It was the Chancery Barrister who was partly responsible for this. He found it impossible to sleep, and our Naturalist, fastening upon him, kept him carefully posted up in particulars of the increasing altitude. This was the kind of thing that broke in upon our slumbers all through the night:—

Our Naturalist: "1200 feet above the level of the sea."

The Chancery Barrister (in provokingly sleepy tone): "Ah!"

Then we turn over, and fall asleep again. A quarter of an hour later:

Our Naturalist: "1500 feet now."

Chancery Barrister: "Really!"

Another fitful slumber, broken by a strong presentiment that the demoniacal aneroid is being again produced.

Our Naturalist (exultantly, as if he had privately arranged the incline, and was justly boastful of his success): "2100 feet."

Chancery Barrister (evidently feeling that something extra is expected of him): "No, really now!"

This kind of thing through what should be the silent watches of the night is to be deprecated, as tending to bring science into disrepute.

There was a good deal of excitement about the baggage. We were a personally conducted party to the extent that the Hon. Member who had suggested the trip, had undertaken the general direction, or had had the office thrust upon him. Feeling his responsibility, he had, immediately on arriving at Calais, changed some English money. This was found very convenient. Nobody had any francs except the Member, so we freely borrowed from him to meet trifling exigencies.

With the object of arriving at the best possible means of dealing with the vexed question of luggage, a variety of expedients had been tried. The Chancery Barrister, having read many moving narratives of raids made upon registered luggage in the secrecy of the luggage van, had adopted a course which displayed a profound knowledge of human nature. He had argued with himself (as if he were a judge in chambers) that what proved an irresistible temptation to foreign guards and other railway officials was the appearance of boxes and portmanteaux iron-clasped, leather-strapped, and double-locked. The inference naturally was that they contained much that was valuable. Now, he had pointed out to himself, if you take a directly opposite course, and, as it were, invite the gentleman in charge of your luggage to open your portmanteau, he will think you have nothing in it worth his attention, and will pass on to others more jealously guarded. You can't very well leave your box open, as the things might tumble out. So, as a happy compromise, he had duly locked and strapped his portmanteau, and then tied the key to the handle.

As he observes, with the shrewd perception that will inevitably lead him to the Woolsack, "You are really helpless, and can do nothing to prevent these gentlemen from helping themselves. If you leave the key there, there is a fair chance of their treating your property as the Levite treated the Good Samaritan. If not, your box will be decently opened instead of having the lock broken or the hinges wrenched off."

That was a good idea, and proved triumphantly successful; for, on arrival at Montreux, the Chancery Barrister's portmanteau turned up all right, the key innocently reposing on the handle, and, as subsequent investigation showed, the contents untouched.

Our Manufacturer had a still better way, though, as was urged, he comes from Yorkshire, and we of the southern part of the island have no chance in competition with the race. He lost his luggage somewhere between Dover and Paris, and has ever since been free from all care on the subject.

Perhaps it was the influence of these varied incidents that led to a scene of some excitement on our arrival at Montreux station. There, what was left of our luggage was disgorged, and of fourteen packages registered, only nine were visible to the naked eye. It was then the Patriarch came to the front and displayed some of those qualities which subsequently found a fuller field amid the solitude of the Alps.

We call him the Patriarch because he is a grandfather. In other respects he is the youngest of the party, the first on the highest peak, the first down in the afternoon with his ready order for "tea for ten," of which, if the party is late in arriving and he finds time hang heavy on his hands, he will genially drink five cups himself. With the care of half a dozen colossal commercial undertakings upon his mind, he is as merry as a boy and as playful as a kitten. But when once aroused his anger is terrible.

His thunder and lightning played around the station-master at Montreux on the discovery of the absence of five packages. The Patriarch has a wholesome faith in the all-sufficiency of the English language. The station-master's sole lingual accomplishment was French. This concatenation of circumstances might with ordinary persons have led to some diminution of the force of adjuration. But probably the station-master lost little of the meaning the Patriarch desired to convey. This tended in the direction of showing the utter incapacity of the Swiss or French nature to manage a railway, and the discreditable incompetency of the officials of whatever grade. The station-master was properly abashed before the torrent of indignant speech. But he had his turn presently. Calmer inspection disclosed the fact that all the fourteen packets were delivered. It was delightful to see how the station-master, immediately assuming the offensive, followed the Patriarch about with gesticulation indicative of the presence of the baggage, and with taunting speech designed to make the Patriarch withdraw his remarks—whatever they might have been. On this point the station-master was not clear, but he had a shrewd suspicion that they were not complimentary. The Patriarch, however, now retired upon his dignity.

It was, as he said, no use arguing with fellows like this.

Les Avants sit high up among the mountains at the back of Montreux. It seems madness to go there at a time when fires are still cheerful and when the leaves have not yet put forth their greenness. But, as was made apparent in due time, Les Avants, at no time inconveniently cold, would be, but for the winds that blow over the snow-clad hills surprisingly hot. To build an hotel here seems a perilously bold undertaking. It is not on the way to anywhere, and people going from the outer world must march up the hill, and, when they are tired of it, must needs, like the Duke of York in his famous military expedition, march down again. None but a Swiss would build an hotel here, and few but English would frequent it. Yet the shrewdness of the proprietor has been amply justified, and Les Avants is becoming in increasing degree a favourite pilgrimage.

The hotel was built nearly twenty years ago. Previously the little valley it dominates had been planted with one or two chalets which for more than half a century have looked out upon the deathless snows of the Dent du Midi. There is one which has rudely carved over the lintel of its door the date 1816. Noting which, the Chancery Barrister, with characteristic accuracy, observed that "five centuries look down upon us."

Our landlord is an enterprising man. His business in life is to keep an hotel, and the height of his ambition is to keep it well. Only a fortnight ago he returned from a grand tour of the winter watering-places, from the Bay of Biscay to the Bay of Genoa. The ordinary attractions of the show places from Biarritz to Bordighera had no lure for him. What he studied were the hotels and their various modes of management. He told us, with a flush of pride on his sun-tanned cheek, that he travelled as an ordinary tourist. There was no hint of his condition or the object of his journey, no appeal to confraternity with a view to getting bed and breakfast at trade prices, or some reduction on the table d'hote charges. He travelled as a sort of Haroun al Raschid among innkeepers, haughtily paying his bills, and possibly feeing the waiters. He is a very good sort of a fellow, attentive and obliging, and it is odd how we all agree in the hope that he was from time to time over-charged.

It is a fair prospect looked out upon from the bedroom window on our arrival. Almost at our feet, it seems, is the Lake of Geneva, though we remember the wearisome climb up the hill, and know it must be miles away. On the other side are the snow-clad hills that reach down to Savoy on the east, and are crowned by the heights of the Dent du Midi on the west. On the left, flanking our own place of abode, rise up the grim heights of the Roches de Naye, and, still farther back, the Dent du Jaman—a terrible tooth this, which draws attention from all the country round, and excites the wildest ambition of the tourist. The man or woman resting within a circuit of ten miles of Montreux, who has not touched the topmost heights of the Dent du Jaman, goes home a crushed person. A very small proportion do it, but every one talks of doing it—-which, unless the weather be favourable, is perhaps the wiser thing to do. It fills a large place in the conversation as well as in the landscape, and it will be a bad thing for the Lake of Geneva if this tooth should ever be drawn.

Lovely as was the scene in the fresh morning air, with the glistening snow, the dark pines on the lower hills, the blue lake, and the greyish upland, they did but serve to frame the picture of the Patriarch as he sat upon the bench in the front of the hotel. A short jacket of blue serge, knickerbockers of the same material, displaying the proportions of a notable pair of legs, the whole crowned by a chimney-pot hat, went to make up a remarkable figure. The Patriarch had in his hand a blue net for catching butterflies. The Naturalist had excited his imagination by stories of the presence of the "Camberwell Beauty," a rare and beautiful species of butterfly, of which he was determined to take home a specimen. In later days he was fair to see with his hat thrown back on his brow, his net in his hand: and his stout legs twinkling in their haste to come up with a butterfly.

The Alps have witnessed many strange sights since first they uplifted their heads to heaven. But it is calculated that the Patriarch was the first who brought under their notice the chimney-pot hat of the civilised Englishman.

This haste to be up on the first morning was a faithful precursor of the indomitable vitality of the Patriarch. He was always first up and first off, and, amongst many charming peculiarities, was his indifference as to which way the road lay. We generally had a guide with us, and nothing was more common in toiling up a mountain side than to discover the guide half a mile to the left and the Patriarch half a mile to the right, something after the fashion of the letter Y, we being at the stem. We saw a good deal more of the country than we otherwise should have done, owing to the constant necessity of going after the Patriarch and bringing him back. Sometimes he got away by himself, at others he deluded some hapless member of the company into following him. One young man, just called to the bar, had a promising career almost cut short on the second day. In the innocence of his heart he had followed the Patriarch, who led him through an apparently impassable pine forest on to the crest of a remote hill, whence he crawled down an hour late for luncheon, the Patriarch having arrived ten minutes before him, and having already had his knife into every receptacle for food that was spread out, from the loaf of bread to the box of sardines, from the preserved peaches to the cup without a handle that held the butter.

Walking up the hill behind the hotel on the way to the Jaman, the Member had a happy idea. "Why," he asked, "should not the Parliamentary Session be movable, like a reading party? Say the Bankruptcy Bill is referred to a grand committee. What is to prevent them coming right off here and settling down for a fortnight or three weeks, or in fact whatever time might be necessary thoroughly to discuss the measure?"

