Kenealy succeeded in placing on the paper a motion in favour of triennial Parliaments very shortly after his first unfavourable introduction into the House. It was long after midnight when he rose to speak. He began at the beginning and favoured us with an analysis of the characteristics of the first gathering of a representative assembly under Alfred the Great. Sir Wilfred Lawson almost immediately rose to inquire whether the hour were not somewhat too advanced for a disquisition on parliamentary history, the facts of which were available to everybody, and Kenealy passionately retorted that he was in possession of the ear of the House, that he would stand upon his rights, would adopt his own methods and would speak at what length he chose. In answer to this defiance, the House rose en masse and its members solemnly filed away, leaving Kenealy to address the Speaker, the clerks at the table and a handful of reporters in the gallery. He struggled on for awhile, but by and by a member returned and drew the attention of the Speaker to the very obvious fact that there were not forty members present. The Speaker rose under his canopy and waved his cocked hat solemnly towards Kenealy and then towards the other occupant of the House.

"There are not forty members present," he said solemnly, "the House is now adjourned." That was the result of Dr Kenealy's first essay and in his second he came to final and irremediable grief. In a crowded House, he arose to impeach his enemies and traducers. He was ploughing along and I was fighting after him in my own gouty, inefficient shorthand, when one of the strangest premonitions of my life occurred to me. He said "If any of these unjust aspersions are cast anew upon me"—and I seemed to know as absolutely what he was going to say as if the whole thing were a play which I had seen rehearsed a score of times. I thought, "I hope to heaven he won't say that," and he went on in the very words my mind forebode. "If these unjust aspersions are cast upon me, I shall shake them from me as the lion shakes the dew-drops from his mane." There was a second's silence as he paused, and then there was a crash of laughter with peal on peal to follow. Three times I have known the House of Commons surrendered to illimitable mirth and on each occasion the victim of its derision is somewhat pitiable. But poor Kenealy! he stood there lost, astounded, vacant, a quite tragic figure, and when the crowded House had ceased to laugh out of pure exhaustion, he spoke again in a tone completely changed; all the forensic manner gone out of him. That he could find a voice at all after such a scathing was an evidence of his courage, but with that unfortunate sentence he had shot his bolt. He never attempted to address the House again. I do not remember even to have seen him within its precincts after that catastrophe.

It is not impossible there may have been a little touch of gratified malice in that Homeric laugh which killed Kenealy's parliamentary career, but there was certainly not a trace of it in that heroic peal of mirth which dismissed Mr Newdigate from the scene of his parliamentary activities. Mr Newdigate was undoubtedly a dull man, he was undoubtedly an eccentric, but he was just as certainly a gentleman and he enjoyed everybody's esteem. He was a long-backed Tory squire who for many years represented the Northern Division of the County of Warwick. His chief virtues were that he rode straight to hounds, that he dispensed an open-handed old-fashioned hospitality to his hunt and that he voted regularly and faithfully with his party. There was no man who could more quickly empty a full House than he. The very sight of him on his feet created a stampede, and throughout his parliamentary life it had been his lot to empty benches. But at last his chance came. Our present King, then Prince of Wales, was about to visit India, and the Government proposed a vote of 60,000L. to enable him to do the thing in proper fashion. Mr Peter Taylor, a distinguished Radical of that time, rose to move the previous question, and then Mr Newdigate, in recognition, as one supposes, of the faithful party service of many years, was allowed to support the Government resolution. Just for once in his life the House did not empty at his rising; his chance was here, the coveted opportunity of a lifetime, and in his own way he proceeded to take advantage of it. In sepulchral tones he assured Mr Speaker that if this vote were refused the loyal feelings of this country would receive a blow, and the popular confidence in that House would receive a blow, and the loyal sentiment of the Empire would receive a blow; and as he piled up the agony of his speech, he stooped lower and lower, driving his right hand down at the end of each period with a sledge-hammer force until the blow landed, not on the public conscience or the loyalty of the Empire, but on the white hat of one, Mr Charley, who sat directly below him and who in a second was bonneted to the very shoulders. Now Mr Charley wore a very tall white hat and it was his habit to wear his hair rather long, and as he struggled to release himself from the obscurity into which he had been plunged, the lining of the tall white hat turned inside out and his long hair rose with it until he appeared to be expanding himself like some elastic snake. One gentleman on the front bench below the gangway actually fell from his seat and rolled upon the floor, and the House laughed itself almost into hysteria, whilst the hapless orator stood waving in apologetic dumb show. Now here was a tragedy indeed: to have the dream of a whole lifetime at last actually realised and concrete and then to see it go to ruin in that way. So swift a transition from the very height of triumph to the very gulf! When our laugh was over I am sure there was not one of us who did not profoundly sympathise with the sufferer, and Mr Newdigate never attempted to speak again at least in my time. He and Mr Whalley were the two members of the House who were the stern and unfaltering enemies of the Jesuits. They saw the emissaries of Jesuitry everywhere and were unceasing in denouncing all their wicked wiles, but it was notorious that each cast an eye askance upon the other and each was rather inclined to be persuaded to believe that his pretended fellow-crusader was a Jesuit in disguise.

On the night on which Disraeli's government fell he gave the House of Commons a last proof of his unconquerable "cheek and pluck." The Marquis of Hartington had delivered a speech which everybody knew to have sealed the fate of the party in power, but the great Jew statesman rose up imperturbable and audacious to the last "There is, sir," he said in that veiled voice of his which sounded as if it were struggling through dense fog and could indeed only have been made audible throughout the chamber by a trained master in elocution—"there is in war a manoeuvre which is well known. First the cavalry advance creating dust and waving sabres, then a rattle of musketry is heard along the line, and next the big guns are brought into play, and when the dust and smoke have cleared away the force which has created it is found to have removed to a considerable distance. This manouvre, sir, is known as the covering of a retreat and this manoeuvre has been executed with an admirable adroitness by Her Majesty's Opposition this evening." He knew, of course, that he was beaten, he knew that in an hour's time the reins of Government would have passed from his own hands to those of his rival, but he took defeat with his own sardonic gaiety and made a claim for victory with his expiring breath.

