Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 March 1875 — LONG AND SHORT. [ARTICLE]

LONG AND SHORT.

It was disappointing, certainly, to say the least of it. I had missed the train by half a minute, as a porter—apparently the porter of the station—kindly explained to me, although I was already informed of the fact, thanks to my own unaided powers of observation. I had been staying, I should mention, at Rose Hall, the country seat, in Yorkshire, of my old friend Richard Roe, and I was journeying backward toward London. It was late at night, very dark, and rather cold. There would be no other train for some hours. I was left stranded at a lonely country station, with very undecided views as to how I should dispose of myself, and of the measure of time that had, like an inconvenient liability, suddenly devolved upon me. I handed over my luggage to the charge of the porter, and then, acting upon his advice, I quitted the station in search of a railway hotel, which he described as being in the immediate neighborhood. I found it with little difficulty; a new building—in appearance something between an ordinary public-house and what auctioneers call “a villa residence.” I entered the coffee-room—a lofty chambe? with map-like damp-stains upon its plain, unpaintep walls, very barely furnished, and feebly lighted by a single jet of gas issuing from an ugly rectangular arrangement of piping suspended near the ceiling. The room being very clouded with tobacco smoke, I did not at first perceive that a man, a stranger, was sitting in an obscure corner reading, or affecting to read, a newspaper widely extended before him, the while he smoked furiously. I took out my cigar-case. It seemed Jto be one ’of those occasions when it behooves a man to smoke as a matter of self-defense. I raised my hand to obtain a light from the gas-jet above me. I failed to reach it. I was not tall enough. “ Allow me,” said the man behind the newspaper. Thereupon a long arm was stretched forth. In a moment he handed me a flaming spill. My surprise was so great that I was unable just at first to avail myself of his polite attention. He had but half risen from his seat with a sort of uncoiling action. It was clear to me that he was of most prodigious stature. “ A giant!” I exclaimed rather abruptly than politely. “Just so,” he said gloomily.. “Yes. I’m afraid so. The fact can hardly be disguised. I must admit that I am a giant.” And he hid himself again behind his newspaper. And now I felt assured that he was not really reading it, for I could see that he held it upside down. No doubt his head was rather small in proportion to his stature. Giants’ heads afe usually small, I think. And it was not an impressive head. It was indeed a rather weak, sheepish-looking head, with a vacant facial expression, sloping forehead, retreating mouth and chin, and blank, watery, blue eyes. He was not a giant to inspire terror. He was more likely to enlist sympathy and pity. He wore the depressed, cowed air of meekness maltreated and ’ humility outraged. He seemed to me, if I may say so, a giant who had been “put upon.” He was quite a young man, with4mall, fluffy whiskers, and a colorless, downy beard.

He had blushed violently in speaking to me. I felt curious concerning him. It was so strange, meeting so monstrous a creature at that hour of the night in that lonely Yorkshire railway inn. There was something altogether very quaint, as I fancied, attending upon the circumstances of our encounter. “ A dark night,” I observed, presently, by way of saying something. “I’m glad it’s dark,” he said. His voice was of agreeable tone, though it might lack force and firmness somewhat. “ Darkness suits me best. If ever you should chance to become an object of exhibition,” he added, after a pause, “you’ll understand the advantage of darkness. Does it rain, might I ask?” I told him that although it did not actually rain then, I thought it threatened to be rainy before long. “ I hope it won’t rain,” he said, “ for I’ve a long way to go, and in my case, you know, an umbrella isn’t of much use. I mean as regards one’s legs.” I understood him. The legs of such a man must always be remote from the shelter of his umbrella. He sighed heavily. He put the newspaper from him and, leaning his elbows upon the table, rested his head upon his hands. He had ceased to smoke. Am empty tumbler stood before jiim. He sighed again, and then he yawned. He looked very weary and wo-begone. It even seemed to me that there were tears in his eyes. “ I must be going soon, I suppose,” he said, after a while. I entreated him to remain, if but for a little longer. I explained to him the accident that detained me until the next train for London should stop at the adjoining station. I plainly stated that he much interested me. I begged permission to have his glass refilled. He smiled, blushed a bright rose color, and consented. “ I am happy to meet ycu,” he said, timidly, but pleasantly. “ Indeed, I don’t mind saying it’s a comfort to meet anyone who Joes not want to pinch me, to see if I’m real. I’m sure you’re not one that would wish to stick pins in pay calves, to make sure that I’m not walking on stilts hidden inside my trousers. But that’s a way the British public has, sir, sometimes to a most inconvenient extent. I may say that I’ve suffered very much from the inquisitive and the incredulous nature of the British pu>’ic.”