They might do worse, we agreed, as we walked on, carefully selecting the shady side of the road, and thinking of dear friends shivering in England. The blue haze under which we know the lake lies; the Alps all around, their green sides laced with snow and their heads covered with it; the fleckless blue sky; the brown rocks, and over all and through all the murmuring music of the invisible stream, as it trickles on its way down the gorge, would be better accompaniments to a good grind at a difficult Bill than any to be found within the precincts of Westminster.

"You remember what Virgil says?" the Chancery Barrister strikes in.

Divers things of diverse character we have discovered invariably remind the Chancery Barrister of Virgil or Horace, occasionally perchance of an English poet. This is very pleasant, and none the less so because the reminiscences come slowly, gathering strength as they advance, like the Chancery Barrister's laugh, which begins like the pattering of rain on leaves, and ends in the roar of a thunderstorm. The Chancery Barrister takes his jokes gently to begin with: he sees them afar off, and, closing one eye, begins to smile. The smile broadens to a grin, the grin becomes a cachinnation, then, as he hugs the fun, the cachinnation deepens to a roar of laughter, and the thing is complete.

It is thus with his quotations, though these are not always completed—at least, not in accordance with recognised authorities. As one of the ladies says, with that kindliness peculiar to the sex, "The Chancery Barrister is most original when he is making a quotation."

"What's that Wolsey says about the pomps and vanities of this world?" "'Vain pomps and vanities of this world,'" the Chancery Barrister begins, and we know we are in for a quotation. "No, not pomps and vanities. 'Vain pomps and glories of this world' (that's it)—"

"'Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye. I feel my heart new opened. O how wretched Is the poor man that hangs on princes' favours! There is betwixt the smile we would aspire to, That sweet aspect of princes and their ruin, More pangs and fears than wars or women have.'"

It's odd how one thing leads to another. By the time the Chancery Barrister has got his quotation right, the Patriarch is half a mile ahead in the wrong direction, and we all have to go and look for him.

The Col de Jaman is the salvation of many tourists. Not being regular Alpine climbers, they start over the Dent and get as far as the Col, rest awhile just under the great mountain molar, and come down. We had a splendid day for our expedition. It had been freezing hard in the night, and when we reached the snow region we found the pines frosted. On the Col a beneficent commune has built some chalets furnished with plentiful supply of firewood. Out of the sun it was bitterly cold, and we were glad to light a fire, which crackled and roared up the broad chimney and made a pretty accompaniment to the Chancery Barrister's song about the Jolly Young Waterman. He sang it all in one key, and that the wrong one. But it was a well-meant effort, and we all joined in the chorus.

There's some talk to-day of a startling episode at an hotel up the Rhone Valley. A Russian gentleman was sitting sipping his tea, when there approached him a lady, who addressed him in three languages. His replies not being satisfactory she shot him. This is cited by the Chancery Barrister as showing the advantage of an early acquaintance with foreign languages, and the desirableness of a pure accent.

It is quite agreed that if our Naturalist had been in the Russian's place he would have been shot after the first question. This morning, on ringing for his bath, he was answered by a chambermaid with a "Pas encore." Why "not just yet" our Naturalist did not know. He was not unusually early. But he had done his duty. He had tried to get up and have his bath; it was not ready, so he might go back to bed with a quiet conscience. Presently came another knock, and our Naturalist, carefully robing himself, opened the door, and discovered the chambermaid standing there with a plate, a knife, and a breakfast roll.

"What the dev——I mean qu'c'est qu'c'est?" he asked.

"Monsieur a demande le petit pain," the girl replied, astonished at his astonishment.

With great presence of mind he accepted the situation, took in the bread, and did without his bath. The Member says that, coming upon him suddenly amid the silence of the snow, he heard him practising the slightly different sounds of pain and bain.

Nothing but snow between the Col and the Dent du Jaman, but snow at its very best, hard and dry. Just before we reach the top we come upon a huge drift frozen hard and slippery. We might have gone round, but we decided to try and climb. The Patriarch of course was first, and achieved the task triumphantly. Others followed, and then came the Chancery Barrister. Another step, and he would have safely landed. But unhappily a quotation occurred to him.

"This is jolly," he said, turning half round, with the proud consciousness that he was at the crest and that with another stride all would be well; "what's that Horace says about enjoying what you have?"

"'Me pascant olivae, Me cichorea, levesque malvae, Frui paratis, et valido mihi, Latoe, dones, et, precor, integra Cum——'"

Here the most terrible contortion appeared on the generally pleasant countenance of the Chancery Barrister. He clutched desperately at the ice; but his suspicion was too true. He had begun to move downwards ("When he got to cum he came," the Member, who makes bad jokes, says), and with increasing impetus he slid down the bank. His face during the terrible moments when he was not quite certain where he would stop, or indeed whether he would ever stop, passed through a series of contortions highly interesting to those on the bank above.

"Me pascant olivae!" cried the Member. "Olives are evidently no use as a support in a case like yours, and diachylon would be more use to you now than soft mallows."

The Chancery Barrister, who had happily reached the bottom, walked round by a more accessible path, and nothing further either from Horace or Virgil occurred to him for more than an hour.

Perhaps the difference in the weather had something to do with it, but we found the Dent du Jaman not nearly so difficult to climb as the Roches de Naye. After the scamper across the snow and the climb over this little ice-collar down which the Chancery Barrister had slipped, there is no more snow. We climb up by steps worn by the feet of many adventurers. The top is a level cone with an area not much greater than that of a moderate-sized dining-room. There was not a breath of wind, and the sun beat down with a warmth made all the more delicious by the recollection of the frozen region through which we had passed. The Dent is only a trifle above six thousand feet high, but the prospect as seen from it stretches far. Below is the Canton de Vaud, a portion of the Jura chain of mountains, the far-reaching Alps of the Savoy, a bit of the lake gleaming like an emerald under the white tops of the mountains, a cloud on the southern horizon that the guide tells us are the mountains of the Valais, and, still to the south just touched by the sun, glitter the snow summits of the Great St. Bernard.

Coming down, we bivouac in the chalet, lighting up the fire again. Here, twelve hundred feet lower down, it is bitterly cold, in spite of, perhaps because of, the fire. The chalet is built with commendable deference to the necessity for ventilation. The wind, smelling fire, comes rushing over the snow, and we are glad to put on coat and caps. The conversation turns to legal topics, and certain eminent personages are discussed with great severity. Of one it is roundly asserted that he is mad.

"I am quite sure of it," said the Chancery Barrister, who has recovered his spirits with his footing, "and I'll tell you why. He seconded me for the Reform Club, and——"

We all agree that this is quite enough; but the Chancery Barrister insists on proceeding with his narrative, of which it seems this was merely the introduction.

We found our Naturalist of very little use. We had expected he would mount with us whatever heights we sought, and had pleasing views of his explaining the flora as we went along. But he always had some excuse that kept him on lower levels. One morning he declared he had passed a sleepless night owing to the efforts of two Scotch lads who occupied the room next to him. They had some taste for carpentering, and were addicted to getting up in the dead of the night and doing odd jobs about the room. At half-past five a.m. they left their couch and began playing Cain and Abel. Only the Naturalist protested there is no authority in Scripture for the fearful row Abel made when Cain got him down on his back.

At other times our Naturalist had heard of a "Camberwell Beauty" in the neighbourhood, and must needs go and catch it, which, by the way, he never did. On the whole, we conclude our Naturalist is an impostor.

We reserved the Roches de Naye till the last day. It was rather a stupendous undertaking, the landlord assuring us that four guides were necessary. One led a horse that no one would ride, one carried the indispensable luncheon-basket, and two fared forth at early morn to cut steps in the snow. The sun was shining when we started on this desperate enterprise, and it was hot enough as we toiled along the lower heights. But when we reached the snow level, the sun had gone in, having just shone long enough to make the snow wet. Then a cold bleak wind set in, and we began to think that, after all, there was more in the Naturalist than met the eye. Whilst we were toiling along, sometimes temporarily despairing, and generally up to our waists in snow, he was enjoying the comforts of the hotel, or strolling about in languid search of fabulous butterflies.

Picking our way round a hill in which had been cut in the snow a ledge about two feet wide, we came in face of the slope we were to climb. Up at the top, looking like black ants, were the guides cutting a zigzag path in the snow. The Member observed that if any one were to offer him a sovereign and his board on condition of his climbing up this slope, he would prefer to remain in indigent circumstances. As we were getting nothing for the labour, were indeed paying for the privilege of undertaking it, we stuck at it, and after a steady climb reached the top, when the wind was worse than ever. It was past luncheon time, and every one was ferociously hungry; but it was agreed that if we camped here and lunched, we should never get to the top. So on we went, through the sloppy snow, pursued by the keen blast that cut through all possible clothing.

It was a hard pull and not much to see for it, since clouds had rolled up from the west and hid the promised panorama. The wind was terrible, and there was no shelter. But we could hold out no longer, and the luncheon being laid upon the sloppy grass, the Patriarch, with his accustomed impartiality, went round with his knife.

By this time we had induced him to take the sardines last, which he obligingly did.

We ran most of the way back to the side of the hill where the snow had been cut. The exercise made us a little warmer; and the genial influence of the cold fowl, the hard-boiled eggs, the sardines and the thin red wine beginning to work, we were able to enjoy the spectacle of the Patriarch leading the first party down the perilous incline. We had ropes, but didn't think it worth while to be tied. The party was divided into two sections, half a dozen holding on to a rope. It must have been a beautiful sight from many a near mountain height to watch the Patriarch's chimney-pot hat slowly move downwards on the zigzag path.