I had a curious little instance of this indomitable vein in him one summer morning when the House had risen after sunrise and I overtook him on his way to his official residence. The street was empty and he was crawling along leaning heavily on his walking stick and clasping his left hand on the small of his back with a gesture which bespoke him as being in severe pain. He heard my footstep behind him and turned; his careless and apparently unseeing glance had crossed my face a score of times and he could not fail to have known at least that he was known to me. At the second at which he became aware of me, he drew himself to his full height and stepped out with the assured gait of a man in full possession of health and strength. He twirled his walking stick quite gaily and he maintained that attitude until I had passed him by. I had not the heart to look back afterwards. I saw him once again and once only. One afternoon whilst I was sitting writing in my lodgings I received a telegram from Mr Robinson, afterwards Sir John—then the inspiring genius of the Daily News, instructing me to repair to the office. On arriving there, I received instructions to repair at once to the House of Lords and there, no other journalist being present, I witnessed the formal installation of Lord Beaconsfield. There were four peers present in their robes of scarlet and ermine and their beaver bonnets and the Lord Chancellor was seated on the woolsack. An attendant brought a scarlet cloak, and a very shabby and faded garment it was indeed, and adjusted it about the shoulders of the neophyte. The second attendant handed to him a black beaver which he assumed, then he was led in a sort of solemn dance to the four quarters of the House, at each of which he made an obeisance. Finally he was conducted to the Lord Chancellor and the ceremony came to an end. Everybody supposed that Disraeli's career had come to an end also, and I myself was one of the mistaken prophets. I was writing at the time a weekly set of verses for Mayfair, a sixpenny Society journal long since defunct, and in the next issue of that journal I took Mr Disraeli's formal installation for my theme. I remember two verses which may perhaps be allowed to serve as an expression of the almost universal opinion of the time, an opinion which everybody now knows to have been contradicted in the most extraordinary fashion by the happenings of the next four years. I wrote:—

"Sitting last Thursday in the House of Peers, A little ere the hour of five I saw The Muse of History weeping stony tears Above the picture I'm about to draw. The saddest spectacle the place has known Since Barry planned its first foundation stone.

"Tired with the weight of triumphs worn too long, A man of genius sought a grave for fame; And far apart from Life's impetuous throng To this dim place of sepulture he came. And in the presence of a grieving few He read his own brief burial service through."

The House of Lords had proved a grave for so many brilliant reputations which had been built up in the Lower Chamber that the general prophecy, mistaken as it was, was not at all a thing to be surprised at; Mr Punch's cartoon of Lord John Russell's entry into the House of Peers is not forgotten. The meagre little figure in robes and coronet is shown slinking by Lord Brougham similarly attired, and the latter addresses the arrival, saying, "You'll find it very cold up here, Johnnie."

I was in the House also when Mr Biggar introduced the great parliamentary art of "stone-walling." Mr Biggar would take the first half-dozen blue books he came across, and would begin to read aloud whenever any new measure of which he disapproved was about to be introduced. At half-past two he would begin to read, and continue, oblivious of the passing of the hours, until the time after which no new measure could be introduced. Sir Wilfrid Lawson, in his characteristic way, "wanted to know if the hon. member were in order in reading to himself for sixty minutes at a stretch?" Mr Speaker, who at that time was Mr Brand, rolled out the instruction that "the honourable member must make himself audible to the chair." Mr Biggar forthwith put three blue books under each arm, and taking up his glass of water said, "I will come a little nearer, Mr Speaker," and came. Mr Speaker told him on one of these occasions, "So far as I can understand the line you are taking, I do not see how these matters are related." "I will establish the connection by and by, sir," replied Mr Biggar. This art of "stonewalling" was practised in the House for a number of years until at last the rules were so altered as to make it impossible. It was remarkable how quickly a member found his level in the House. If he started with the idea that he would "boss" the House he would quickly find that the House "bossed" him.

I only heard Bright make one speech in the House. It was an impromptu one, and the orator was not at his best But Bright in a passion was a. person to be listened to. I heard him at Birmingham just after his appointment to the Presidency of the Board of Trade. A Conservative banker opposed his re-election, and Bright was very much annoyed, in fact he was profoundly indignant at being opposed. When he came on the Town Hall platform, that horse-shoe in the forehead, of which Sir Walter Scott speaks as becoming visible in moments of excitement, was flashing out scarlet. He plunged into his speech at once. He did not say "Ladies and gentlemen," or "Electorate of Birmingham," or anything of the kind. "I call it a piece of impertinence," he began, "and unsurpassed in my knowledge of political history that here in this home of freedom, and now at this hour when the fetters you have worn for a lifetime are but newly smitten from you, while your limbs are yet sore with their chafing, and the sound of their clanking is yet in your ears, that a Tory should come forward and ask your permission—to do what?—to rivet those fetters anew upon you. Will you give him that leave?" And in one voice eight thousand people answered "No," which sealed the doom of the banker.

Robert Lowe afforded one of the most noteworthy instances of a man who, having made a fine reputation in the House of Commons, failed to sustain it in the House of Lords. I did not myself witness the scene of his discomfiture, but I had the story of it at first hand within ten minutes of its happening. The unfortunate gentleman was so short-sighted that he could read only when his eyes were within one or two inches of the page. He had prepared himself with a sheaf of notes for his first address to the Upper House; he had contrived in the nervousness natural to the occasion to mix his memoranda, and finding himself unable to rearrange them, he sat down discomfited, and he appears to have accepted that one disaster as final.

In the Commons he had been a brilliant figure. I have good personal reason to remember his most striking effort. His speech had relation to an Army Reform Bill, and it was a mosaic of the aptest and most wittily applied literary quotations. It was of so fine a literary quality that I very much doubt if there were a score of people among his hearers who were able fully to appreciate its excellence.