, “And do you feel bound to endure such treatment? Are you never tempted to use your giant’s strength tyrannously like a giant?” “Shakespeare! I understand the allusion. But you see, sir, lam an object of exhibition. In that capacity I have to undergo publicity and all it brings with it. Punches here and pokes there, and, as I’ve stated, pins run into my calves. And then there’s the question of remuneration. I must not make myself too cheap. I can’t afford to exhibit gratis. Yet it’s trying work, Ido assure you, living cooped up in a van. It’s trying even to dwarfs, and fat ladies, and albinoes, and boa-constrictors, but to a party of my size it’s, I may say, crushing. Whatever you may be, sir, or in whatever position of life you may find yourself, never wish to be a giant. Take my word for it, it’s a trying state' of things, and giants are subjected to more inconveniences than people in general have any idea of. Air and exercise I must have, and so I walk at night, from village to village, or from fair to fair, race-course to race-course, as the case may be, hoping that I may be observed as little as possible. For, you know, when folks have seen you outside of your caravan for nothing they can’t be persuaded to pay money to see you inside of it. That’s human nature, I suppose. But, as I said before, it’s a trying life, sir. Don’t wish to be a giant’ sir, whatever you may be wishing yourself to be.” I may note that I had never at any period of my life,wished to be a giant, and that I was fully convinced of the futility of wishes of that kind. Further, I may state that I am of but limited height—l think, five feet two inches only, according to my latest measurement—and that, if not absolutely satisfied with my dimensions, lam at any rate resigned to them. But, necessarily, I had never, even in my wildest dreams, contemplated exhibition of myself in the character of a giant. The giant was a pleasant-spoken young man; but he was much oppressed with a sense of his superior proportions, by no means inclined to vaunt himself on that score. Indeed, it was obvious that his size was a matter of keen distress to him. I had not been prepared for $ giant of this meek kind. To tell the truth, I had not considered giants much as a subject of study. Such information as I possessed concerning them—if it can be called information—was derived, I think, from early perusal of nursery literature. I must have said as much to my new friend, for presently, I remember, discoursing with some energy on the injustice that, time out of mind, had been done to persons of his size. I had by chance, and half-jocosely, mentioned the well-known work called “Jack the Giant Killer.” My new friend denounced it seriously as a most pernicious volume. He affirmed that it had done a great deal of mischief. He then asked me if I believed it to be a faithful record of actual events. I was scarcely prepared with an answer. I said, after some delay, that it seemed to me that many of the circumstance mentioned in the boook were of an incredible kind; that, supposing some truth to be contained in the story, it was yet much intermixed with fiction, and that exaggeration and extravagance were certainly apparent throughout it. “It has been the misfortune of us giants that we have always been written about by dwarfs,” he said. “It has suited them to deal with us with a view to their own greater glorification. They have misrepresented us, I must say, most shamefully. Unfortunately, we have usually been inclined to silence. We have rarely been authors; we are seldonl great talkers. I never yet knew or heard of a giant who had ever'printed

