MY JUMP.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 349, 1 April 1911, Page 2

MY JUMP.

From the Prison-House to Freedom. It was at Cambridge that I found out what a fool I was teaching myself to be. From 1881 to 1884 (which was my third year) it had been gradually dawning upon me, I suppose, though it came with a rush at the end. I don't know just how or why I found out what I had to do, if I was to justify myself to myself. One morning, anyhow, I woke up outraged by the ceiling of my room, shocked at the four walls of it. I seemed to be strangling, I thought that they were closing in upon me. I chucked everything. I walked out, I disappeared. I walked, as a matter of fact, to King's Lynn, and got there lateish. I found a solemnlooking buster in an>inn-yard ruminating over an ostler at his horse, and jingling half-crowns in his breeches' pockets. That was the rhythm of his life—'Troperty, property, property ;" but he was better than he seemed —had a kink in him somewhere which saved him. We got talking. He was a good dort, with a humorous twist on his long face, and a good twinkle in his heavy eye. Presently I said, "I'll tell yon what. It's time for dinner. I'll toss you who dines the other." He looked at the ground, then at me—heavily. Then he said with tremendous solemnity, "Done with you, codger." We tossed with one of his half-crowns, three times, and I won. That was a friendly turn (one of many) done me by Pan and the Nymphs, or by Artemis Einodie, '"'Our Lady of the Ways ;" for I give you my word I hadn't a stiver nearer than Cambridge. "I've lost, it appears," says the chap. I said, "You've lost more than it appears, for I lunched off a turnip." He w a s a sportsman, though, and did the thing as well as could be. We sat talking till long past midnight ; and I was his guest for bed and breakfast. Next day I was on the North Sea in a trawler, working my way out—and infernally ill, by the way. We were four days going over ; but they put me ashore in North Holland and I tramped to Alkmaar. I nearly starved in that country—you see, I didn't know the language; but the weather was superb, and I got through all right into Germany. There I knew I could get on, bocause I had things to give them which they wanted. Germany is the best country in Europe in which to go to market with your knowledge. I stayed in a little town called Wissening for three months or so, at pedagogy. I gave lessons in English and Greek, and earned nearly live pounds one way and other. That gave me what I was bound to have (and what I had at Cambridge too, only I was on my mettle, don't you see, and wouldn't send for anything. I wasn't going to communicate with England until I could report that I was keeping myself)—l mean colours, and boards, and some brushes, and all that. I got these in Berlin, and pen and ink too ; and then I set to work, and never had to look back. I've kept myself ever since, and will take credit for this, moreover, that I've been wise enough never to earn more than I want, or to save anything. Directly you do cither of those things, say I, you drive a pes; through your foot into the ground, and you root. —From "Letters to Sapehia," by Maurice Hewlett, in the "Fortnightly Review,"