THE MAN IN THE HIGH-WATER BOOTS

By F. Hopkinson Smith

1909

Now and then in my various prowlings I have met a man witha personality; one with mental equipment, heart endowment, self-forgetfulness, and charm--the kind of charm that makes you gladwhen he comes and sorry when he goes. 

One was a big-chested, straight-backed, clear-eyed, clean-souledsea-dog, with arms of hickory, fingers of steel, and a brain in instanttouch with a button marked "Experience and Pluck. " Another was adevil-may-care, barefooted Venetian, who wore a Leporello hat cantedover one eye and a scarlet sash about his thin, shapely waist, and whosecorn teeth gleamed and flashed as he twisted his mustache or threwkisses to the pretty bead-stringers crossing Ponte Lungo. Still a thirdwas a little sawed-off, freckled-faced, red-headed Irishman, who drove acab through London fogs in winter, poled my punt among the lily-pads insummer, and hung wall-paper between times. 

These I knew and _loved_; even now the cockles of my heart warm up whenI think of them. Others I knew and _liked_; the difference being simplyone of personality. 

This time it is a painter who crosses my path--a mere lad of thirty twoor three, all boy-heart, head, and brush. I had caught a glimpse of himin New York, when he "blew in" (no other phrase expresses his movement)where his pictures were being hung, and again in Philadelphia when somecrushed ice and a mixture made it pleasant for everybody, but I hadnever examined all four sides of him until last summer. 

We were at Dives at the time, lunching in the open courtyard of the inn, three of us, when the talk drifted toward the young painter, his life athis old mill near Eure and his successes at the Salon and elsewhere. Our host, the Sculptor, had come down in his automobile--a long, low, double-jointed crouching tiger--a forty-devil-power machine, fearingneither God nor man, and which is bound sooner or later to come to anuntimely end and the scrap heap. 

All about, fringing the tea tables and filling the summer air with theirchatter and laughter, were gathered not only the cream, but the verytop skimmings of all the fashion and folly of Trouville--twenty minutesaway, automobile time--their blossoming hats, full-blown parasols, and pink and white veils adding another flower-bed to the quaint oldcourtyard. 

With the return of the Man from the Latin Quarter, his other guest, whoknew the ins and outs of the cellar, and who had gone in search of acertain vintage known only to the initiated (don't forget to ask for itwhen you go--it has no label, but the cork is sealed with yellow wax; M. Ramois, the good landlord, will know the kind--_if he thinks you do_), our host, the Sculptor, his mind still on his friend the painter, lookedup and said, as he reached for the corkscrew:

"Why not go to-morrow? The mill is the most picturesque thing youever saw--an old Louis XIII house and mill on the River Rille nearBeaumont-le-Roger, once inhabited by the poet Chateaubriand. The riverruns underground in the sands for some distance and comes out a fewmiles from Knight's--cold as ice and clear as crystal and packed full oftrout. Besides Knight is at home--had a line from him this morning. "

The Man from the Quarter laid down his glass. 

"How far is it?" This man is so daft on fishing that he has been knownto kiss the first trout he hooks in the spring. 

"Only fifty-six miles, my dear boy--run you over in an hour. "

"And everything else that gets in the way, " said the Man from theQuarter, moving his glass nearer the Sculptor's elbow. 

"No danger of that--I've got a siren that you can hear for a mile--butreally, it's only a step. "

*****

I once slid down a salt mine on a pair of summer pantaloons and broughtup in total darkness (a godsend under the circumstances). I stillshudder when I think of the speed; of the way my hair tried to leave myscalp; of the peculiar blink in my eyes; of the hours it took tolive through forty seconds; and of my final halt in the middle of amoon-faced, round-paunched German who was paid a mark for saving thebones and necks of idiots like myself. 

This time the sliding was done in an overcoat (although the summer sunwas blazing), a steamer cap, and a pair of goggles. First there came ashivery chuggetty-chug, as if the beast was shaking himself loose. Nexta noise like the opening of a bolt in an iron cage, and then the Innof William the Conqueror--the village-beach, inlet--wide sea, streamedbehind like a panorama run at high pressure. 

