CHAPTER I--JOHN BANNISTER
I shall never forget the day on which I first set eyes upon JohnBannister. I was then a boy--sixteen years of age, if I rememberrightly--and I stood before him, tongue-tied by the questions that heasked me, wondering how he had come by the great ugly, horrid scar uponhis face, awed--indeed, I think, a little frightened--by the greatmuscles in his forearms, naked to the elbows, his rough weather-beatenface with skin like leather, and above all else by the stature of theman.
For he was a giant--a giant such as I had dreamed of when a child. Assome such figure had I pictured Giant Despair, when my mother had readto me from _Pilgrim's Progress_: "And Giant Despair was in one of hisfits again." I had pictured Strength and Madness let loose amid athunderstorm of wrath. And when I first looked upon him who was to bemy champion and my comrade. I forgot his soft, kindly words andpleasing smile, and could only think how terrible he must be in anger.
There is a strip of beach upon the Sussex coast, so many miles fromnowhere, where the sand-snipe gather and seldom a human being may beseen. There, as a lad, I would love to roam, with no certain object inview, but just to find what I could, to observe what chanced to come myway, and, when wearied of wandering, to sit upon the shingle over andabove those plains of wet, grey sand and think of all manner of thingsas my boyish fancy pleased.
I was seated thus one April morning, far from home, and wondering how mytired legs would carry me back to dinner, when my attention wasattracted to two strange birds, of a kind that I could not remember tohave seen before. The sea was calm as glass, the sun hot as August.They were large birds, and were engaged--so far as I could see at adistance of more than a hundred yards--in dragging from the shallowwater what might have been the carcass of a fish.
I watched them, greatly interested, forgetful even of my appetite,possibly for five minutes; and then there came a heavy step upon theshingle at my back.
I turned quickly, to behold the figure of John Bannister. Like somegreat beast of prey, he had broken his way quite noiselessly through athick brake of that shrub which, I think, is calledsea-buckthorn--though I never knew one tree from another. And he stoodregarding me, with his hands upon his hips.
I got to my feet, thinking that such a man might be up to no good in solonesome a place, and I might find it advisable to take to my heels.But, quite suddenly, he laughed; and at the sound of his laughter I knewat once that I, for sure, had nothing to fear. Since that memorable dayI have learned in the world many true and singular things, but nonetruer than that you may know always an honest man by his laughter andthe shake of his hand.
"I startled you," he said.
"I wondered who it was," I faltered sheepishly.
"And you are still none the wiser," he answered.
And at that, he seated himself by my side.
He told me that the strange birds were hooded crows. He told me alsohow they bullied the rooks, robbed the gulls; how they were cleverer andmore evil than any other bird, foes of all and feared by all--thievesand murderers. He talked like a book; he had the science of the matterat his finger-tips, and he could, at the same time, paint pictures, asit were, with words. With him the hooded crow was in a single sentence_corvus cornix_, and the "highwayman of the air."
And as he talked to me, I wondered the more concerning him, and thoughtthe less of the hooded crows. Who was he, whence had he come, and whatwas he doing there in such a lonely place, in his shirt sleeves, in thewarm April sunshine? These were questions that he himself was toanswer. I cannot say why he took me straightway into his confidence,and afterwards into the very chamber of his heart--but he did; else Iwould now have naught to write about.
Let me confess that I have taken the whole tenour of my life from thisman's greatness. I have tried my best, all my long years, to bear inmind his strength, his wisdom, and his courage, that I might walk humblyin the shadow of a glorious example. But, more than all besides, I knowthat I owe to him the restless spirit of adventure, the love of action,the joy of wandering, that has led me so often to strange and distantplaces where I have found myself in even stranger company.
I cannot tell you of all he said to me upon the morning of our meeting.He spoke of many things, of the world he had seen, the dangers he hadfaced, the people he had known. As I had no longer feared him after hisfirst word and his open, kindly smile, so after five minutes of histalking did I feel that I had known him all my life. For his words weremagic. Wondrous pictures framed themselves before my eyes upon the calmsurface of that English sea--pictures of wild men, of treeless deserts,of savage forests and inhospitable hills; and I longed then to follow inthe footsteps of this heroic man, whose hairy arms were those of Vulcanand whose voice was soft as that of the mother whom I loved.
I forgot my dinner. I hungered only for adventure. I sat upon theshingle, wondering what lay beyond the vague horizon where grey sea andsky were blended, where I could just discern the smoke of a solitary anddistant steamer, the only sign of life or movement upon that desertsea--for we in the West of Sussex lay well away from the track of theChannel shipping.
On a sudden, I asked him the time; and with a glance at the sun he toldme it was two. At that, I jumped to my feet.
"But I am late!" I cried.
"Not for the first time," said he. "I can remember my own boyhood."
"My dinner was at one."
"Then you dine with me; for I eat when I have time and appetite, sleepwhen I will, and live as Nature meant me to."
He led me back from the beach across some sand-hills to a place wherethe gorse was like a wave of gold. And there was a wooden hut--or,rather, shed, for it was walled upon three sides only. And within wereall sorts of things: a sleeping-bag made of the skins of some smallanimal with fur soft as a mole's, which he said had come from the southof Africa; an iron cooking-pot, an evil-looking affair which he hadbrought with him from the Amazon; skins painted by North Americansavages; mocassins; a Malay sarong, a kind of towel worn around thewaist; and more curiosities and rude, primitive utensils than I couldwell describe within the space of a page of the smallest print.
