His death put an end to my dream of being a lawyer. He had been kindness itself to me in helping me, and had promised to put work in my way. I decided to burn my boats, and to devote all my time to writing. My wife encouraged me. She is half Irish, and has a strain of recklessness.
Chapter V
THE WHEELS OF CHANGE
When I was a boy, a stage-coach started each morning (Sundays excepted) from an old inn off the Minories. Not the shining band-box of the coloured print, with its dancing horses, its jolly coachman, and its dandy guard, but a heavy lumbering vehicle drawn by four shambling horses, all of a different size, driven by a rheumaticy old curmudgeon, who had to be hoisted on to his seat, and his whip handed up to him afterwards. It went through Ongar and Epping, but its final destination I forget. To many of the smaller towns round London the railway had not then penetrated; and similar relics set out each morning from other ancient hostelries. Carriers' carts were common everywhere, connecting London with what are now its nearer suburbs, but which were then outlying villages. A row of them stood always in the middle of the Whitechapel Road, opposite St. Mary's church. They were covered with a hood, and had a bench for passengers along each side, and a little window at the back. For those in a hurry who could afford the price, post chaises were still to be hired, with top-hatted postillions and horses with bells that galloped over the cobbles. Respectable people—especially publicans—kept a gig; and sporting old ladies, on visits to their bankers or solicitors, would drive themselves into the city behind their own fat ponies.
The bicycle had not yet arrived: though nearly every afternoon an odd old fellow used to ride down Mare Street, Hackney, on a tricycle he had made for himself. In wet weather, he carried an umbrella over his head with one hand, and steered with the other. He was quite a public character, and people used to wait about to see him pass. The first bicycles were nicknamed “spiders.” The front wheel was anything from fifty to sixty inches in diameter and was joined to a diminutive back wheel by a curved steel bar, shaped like a note of interrogation. Their riders had to be youths of skill and courage, or woe betide them. They wore tight-fitting breeches and short jackets that ended at the waist. Your modern youngster on his grimy “jig-pig” with his padded legs, his bulging mackintosh, his skull-cap and his goggles, goes further and faster, I admit; but his slim grandfather, towering above the traffic on his flashing wheel, was a braver sight for gods and girls.
It was my nephew, Frank Shorland, who first rode a safety bicycle in London. A little chap named Lawson claimed to have invented it. He became a company promoter, and later retired to Devonshire. A cute little chap. The luck ran against him. It was he who first foresaw the coming of the motor, and organized that first joy ride from the Hotel Metropole to Brighton in 1896. Young Frank was well known as an amateur racer. He believed in the thing the moment he saw it, and agreed to ride his next race on one. He was unmercifully chaffed by the crowd. His competitors, on their tall, graceful “spiders,” looked down upon him, wondering and amazed. But he won easily, and from that day “spiders” went out of fashion; till they came to be used only by real spiders for the spinning of their webs.
The coming of the “safety” made bicycling universally popular. Till then, it had been confined to the young men. I remember the bitter controversy that arose over the argument: “Should a lady ride a bicycle?” It was some while before the dropped bar was thought of, and so, in consequence, she had to ride in knickerbockers: very fetching they looked in them, too, the few who dared. But in those days a woman's leg was supposed to be a thing known only to herself and God. “Would you like it, if your sister showed her legs? Yes, or no?” was always the formula employed to silence you, did you venture a defence. Before that, it had been: “Could a real lady ride outside an omnibus?” or “Might a virtuous female ride alone in a hansom cab?” The woman question would seem to have been always with us. The landlady of an hotel on the Ripley Road, much frequented then by cyclists, went to the length of refusing to serve any rider who, on close inspection, turned out to be of the feminine gender; and the Surrey magistrates supported her. The contention was that a good woman would not—nay, could not—wear knickerbockers, “Bloomers” they were termed: that, consequently, any woman who did wear bloomers must be a bad citizeness: in legal language, a disorderly person, and an innkeeper was not bound to serve “disorderly characters.” The decision turned out a blessing in disguise to the cycling trade. It stirred them to invention. To a bright young mechanical genius occurred the “dropped bar.” A Bishop's wife, clothed in seemly skirts, rode on a bicycle through Leamington.
Bicycling became the rage. In Battersea Park, any morning between eleven and one, all the best blood in England could be seen, solemnly peddling up and down the half-mile drive that runs between the river and the refreshment kiosk. But these were the experts—the finished article. In shady by-paths, elderly countesses, perspiring peers, still in the wobbly stage, battled bravely with the laws of equilibrium; occasionally defeated, would fling their arms round the necks of hefty young hooligans who were reaping a rich harvest as cycling instructors: “Proficiency guaranteed in twelve lessons.” Cabinet Ministers, daughters of a hundred Earls might be recognized by the initiated, seated on the gravel, smiling feebly and rubbing their heads. Into quiet roads and side-streets, one ventured at the peril of one's limbs. All the world seemed to be learning bicycling: sighting an anxious pedestrian, they would be drawn, as by some irresistible magnetic influence, to avoid all other pitfalls and make straight for him. One takes it that, nowadays, the human race learns bicycling at an age when the muscles are more supple, the fear of falling less paralyzing to the nerves. Still occasionally, of an early morning, one encounters the ubiquitous small boy, pursuing an erratic course upon a wheel far and away too high for him—borrowed without permission, one assumes, from some still sleeping relative. With each revolution, his whole body rises and falls. He seems to be climbing some Sisyphian staircase. But one feels no anxiety. One knows that by some miracle he will, at the last moment, succeed in swerving round one; will shave the old lady with the newspapers by a hair's breadth; will all but run over the dog; and disappear round the corner. Providence is helpful to youth. To the middle aged it can be spiteful. The bicycle took my generation unprepared.
In times of strike, there emerges the old hansom. Its bony horse must be twenty years older, but looks much the same. Its driver has grown grey and harmless; thanks you for a shilling over his fare, and trots away. Once, he was both the terror and the pride of London town. Nervous old ladies and gentlemen, on their way home to genteel suburbs, would ride in fear and trembling, wondering what he would say—or do—to them if they failed immediately to satisfy his exorbitant demand. Young men, with sweethearts, would furtively count their change, trying to guess how much it would cost them to silence his loud-mouthed sarcasm. Myself, I discovered that there was but one way of teaching him Christian behaviour; and that was by knowing more bad language than he had ever learnt, and getting it in first. How could he know that I had slept in doss-houses, shared hay-ricks with tramps? I had the further advantage over him of being able to add vituperation both in French and German. Outclassed, he would whip up his horse, glad to escape. But not all had my gift of tongues. The late Weedon Grossmith had recourse to guile. He had found a charming place called “The Old House” at Canonbury. But it was far from theatre-land; and Weedon's difficulty was getting home at nights. From the Strand to Canonbury was what the drivers used to call “collar work.” The horse had the work. The driver had the extra tip. Weedon was willing to pay in reason, but the old hansom-cab driver was a born bully: especially when dealing with a smallish gentleman in a lonely cul-de-sac. So instead of giving the address of his own front gate, Weedon always gave the address of a house near by that happened to be next to a police station. The constable on duty—not perhaps entirely forgotten on his birthday and other anniversaries—would stroll up as Weedon Grossmith jumped out. The cabman would accept his fare, plus a respectable addition, with a pleasant “Thank you, sir”; and wishing Weedon and the constable good-night, drive off. And all was peace.