The first swoop was along the sea, a whirl into Houlgate, a mad dashthrough the village, dogs and chickens running for dear life, andout again with the deadly rush of a belated wild goose hurrying to asouthern clime. Our host sat beside the chauffeur, who looked like thedemon in a ballet in his goggles and skull-cap. The Man from the Quarterand I crouched on the rear seats, our eyes on the turn of the roadahead. What we had left behind, or what might be on either side of uswas of no moment; what would come around that far-distant curve a mileaway and a minute off was what troubled us. The demon and the Sculptorwere as cool as the captain and first mate on the bridge of a liner ina gale; the Man from the Quarter stared doggedly ahead; I was too scaredfor scenery and too proud to ask the Sculptor to slow down, so I thoughtof my sins and slowly murmured, "Now I lay me. "

When we got to the top of the last hill and had swirled into thestraight broad turnpike leading to Lisieux, the Sculptor spoke inan undertone to the demon, did something with his foot or hand orteeth--everything with which he could push, pull, or bite was busy--andthe machine, as if struck by a lash, sprang into space. Trees, fences, little farmhouses, hay-stacks, canvas-covered wagons, frightenedchildren, dogs, now went by in blurred outlines; ten miles, thirtymiles, then a string of villages, Liseau among them, the siren shriekinglike a lost soul sinking into perdition. 

"Watch the road to the right, " wheezed the Sculptor between his breaths;"that is where the Egyptian prince was killed--" this over his shoulderto me--"a tram-car hit him--you can see the hole in the bank. Made thatlast mile in sixty-five seconds--running fifty-nine now--look outfor that cross-road--'Wow-wow-oo--wow-wow'" (siren). "Damn thatmarket cart--'Wow-wow-o-o-wow. '" "Slow up, or we'll be on top of thatdonkey--just grazed it. Can't tell what a donkey will do when a girl'sdriving it. " 'Wow-oo-w-o--. '

Up a long hill now, down into a valley--the road like a piece of whitetape stretching ahead--past school-houses, barns, market gardens; intodense woods, out on to level plains bare of a tree--one mad, devilish, brutal rush, with every man's eyes glued to the turn of the road ahead, which every half minute swerved, straightened, swerved again; nowblocked by trees, now opening out, only to close, twist, and squirmanew. Great fun this, gambling with death, knowing that from behind anybush, beyond every hill crest, and around each curve there may springsomething that will make assorted junk of your machine and send you toBallyhack!

"Only one more hill, " breathed the Sculptor, wiping the caked dust fromhis lips. Woo-oo-wow-o-o (nurse with a baby-carriage this time, runninginto the bushes like a frightened rabbit). "See the mill stream--that'sit flashing in the sunlight! See the roof of the mill? That's AstonKnight's! Down brakes! All out--fifty-six miles in one hour andtwenty-two minutes! Not bad!"

I sprang out--so did the Man from the Quarter--the flash from the millstream glistening in the sunlight had set his blood to tingling; as formyself, no sheltering doorway had ever looked so inviting. 

"Marie! _Marie!_ Where's monsieur?" cried out the Sculptor from his seatbeside the demon. 

"Up-stairs, I think, " answered a stout, gray-haired, rosy-cheeked woman, wiping her hand and arms on her apron as she spoke. She had started on arun from the brook's edge behind the house, where she had been washing, when she heard the shriek of the siren, but the machine had pulled upbefore she could reach the door-step. 

"He went out early, but I think he's back now. Come in, come in, all ofyou. I'm glad to see you--so will he be. "

Marie was cook, housemaid, valet, mother, doctor, and any number ofthings beside to Knight; just as in the village across the stream whereshe lived--or rather slept o' nights--she was billposter, bell-ringer, and town crier, to say nothing of her being the mother of elevenchildren, all her own--Knight being the adopted twelfth. 

"The mill might as well be without water as without Marie, " said theSculptor. "Wait until you taste her baked trout--the chef at the Voisinis a fool beside her. " We had all shaken the dear woman's hand howand had preceded her into the square hall filled with easels, freshcanvases, paintings hung on hooks to dry, pots of brushes, rain coats, sample racks of hats, and the like. 

All this time the beast outside was snorting like a race-horse catchingits breath after a run, the demon walking in front of it, examining itsteeth, or mouth, or eyes, or whatever you do examine when you go pokingaround in front of it. 