Those who could follow his allusions were delighted beyond measure, and the House took its cue from them and laughed and cheered uproariously at many things it did not understand. Mr Gladstone acted as a sort of fugleman, and his rejoicing chuckle at some happy ironic application of a Virgilian or Homeric phrase was a cue which was instantly seized upon. Lowe was always a terror to the reporters, for he spoke at a pace which no stenographer's or phonographer's pen could follow, but it was not merely the speed of his utterance which made him so impossible. He would boggle at the beginning of a sentence, and would stammer over it until the reporter was half wild with expectancy, and then he would be away at racing pace, gabbling at the rate of three or four hundred words a minute. I was in the reporter's box when Mr Lowe caught the Speaker's eye on this particular evening, and the chief of the staff, who sat next to me, gave me an urgent whisper, "We want the fullest possible note of this." I suffered a twenty minutes' agony. I believe that for many years after I had left the national talking-shop, I was credited with having been one of the lamest shorthand writers who ever sat there, and in my anxiety and with the certainty of failure before my eyes, I fell into such a state of agitation that my hand perspired so that my pencil would not mark a line upon the paper. I threw it down in despair and stared upward at the painted ceiling, listening for all I was worth, and determined to rely upon what was then a really phenomenal memory.

"What are you doing?" my chief whispered to me. "For God's sake leave me alone!" I answered. He gave a moan and went to work feverishly at a supplementary note. The orator sat down amidst a great burst of cheers, just as my relief tapped me on the shoulder, and I walked away to committee room No. 18, which was then used by the gallery reporters as a transcribing room, feeling assured as I walked along the corridor that my career as a parliamentary reporter had reached an ignominious close. Near the door of the committee room I encountered old Jack O'Hanlon, one of the veterans of the gallery and reputed the best classic in all Westminster. His note-book was tucked in his armpit and he was rubbing his hands delightedly. "That's parliamentary eloquence, if you like," he said as I came up with him; "there's nothing loike that been heard in the House of Commons these thirty years. There's hardly a scholar in the classics left in the House." We sat down side by side, and when we had been at work in silence for a minute or two, the old scholar turned to me and asked, "Did you happen to catch that phrase of Sam Weller's?" I gave it to him without difficulty and then an inspiration occurred to me. The stammering tongue had plundered Father Prout and the prophet Malachi, Dickens and Ingoldsby, Pope and Smollett and Defoe, and as it chanced he had made no literary allusion in English which did not recall some long familiar text to my mind, I offered a bargain. If O'Hanlon would give me the classical stuff in respect to which I was in Pagan darkness, I would give him the English with which he was less well-acquainted. We exchanged notes and between us we turned out an excellent if a somewhat compressed and truncated report. I felt that I was saved, and on the following morning, I made an anxious survey of the work of my rivals. O'Hanlon represented The Advertiser, and I found that the report of a big meeting of the Licensed Victuallers' Association which had been held somewhere in the provinces had swamped him. He was cut down to a mere paragraph and as for the other journals—The Times, The Telegraph and The Standard—they were all hopelessly at sea. There was but one report of that amazing discourse which was even distantly worthy of it, and that was in The Daily News. I received a special letter of congratulation from Mr J. R. Robinson who, to the day of his death, persisted in regarding me as a classical scholar of exceptional acquirements. I never had an opportunity of undeceiving him or I would certainly have taken it, but I have since been content to regard this as an example of the haphazard way in which reputations are sometimes made. I learned, many years after, that I was still remembered in the gallery as the man who took a note of the most difficult speech of its year by staring at the painted ceiling.

It was surprising to notice to what heights party feeling ran amongst the reporters in the gallery. When Mr Gladstone came into power, hundreds of malicious and impossible stories were current about him amongst the supporters of the Opposition, and in the little Tabagie at the foot of the gallery stairs in which most of our spare hours were spent, there were heated discussions in which his eloquence, his financial capacity and his scholarship were all decried. I remember one occasion when the veteran of The Daily Telegraph staff walked into the room with the announcement that "that eternal old woman was on her legs again," and a general groan went round. I was, and have never ceased to be, an ardent admirer of Mr Gladstone's character and genius, and I used constantly to chafe at his belittling by little men, but I never found a real opportunity for the expression of my own opinion until one day when I was sent down to report the annual outing of the Commissioners of Epping Forest. We had a jolly day, winding up with a very substantial dinner and a drive back to London in a string of open brakes. There was a basket of champagne aboard the brake in which I found a seat, and it turned out that nobody in the whole assembly was in possession of anything which could be utilised as a champagne opener. One gentleman, however, was very skilful in knocking off the necks of the bottles, and before we were half-way home we were all in a state of great contentment and joviality. There was a rather noisy discussion about politics and, with one exception, my companions were all fierce opponents of Gladstone. I fired at last—I daresay the champagne had something to do with it—and I ventured to tell those gentlemen that they seemed to me to be crawling about beneath the instep of a great man's boot, under the impression that they were taking an architectural survey of the man. "You will have," I said, "to travel to a telescopic distance before you will be able to realise his proportions," and there I burst into quotation:

"Every age, Through being beheld too close, is ill-discerned By those who have not lived past it; we'll suppose Mount Athos carved, as Persian Xerxes schemed, To some colossal statue of a man: The peasants, gathering brushwood in his ear, Had guessed as little of any human form Up there, as would a flock of browsing goats.

They'd have, in fact, to travel ten miles off Or ere the giant broke on them, Full human profile, nose and chin distinct, Mouth, muttering rhythms of silence up the sky, And fed at evening with the blood of suns; Grand torso,—hand, that flung perpetually The largesse of a silver river down To all the country pastures. 'Tis even thus With times we live in,—evermore too great To be apprehended near."

I supposed that even if the quotation were not recognised, everybody would at least know that it was a quotation, and that it could not conceivably have been an impromptu, but one man turned on another and said: "By Jove! that's eloquence," and a gentleman at the rear of the brake asked me out of the darkness why I didn't make a try for Parliament, and assured me that I had a future there before me.



