Books: News from Nowhere

W >> William Morris >> News from Nowhere

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END*

This etext was produced from the 1908 Longmans, Green, and Co.
edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

NEWS FROM NOWHERE
or AN EPOCH OF REST
being some chapters from
A UTOPIAN ROMANCE

by William Morris

CHAPTER I: DISCUSSION AND BED

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.

CHAPTER II: A MORNING BATH

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 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.

CHAPTER III: THE GUEST HOUSE AND BREAKFAST THEREIN

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."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17