Up the narrow stairs, now in single file, and into a bedroom--evidentlyKnight's--full of canvases, sketching garb, fishing-rods and reelslining the walls; and then into another--evidently the guest's room--alllace covers, cretonne, carved chests, Louis XVI furniture, rare oldportraits, and easy-chairs, the Sculptor opening each closet in turn, grumbling, "Just like him to try and fool us, " but no trace of Knight. 

Then the Sculptor threw up a window and thrust out his head, thusbringing clearer into view a stretch of meadow bordered with clumps ofwillows shading the rushing stream below. 

"Louis! _Louis!_ Where the devil are you, you brute of a painter?"

There came an halloo--faint--downstream. 

"The beggar's at work somewhere in those bushes, and you couldn't gethim out with dynamite until the light changed. Come along!"

There's no telling what an outdoor painter will submit to when anuncontrollable enthusiasm sweeps him off his feet, so to speak. I myselfbarely held my own (and within the year, too) on the top step of acrowded bridge in Venice in the midst of a cheering mob at a regatta, where I used the back of my gondolier for an easel, and again, whenyears ago, I clung to the platform of an elevated station in an effortto get, between the legs and bodies of the hurrying mob, the outlinesof the spider-web connecting the two cities. I have watched, too, other painters in equally uncomfortable positions (that is, out-of-doorpainters; not steam-heated, easy-chair fellows, with pencil memorandaor photos to copy from) but it was the first time in all my variedexperiences that I had ever come upon a painter standing up to hisarmpits in a swift-flowing mill or any other kind of stream, the waterbreaking against his body as a rock breasts a torrent, and he workingaway like mad on a 3 x 4 lashed to a huge ladder high enough to scalethe mill's roof. 

"Any fish?" yelled the Man from the Quarter. 

"Yes, one squirming around my knees now--shipped him a minute ago--footslipped. Awful glad to see you--stay where you are till I get this highlight. "

"Stay where I am!" bellowed the Sculptor. "Do you think I'm St. Peter orsome long-legged crane that--"

"All right--I'm coming. "

He had grabbed both sides of the ladder by this time, and with head inthe _crotch_ was sloshing ashore, the water squirting from the tops ofhis boots. 

"Shake! Mighty good of you fellows to come all the way down to see me. Here, you stone-cutter--help me off with these boots. Marie's gettingluncheon. Don't touch that canvas--all this morning's work--got to workearly. " (It looked to be a finished picture to me. )

He was flat on the grass now, his legs in the air like an acrobat aboutto balance a globe, the water pouring from his wading boots, soaking therest of him, all three of us tugging away--I at his head, the Sculptorat his feet. How Marie ever helped him squirm out of this diving-suitwas more than I could tell. 

We had started for the mill now, the Man from the Quarter lugging theboots, still hoping there might be some truth in the trout story, theSculptor with the palette (big as a tea-tray), Knight with the ladder, and I with the wet canvas. 

Again the cry rang out: "Marie! _Marie!_" and again the old womanstarted on a run--for the kitchen this time (she had been listeningfor this halloo--he generally came in wringing wet)--reappearing as wereached the hall door, her apron full of clothes swept from a dryingline stretched before the big, all-embracing fireplace. These shecarried ahead of us upstairs and deposited on the small iron bedsteadin the painter's own room, Knight close behind, his wet socks makingMan-Friday footprints in the middle of each well-scrubbed step. Oncethere, Knight dodged into a closet, wriggled himself loose, and was outagain with half of Marie's apronful covering his chest and legs. 

It was easy to see where the power of his brush lay. No timid, uncertain, niggling stroke ever came from that torso or forearm orthigh. He hewed with a broad axe, not with a chisel, and he hewedtrue--that was the joy of it. The men of Meissonier's time, like the oldDutchmen, worked from their knuckle joints. These new painters, in theirnew technique--new to some--old really, as that of Velasquez and FransHals--swing their brushes from their spinal columns down their forearms(Knight's biceps measure seventeen inches) and out through theirfinger-tips, with something of the rhythm and force of an old-timeblacksmith welding a tire. Broad chests, big boilers, strong arms, straight legs, and stiff backbones have much to do with success inlife--more than we give them credit for. Instead of measuring men'sheads, it would be just as well, once in a while, to slip the tapearound their chests and waists. Steam is what makes the wheels goround, and steam is well-digested fuel and a place to put it. Withthis equipment a man can put "GO" into his business, strength intohis literature, virility into his brush; without it he may succeed inselling spool cotton or bobbins, may write pink poems for the multitudeand cover wooden panels with cardinals and ladies of high degree; inreal satin and life-like lace, but no part of his output will take afull man's breath away. 