or published anything. Suppose some of us had said our say or written our opinion on the subject of dwarfs, don’t you think they would have looked very small? A set of upstarts! They think of nothing but their own aggrandizement ; while their disregard of truth is really scandalous. This Jack the Giant Killer must have been a dwarf. Only a dwarf could have been so boastful, so self-satisfied, and, I must say it, so false and treacherous.” The giant was now speaking in a very excited manner. It seemed as though much pent-up thought, regarding the injuries borne by his kind, was at length finding expression. “ Why should he have troubled himself about the giants?” he resumed. 44 Did they ever do him any harm? He calls them cannibals! I warrant they never wanted to eat such a little whip-per-snapper as he was! And mark his treachery and cunning, and his base ingratitude ! How did he get the better, for instance, of Cormoran, said to be eighteen feet high and three yards round?—a gross exaggeration, of course. There never was a giant of that size or anything like it; search all the caravans in Europe, and you wouldn’t find such a one. How did he get the better of Cormoran, I was asking? Why, he dug a Sit and Cormoran fell into It, and then ack took what I should call a mean advantage of him: hit him—when he was down—a blow on the head with a pickax, and killed him. Then there was that Welsh giant—how was he treated? A kind, hospitable, trustful soul, who brought out, for the breakfast of himself and his shameless guest, two great bowls of hasty pudding—clearly the Welsh giant at any rate was no cannibal. Then another giant, one with three heads, if I remember rightly—a piece of wild extravagance, of course, for whoever saw a giant or anybody else with three heads? —but this other giant Jack overcomes by basely pretending to be his cousin, forsooth. Cheating the poor creature out of his coat of darkness, Jack, being invisible himself, cuts off the legs of his benefactor! Was there ever conduct more infamous, or cowardly, or inhuman? Was there ever a more wretched little monster than this Jack? And yet the story of the miserable imp’s exploits, as they are called—frauds and crimes I should rather say—is put into the hands of children ; is a work highly esteemed, as I-am informed, in most respectable nurseries. Can parents wonder that their offspring should oftentimes grow up deceitful and presumptuous, cruel and ungrateful? What we want, sir, is the story of Jack rewritten by a giant. Take my word, sir, that would be a book of genuine worth. I don’t say that it would be brilliant. We giants do not pretend to be brilliant. The firefly glistens—not the elephant. We are plain, simple, straightforward, truthful folk; there’s nothing low or mean about us. We are strongly opposed to smallness of every kind. But we’ve been peaeeful, patient, long-suffer-ing; too much so ana too long, I fear. We’ve let things take their course and said nothing, when we ought to have said something—a good deal, indeed; and so we’ve somehow come to be a persecuted race—despised and underrated. The dwarfs have had it all their own way, and now they crow over us and treat us contemptuously. The fact is, we’ve not thought enough of ourselves, and have allowed people to overlook us. It’s all wrong, sir, take my word for it—though I don’t pretend to be the man who can put it right.” His face was flushed as he concluded and his forehead was moist. He paused for breath as it seemed, and then he was moved to surprise at his own animation, at the length of his speech. He looked at me apologetically. “ I did not intend to speak so warmly,” he said. “ But your air of sympathy tempted me to express myself more fully than is usual with me. And I own I lose patience when I think of the errors that have so long prevailed on the subject of giants—the injustice we have suffered at all hands. Perhaps,” he added, with a smile, as with his forefinger—it was about the size of one of those candles of which four make a pound—he tapped lightly his tumbler, which wa now empty—“ perhaps this extra glass of grog has made me too loquacious. I beg you will pardon me if such has been the case, or if my violence of speech has given you any offense.”

His glass was again empty. I insisted upon it being filled. He made many objections to that course being adopted, but when the brandy and water had been duly placed before him he did not hesitate to consume it. Then he gave me certain particulars of his own career. He was of humble origin, he frankly admitted, and had even in early life worn the quaint dress of a charity boy. His father was by trade a shoemaker and his mother had gained a livelihood by charring. They were persons of average stature only and it was not until he had attained the age of fourteen that his own height had become at all remarkable. Then he had with much suddenness grown taller and taller. He even pretended to say that his increase in height had been distinctly perceptible to close observers of him. At any rate many had ventured to aver that they could absolutely see him grow. He had been put to one or two trades, but without avail. Fault had been found with his size. People all declared that he was too young to be so tall. He was like a large piece of furniture in a small house. Room could not be found for him. It was necessary to take down doors to let him m or out. At last his father, who was impatient by nature and often inflamed by drink, said angrily: “ Hang the boy! He , can do nothing but grow tall;*’ and, without further speech, turned the youth into the street. He then lived as he could, which, at times, was very badly indeed. He was often, as he said, very empty—and always very tall. He suffered more from emptiness, h« needed more filling than most people, owing to his exceptional size, f ~At last a situation as potboy was offered him in a public house “out Whitechapel way.” It was held that “ a