"What's that Virgil says about ranging mountain tops?" said the Chancery Barrister:

"Me Parnassi deserta per ardua dulcis Raptat amor: juvat ire jugis, qua nulla priorum Castaliam molli divertitur orbita clivo."

He had got in the centre of the second party, and with two before him, three behind, and a firm grip on the rope, he thought it safe to quote poetry.

We had eight days at Les Avants, of which this devoted to the ascent of the Roches was the only one the sun did not shine upon. Whether on mountain or in valley, what time the sun was shining it was delightfully warm. The narcissi were not yet out, but the fields were thick with their buds. How the place would look when their glory had burst forth on all the green Alps we could only imagine. But already everywhere bloomed the abundant marigolds, the hepaticae, the violets, the oxlips, the gentians, the primroses, and the forget-me-nots.



CHAPTER XII.

THE BATTLE OF MERTHYR.

"Well, sir, it is, as you say, a long time ago, but it was one of those things, look you, that a man meets with only once in his lifetime; and that being so, I might call it all to mind if I began slowly, and went on so as to keep my pipe alight to the end."

The speaker was a little, white-haired miner, who had been employed for fifty years by the Crawshays, of Cyfarthfa. We were sitting in the sanctum of his kitchen, the beautifully sanded floor of which smote me with remorse, for I had walked up from Merthyr, and was painfully conscious of two muddy footprints in the doorway.

Mrs. Morgan Griffiths, engaged upon the task of repairing Mr. Morgan Griffiths's hose, was seated in the middle of the room opposite the fireplace, having against the wall on either side of her a mahogany chest of drawers in resplendent state of polish. Mr. Morgan Griffiths sat beside the fireplace, with his pipe in one hand, the other resting affectionately upon another mahogany chest of drawers, also resplendently polished, standing in a recess at his left. The other side of the fireplace was occupied by the visitor, who, if he had turned his head a little to the right, might have seen his face reflected in the resplendent polish of a third mahogany chest of drawers, which somewhat inconveniently projected from the recess on the side of the fireplace.

Apparently, every well-to-do Welsh collier marks his status in society by the possession of a mahogany chest of drawers—if mounted in brass so much the better—which it is the pride and privilege of his wife to keep in a state of resplendent polish. Mr. Morgan Griffiths having had a long run of prosperity, and being of a frugal mind, had launched out largely in the purchase of mahogany chests of drawers, and his kitchen may be said to bristle with them. Each had its history, and it was to the patient listening to the repetition thereof, and to the expenditure of much appreciative criticism upon the varied styles of architecture displayed in their construction, that I completely won Mr. Morgan Griffiths's confidence, and overcame the cautious fencing with which he met my first inquiries touching his recollection of the memorable Merthyr Riots of 1831.

Perfect confidence reigned between us now, and I discovered that, though it is exceedingly hard to get a Welsh miner to talk freely to "a Saxon," when he opens his heart, and can look back for a period of fifty years, he is a very interesting companion.

"Yes, it's a long time ago," Mr. Morgan Griffiths repeated, in short, clipping intonation of the English language I will not attempt to reproduce, "but I've often talked it over with Mrs. Morgan Griffiths, and I can see it all now. Times was sore bad, and there was a deal of poverty about. Bread was dear, and iron was cheap—at least so Mr. Crawshay said when we went up to ask him if he couldn't give us miners a trifle over the twelve or thirteen shillings a week we was earning. Everybody I knowed was in debt, and had been in debt for some time, and was getting further in every week. The shopkeepers up at Merthyr were getting uneasy about their money, and besides saying plump out to some of us that we couldn't have any more bread, or that, without money down on the nail, they served out all round summonses to what was called the Court of Requests. That was all very well, but as we couldn't get enough to eat from day to day upon our wages, it was pretty certain we couldn't go and pay up arrears. But the summonses came all the same, and it was a black look-out, I can tell you.

"One day, in the middle of the summer of this year 1831, there was a great meeting out on Waun-hill of all the miners of the country. I can't rightly tell you the day of the month, but it was about three reeks after we rescued Thomas Llewellin, who had been sent to gaol on account of the row at Mr. Stephens's. We talked over our grievances together, and we made up our minds that we couldn't stand them any longer, though we meant no more mischief than our little Morgan who wasn't born then, me and Mrs. Morgan Griffiths not being married at the time, nor indeed set eyes on each other. After the row opposite the Bush Inn, I went back to my work till such time as the petition we had agreed to send to the King was written out by Owen Evans, and had come round to be signed by us all. But there was others not so peaceably minded, and a lot of them, meeting outside Merthyr, marched over the hill to Aberdare, where they went to Mr. Fothergill's and treated him pretty roughly. They ate up all the victuals in the house, and finished up all the beer, and then took a turn round the town collecting all the bread and cheese they could lay their hands on.

"A lad sent by Mr. Fothergill came running over the mountain with a letter to the magistrates, telling them what was happening in Aberdare, and pressing them to send off for the soldiers. It was said the magistrates did this pretty quick, but we had no railways or telegraphs then, and, ride as quick as you might, the soldiers could not get here before morning. The men from Aberdare were back here the same night, and marched straight for the Court of Requests, where they made poor Coffin, the clerk, give up every scrap of book or paper he had about the Court's business, and they made a bonfire of them in the middle of the street. Then they came over here, and swore we should all turn out and join them.

"I remember it well. I was just coming up from the pit to go to my tea, when they came bursting over the tips, shouting and waving their sticks, and wearing in their hats little bits of burnt paper from the bonfire opposite Coffin's house. They were most of them drunk, but they were very friendly with us, and only wanted us to leave off work and go along with them. I was a young fellow then, up to any lark, and didn't make much fuss about it. So off we went to Dowlais, freed the men there, and we all had a good drink together.

"Next day the soldiers came in earnest: Scotchmen with petticoats on, and nasty-looking guns on their shoulders. I stood in a passage whilst they marched down High Street from Cyfarthfa way, and didn't like the look of things at all. But close upon their heels came all our fellows, with bludgeons in their hands, and one of them, a man from Dowlais, had tied a red pocket-handkerchief on a stick and waved it over his head like a flag. The soldiers tramped steadily along till they got just above the Castle Inn, and there they halted, our men pressing on till they filled the open place below the Castle, as well as crowding the street behind the soldiers, who looked to me, as I hung on by the hands and legs to a lamp-post, just like a patch of red in the centre of a great mass of black. The soldiers had some bread and cheese and beer served out to them, but they were a long time getting it; for as soon as any one came out of the Castle with a loaf of bread and a piece of cheese some of our men snatched it out of their hands and eat it, jeering at the soldiers and offering them bits.

"The soldiers never said a word or budged an inch till the Sheriff looked out of the window and asked the little fellow who was their commander-in-chief to draw them up on the pavement close before the hotel. The little fellow said something to them; and they turned round their guns so as the butt ends were presented, and marched straight forward, as if our fellows were not on the pavement as thick as ants. There was a little stoppage owing to the men not being able to clear off because of the crowd on the right and left. But the thick ends of the guns went steadily on with the bare-legged silent soldiers after them, and in a few strides the pavement was clear, and the soldiers were eating their bread and cheese with their faces to the crowd, and a tight right-handed grip on their muskets.

"The Sheriff got on a chair in the doorway of the Castle, with the soldiers well placed between him and us, and made a rigmaroling speech about law and order, and the King; but he said nothing about giving us more wages. Our master, Mr. Crawshay, was in the hotel too, and so was Mr. Guest, of Dowlais. Evan Jones, a man who had come over from Aberdare, got up on the shoulders of his mates and made a rattling speech all about our poor wages.

"'Law and order's all very well," he said, "but can you live on twelve shillings a week, Mr. Sheriff, and bring up a lot of little sheriffs?'

"Then we all shouted, and old Crawshay coming up to the doorway, I got down from the lamp-post, not wishing to let him see me there, though I was only standing on my rights. But Mr. William had a voice which, something like an old file at work, could go through any crowd, and I heard him in his quiet, stern way, just as if he was talking to his men on a pay-day, say it was no use them crowding there with sticks and stones to talk to him about wages.

"'Go home, all of you' he said; 'go to bed; and when you are sober and in your senses, send us a deputation from each mine, and we'll see what can be done. But you won't be sensible for a fortnight after this mad acting; so let us say on this day fortnight you come with your deputation. Now go home, and don't make fools of yourselves any more.'

"We always listened to what Mr. Crawshay said, though he might be a little hard sometimes, and this made us waver. But just then Lewis-yr-Helwyr, shouting out in Welsh, 'We ask for more wages and they give us soldiers,' leaped at the throat of the Scotchman nearest to him, and snatching the musket out of his hand, stuck the bayonet into him.

"In the twinkling of an eye the great black mass jumped upon the little red patch I told you of, and a fearful struggle began. The attack was so sudden, and the soldiers were at the moment so earnest with their bread and cheese, that nearly all the front rank men lost their muskets and pressed backward on their comrades behind. These levelled their pieces over the front rank's shoulders and fired straight into the thick of us. The little officer had hardly given the word to fire when he was knocked down by a blow on the head, and a bayonet stuck into him, Our men pressed stoutly forward and, tumbling over the dead, fell upon the soldiers, who could move neither arm nor leg. The rear rank were, as fast as they could bustle, filing into the hotel, but not before they had managed to pass over their heads the little officer, who looked very sick, with the blood streaming down his face.