*****

Sunshine, flowers, open windows letting in the cool breezes from meadowand stream; an old beamed ceiling, smoke-browned by countless pipes;walls covered with sketches of every nook and corner about us; a tablefor four, heaped with melons, grapes, cheese, and flanked by ten-pinbottles just out of the brook; good-fellowship, harmony of ideas, courage of convictions--with no heads swelled to an unnatural size; fourappetites--enormous, prodigious appetites; Knight for host and Marie ashigh chamberlainess, make the feast of Lucullus and the afternoon teasof Cleopatra but so many quick lunches served in the rush hour of adowntown restaurant! Not only were the trout-baked-in cream (Marie'sspecialty) all that the Sculptor had claimed for them, but thefried chicken, soufflés--everything, in fact, that the dear womanserved--would have gained a Blue Ribbon had she filled the plate of anycommitteeman making the award. 

With the coffee and cigars (cigarettes had been smoked with everycourse--it was that kind of a feast) the four mouths had a breathingspell. 

Up to this time the talk had been a staccato performance betweenmouthfuls:

"Yes--came near smashing a donkey--don't care if I do--no--no gravy"(Sculptor). "Let me put an extra bubble in your glass" (Knight). "Thesefish are as firm as the Adirondack trout" (Man from the Quarter). "Morecream--thank you. Marie!" (Knight, of course) "more butter. " "Donkeywasn't the only thing we missed--grazed a baby carriage and--" (Scribe). "I'm going to try a red ibis after luncheon and a miller for a tailfly--pass the melon" (Man from the Quarter): That sort of hurried talkwithout logical beginning or ending. 

But now each man had a comfortable chair, and filled it with shouldershidden deep in its capacious depths, and legs straight out, only thearms and hands free enough to be within reach of the match-safe andthimble glasses. And with the ease and comfort of it all the talk itselfslowed down to a pace more in harmony with that peace which passeth allunderstanding--unless you've a seat at the table. 

The several masters of the outdoor school were now called up, theirmerits discussed and their failings hammered: Thaulow, Sorolla yBastida, the new Spanish wonder, whose exhibition the month beforehad astonished and delighted Paris: the Glasgow school; Zorn, Sargent, Winslow Homer--all the men of the direct, forceful school, men whoswing their brushes from their spines instead of their finger-tips--wereslashed into and made mincemeat of or extolled to the skies. Thenthe "patty-pats, " with their little dabs of yellow, blue, and red, in imitation of the master Monet; the "slick and slimies, " and the"woollies"--the men who essayed the vague, mysterious, and obscure--wereset up and knocked down one after the other, as is the custom with allgroups of painters the world over when the never-ending question oftechnique is tossed into the middle of the arena. 

Outdoor work next came into review and the discomforts and hardshipsa painter must go through to get what he is after, the Man from theQuarter defending the sit-by-the-fire fellows. 

"No use making a submarine diver of yourself, Knight, " he growled. "Go and look at it and then come home and paint the impression and putsomething of yourself into it. "

Knight threw his head back and laughed. "I'd rather put the brookin--all of it. "

"But I don't see why you've got to get soaked to the skin every time youwant to make a sketch. "

"The soaking is what helps, " replied Knight, reaching for a match. "Ilike to feel I'm drink-some of it in. Then, when you're right in themiddle of it you don't put on any airs and try to improve on what'sbefore you and spoil it with detail. One dimple on a girl's cheek ischarming; two--and you send for the doctor. And she's so simple when youlook into her face--I'm talking of the brook now, not the girl--and it'sso easy to put her down as she is, not the form and color only, but the_mood_ in which you find her. A brook is worse, really, than your bestgirl in the lightning changes she can go through--laughing, crying, coquetting--just as the mood seizes her. There, for instance, hanging over your head is a 'gray day"'--and he pointed to one of hisrunning-water sketches tacked to the wall. "I tried to cheer her up alittle with touches of warm tones here and there--all lies--same kindyou tell your own chickabiddy when she's blue--but she wouldn't have itand cried straight ahead for four hours until the sun came out; but Iwas through by that time and waded ashore. You can see for yourselveshow unhappy she was. " He spoke as if the sketch was alive--and it was. 

