptical.

I have given the preference in order of narrative, as well as in memory, to guides who proved competent, willing, and true, who, if they seasoned the intercourse between us with a little encouragement to my self-esteem, had nothing in them obsequious or timeserving, and who set me a wholesome example of clear convictions and firmness in the maintenance of right. But not only are the virtues of the race whom I have chosen for a theme subjects of congratulation; even the uncertainties and misfits of these frequently rusty keys to the past excite a mirth that lightens the toil with which one rummages through the corridors of time. It would be treason to tell the name of that antique university-chapel where a certain wooden-headed verger was betrayed into the absurdest error; it would be personal to give the name of the waggish friend who made him his innocent butt; but the facts and the joke claim no disguise.