"At last the soldiers all got inside the doorway of the hotel, where they stood fast like a wedge, two kneeling down shoulder to shoulder with their bayonets fixed, three others firing over their heads, and others behind handing up loaded guns as fast as they fired. There was a lane speedily made amongst us in front of the doorway; but we had won the fight for all that, and cheered like mad when the soldiers turned tail.

"In a few minutes we shouted on the other side of our mouths. Without any notice the windows of every room in the hotel suddenly flew up, and out came from each the muzzles of a pair of muskets which flashed death down upon us at the rate of two men a minute; for as soon as the first couple of soldiers fired they retired and reloaded whilst two others took their places and blazed away. A rush was made to the back of the hotel, and we had got into the passage, when the bearded faces of the Scotchmen showed through the smoke with which the house was filled, and the leaders of our lot were shoved back at the point of the bayonet. At the same time the windows at the back of the house flew up as they had done in the front, and the muzzles of the muskets peeped out as they had done before.

"This was getting rather hot for me. Men dead or dying were lying about everywhere around the Castle Inn. If I had been asked that night how many were killed, I think I should have said two hundred; but when the accounts came to be made up, it was found that not more than sixty or seventy were shot dead, though many more were wounded. I was neither hurt nor dead as yet, and I thought I had better go home if I wanted to keep so. I was below the Castle Inn at the time, and not caring to pass the windows with those deadly barrels peeping out I turned down High Street, and walked through the town. It was raining in torrents, and I never saw Merthyr look so wretched. Every shop was closed, and barricades placed across some of the windows of the private houses; and as I walked along, trying to look as if I hadn't been up at the Castle, I saw white faces peeping over window blinds.

"Merthyr was trembling in its shoes that day, I can tell you; and it came out afterwards that every tradesman in the place had got together all the bread, cheese, meat, pies, and beer he could put his hands on, ready to throw out to the mob if they came knocking at his door.

"It was late at night when I got home, having gone a long way round, and I saw nothing more of our fellows; but I heard that the wounded soldiers had been taken up to Penydarren House, which was fortified by their comrades, and held all night against our men. Somehow the word got passed round that we were to meet the next morning in a quiet place on the Brecon road, and when I got there I found our gallant fellows in great force. I, having neither sword nor gun, was told off with a lot of others to get up on the heights that bank the turnpike road near Coedycymmer, and roll down big stones, so that the fresh troops expected up from Brecon could not pass. This we did with a will; and when, in the afternoon, a lot of cavalry came up, we made it so hot for them, what with the stones rolled down from above and the musketry that came rattling up from our men who had guns, that they cleared off pretty smartly.

"This cheered us greatly, and another lot of ours, who had been posted on the Swansea road to intercept troops coming up in that direction, soon after joined us, with news of a great victory, by which they had routed the soldiers and taken their swords and muskets. We thought Merthyr was ours, though I'm not sure that we quite knew what we were going to do with it. When somebody shouted, 'Let's go to Merthyr!' we all shouted with him, and ran along the road, intending to take Penydarren House by storm. On the way we met Evan Price and some others, who had been to see Mr. Guest, and had been promised fine things for the men if they would give up their arms and go peaceably to work. Some jumped at this offer and sneaked off; but I had got a sabre now, and was in for death or glory. There was a good many in the same boat, and on we went towards Penydarren House, enough of us to eat it up, if the walls had been built of boiled potatoes instead of bricks.

"When we got in sight of the house, we found they were ready for us, and had got a lot of those soldiers drawn up in battle array. There was a deal of disputing amongst our leaders how the attack was to commence, and whilst they were chattering the men were dropping off in twos and threes, and in about an hour we were all gone, so nothing more was done that night.

"We lay quietly in our own homes on Sunday, and on Monday had a great meeting on Waun-hill again, colliers coming up by thousands to join up from all parts around. Early in the forenoon we began to move down towards Merthyr, everybody in high spirits, shouting, waving caps, and brandishing swords. I saw one man get an awful backhanded cut on the cheek from an Aberdare collier, who was waving his sword about like a madman. Nobody knew exactly where we were going, or what we were going to do; but when we got as far as Dowlais we were saved the trouble of deciding, for there was Mr. Guest, with a great army of soldiers drawn up across the road. Mr. Guest was as cool as myself, and rode forward to meet us as if we were the best friends in the world. He made a good speech, begging us to think of our wives and families, and go quietly home whilst we had the chance. Nothing came of that, however, and he pulled out a paper, and read an Act of Parliament, after which he turned to the commander-in chief of the soldiers, and said he had done all a magistrate could do, and the soldiers must do the rest.

"'Get ready,' shouts out the commander-in-chief; and the soldiers brought their muskets down with a flash like lightning, and a clash that made me feel uncomfortable, remembering what I had seen on the Friday.

"'Present!'

"There was ten murderous barrels looking straight at us. Another word, and we should have their contents amongst our clothes. It was an awful moment. I saw one black-bearded fellow had covered me as if I were a round target, and I said to myself as well as I could speak for my lips were like parched peas, 'Morgan Griffiths, twelve shillings a week and an allowance of coal is better than this'; and I'm not ashamed to own that I turned round and made my way through the crush of our men, which was getting less inconveniently pressing at the end nearest to the levelled barrels.

"There was, to tell the truth, a good deal of movement towards the rear amongst our men, and when Mr. Guest saw this he rode up again, and, standing right between the guns and the front rank of our men, said something which I could not rightly hear, and then our men began running off faster than ever, so that in about half an hour the soldiers had the road to themselves.

"That was not the last of the riots, but it is all I can tell you about them, for I had had quite enough of the business. There is something about the look of a row of muskets pointed at you, with ball inside the barrels and a steady finger on the triggers, which you don't care to see too often.

"Anyhow, I went home, and there heard tell of more fighting all that week on the Brecon road, of Merthyr in a state of panic, and at last of Dick Penderyn and Lewis the Huntsman being taken, and the whole of our men scattered about the country, and hunted as if they were rats.

"It was a bad business, sir—a very bad business, and I know no more than them as was shot down in the front of the Castle Hotel how it came about or what we meant to do. We were like a barrel of gunpowder that had been broken up and scattered about the road. A spark came, and poof!—we went off with a bang, and couldn't stop ourselves. Yes, this is a bad business, too, this strike of to-day, and there's a good many thousand men going about idle and hungry who were busy and full a month ago. I don't feel the bitterness of it myself so much, because I have a little store in the house. I had been saving it to buy another chest of drawers to stand there, opposite the door, but it's going out now in bread and meat, and I don't know whether I shall live to save up enough after the trouble's over, for I'm getting old now, look you."



CHAPTER XIII.

MOSQUITOES AND MONACO.

Up to the end of October, in ordinary seasons, the mosquitoes hold their own against all comers along the full length of the Riviera. For some unexplained reasons they clear out earlier from Genoa, though the atmosphere may be as unbearably close as at other points of the coast which mosquitoes have in most melancholy manner marked as their own. Perhaps it is the noise of the city that scares them. The people live in the street as much as possible, and therein conduct their converse in highly-pitched notes. I have a strong suspicion that, like the habitation jointly rented by Messrs. Box and Cox, Genoa is tenanted by two distinct populations. One fills the place by day and throughout the evening up to about ten o'clock; after this hour it disappears, and there is a brief interval of rare repose. About 2 a.m. the Cox of this joint tenancy appears on the scene, and by four there is a full tide of bustle that murders sleep as effectually as was ever done by Macbeth. I do not wonder that the mosquitoes (who, I have the best reason to know, are insects of the finest discrimination and the most exacting good taste) quit Genoa at the earliest possible moment.

The most delightful spot in or near the city is, to my mind, Campo Santo, the place where rich Genoese go when they die. The burial-ground is a large plot of ill-kept land, where weeds grow, and mean little crosses rear their heads. Round this run colonnades adorned with statuary, generally life-size, and frequently of striking merit. Originally, it is presumable that the sculptor's art was invoked in order to perpetuate the memory of the dead. There are in some of the recesses, either in the form of medallions or busts, life-like representations of those who have gone before. But the fashion of the day is improving upon this. In the newest sculptures there is exceedingly little of the dead, and as much as possible of the living.

About half-way down the colonnade, entering from the right, there is a memorable group. A woman of middle age, portly presence and expansive dress, is discovered in the centre on her knees, with hands clasped. The figure is life-size and every detail of adornment, from the heavy bracelet on her wrist to the fine lace of her collar, is wrought from the imperishable marble. On her face is an expression of profound grief, tempered by the consciousness that her large earrings have been done justice to. Standing at a respectful distance behind her is a youth with bared head drooped, and a tear delicately chiselled in the eye nearest to the spectator. He carries his hat in his hand, displays much shirt-cuff; and the bell-shaped cut of the trouser lying over his dainty boot makes his foot look preciously small.

These figures, both life-size, stand in an arched recess, and show to the best advantage. Just above the arch the more observant visitor will catch sight of a small medallion, modestly displaying, about half life-size, the face of an ordinary-looking man, who may have been a prosperous linendraper or a cheesefactor with whom the markets had gone well. This is presumably the deceased, and it is difficult to imagine anything more soothing to the feelings of his widow and son than to come here in the quiet evenings or peaceful mornings and contemplate their own life-sized figures so becomingly bereaved.