giant pots”—as he was styled in the neighborhood—would attract visitors to the bar of the establishment, and that great consumption of liquor would result therefrom. The experiment disappointed expectation, however. Too many, it seemed, avoided disbursement and yet gratified their curiosity by peeping in at the chink of the doorway, and viewing the “giant pots" for nothing. In the end the giant had accepted a permanent and more, profitable employment and attached himself to a caravan traveling the country from fair to fair and market-town to market-town. London he rarely visited—although now and then he had been much tempted by handsome offers to appear upon the stage in pantomimes at Christmas. Upon the whole he preferred the country. “It’s dull, but then perhaps it suits me the better on that account, for, you see, I’m dull too.”

1 deprecated such a statement. I tendered him hearty thanks for his most intelligent and interesting conversation. “ It’s very kind of you to say so, sir, but the British public has quite made up their minds that we giants are a dull lot —and that settles the matter—for it’s never any good whatever arguing against the British public. If one can’t agree with it one must shut up, and that comes to much the same sort of thing. I’m dull to begin with, and now I’m duller than I’d any right to be, owing to—owing to peculiar circumstances.” Here, much to my surprise, he burst into a sudden flood of tears. I had noticed previously that his articulation had thickened. Something—no doubt the brandy-and-water —had had to do with this, inducing perhaps in addition a certain disposition to sentimental emotion and expression. Still the giant could not be said to be intoxicated. He was excited as much, I think, by the unusual amount of narrativedie had delivered himself of and by the sound of his own voice as by any other cause. “ Weep not,” I said to him, scarcely knowing what I said. “ Please let me,” he answered, feebly/ “It does me so much good. I’m very unhappy. I’m one of the most miserable of men. I’m in love.” “Well, and why not? Surely a man of your magnificent proportions need not despair of success. Surely any woman——” “It is plain that you do not know Miss Tiddler, he interrupted. I confessed that, to my sincere regret, I did not enjoy that privilege. “And of course you don’t know Jecker’s Van?” _

I said I thought not. “ If ever you come across Jecker’s Van ask to see Miss Tiddler. In point of fact, you’ll see her without asking if you pay your admission at the door. And you’ll see me. But that’s nothing. I’m nobody. Besides, you home seen me. But Miss Tiddler will surprise you. You’ll find her a real treat. You see in her, sir, a perfect woman. They call her the Peruvian Pearl, or the Princess of Lilliput. But that’s only Jecker’s way. She’s English and speaks no language but her own, but she speaks that very freely, especially when she’s roused. It’s nonsense about Peruvian; as a matter of fact, she was born in Pimlico; and she’s never grown an inch since she was four and a half years old. Amazing, isn’t it? and delightful I call it.” “A dwarf!” “ Well, what people call a dwarf. Perfection in a small compass, that’s my view of her. There’s nothing of the, dwarf really about her when you’ve once overlooked her small size. And then how charming she is! But you must see her to appreciate her. For my part I love her to distraction. I can’t call it by any other name.” It was plain that he loved, as a giant might be expected to love, in a large way. As he spoke he trembled, swayed to and fro, indeed, and turned up his eyes in a languishing fashion that had something almost of craziness about it. This giant in love was rather a grotesque sort of creature it must be confessed. “And Miss Tiddler is obdurate?” I inquiredr “ Miss Tiddler is adamant. Miss Tiddler will not listen to me, or listens to me only to mock me. In plain words she chaffs me.”