CHAPTER IX

The Russo-Turkish War—Constantinople—His Friend the Enemy—Col. Archibald Campbell—The Courage of Non- Combatants—Father Stick—Turkish Economy—Memories of Constantinople.

At this time trouble was brewing in the east of Europe and less than a year later war between Russia and Turkey was declared. In the early spring of the year, the opposing forces were playing a game of long bowls across the Danube, and very soon the forces commanded by "the divine figure of the North," as Mr Gladstone most infelicitously styled the Czar, had set foot upon the enemy's country. Just before this happened, I received a visit from a gentleman who announced himself as Colonel Keenan, the English representative of the Chicago Times, who wanted to know if he could enlist my services for the campaign. I assented eagerly, some sort of a hurried contract was drawn up between us, and on the morrow I was away, bound for Schumla, proposing to take Vienna en route, and thence to steam down the Danube to the theatre of the war. I found that the Donau Damp Schiff Company had despatched its last steamboat to the Black Sea twenty-four hours before I reached Vienna and that the service was temporarily suspended. There was nothing for it but to go on to Trieste and to take boat to Constantinople. I found the city proclaimed in a state of siege and filled with all the rascaldom and ruffiandom of Tripoli and Smyrna, who held the respectable portion of the community in terror, so long as they were quartered there.

There was an encampment of these gentry about five thousand strong between the city and that dreary and dirty canal which enjoys the romantic appellation of "the sweet waters of Europe." They were soon to be let loose for the suppression of a wholly imaginary Bulgarian insurrection, and it was they and their comrades who, together with the Bashi-Bazouks, carried the banner of rapine, fire and slaughter throughout the land. They gave us a mere taste of their quality before they had occupied their quarters for a week. A Greek lady and her daughter, drawn by curiosity, ventured through their lines. They were subjected to unspeakable outrages and, together with their coachman, were cruelly murdered; and after this occurrence, the city never breathed freely until they were marched away up country. After their dispersal the authorities appear to have paid but little attention to their commissariat and they were left to live by pillage. Many months later I ventured to ask an officer of the regulars on what principle they were supposed to be paid. "Payes?" responded the gentleman whom I questioned, "ils ne sont pas payes, ils volent."

One of my fellow-passengers from Trieste was a young German officer who had fought through the Franco-German campaign and had now obtained leave to volunteer on the Turkish side against Russia. He was the grandson of an Irish peer, but his father had long filled some diplomatic office in Berlin. On his death the family had settled in Germany and the young officer of whom I speak was a naturalised subject of the emperor. He and I put up at the Byzance Hotel together and there a strange thing happened. A fellow-guest at the hotel came to dinner one evening with a young French officer, a very handsome, alert and gallant fellow, whom I got to know intimately afterwards. His host sat him down at the table d'hote opposite the young German, and almost from the first it was to be seen that the two looked at each other in a curious way. By and by the Frenchman arose and drawing his host aside made a whispered communication to him and withdrew. It turned out afterwards that the two men had been engaged on different sides in the great cavalry charge at Gravelotte. When the opposing regiments met, there was a tremendous melee after the first shock, and the Frenchman had engaged both the young German officer whom he now encountered and his brother, the latter of whom fell by his hand. They had never met before nor did they ever encounter afterwards, but the recognition on both sides was instantaneous. Captain Tiburce Morisot—that was the Frenchman's name—made another curious recognition of which I was a witness. I was dining with him at the Hotel Misseri when there entered a big stalwart fellow who sat down opposite to us. "I beg your pardon," said my entertainer, speaking across the table, "but I think that you and I have met before somewhere." "So I was thinking," the big man answered; "I was trying to size you up in my own mind but I can't manage it." "Were you ever in Africa?" the other asked him. "Yes," the big man answered, "I spent some years there." "Big game shooting?" asked my host "Yes," said the other. "Do you remember coming across a party of Frenchmen who were cutting a military road?" He named the region, and the man who was interrogated answered "Yes," he did remember it. "You brought a giraffe's heart into the camp," said Morisot, "and asked leave to roast it at our fire." "I did," the other answered, "and, by Jove! you're the man who was in command of that party." They renewed their acquaintance with a cordial handgrip, and clinked glasses together. The big Englishman was Colonel Archibald Campbell, afterwards known as Schipka Campbell, and there was a story told of these two, which is perhaps worth relating. They went up to Schumla together, and there for week after week they lived in a deadly monotony which was varied only by the intrusion of an occasional shell, hurled by one of the Russian guns from the other side of the river. "It's getting horribly dull here," said the Frenchman one day. "Suppose we go and sit, by way of a change, on the fortifications and get shelled at." The suggestion was probably made in a purely humorous mood, but the Scotchman chose to appear to take it seriously and said that it was a very good idea. In all likelihood the answer was as humorously meant as the suggestion, but each carried on the game with so much gravity that in the end they did actually go and sit upon the glacis, where they smoked their pipes until such time as a big shell burst between them, when the Frenchman hinted that they had done enough for honour, and the pair leisurely withdrew. And here I recall an experience of my own which befell me a year and a half later, but may perhaps best be dealt with now. I had been elected to the Savage Club, and one night I encountered there a number of old campaigning men—newspaper correspondents, artists, and doctors—who were swopping battle yarns among themselves, and who were all agreed with respect to one thing—the extraordinary exhilaration which came of being under fire. Now I have been under fire for weeks together in my time, and I am free to confess that I never liked it. I am going to be quite honest; I never showed the white feather, but I know quite well that many a time in the course of that campaign, if I could have bolted without disgracing myself in my own eyes, I should have done it. I stuck to my place because it was my place, but not in the least degree because I liked to be there, and all this talk about the exhilaration of being shot at, and the maddening pleasure inspired by it, hit me very hard indeed, and set me probing my own mind to ask if I were not, as a matter of fact, a coward who had just managed to disguise the truth from himself and others. I went out of the club that night in a melancholy mood, and as I was wandering purposelessly along the Strand, I felt a hand upon my shoulder and, turning round, saw Archibald.