Mosquitoes do not meddle with woe so sacred as this; but at San Remo, for example, which has no Campo Santo, they are having what is known in the American language as a high old time. Along the Riviera the shutters of the hotels are taken down in the first week of October. Then arrives the proprietor with the advance guard of servants, and the third cook; the chef and his first lieutenant will not come till a month later. In the meantime the third cook can prepare the meals for the establishment and for any chance visitor whom evil fate may have led untimeously into these parts. Then begins the scrubbing down and the dusting, the bringing out of stored carpets, and the muffling of echoing corridors in brown matting. The season does not commence till November, coincidental with the departure of the mosquitoes. But there is enough to occupy the interval, and there are not wanting casual travellers whose bills suffice to cover current expenses. On these wayfarers the faithful mosquito preys with the desperate determination born of the conviction that time is getting a little short with him, and that his pleasant evenings are numbered.

There are several ways of dealing with the mosquito, all more or less unsatisfactory. The commonest is to make careful examination before blowing out the candle, with intent to see that none of the enemy lingers within the curtains of the bed. This is good, as far as it goes. But, having spent half an hour with candle in hand inside the curtains, to the imminent danger of setting the premises on fire, and having convinced yourself that there is not a mosquito in the inclosure, and so blown out the candle and prepared to sleep, it requires a mind of singular equanimity forthwith to hear without emotion the too familiar whiz. At Bordighera the mosquitoes, disdaining strategic movements, openly flutter round the lamps on the dinner-table, and ladies sit at meat with blue gauze veils obscuring their charms. Half measures were evidently of no use in these circumstances, and I tried a whole one. Having shut the windows of the bedroom, I smoked several cigars, tobacco fumes being understood to have a dreamy influence on the mosquito. At Bordighera they had none. I next made a fire of a box of matches, and burnt on the embers a quantity of insect powder. This filled the chamber with an intolerable stench, which, whatever may be the case elsewhere, is much enjoyed by the Bordighera mosquito. These operations serve a useful purpose in occupying the mind and helping the night to pass away. But as direct deterrents they cannot conscientiously be recommended.

There is one place along the Riviera where the mosquito is defied. Monaco has special attractions of its own which triumphantly withstand all countervailing influences. Other places along the coast are deserted from the end of June to the beginning of November. But Monaco, or rather the suburb of it situated on Monte Carlo, remains in full receipt of custom. In late October the place is enchanting. The wind, blowing across the sea from Africa, making the atmosphere heavy and sultry, has changed, coming now from the east and anon from the west. The heavy clouds that cast shadows of purple and reddish-brown on the sea have descended in a thunderstorm, lasting continuously for eight hours. Sky and sea vie in the production of larger expanse of undimmed blue. The well-ordered garden by the Casino is sweet with the breath of roses and heliotrope. The lawns have the fresh green look that we islanders associate with earliest summer. The palm-trees are at their best, and along the road leading down to the bathing place one walks under the shadow of oleanders in full and fragrant blossom. The warmth of the summer day is tempered by a delicious breeze, which falls at night, lest peradventure visitors should be incommoded by undue measure of cold.

If there is an easily accessible Paradise on earth, it seems to be fixed at Monaco. Yet all these things are as nothing in the eyes of the people who have created and now maintain the place. It seems at first sight a marvel that the Administration should go to the expense of providing the costly appointments which crown its natural advantages. But the Administration know very well what they are about. When man or woman has been drawn into the feverish vortex that sweeps around the gaming tables, the fair scene outside the walls is not of the slightest consequence. It would be all the same to them if the gaming tables, instead of being set in a handsome apartment in a palace surrounded by one of the most beautiful scenes in Europe, were made of deal and spread in a hovel. But gamesters are, literally, soon played out at Monaco, and it is necessary to attract fresh moths to the gaudily glittering candle. Moreover, the tenure of the place is held by slender threads. What is thought of Monaco and its doings by those who have the fullest opportunity of studying them is shown by the fact that the Administration are pledged to refuse admission to the tables to any subject of the Prince of Monaco, or to any French subject of Nice or the department of the Maritime Alps. The proclamation of this fact cynically stares in the face all who enter the Casino. The local authorities will not have any of their own neighbours ruined. Let foreigners, or even Frenchmen of other departments, care for themselves.

In face of this sentiment the Administration find it politic to propitiate the local authorities and the people, who, if they were aroused to a feeling of honest indignation at what daily passes beneath their notice, might sweep the pestilence out of their midst. Accordingly, whilst keeping the gaming rooms closed against natives resident in the department, the Administration throw open all the other pleasures of Monte Carlo, inviting the people of Monaco to stroll in their beautiful gardens, to listen to the concerts played twice a day by a superb band, and to make unfettered use of what is perhaps the best reading-room on the Continent. Monaco gets a good deal of pleasure out of Monte Carlo, which moreover brings much good money into the place. The Casino will surely at no distant day share the fate of the German gambling places. But, as surely, the initiative of this most desirable consummation will not come from Monaco.

In the meanwhile, Monte Carlo, like the mosquitoes, is having a high good time. Night and day the tables are crowded, beginning briskly at eleven in the morning and closing wearily on the stroke of midnight. There are a good many English about, but they do not contribute largely to the funds of the amiable and enterprising Administration. English girls, favoured by an indulgent father or a good-natured brother, put down their five-franc pieces, and, having lost them, go away smiling. Sometimes the father or the brother may be discovered seated at the tables later in the day, looking a little flushed, and poorer by some sovereigns. But Great Britain and Ireland chiefly contribute spectators to the melancholy and monotonous scene.

As usual, women are among the most reckless players. Looking in at two o'clock one afternoon I saw at one of the tables a well-dressed lady of about thirty, with a purseful of gold before her and a bundle of notes under her elbow. She was playing furiously, disdaining the mild excitement of the five-franc piece, always staking gold. She was losing, and boldly played on with an apparent composure belied by her flushed cheeks and flashing eyes. I saw her again at ten o'clock in the evening. She was playing at another table, having probably tried to retrieve her luck at each in succession. The bank notes were gone, and she had put away her purse, for it was easy to hold in her prettily-gloved hand her remaining store of gold. It was only eight hours since I had last seen her, but in the meantime she had aged by at least ten years. She sat looking fixedly on the table, from time to time moistening her dry lips with scarcely less dry tongue. Her face wore a look of infinite sadness, which might have been best relieved by a burst of tears. But her eyes were as dry as her lips, and she stared stonily, staking her napoleons till the last was gone. This accomplished, she rose with evident intent to leave the room, but catching sight of a friend at another table she borrowed a handful of napoleons, and finding another table played on as recklessly as before. In ten minutes she had lost all but a single gold piece. Leaving the table again, she held this up between her finger and thumb, and showed it to her friend with a hysterical little laugh.

It was her last coin, and she evidently devised it for some such matter-of-fact purpose as paying her hotel bill. If she had turned her back on the table and walked straight out, she might have kept her purpose; but the ball was still rolling, and there remained a chance. She threw down the napoleon, and the croupier raked it in amid a heap of coin that might be better or even worse spared.

This is one of the little dramas that take place every hour in this gilded hall, and I describe it in detail only because I chanced to be present at the first scene and the last. Sometimes the dramas become tragedies, and the Administration, who do all things handsomely, pay the funeral expenses, and beg as a slight acknowledgment of their considerate generosity that as little noise as possible may follow the echo of the pistol-shot.



CHAPTER XIV.

A WRECK IN THE NORTH SEA.

One December afternoon in the year 1875, just as night was closing in, the steam-tug Liverpool, which had left Harwich at six o'clock in the morning, was seen steaming into the harbour with flag half-mast high. It was quite dark when she reached the quay, but there was light enough for the crowd collected to see rows of figures laid in the stern of the little steamer, the faces covered with blankets. These figures, as it presently was made known, were twelve dead bodies, the flotsam of the wreck of the Deutschland. When the tug arrived at the wreck she found her much as she had been left when the survivors had been brought off the previous day. The two masts and the funnel were all standing, the sails bellied out with the wind that blustered across the sandbank. The wind was so high and the sea so rough that Captain Corrington could not bring his tug alongside; but a boat was launched, under the charge of the chief mate and Captain Brickerstein, of the Deutschland. The chief officer and the engineer, with some sailors from the tug, rowed out and made fast to the wreck. It was low water, and the deck was dry. There were no bodies lying about the deck or near the ship; but on going below, in the saloon cabin there were found floating about eight women, a man, and two children. These were taken on board the boat, and further search in the fore-cabin led to the discovery of the dead body of a man, making twelve in all. One of the bodies was that of a lady who, when the wreck was first boarded, had been seen lying in her berth. She had since been washed out, and had she floated out by the companion-way or through the skylight might have drifted out to sea with others. Like all the bodies found, she was fully dressed. Indeed, as fuller information showed, there was an interval between the striking of the ship and her becoming water-logged sufficiently long to enable all to prepare for what might follow.

According to the captain's narrative, the ill-fated vessel steamed out of Bremenhaven on Sunday morning with a strong east wind blowing and snow falling thickly. This continued throughout Sunday. All Sunday night the lead was thrown every half-hour, the last record showing seventeen fathoms of water. At four o'clock on Monday morning a light was seen, which the captain believed to be that of the North Hinderfire ship, a supposition which tallied with the reckoning. The vessel was forging slowly ahead, when, at half-past five, a slight shock was felt. This was immediately succeeded by others, and the captain knew he had run on a bank. The order was passed to back the engines. This was immediately done, but before any way could be made the screw broke and the ship lay at the mercy of wind and waves. She was bumping heavily, and it was thought if sail were set she might be carried over the bank. This was tried, but without effect. The captain then ordered rockets to be sent up and a gun fired.