“What is her objection to you as a suitor?” “ Well, her objections are of a very general kind, but chiefly she finds fault with my size. The fun she makes of me on that account! It’s wonderful to hear her. I laugh in spite of myself. I laugh at myself, in fact. She’s so clever and says such sharp things. Still it’s hard, you know. I’ve a difficulty in believing that it’s really so ridiculous to be so tall as she makes it out to be. But she thinks it’s very ridiculous indeed. Perhaps it appears so to her, you know, she being so little. And then she calls me stupid.” “ But that may not be such a bad sign. I’ve beard of many lovers who like to be called ‘ stupid’ by their mistresses. Very likely it’s mere playfulness on her part, that conceals some measure of true affection for you.” “ I’d think so if I could, but I can’t. No. she thinks me tall and stupid, and I feel that she’s right. I am tall and stupid, and that’s the fact. I’d alter it if I could, but I can’t. I’m sure I’d be very glad to change places with a brighter and a shorter man. But I can’t grow brighter, try hard as I may; and I can’t grow shorter, though I’ve tried that too.” “ You’ve tried to grow shorter?” “Yes, over and over again. I’m forever trying to grow shorter. I carry heavy weights on my head; lift that box, for instance.” As he spoke he drew from beneath his chair a substantial-looking black box with iron handles. I tried to raise it, but I failed completely. It seemed to be of enormous weight. “ I’ve walked miles and miles with that box on my head. It contains pig-iron. I thought that it might compress me. But it hasn’t as yet, so far as I can see. I’ve tried all manner of ways indeed of packing myself into a smaller space, but all in vain. Miss Tiddler only laughs at me. ‘ Come to me when you’re shorter, Doddy’ (she always calls me Doddy—it’s not my real name, which is something very different,

but somehow it seems to please her to call me that—and I don’t object; how can I ?). ‘ Come to me when you’re shorter, Doddy,’ she says to me, 4 and then, perhaps, we’ll see about it.’ She only says perhaps, you observe. No, she never means it to be; it never will be.” He sighed heavily and noisily. “ The plain truth is, that I’m too long and she’s too short.” “Yes, I suppose that’s the long ans the short of it,” I said abruptly. For a moment he seemed hurt at whai he might reasonably have thought to be levity on my part. Still his look was meek and diffident. “ I must go,” he said, rising. 44 I’ve many miles to walk to-night, with my box on my head. Thank you for listening to me, for your sympathy, and—goodby.” “ But you won’t really resign all hope of winning Miss Tiddler?” He looked at me despondently, shook his head, but said nothing. “Don’t despair. Miss Tiddler may yet be yours. Remember, after all, extremes meet.” “ She’s not short enough for that, even if I’m tall enough. Although I’m a giant, I can’t think of her as a dwarf. She’s really a very pretty size. And I love her! How I love her!” So saying, he grasped my hand tightly and painfully. My fingers seemed quite crunched in his. They crackled like dry twigs as he compressed them. I had never shaken hands with a giant before; I never will again. Mylast glimpse of him revealed a sur-prisingly-tall, gaunt figure striding across the open country. The rising moon elongated his Shadow with an effect that was suggestive of caricature. He carried his box on his head. He proceeded rapidly, yet not, I think, very regularly. Once it seemed to me that he was staggering, like one intoxicated; and once 1 thought he called out to me. But it occurred to me afterward that the sound I had heard was, in truth, rather a hiccup than an articulate cry. I never saw him again. I can add no further particulars touching his career. I can supply no proper termination to his love story. Jecker’s Van I did chance to meet at a later period; but that exhibition did not then number among its attractions either Miss Tiddler, the dwarf, or her lover, the giant. For my part, on taking leave of him, I had but to think of returning to the railway station, there to await the arrival of the train that was to take me back to London. I had first, however, to pay a rather heavy bill for brandy and water consumed at the railway hotel.— AU the Year Round.