Forbes beside me. "You look hit, young 'un," said he, "come and have a drink." He drew me into the Gaiety bar, and there, over a whisky and cigar, I unfolded my trouble. "My boy," said Forbes, "I have been through seventeen campaigns, big and little, and I have had a bit of experience. You can make your mind quite easy, and the first thing you can do is to go back to your club and give those fellows my compliments—Archibald Forbes's compliments—and tell them that they are liars to a man!" I did not take that message, which was delivered in a form more emphatic than I have given to it, but I went away a good deal comforted. I have compared notes since then with many an old campaigner, and I have never talked seriously with one who has not been in the end willing to confess to a very serious knowledge of his position at such a time. In the course of a siege men get inured to it, but even then there is no particular fun about it, and merely to sit still and endure is anything but a cheerful experience; to be on the move towards the enemy is altogether another matter.

I remember, for instance, an incident which occurred at Guemlik, when a rifle bullet passed so close by my left ear, that for a minute or two I was deafened on that side, and the ear itself was hot with the passing of the bullet. I remember that I yelled out to the little party which accompanied me, "We're under fire!" and flinging myself from my horse, dragged him into the shelter of a coppice. We held a council of war there, and it was finally decided that we should ride straight into the village and trust to what might happen. I had been compelled by the military authorities to travel with an escort, and I had with me four mounted Zaptiehs, a sergeant, my interpreter, and a fellow-correspondent. We all remounted and made a rush at the village, which was not more than three hundred yards away. We tore along at the charge, and what with the speed and the risk and the uncertainty, it was certainly all very thrilling, and even in a sense enjoyable. When we clattered into the cobbled street, we found a solitary Bashi-Bazouk armed with a Winchester repeating rifle. Him, the sergeant of my escort questioned. "Had he fired a shot lately?" "Evvet," said the insolent ruffian, with a grin, answering in the affirmative. "What had he fired at?" asked the sergeant. "A small bird," was the answer. "Had he fired in the direction of the highway?" the sergeant asked him again. "Evvet," once more. "And had he seen a party coming along the highway?" the sergeant asked. "Oh, Evvet!" The sergeant rode towards a dilapidated wattled fence and wrenched from it a thick stake with which he administered such a hiding to that Bashi-Bazouk as I never saw one man bestow upon another before or since.

Good old Father Stick seemed to play a very large part in the Turkish administration. On the march to Plevna, for example, I saw two high military dignitaries chastised in the presence of their fellow-officers. What they had done or failed to do I did not know, but I arrived upon the scene just in time to see each man step out in turn, fold his arms and with bent head submit himself to half a dozen resounding blows across the shoulders. It was no perfunctory ceremony, but the two took it quite quietly and went back to their separate posts of duty looking as if nothing at all had happened. A third example of the kind took place at the military hospital at Adrianople. Dr Bond Moore had charge there and one day I was with him when one of the irregular troops was brought in with a broken leg. The doctor dressed the limb with a dilution of carbolic acid and fixed it in a plaster bandage. He left the man fairly comfortable, and, through his interpreter, promised him a speedy recovery. But two days later, in the course of our rounds, we came upon the patient and found him in a state of dreadful suffering. On investigation it was found that the bandage had been changed and that the limb was hopelessly distorted, the toes being turned inwards in such a fashion that even had the man recovered he would have been a helpless cripple for the rest of his days. The bandage was huddled on anyhow, and Moore tore it away to discover to his horror, that the brown limb below it was hideously blanched and inflamed. It turned out on inquiry that a young Turkish haakim, who had watched the operation at which the limb was first set, had taken it into his head to rearrange the dressing before the plaster case in which the limb was bound had dried, and he had improved upon the process he had witnessed, pretty much as an intelligent monkey might have done, by applying a dressing of undiluted carbolic acid. I have rarely seen a man in such a towering rage as Bond Moore when he saw the full extent of the mischief which had been done. He was fertile in curses, but when he had exhausted all he knew or could invent on the spur of the moment, he begged me to send for my interpreter who arrived in a minute or two, and drew from the sufferer a description of the man who had so mishandled him. Bond Moore sent for that man, and having made sure of him, kicked him the whole length of the corridor and finally sent him flying down a lengthy flight of stairs, where, very fortunately for himself, he fell upon a load of hay which had just been delivered for the use of the cavalry regiment which was stabled below the hospital. The indignant haakim hobbled off straightway to the military commandant of the city and lodged a complaint as to the manner in which he had been treated by his English colleague. In less than a quarter of an hour he was back again and the Pasha with him, a little, black-avised man with a beard like wire, who bore a malacca cane in very truculent fashion. He was quivering with anger, and he demanded in fluent French an explanation from Bond Moore in a manner which was peremptory in the extreme. Bond Moore knew no more of French than he did of Turkish, but my interpreter having explained the position, the Pasha turned round upon the complainant and, after a few curt and angry questions, set about him with the malacca cane until he roared: "Amaan, Eccellenza, amaan!" (which, being interpreted, is "have pity,") and finally took to his heels and ran for it with the irate little Pasha in full cry after him.

Of course it would be useless to deny the existence of the delight in battle which affects some natures, but I am perfectly sure that it does not come as the result of standing still to be shot at. I have seen some extraordinary examples of cool courage and at least one of perfect panic, but the circumstances in which I saw the last, disposed me to understand and to sympathise with it. We were quartered at Tashkesen shortly after our enforced retreat from Plevna. The village in which we lived was two or three miles from the actual front of war, and on a certain foggy morning I set out with a little hill pony to visit the fortifications. I may as well make one bite at the whole story, and to do this I must go back to the time when I was at Vienna and had just discovered that it was impossible to make my way to Schumla by the Danube. At the Englischer Hof Hotel in that city I met a gentleman who had for years been engaged in a military survey of the Balkan country. He had been under some sort of contract with the Turkish Government, but on the very eve of the campaign, the authorities had refused to pay him a sum of L12,000 which he reckoned to be due to him for his labours and expenses, and at considerable risk and difficulty he had contrived to smuggle his map out of Constantinople. He was on his way to St Petersburg with it and eventually disposed of it to the Russian Government. Without it the Russian army would never have been able ta force the passage of the Balkans and I always traced the defeat of the Turks to that poor economy of L12,000. The map was the most extraordinary thing of its kind I have ever seen. It consisted of a great number of thin wooden slabs of about a foot square on which were modelled in wax all the mountains and passes of the Balkan range, built exactly to scale and showing every road and bypath.