In the meantime the boats were ordered to be swung out, but the sea was running so high that it was felt it would be madness to launch them. Two boats were, however, lowered without orders, one being immediately swamped, and six people who had got into her swept into the sea. Life-preservers were served out to each passenger. The women were ordered to keep below in the saloon, and the men marshalled on deck to take turns at the pumps. At night, when the tide rose, the women were brought up out of the cabin; some placed in the wheel-house, some on the bridge, and some on the rigging, where they remained till they were taken off by the tug that first came to the rescue of the hopeless folk. The whole of the mail was saved, the purser bringing it into the cabin, whence it was fished out and taken on board the tug.

The passengers were all in bed when the ship struck, and were roused first by the bumping of the hull, and next by the cry that rang fore and aft for every man and woman to put on life-belts, of which there was a plentiful store in hand. The women jumped up and swarmed in the companion-way of the saloon, making for the deck, where they were met by the stewardess, who stood in the way, and half forced, half persuaded them to go back, telling them there was no danger. After the screw had broken, the engines also failed, and the sails proved useless.

The male passengers then cheerfully formed themselves into gangs and worked at the pumps, but, as one said, they "were pumping at the North Sea," and as it was obviously impossible to make a clearance of that, the task was abandoned, and officers, crew, and passengers relapsed into a state of passive expectancy of succour from without. That this could not long be coming happily seemed certain. The rockets which had been sent up had been answered from the shore. The lightship which had helped to mislead the captain was plainly visible, and at least two ships sailed by so near that till they began hopelessly to fade away, one to the northward and the other to the southward, the passengers were sure those on board had seen the wreck, and were coming to their assistance.

Perhaps it was this certainty of the nearness of succour that kept off either the shrieking or the stupor of despair. However that be, it is one of the most notable features about this fearful scene that, with a few exceptions, after the first shock everybody was throughout the first day wonderfully cool, patient, and self-possessed. There was no regular meal on Monday, but there was plenty to eat and drink, and the opportunity seems to have been generally, though moderately, improved. The women kept below all day, and, while the fires were going, were served with hot soup, meat, bread, and wine, and seemed to have been inclined to make the best of a bad job.

Towards night the horror of the situation increased in a measure far beyond that marked by the darkness. All day long the sea had been washing over the ship, but by taking refuge in the berths and on the tables and benches in the saloon it had been possible to keep comparatively dry. As night fell the tide rose, and at midnight the water came rushing over the deck in huge volumes, filling the saloon, and making the cabins floating coffins. The women were ordered up and instructed to take to the rigging, but many of them, cowed by the wildness of the sea that now swept the deck fore and aft, and shuddering before the fury of the pitiless, sleet-laden gale, refused to leave the saloon.

Then happened horrible scenes which the pen refuses to portray in their fulness. One woman, driven mad with fear and despair, deliberately hung herself from the roof of the saloon. A man, taking out his penknife, dug it into his wrist and worked it about as long as he had strength, dying where he fell. Another, incoherently calling on the wife and child he had left in Germany, rushed about with a bottle in his hand frantically shouting for paper and pencil. Somebody gave him both, and, scribbling a note, he corked it down in a bottle and threw it overboard, following it himself a moment later as a great wave came and swept him out of sight.

There were five nuns on board who, by their terror-stricken conduct, seem to have added greatly to the weirdness of the scene. They were deaf to all entreaties to leave the saloon, and when, almost by main force, the stewardess (whose conduct throughout was plucky) managed to get them on to the companion-ladder, they sank down on the steps and stubbornly refused to go another step. They seemed to have returned to the saloon again shortly, for somewhere in the dead of the night, when the greater part of the crew and passengers were in the rigging, one was seen with her body half through the skylight, crying aloud in a voice heard above the storm, "Oh, my God, make it quick! make it quick!" At daylight, when the tide had ebbed, leaving the deck clear, some one from the rigging went down, and, looking into the cabin, saw the nuns floating about face upwards, all dead.

There seems to have been a wonderful amount of unselfishness displayed, everybody cheering and trying to help every other body. One of the passengers—a cheery Teuton, named Adolph Herrmann—took a young American lady under his special charge. He helped her up the rigging and held her on there all through the night, and says she was as brave and as self-possessed as if they had been comfortably on shore. Some time during the night an unknown friend passed down to him a bottle of whisky. The cork was in the bottle, and as he was holding on to the rigging with one hand and had the other round the lady, there was some difficulty in getting at the contents of the bottle. This he finally solved by knocking the neck off, and then found himself in the dilemma of not being able to get the bottle to the lady's mouth.

"You are pouring it down my neck," was her quiet response to his first essay. In the end he succeeded in aiming the whisky in the right direction, and after taking some himself, passed it on, feeling much refreshed.

Just before a terrible accident occurred, which threatened death to one or both. The purser, who had fixed himself in the rigging some yards above them, getting numbed, loosed his hold, and falling headlong struck against the lady and bounded off into the sea. But Herrmann kept his hold, and the shock was scarcely noticed. On such a night all the obligations were not, as Herrmann gratefully acknowledges, on the one side; for when one of his feet got numbed, his companion, following his direction, stamped on it till circulation was restored.

From their perilous post, with waves occasionally dashing up and blinding them with spray, they saw some terrible scenes below. A man tied to the mast nearer the deck had his head cut off by the waves, as Herrmann says, though probably a rope or a loose spar was the agent. Not far off, a little boy had his leg broken in the same manner. They could hear and see one of the nuns shrieking through the skylight, and when she was silenced the cry was taken up by a woman wailing from the wheelhouse,—

"My child is drowned, my little one, Adam!"

At daylight a sailor, running nimbly down the rigging, reached the poop, and, bending over, attempted to seize some of the half-drowned people who were floating about. Once he caught a little child by the clothes; but before he could secure it a wave carried it out of his grasp, and its shrieks were hushed in the roar of the waters. At nine o'clock, on the second morning of the wreck the tide had so far ebbed that the deck was clear, and, coming down from the rigging, the battered and shivering survivors began to think of getting breakfast. A provident sailor had, whilst it was possible, taken up aloft a couple of loaves of black bread, a ham, and some cheese. These were now brought out and fairly distributed.

An hour and a half later all peril was over, and the gallant survivors were steaming for Harwich in the tug-boat Liverpool.



CHAPTER XV.

A PEEP AT AN OLD HOUSE OF COMMONS FROM THE LADIES' GALLERY.

"No," Mrs. Chiltern-Hundreds said when I asked, Was she in these days a constant visitor at the House of Commons? "Chiltern, you know, has accepted a place of profit under the Crown, and is no longer eligible to sit as a member. It is such trouble to get in, and when you are there the chances are that nothing is going on, so I have given it up. I remember very well the first time I was there. I wrote all about it to an old schoolfellow. If you are interested in the subject, I will show you a copy of what I then jotted down."

I was much interested, and when I saw the letter was glad I had expressed my interest. The copy placed at my disposal was undated, but internal evidence showed that Mrs. Chiltern-Hundreds had paid her visit in the session of 1874, when Mr. Disraeli had for the first time in his history been returned to power as well as to office, and Mr. Gladstone, crushed by an overwhelming defeat, had written his famous letter to "My dear Granville," announcing his retirement from political life. Looking down through the grille, the visitor in the gallery saw many bearers of well-known names who have travelled far since that date, some beyond the grave. Here are Madame's notes written in her own angular handwriting:—

"Be in the great hall at four o'clock."

Those were Chiltern's words to me as he hurried off after luncheon, and here we were in the great hall, but there was no Chiltern, which was vexatious. True, it was half-past four, and he is such a stickler for what he calls punctuality, and has no sympathy with those delays which are inseparable from going out in a new bonnet. One of the strings——but there, what does it matter? Here we were standing in the great hall, where we had been told to come, and no one to meet us. There was a crowd of persons standing before the entrance to a corridor to the left of the hall. Two policemen were continually begging them to stand back and not block up the entrance, so that the members who were passing in and out (I dare say on the look-out for their wives, so that they should not be kept here a moment) might not be inconvenienced. It is really wonderful how careful the police about Westminster are of the sacred persons of members. If I cross the road at the bottom of Parliament Street by myself I may be run over by a hansom cab or even an omnibus, without the slightest compunction on the part of the police on duty there. But if Chiltern happens to be with me the whole of the traffic going east and west is stopped, and a policeman with outstretched hands stands waiting till we have gained the other side of the road.

We were gazing up with the crowd at somebody who was lighting the big chandelier by swinging down from somewhere in the roof a sort of censer, when Chiltern came out of the corridor and positively began to scold us for being late. I thought that at the time very mean, as I was just going to scold him; but he knows the advantage of getting the first word. He says, Why were we half an hour late? and how could he meet us there at four if at that time we had not left home? But that's nonsense. Chiltern has naturally a great flow of words, which he has cultivated by close attendance upon his Parliamentary duties. But he is mistaken if he thinks I am a Resolution and am to be moved by being "spoken to."

We walked through a gallery into a hall something like that in which Chiltern had kept us waiting, only much smaller. This was full of men chattering away in a manner of which an equal number of women would have been ashamed. There was one nice pleasant-looking gentleman carefully wrapped up in an overcoat with a fur collar and cuffs. That was Earl Granville, Chiltern said. I was glad to see his lordship looking so well and taking such care of himself. There was another peer there, a little man with a beaked nose, the only thing about him that reminded you of the Duke of Wellington. He had no overcoat, being evidently too young to need or care for such encumbrance. He wore a short surtout and a smart blue necktie, and frisked about the hall in quite a lively way. Chiltern said that he was Lord Hampton, with whom my great-grandfather went to Eton. He was at that time plain "John Russell" (not Lord John of course), and has for the last forty-five years been known as Sir John Pakington. But then Chiltern has a way of saying funny things, and I am not sure that he was in earnest in telling us that this active young man was really the veteran of Droitwich.