And yet, I dined like a prince: a soup of fish, plover roasted upon aspit, and in place of bread, flour and water fried in a pan after thecustom of the Afghans. It may have been the novelty of it all, or thefact that by then I was well-nigh famished, but I never ate moreheartily, and I have never forgotten that meal, though I have had manysuch since then.
In answer to my questions, he told me more concerning himself. Thoughhe had lived a life of adventure, exploring wild countries, sleepingbeneath the stars, in constant peril of his life from savage beasts andscarce less savage men, I could not of myself comprehend why he shouldin peaceful England bury himself miles from the abodes of his fellowhuman beings. For I write--you must remember--of many years ago, of themid-Victorian time, as it is called--and good days they were, as we knowfull well who have lived to see these unsettled, troublous days. To-day,from the spot where John Bannister and I first met, you may catch aglimpse to the west along the coast of the red roofs of bungalows, whereweek-end visitors may come from London to set up bathing-huts upon thebeach, whilst from the east, perhaps, a pair of lovers may wander fromacross the golf course at Littlehampton in search of desirableseclusion. For that stretch of coast is desolate still; but in thosedays it was a kind of No Man's Land, with no sign of life but the gullsand the sand-snipe, the smoke from John Bannister's camp-fire, and thehooded crows.
Well, the truth was, he who feared neither beast of prey nor paintedcannibal was afraid of civilised men. He went once a week to the littleinland village a few miles distant to purchase groceries and stores.There--as I found out afterwards--they thought him a madman, though hewas always courteous in his manner and paid without question for what hebought. He had few words for any man, and none ever for a woman.Later, when my mother came to learn of my new-found friend who livedalone among the sand-hills, she was anxious to see him, more for my ownwelfare than
from curiosity; but he told me flatly that he had neverknown any civilised woman save his own mother, who had died when he wasyoung, and he would rather face a wounded lion than pretend to talk toone.
"For it comes to this," said he; "I have gone back, as it were, upon thecenturies; I have learned to live as men lived in ancient times. ThoughI have read much and thought more, and have some claim, I suppose, to becalled a scholar, in many ways I am no better than a cave-man. I haveforgotten all the niceties of culture. I have neither small-talk nortable manners. So I prefer to live as I do, in my own way; and I offerno welcome to visitors. The farmer who owns this land is glad enough ofthe little I pay him in the way of rent; but, beyond that and my weeklyshopping, I seek no intercourse with strangers. I am content to bealone."
I asked if he were not often lonely, and he laughed.
"Even here," said he, "in Sussex, Nature is a living force. The seachanges almost hour by hour. Birds come and visit me. Even the rabbitsin the brake have already learned to know me. They all seem toknow--these little, wild things--that I am one of them, and soon ceaseto fear me. They are my companions and my friends, and I have alsobooks and memory. And I have health and air, the smell of the salt seaand the seaweed, and the sunrise to awaken me before your street-bredfriends are stirring. The wind, the rain, and the sun--I welcome eachas it comes. Did I want other comrades, I should go and seek them; butI prefer to live like this."
"And yet you talked willingly to me?" I asked.
"Because," he answered slowly--and his words came to me as asurprise--"because you are a cave-man, too."
"'BECAUSE,' HE ANSWERED SLOWLY, 'BECAUSE YOU ARE ACAVE-MAN, TOO.'"]
"I!" I exclaimed.
"Every boy," said he, "every healthy, happy boy. It was the savage inyou--though you may not realise it--that brought you out here alone,that took you right away from red bricks and shops and dinner."
I cannot say whether I have conveyed to the reader in the space of thisshort chapter a true conception of the character of John Bannister, ashe was when I knew him first. Of his personal appearance I have yet towrite; and if it be a simple matter to describe that which is outwardlyapparent, it is by no means easy either to fathom or to portray a man'ssoul and mind.
Do not imagine that I myself knew aught of him until after we hadsojourned together for months, faced the same dangers, stood side byside throughout the great adventure of which I have to tell. I knewfrom the first that he was wise and generous and kind: I could see withmy eyes that he was strong, and his talk charmed the imagination of adreamy, active boy. In spite of all he knew, of the experiences he hadhad in all parts of the world, he was one of the simplest men that everlived. And there was something in him of the poet. I do not mean thathe ever tried to set down his thoughts in verse, but that he lived inlove with all things beautiful. I have seen him stand stock-still likeone transfigured, with eyes illumined, gazing in wonderment upon apurple sunset upon the snow-capped crestline of the distant Andes--andthat at a moment when his own life, as well as mine, was not worth afull day's purchase.
Judge all men by their deeds and not their words. Hear this history tothe end, and see what like of man was he whose charm and peril led meforth from green and sleepy Sussex to adventure in the darkness of thosetropic forests that shut out the source of the great River of Mystery,where there are poison, black ignorance, and fell disease, and a man mayno more count the dangers that encompass him than the myriads ofstinging insects that drone about his ears.
And one thing more: my own life has not been lived without event. Ithas been my fate to tell a score of times of the enterprise of others;but of all men of action I have ever known, read or written of, I rankJohn Bannister as first. Perhaps that may be because I can now seatmyself of a winter's evening before my study fire and see him in myfancy as he was in all his strength and manhood, pass through again thedangers and the hardships, and live once more the glorious days that itwas my privilege to pass with him, and remember that, had it not beenfor him, I might have lived all my life in Sussex and seen nothing ofthe world. But how can I set down the debt I owe him? For I owe himlife itself.