Now at Tashkesen the Russians were in possession of this map, with the result that they were able to adjust their guns to the precise range of positions which were out of sight. The road by which I travelled on that foggy morning was being swept by shell, the evident purpose being to prevent provisions and supplies from being carried along it to the troops in front. Probably from want of ammunition, the cannonade had been suspended from seven o'clock in the morning until about eleven, and I took advantage of this lull to attempt my visit to the fortifications. I was about half-way up the hill when a shell burst a few score yards in front of me; another and another followed. One which had been discharged at a higher elevation than the rest burst overhead, and I began to feel extremely nervous. I dismounted and led my pony into the wood on the right hand side. I had not penetrated ten yards into the wood when a shell burst in front of me and in something like panic I dragged my little steed across the road and sought a shelter in the wood on the opposite side. Crash! came a shell in front of me as I entered, and this time nearer than ever. Now it is one thing to be in imminent danger in the midst of your comrades or even when you have the companionship of a single friend, and it is another to find yourself surrounded by a ring of fire when you are absolutely alone and have nobody to lend you countenance. The memory of that time will always make me pitiful to the man who runs away. For one instant I was on the edge of an absolute surrender to physical fear. How I got a grip of myself I really do not know. I was certainly most horribly afraid and my nerve was almost gone, when I remembered that on a previous journey I had passed a great outcrop of granite rock, which afforded a perfect shelter. I reflected that it was just as dangerous to go back as to go on, and I estimated that my refuge was only two or three hundred yards in front of me. With this aim in mind, I mounted again and rode uphill as fast as my mount could carry me. When I reached my shelter the shells were howling and screaming and bursting everywhere, but I sat in perfect safety, and by and by recovered my self-possession. I had been there perhaps an hour and had begun to write an account of my morning's adventure when I heard a wild voice pealing down the road and the stumbling clatter of a horse's hoofs at a dangerous, breakneck speed, and the horseman passed and in his passage, swift as it was, we recognised each other. I knew the man quite well; he was an English doctor, and I felt as keen a pang of pity as I have ever experienced in my life as I recognised in him that condition of abject surrender to fear from which I had myself so recently escaped, Heaven alone knows how! I had touched the line and had somehow been saved from going over it; the man who went howling past me had touched the line and crossed it. He was holding on to the front of his saddle and his horse's reins were trailing loose and broken; his face was livid and he was yelling with sheer terror at the top of his voice. He was gone in a flash and I learned afterwards that within an hour of his arrival at the village, he put in his papers on some plea of urgency, and immediately went down country. Years afterwards I brought my wife to town to hear an afternoon lecture from Mr Bennett Burleigh, who was just back from one of his numerous campaigns. We were staying on for the theatre, and in the interim we dined at the Criterion, A gentleman in evening dress came in with a theatre party consisting of three ladies. He busied himself for a while in arranging his party and then sat down facing me. Our eyes met, and I do not remember to have seen a man more painfully embarrassed. He blushed until his very ears were pink, and if I could have found the courage I would have taken him aside and have made to him a confession which might possibly have soothed his mind.

A reputation for coolness in danger, like other reputations, is often got without much deserving. At the time of the Russo-Turkish war, the railway had its terminus a few miles beyond Tatar Bazardjik. I was travelling north with a party of English doctors and we alighted at the station there for refreshment. We had been misinformed about the length of time for which the train halted there and were hurriedly summoned by the guard when it was already in motion. The engine-driver slowed down until it was possible, by hard running, to overtake our carriage. I was in heavy riding boots and somewhat hampered by that fact, and just as my fingers touched the brass guard at the side of the compartment, I tripped on a ground wire and fell beneath the approaching train in such a fashion that the carriage wheel was actually between my thighs. I clutched the marche-pied with both arms and clung on with all my might. The revolving wheel was actually rubbing at the inside of my legs and the spurs were torn from the heels of my boots. How I executed the manoeuvre I shall never know, but before the train was brought to a standstill, I was on my knees on the marche-pied and was being helped into the railway carriage by one of my companions. I suppose that it must have been the most imminent moment of danger I have ever known, but I can testify quite honestly to one queer thing—I was absolutely without fear—and with a horrible death actually grazing me, I was as coolly self-possessed as I ever have been in the whole course of my life. But there was the shock of consciousness awaiting me. I was violently sick a moment later, and for nights and nights to come, I experienced a horrible nightmare, in which all the terrors which might have seemed natural to the situation laid hold upon me.

In the Grande Rue de Pera there was a cafe chantant which was run by one Napoleon Flam. There was a little silver hell attached to it where there was a roulette table with twenty-four numbers and a double zero. There were always plenty of flying strangers who were prepared to throw away their money here, and I fancy that the fat Greek who presided over the table made a fat thing of it. In the concert room, the superannuated artistes of the poorer kind of Continental concert hall shrieked and grimaced and ogled, and after every item of the show, the performer came round with an escallop shell into which the more generously disposed dropped small copper coins. The place was nearly always crowded with men in black frock-coats and crimson fezzes. Ill-starred Valentine Baker had been employed by the Sublime Porte to create an English gendarmerie, and this fact had brought a large number of English military men into Constantinople, who were anxious to enlist under his banner. Many of them were men who had done good service in their day and held unblemished records, but there is no disguising the fact that a large contingent of the discredited riffraff of the British army was collected in the city at that time. The "Concert Flam" was the accepted rendezvous for both sets, and on my second night in Constantinople I went thither in company with the young Irish-German officer, of whom I have already spoken, and an American newspaper correspondent who had been in the city long enough to know the ropes.