"But I always work out of doors that way, " he continued. "In winter upin Holland I sit in furs and wooden shoes, and often have to put alcoholin my water-cups to keep my colors from freezing. My big picture of 'TheTorrent'--the one in the Toledo Art Gallery--was painted in January, andout of doors. As for the brushwork, I try to do the best I can. I usedto tickle up things I painted; some of the fellows at Julian's believedin that, and so did Fleury and Lefebvre to some extent. "

"And when did you get over it?" I asked. 

"When my father persuaded me to send a bold sketch to the Volney Club, which I had done to please myself, and which they hung and bought. So Isaid to myself: 'Why trim, clean up, and make pretty a picture, when bysimply painting what I love in nature in a free, breezy manner while myenthusiasm lasts--and it generally lasts until I get through;--sometimesit spills over to the next day--I please myself and a lot of peoplebeside. "

We were all on our feet now examining the sketches--all running-brookstudies--most of them made in that same pair of high-water boots. No onebut the late Fritz Thaulow approaches him in giving the reality of thismost difficult subject for an outdoor painter. The ocean surf repeatsitself in its recurl and swash and by close watching a painter has oftena chance to use his "second barrel, " so to speak, but the upturnedface of an unruly brook-is not only million-tinted and endless in itsexpression, but so sensitive in its reflections that every passing cloudand patch of blue above it saddens or cheers it. 

"Yes, painting water is enough to drive you mad, " burst out Knight, "butI don't intend to paint anything else--not for years, any way. Hired themill so I could paint the water running _away_ from you downhill. That'sgoing to take a good many years to get hold of, but I'm going to stickit out. I can't always paint it from the banks, not if I want to studythe middle ripples at my feet, and these are the ones that run out ofyour canvas just above your name-plate. _Got_ to stand in it, I tellyou. Then you get the drawing, and the drawing is what counts. Oh, Ilove it!" Knight stretched his big arms and legs and sprang from hischair. 

"Really, fellows, I don't know anything about it. All I do is to letmyself go. I always _feel_ more than I _see_, and so my brush has adevil of a job to keep up. Marie! _Marie!_"

Had the good woman been a mile down the brook she could have heardhim--she was only in the next room. "Bring in the boots--two pairs thistime--we're going fishing. And, Marie--has the chauffeur had anything toeat?"

"Yes, monsieur. "

"Anything to drink?"

"No, monsieur. "

"_What!_ Hand him this, " and he grabbed a half-empty bottle from thetable. 

I sprang forward and caught it before Marie got her fingers around it. 

"Not if I know it!" I cried. "We've got to get back to Dives. When helands me inside my garden at the inn he shall have a magnum, but not adrop till he does. "

*****

When the two had gone the Sculptor and I leaned back in our chairs andlighted fresh cigars. My enthusiasm has not cooled for the sports ofmy youth. With a comfortable stool, a well-filled basket, and a longjointed rod, I, like many another staid old painter, can still getan amazing amount of enjoyment watching a floating cork, but Ididn't propose to follow those two lunatics. I knew the Man from theQuarter--had known him from the day of his birth--and knew what he woulddo and where he would go (over his head sometimes) for a poor devil of afish half as long as his finger, and I had had positive evidence ofwhat the other web-footed duck thought of ice-cold water. No, I'd take alittle sugar in mine, if you please, and put a drop of--but the Sculptorhad already foreseen and was then forestalling my needs, so we leanedback in our chairs once more. 

Again the talk covered wide reaches. 

"Great boy, Knight, " broke out the Sculptor in a sudden burst ofenthusiasm over his friend. "You ought to see him handle a crowd whenhe's at work. He knows the French people--never gets mad. He bought acalf for Marie last week, and drove it home himself. Told me it had tenlegs, four heads, and twenty tails before he got it here. Old woman losthers and Knight bought her another--he'd bring her a herd if she wantedit. All the way from the market the boys kept up a running fire ofcriticism. When the ringleader came too near, Knight sprang at him witha yelp like a dog's. The boy was so taken aback that he ran. ThenKnight roared with laughter, and in an instant the whole crowd were hisfriends--two of them helped him get the calf out of town. When a Frenchcrowd laughs with you you can do anything with them. He had had more funbringing home that calf, he told me, than he'd had for weeks, and he's awonder at having a good time. "

Then followed--much of which was news to me--an account of the painter'searlier life and successes. 