From this hall, through a long carpeted passage, catching glimpses on the way of snug writing rooms, cosy libraries, and other devices for lightening senatorial labours, we arrived at a door over which was painted the legend "To the Ladies' Gallery." This opened on to a flight of steps at the top of which was another long corridor, and we found ourselves at last at the door of the Ladies' Gallery, where we were received by a smiling and obliging attendant.

I expected to find a fine open gallery something like the orchestra at the Albert Hall, or at least like the dress circle at Drury Lane. Picture my disappointment when out of the bright light of the corridor we stepped into a sort of cage, with no light save what came through the trellis-work in front. I thought this was one of Chiltern's stupid practical jokes, and being a little cross through his having kept us waiting for such an unconscionable long time, was saying something to him when the smiling and obliging attendant said, "Hush-sh-sh!" and pointed to a placard on which was printed, like a spelling lesson, the impertinent injunction "Silence is requested."

There was no doubt about it. This was the Ladies' Gallery of the British House of Commons, and a pretty place it is to which to invite ladies. I never was good at geometry and that sort of thing, and cannot say how many feet or how many furlongs the gallery is in length, but I counted fourteen chairs placed pretty close together, and covered with a hideous green damask. There are three rows of chairs, the two back rows being raised above the first the height of one step. As far as seeing into the House is concerned, one might as well sit down on the flight of steps in Westminster Hall as sit on a chair in the back row in the Ladies' Gallery. On the second row it is tolerable enough, or at least you get a good view of the little old gentleman with the sword by his side sitting in a chair at the far end of the House. I thought at first this was the Speaker, and wondered why gentlemen on the cross benches should turn their backs to him. But Chiltern said it was Lord Charles Russell, Sergeant-at-Arms, a much more important personage than the Speaker, who takes the Mace home with him every night, and is responsible for its due appearance on the table when the Speaker takes the chair.

In the front row you can see well enough—what there is to be seen, for I confess that my notion of the majesty of the House of Commons is mightily modified since I beheld it with my own eyes. In the first place you are quite shut out of sight in the Ladies' Gallery, and I might have saved myself all the trouble of dressing, which made me a little late and gave Chiltern an opportunity of saying disagreeable things which he subsequently spread over a fortnight. I might have been wearing a coal-scuttle bonnet or a mushroom hat for all it mattered in a prison like this. There was sufficient light for me to see with satisfaction that other people had given themselves at least an equal amount of trouble. Two had arrived in charming evening dress, with the loveliest flowers in their hair. I dare say they were going out to dinner, and at least I hope so, for it is a disgraceful thing that women should be entrapped into spending their precious time dressing for a few hours' stay in a swept and garnished coal-hole like this.

The smiling and obliging attendant offered me the consolation of knowing that the Gallery is quite a charming place compared with what it used to be. Thirty or forty years ago, whilst the business of Parliament was carried on in a temporary building, accommodation for ladies was provided in a narrow box stationed above the Strangers' Gallery, whence they peered into the House through pigeon holes something like what you see in the framework of a peep-show. The present Gallery formed part of the design of the new Houses, but when it was opened it was a vastly different place. It was much darker, had no ante-rooms worth speaking of, and the leading idea of a sheep-pen was preserved to the extent of dividing it into three boxes, each accommodating seven ladies. About twelve years ago one of the dividing walls was knocked down, and the Ladies' Gallery thrown into a single chamber, with a special pen to which admission is obtained only by order from the Speaker. Still much remained to be done to make it even such a place as it now is, and that work was done by that much—and, as Chiltern will always have it, unjustly—abused man, Mr. Ayrton. It was he who threw open the back of the Gallery, giving us some light and air, and it is to him that we ladies are indebted for the dressing-room and the tea-room.

This being shut up is one reason why I was disappointed with the House of Commons. Another is with respect to the size of the chamber itself. It is wonderful to think how big men can talk in a room like this. It is scarcely larger than a good-sized drawing-room. I must say for Chiltern that we got seats in the front row, and what there was to be seen we saw. Right opposite to us was a gallery with rows of men sitting six deep. It was "a big night," and there was not a seat to spare in this, which I suppose was the Strangers' Gallery. Everybody there had his hat off, and there was an official sitting on a raised chair in the middle of the top row, something like I saw the warders sitting amongst prisoners at Millbank one Sunday morning when Chiltern took me to see the Claimant repeating the responses to the Litany. The House itself is of oblong shape, with rows of benches on either side, cushioned in green leather and raised a little above each other. There are four of these rows on either side, with a broad passage between covered with neat matting.

Chiltern says the floor is an open framework of iron, and that beneath is a labyrinth of chambers into which fresh air is pumped and forced in a gentle stream into the House, the vitiated atmosphere escaping by the roof. But then the same authority, when I asked him what the narrow band of red colour that ran along the matting about a pace in front of the benches on either side meant, gravely told me that if any member when addressing the House stepped out beyond that line, Lord Charles Russell would instantly draw his sword, shout his battle-cry, "Who goes Home!" and rushing upon the offender bear him off into custody.

So you see it is difficult to know what to believe, and it is a pity people will not always say what they mean in plain English.

Midway down each row of benches is a narrow passage that turned out to be "the gangway," of which you read and hear so much. I had always associated "the gangway" with a plank along which you walked to somewhere—perhaps on to the Treasury Bench. But it is only a small passage like a narrow aisle in a church. There is a good deal of significance about this gangway, for anybody who sits below it is supposed to be of an independent turn of mind, and not to be capable of purchase by Ministers present or prospective. Thus all the Irish members sit below the gangway, and so do Mr. Macdonald and Mr. Charles Lewis. It is an odd thing, Chiltern observes, that, notwithstanding this peculiarity, Ministries are invariably recruited from below the gangway. Sir Henry James sat there for many Sessions before he was made Solicitor-General, and there was no more prominent figure in recent years than that of the gentleman who used to be known as "Mr. Vernon Harcourt."

On the conservative side this peculiarity is less marked than on the Liberal, though it was below the gangway on the Conservative side that on a memorable night more than a quarter of a century ago a certain dandified young man, with well-oiled locks and theatrically folded arms, stood, and, glaring upon a mocking House, told them that the time would come when they should hear him. As a rule, the Conservatives make Ministers of men who have borne the heat and burden of the day on the back Ministerial benches. With the Liberals the pathway of promotion, Chiltern says, opens from below the gangway. Mr. Lowe came from there, so did Mr Goschen, Mr. Stansfeld, Mr. Childers, Mr. Foster, and even Mr. Gladstone himself. The worst thing a Liberal member who wants to become a Cabinet Minister or a Judge can do is to sit on the back Ministerial benches, vote as he is bidden, and hold his tongue when he is told. He should go and sit below the gangway, near Mr Goldsmid or Mr. Trevelyan, and in a candid, ingenuous, and truly patriotic manner make himself on every possible occasion as disagreeable to the leaders of his party as he can.

I do not attempt to disguise the expectation I cherish of being some day wife of the First Lord of the Admiralty, or at least of the President of the Board of Trade; for there are few men who can, upon occasion, make themselves more disagreeable than Chiltern, who through these awkward bars I see sitting below the gangway on the left-hand side, and calling out "Hear, hear!" to Sir Stafford Northcote, who is saying something unpleasant about somebody on the front Opposition benches.

The front seat by the table on the right-hand side is the Treasury bench, and the smiling and obliging attendant tells me the names of the occupants there and in other parts of the House. The gentleman at the end of the seat with the black patch over his eye is Lord Barrington, who, oddly enough, sits for the borough of Eye, and fills the useful office of Vice-Chamberlain. Next to him is Sir H. Selwin-Ibbetson, Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, and whom I have heard genially described as "one of the prosiest speakers in the House." Next to him, with a paper in his hand and a smirk of supreme self-satisfaction on his face, is Mr. Cross, the Home Secretary.

He sits beside a figure you would notice wherever you saw it. The legs are crossed, the arms folded, and the head bent down, showing from here one of the most remarkable styles of doing the human hair that ever I beheld. The hair is combed forward from the crown of the head and from partings on either side, and brought on to the forehead, where it is apparently pasted together in a looped curl.

This is Mr. Disraeli, as I know without being told, though I see him now for the first time. He is wonderfully old-looking, with sunken cheeks and furrowed lines about the mouth and eyes. But his lofty brow does not seem to have a wrinkle on it, and his hands, when he draws them from under his arms and folds them before him, twiddling his thumbs the while, are as smooth and white as Coningsby's. He is marvellously motionless, sitting almost in the same position these two hours. But he is as watchful as he is quiet. I can see his eyes taking in all that goes on on the bench at the other side of the table, where right hon. gentlemen, full of restless energy, are constantly talking to each other, or passing notes across each other, or even pulling each other's coat-tails and loudly whispering promptings as in turn they rise and address the House.

I observe that Mr. Disraeli does not wear his hat in the House, and Chiltern, to whom I mention this when he comes up again, tells me that he and some half-dozen others never do. Since Mr Gladstone has retired from the cares of office he is sometimes, but very rarely, able to endure the weight of his hat on his head while sitting in the House; but, formerly, he never wore it in the presence of the Speaker. The rule is to wear your hat in the House, and a very odd effect it has to see men sitting about in a well-lighted and warm chamber with their hats on their heads.