Young Von A. was a big, genial fellow, full of animal spirits, and on this particular occasion, Bacchi plenus. He was under the impression that all the little swarthy men who sat about him in their red fezzes and their black frock-coats were Turks, He was boiling over with enthusiasm for the Turkish cause, and he had picked up a patriotic phrase or two. The spirit moved him to rise in an interval of the stage performance and to bawl out aloud the words:

"Chokularishah Padishah," which, being interpreted, signifies, "May the Sultan live for ever!" His enthusiasm was not contagious, for the assembly consisted almost entirely of people who did not care a copper whether the Sultan lived for ever or died next morning. There were lifted eyebrows and cynical stares, but the young gentleman was not in a condition to regard these and he went on to cry: "muscove dormous!" signifying that a Russian was a hog, and drawing a masonic forefinger across his throat to indicate what, in his opinion, ought to be done with him. The youngster stood there, big and burly and jolly, and meaning, I am quite sure, no harm to anybody, when a little Greek, who was seated opposite to him, said, "Je suis muscove, monsieur," and the lad leant across the marble table and aimed a mock buffet at him which unfortunately reached him and rolled him over as if he had been a ninepin. At the "Concert Flam" a porcelain coffee cup weighed something like a quarter of a pound, and half a dozen of these came hurling at the offender from various parts of the room. There were big mirrors all round the cafe reaching from the ceiling to the dado; one or two of these were smashed, and, before one could say "Jack Robinson," the wildest disorder reigned and all the place was in a melee. The nine or ten Englishmen who were there ranged themselves round the originator of the disturbance, who was really in some momentary danger. The whole posse of us formed into an irregular ring in the centre of the room, and for a while we had quite a merry time of it. There were flags of all nationalities hung about the little hall dependent from short wooden lances with gilt heads, and these our assailants tore down and used as weapons against us. The conflict was brief and decisive; numerically there were perhaps six to one against us, but we ended by forming in lines, and the barbarous English fashion of striking straight from the shoulder sent the enemy in a hurry towards the narrow and winding stair which afforded the only exit from the place, and here, in the exhilaration of the moment, two of our party did an unguarded thing; they took to dropping the fugitives in the rear over the banister on to the heads and shoulders of the crowd below. We were left masters of the field but, as it happened, the "Concert Flam" was situated right opposite to the lowest Greek quarter, the Rue Yildiji, I think it was called, and it was approached under a low arch by a dirty flight of stone steps. Up these steps thronged a great crowd of people armed with anything they could snatch up at the moment—frying-pans, pokers, fire shovels, and any article of domestic use which at short notice might be turned into a weapon of defence. Luckily for us there was one cool head amongst us. Schipka Campbell, who had not then earned the title by which he was afterwards so widely known, was there, and he took command of the party. We were all armed, but though we displayed our weapons for the intimidation of the mob we were gravely cautioned not to fire a shot on peril of our lives. The Grande Rue de Pera was raging when we reached it, but we slipped out one by one, each man revolver in hand, and ranged ourselves against the wall. I cannot recall that a solitary blow was struck, but I know that the people in the rear of the crowd were in a mighty hurry to get at us and that those in front were in equal haste to retire, and little by little we made our way to the Byzance Hotel where the gates were closed and barred against the crowd. Shortly afterwards the Chief of the Consular Police was amongst us making inquiries into the origin of the emeute. He took an official note of the occurrence and drank a glass of wine or two and smoked a cigar with us, but we never heard any more about the business, and though we strolled thereafter into the "Concert Flam" quite freely, we suffered no molestation.



CHAPTER X

Constantinople Continued—The Massacre of Kesanlyk—A Sketching Expedition—Failure of Supplies—Correspondent for the Scotsman and the Times—Adrianople—The Case of the Gueschoffs—The Bulgarians.

At first I thought the Constantinople fare the most delightful I had ever encountered anywhere. At the first dinner at which I sat down we were served amongst other things with red mullet, stuffed tomatoes and quail—all excellent of their sort and admirably prepared. Red mullet, tomates farcies and quail appeared again for breakfast and were not to be despised, but red mullet, tomates farcies and quail for luncheon, began to be a trifle tiresome, and when all three appeared again at dinner and at the next day's breakfast and luncheon, there were some of us who began to hunger for a change. We made a little party and we went across to the Valori restaurant. Here we encountered a polyglot major-domo, who spoke all languages of Europe indifferently ill. "What can we have for dinner?" asked our spokesman. "Ret moiled, domades varcies, et qvail!" He smiled ineffably and evidently thought that he was offering us food for the gods. We ate tough beefsteak, fried in oil, and cursed the delicacies of the country. The diners at Valori's made up the first really polyglot assembly I had ever seen. There were Bulgarian notables—caring apparently to speak their own language only—Spanish Jews from Eski Zaghra, Greeks, Turks, Germans, Italians, Armenians, Englishmen, native volunteers for the Polish legion then forming, and a Croat gentleman with bejewelled handles to his private arsenal of lethal weapons, and starched expansive white petticoats. Our major-domo was somehow equal to them all, and when the rush of service was partly over, I found an opportunity to ask him how many languages he spoke. He answered in a tone of apology and regret: "Onily twelluv, ich habe vergessen les autres!"

A day or two later I encountered the official interpreter of the Persian Embassy who spoke English as perfectly as I did and apparently all the languages of the civilised world beside. I asked him seriously how many tongues he professed to have mastered, and his reply was this: "If you ask me in how many languages and dialects I can converse, I suppose I should have to say seventy or eighty, but if you confine me to those in which I can construct a grammar I should have to tell you fifteen at the outside. No man can really say he knows a language until he can construct a grammar for it."

So much for a special detached faculty which I have found in the possession of people who are otherwise entirely stupid.