He was born in Paris, August 3, 1873; his father, Ridgway Knight, thedistinguished painter, and his mother, who was Rebecca Morris Webster, both being Philadelphians. Not only is he, therefore, of true Americandescent, but his eight great-grandparents were Americans, dating backto Thomas Ridgway, who was born in Delaware in 1713. Thus by both theFrench and American laws he is an American citizen. 

At fourteen he was sent to Chigwell School in England by his father, to have "art knocked out of him" by the uncongenial surroundings of thequiet old school where the great William Penn had been taught to readand write. He left in 1890, having won the Special Classical Prize, Oxford and Cambridge certificate Prize, besides prizes for carpentering, gymnasium, running, and "putting the weight. "

At home the boy always drew and painted for pleasure, as well as atschool during the half-holidays. Some water-colors made during a holidaytrip in Brittany in 1890 decided his father to allow him to follow artas a career. He entered Julian's studio, with Jules Lefebvre and TonyRobert-Fleury as professors in 1891, and studied from the nude duringthe five following winters. His principal work was, however, done in thecountry at and around Poissy, under the guidance of his father. 

His exhibits in the Paris Salon (_artistes Français_) were twenty-fouroils and water-colors from 1894 to 1906, obtaining an honorable mentionin 1901 with the "Thames at Whitchurch"; a gold medal, third class, in1905, with "The Torrent"; and a gold medal, second class, in 1906, withhis triptych "The Giant Cities" (New York, Paris, London), which makeshim _hors concours_, with the great distinction of being the firstAmerican landscape painter to get two Salon gold medals in twoconsecutive years. He won also a bronze medal in the American sectionof the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1900 with a water-color, and a goldmedal of honor at Rheims, Cherbourg, Geneva, and Nantes. 

His most important pictures are: "The Torrent, " 4 1/2 x 6 feet, owned bythe Toledo Art Gallery; "The Abandoned Mill, " 4 1/2 x 6 feet; "TheEnd of the Island, " 6 x 8 feet; "Clisson Castle, " 3 x 4 1/2 feet, awater-color; "After the Storm, " 3 x 5 feet; and "Winter in Holland, " 3x4feet. 

I had listened to the Sculptor's brief account of his friend's progresswith calm attention, but it had not altered my opinion of the man orhis genius. None of it really interested me except that somebody besidemyself had found out the lad's qualities--for to me he is still a lad. None of the jury who made the awards ever looked below the paint--thatis, if they were like other juries the world over. They saw thebrush-mark, no doubt, but they missed the breeze that came with it--wasits life, really--a breeze that swept through and out of him, blowingside by side with genius and good health--a wind of destiny, perhaps, that will carry him to climes that other men know not of. 

But what a refreshing thing, this breeze, to come out of a man, and whata refreshing kind of a man for it to come out of! No pose, no effortto fill a No. 8 hat with a No. 7 head; just a simple, conscientious, hard-working young painter, humble-minded in the presence of hisgoddess, and full to overflowing with an uncontrollable spontaneity. This in itself was worth risking one's neck to see. 

Again the cry rang out, "Marie!" and two half-drowned water-rats steppedin; the Man from the Quarter in his underpinning--his pair of bootsleaked and he had stripped them off--and Knight with his own halffull of water. Both roared with laughter at Marie tugging at the hugewhite-rubber boots, the floor she had scrubbed so conscientiouslyspattered with sand and water. 

Then began the customary recriminations: "Hadn't been for you I wouldn'thave lost him!" "What had I to do with it?" etc. , etc. --the same oldstory when neither gets a bite. 

That night, bumping over the thank-you-marms, flashing through darkenedvillages, and scooting in a dead heat along ribboned roads ghostlywhite in the starlight, on the way back to my garden--and we did arrivesafely, and the chauffeur had his magnum (that is, his share of it)--Icould not help saying to myself:

"Yes, it's good to be young and bouyant, but it's better to be one'sself. "