Chiltern tells me this peculiarity of wearing hats was very nearly the means of depriving Great Britain and Ireland of the presence in Parliament of Mr. John Martin. That distinguished politician, it appears, had never, before County Meath sent him to Parliament, worn a hat of the hideous shape which fashion entails upon our suffering male kindred. It is well known that when he was returned he declared that he would never sit at Westminster, the reason assigned for this eccentricity being that he recognised no Parliament in which the member for County Meath might sit other than one meeting of the classic ground of College Green. But Chiltern says that was only a poetical flight, the truth lying at the bottom of the hat.

"Never," Mr. Martin is reported to have said to a Deputation of his constituents, "will I stoop to wear a top hat. I never had one on my head, and the Saxon shall never make me put it there."

He was as good as his word when he first came to town, and was wont to appear in a low-crowned beaver hat of uncertain architecture. But after he had for some weeks assisted the process of Legislature under the shadow of this hat, the Speaker privately and in considerate terms conveyed to him a hint that, in the matter of hats at least, it was desirable to have uniformity in the House of Commons.

Mr. Martin, who, in spite of his melodramatic speeches and his strong personal resemblance to Danny Man in the "Colleen Nawn," is, Chiltern says, really one of the gentlest and most docile of men, straightway abandoned the nondescript hat and sacrificed his inclinations and principles to the extent of buying what he calls "a top hat." But he has not taken kindly to it, and never will. It is always getting in his way, under his feet or between his knees, and he is apparently driven to observe the precaution of constantly holding it in his hands when it is not safely disposed on his head. It is always thus held before him, a hand firmly grasping the rim on either side, when he is making those terrible speeches we read, in which he proves that John Mitchel is an unoffending martyr, and that the English, to serve their private ends, introduced the famine in Ireland.

Mr. Cowen, the member for Newcastle, shares Mr Martin's prejudices about hats, and up to the present time has not abandoned them. As we passed through the lobby on our way to the Gallery, Chiltern pointed him out to me. He was distinguished in the throng by wearing a round hat of soft felt, and he has never been seen at Westminster in any other. But at least he does not put it on his head in the House; and it is much better to sit upon than the tall hats on the top of which excited orators not unfrequently find themselves when, hotly concluding their perorations and unconscious of having left their hats just behind them, they throw themselves back on the bench from which they had erewhile risen to "say a few words."

The gentleman on the left of the Premier is said to be Sir Stafford Northcote, but there is so little of his face to be seen through the abundance of whisker and moustache that I do not think any one has a right to speak positively on the matter. The smooth-faced man next to him is Mr. Gathorne Hardy. The tall, youthful-looking man on his left is Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, who, I suppose by instructions of the Cabinet, generally sits, as he does to-night, next to Mr. Ward Hunt. The Chief Secretary for Ireland is slim; not to put too fine a point on it, Mr. Ward Hunt is not, and the two manage to seat themselves with some approach to comfort. The First Lord of the Admiralty further eases the pressure on his colleagues by throwing his left arm over the back of the bench, where it hangs like a limb of some monumental tree.

The carefully devised scheme for the disposition of Mr. Ward Hunt on the Treasury bench is completed by assigning the place on the other side of him to Sir Charles Adderley. The President of the Board of Trade, Chiltern says, is understood to have long passed the mental stage at which old John Willet had arrived when he was discovered sitting in his chair in the dismantled bar of the Maypole after the rioters had visited his hostelry. He is apparently unconscious of discomfort when crushed up or partially sat upon by his elephantine colleague, which is a fortunate circumstance.

The stolid man with the straight back directly facing Mr Disraeli on the front bench opposite is the Marquis of Hartington. The gentleman with uncombed hair and squarely cut garments on the left of the Leader of the Opposition is Mr Forster. The big man further to the left, who sits with folded arms and wears a smile expressive of his satisfaction with all mankind, particularly with Sir William Harcourt, is the ex-Solicitor-General. The duck of a man with black hair, nicely oiled and sweetly waved, is Sir Henry James. Where have I seen him before? His face and figure and attitude seem strangely familiar to me. I have been shopping this morning, but I do not think I could have seen behind any milliner's or linendraper's counter a person like the hon. and learned gentleman the member for Taunton.

Beyond this doughty knight, and last at this end of the bench, is a little man in spectacles, and with a preternatural look of wisdom on his face. He is the Right Hon. Lyon Playfair, and is said to have, next to Mr. Fawcett, the most remarkably retentive memory of any man in the House. Chiltern says he always writes his lectures before he delivers them to the House, sending the manuscript to the Times, and so accurate is his recitation that the editor has only to sprinkle the lecture with "Hear, hears!" and "Cheers" to make the thing complete.

On the right-hand side of the Marquis of Hartington is Mr. Goschen. In fact, at the moment I happen to have reached him in my survey he is on his feet, asking a question of his "right hon. friend opposite." What a curious attitude the man stands in! Apparently the backs of his legs are glued to the bench from which he has risen, a device which enables him, as he speaks, to lean forward like a human Tower of Pisa. He is putting the simplest question in the world to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but if he were a junior clerk asking his employer for the hand of his eldest daughter he could not look more sheepish. His hat is held in his left hand behind his back possibly with a view to assist in balancing him, and to avoid too much strain on the adhesive powers that keep the back of his legs firmly attached to the bench. With his right hand he is, when not pulling up his collar, feeling himself nervously round the waist, as if to make sure that he is there.

Next to him are Mr. Dodson and Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, and, with these planted between him and actual or aspirant leaders of the Liberal party, sits Mr. Lowe. I cannot see much of his face from here, for he wears his hat and at the moment hangs his head. A little later on I both saw and heard him speak and a splendid speech he made, going right to the heart of the matter, laying it bare. His success as a debater is a marvellous triumph of mind over material influences. It would be hard to conceive a man having fewer of the outward graces of oratory than Mr Lowe. His utterance is hesitating, sometimes even to stuttering, he speaks hurriedly, and without emphasis; his manner is nervous and restless, and he is so short-sighted that the literary quotations with which his speeches abound are marred by painful efforts to read his notes. Yet how he rouses the House, moving it to cheers and laughter, and to the rapid interchange of volleys of "Hear, hear" from opposite sides of the House, which Chiltern says is the most exhilarating sound that can reach the ear of a speaker in the House of Commons. Mr. Lowe sits down with the same abruptness that marked his rising, and rather gets into his hat than puts it on, pushing his head so far into its depths that there is nothing of him left on view save what extends below the line of his white eyebrows.

To the right of Mr. Lowe I see a figure which, foreshortened from my point of view, is chiefly distinguishable by a hat and pair of boots. Without absolute Quaker fashion about the cut of the hat or garments, there is a breadth about the former and a looseness about the latter suggestive of Quaker associations. Perhaps if my idea were mercilessly analysed it would appear that it has its growth in the knowledge that I am looking down on Mr. Bright, and that I know Mr. Bright is of Quaker parentage. But I am jotting down my impressions as I receive them. Mr. Bright does not address the House to-night, but he has made one or two short speeches this Session, and Chiltern, who has heard them, speaks quite sorrowfully of the evidence they give of failing physical power. The orator who once used to hold the House of Commons under his command with as much ease as Apollo held in hand the fiery coursers of the chariot of the sun, now stands before it on rare occasions with a manner more nervous than that in which some new members make their maiden speech. The bell-like tones of his voice are heard no more; he hesitates in choosing words, is not sure of the sequence of his phrases, and resumes his seat with evident gratefulness for the renewed rest.

Chiltern adds that much of this nervousness is probably owing to a sensibility of the expectation which his rising arouses in the House, and a knowledge that he is not about to make the "great speech" looked for ever since he returned to his old place. But at best the matchless oratory of John Bright is already a tradition in the House of Commons, and it is but the ghost of the famous Tribune who now nightly haunts the scene of his former glories. Mr Gladstone was sitting next to Mr. Bright, in what the always smiling and obliging attendant tells me is a favourite attitude with him. His legs were stretched out, his hands loosely clasped before him, and his head thrown back, resting on the cushion at the back of the seat, so that the soft light from the illuminated roof shone full on his upturned face. It is a beautiful face, soft as a woman's, very pale and worn, with furrowed lines that tell of labour done and sorrow lived through.

Here again I am conscious of the possibility of my impressions being moulded by my knowledge of facts; but I fancy I see a great alteration since last I looked on Mr. Gladstone's face, now two years ago. It was far away from here, in a big wooden building in a North Wales town. He was on a platform surrounded by grotesque men in blue gowns and caps, which marked high rank in Celtic bardship. At that time he was the nominal leader of a great majority that would not follow him, and president of a Ministry that thwarted all his steps. His face looked much harder then, and his eye glanced restlessly round, taking in every movement of the crowd in the pavilion. He seemed to exist in a hectic flush of life, and was utterly incapable of taking rest. Now his face, though still thin, has filled up. The lines on his brow and under his eyes, though too deeply furrowed to be eradicable, have been smoothed down, and there is about his face a sense of peace and a pleasant look of rest.

Chiltern says that sometimes when Mr. Gladstone has been in the House this Session he has, during the progress of a debate, momentarily sprung into his old attitude of earnest, eager attention, and there have been critical moments when his interposition in debate has appeared imminent. But he has conquered the impulse, lain back again on the bench, and let the House go its own way. It is very odd, Chiltern says, to have him sitting there silent in the midst of so much talking. This was specially felt during the debate about those Irish Acts with which he had so much to do.