The utter lawlessness of the Asiatic troops, by whom Constantinople was supposed to be defended, gave me a fair foretaste of things to come.

It was certainly rather a curious thing that in a country about which I travelled freely, and which was overrun by the most murderous ravage, months passed before I heard a shot fired. It so fell out that I was the discoverer of the fields of massacre in the district of the Rose Gardens. I found twelve hundred unburied dead, all hacked and mutilated, in a vineyard near Kesanlyk. I found Kalofer a smoking wilderness, without a living soul left out of a population of twelve hundred. I found Sopot a howling desolation, where only the village dogs were left alive. Day by day, for weeks, I travelled stealthily in the rear of the roving bands of Bashi-Bazouks and Zeibecks who were laying the country waste and slaughtering its Christian population; but it was more than an Englishman's life was worth to show himself among them, and I never came near enough to see them actually engaged upon their dreadful business, except during one week, when, from one of the lower slopes of the Balkans, I could see the whole horizon red with the flame of burning villages, and could sometimes even hear the shrieks of outraged women.

But in all this time I never heard a shot fired, so far as I can remember, until I came to the Schipka, where a long-drawn artillery duel was dragging on in the pass between the guns of Sulie-man Pasha and General Gourko. Correspondents and doctors lived at that time, for the most part, at a respectful distance from the scene of that monotonous action. We were quartered at Schipka Keui, where we pitched our tents on the edge of a forest of wild plum trees, and spent our idle time as best we could, whilst we waited for developments. Amongst us was the English volunteer on the Turkish side, mentioned in the last chapter, who bore the rank of Colonel, and remembered by his old comrades as Schipka Campbell. He was a man of the most extraordinary and daring valour, and I really believe that he found a keen joy in danger. He was full of a scheme for a night attack upon a position which Gourko had taken up in a height which the Russians called St Nicholas Crag, and he got leave, after a good deal of characteristic procrastination, to go into the forts, and thence to take a sketch of the country he desired to travel in the night-time. I was very eager to see things closer at hand than I had been able to do till then, and it was arranged that I should accompany Campbell on this sketching expedition. By the side of the winding mountain way a sort of covering wall had been built for some hundreds of yards, to shelter passing troops and convoys from the observation of the enemy. It was a rather flimsy structure, and it could have been beaten down by a single gun in an hour or two; but I suppose that the rocks which commanded it from the other side of the pass were inaccessible to artillery. In one place the ground dipped, and formed a cup-like hollow, and, the big guns having brought down a good deal of rain by their constant firing, a pond had gathered here, and had sapped the foundations of the wall. There was left a clear space of rather more than a dozen yards, and this place was thickly strewn with splashed bullets which had struck the face of the overhanging rock. There was probably a good cartload of spoiled lead strewn there, and the dark face of the rock was pitted all over with grey bullet-marks.

Campbell informed me, in a casual sort of way, that there were always some hundreds of the enemy's infantry on the lookout for a passenger at this point, and that we were sure to draw a volley. Now, I had no really pressing business to persuade me onward, and I had no special liking for the prospect; but Campbell scoffed at the very thought of danger. Even if the enemy were expecting us, he urged, a man could clear that space in quicker time than a bullet would take to travel from the opposite side of the pass, and it was just as likely as not that by nipping across quickly we might fail to draw Are at all. This had an air of reason about it, but I was not nearly so curious to see the fortifications as I had been. I represented that the two journals for which I was working at that time had no other representative on the ground, that big events were probably imminent, and that it was my duty to preserve a whole skin in the interests of my employers. Upon this Campbell assured me of his belief that I was funking, and I immediately concurred with him. It was a mere matter of fact, and I saw no ground on which I could dispute it. I have never run away from anybody or anything—though I have wanted to do so upon occasion—but I am not fond of unnecessary danger. My guide declined to waste time on me, and, leaving me in the shelter of the wall, he ran swiftly across the open space, and turned crouching on the other side. It has turned me cold a thousand times to think about it since; but I was just in the act of nerving myself for a run when he impetuously waved me back, and a perfect tempest of lead fell shrieking on the face of the rock. Had I obeyed my own impulse, I should have been riddled like any colander. The grey face of the rock seemed to flash white under the impact of the volley. One splashed bullet struck the rock some yards above me, and fell to the ground flattened to something like the form of a five-shilling piece, with irregularly starred edges. I stooped to pick it up, but it was at almost a melting-heat. I dropped it quickly, and then, in answer to Campbell's call, I cleared the open space in safety, and was followed by a belated random shot or two. But, to be quite honest, I had no pleasure in the adventure, and I was careful not to return until the shades of night had fallen.

The gentleman from Chicago, at whose instigation I had gone out to Turkey, had supplied me with a sum of forty pounds, and had undertaken to deposit more to my account at the Ottoman Bank. I called at that establishment daily and found news of no remittance. I was in the meantime vainly moving the Turkish authorities for a teskerai, which would authorise me to go up country. No remittance, no leave to move, the hotel bill growing to really alarming proportions, the outlook was unpleasant; in a while it had grown no less than desperate. I bombarded the Chicago man with cablegrams as long as I could afford it, but no answer came, nor have I, from that day to this, received any explanation of the circumstances which induced him to send me out and then to leave me stranded. I had already made application to the British Consul, Mr Fawcett, afterwards Sir John, to secure for me a passage home, when I was delivered from my embarrassments by as remarkable a chance as ever befell me in my life. After leaving the Consul's office, I strolled into the Valori gardens, which were a dreary waste of small pebbles and coarse gravel, with an oasis here and there consisting of a painted iron table and a few painted iron chairs, where men of all nationalities sat sipping vishnap and limoni, and extinguishing by their Babylonian chatter the strains of a very indifferent band. I was making the circuit of the gardens in tolerably low spirits; I had expended my last piastre, had emptied my cigar-case, had listened to a violent objurgation from the landlord of the Byzance Hotel and was now bound home at the expense of the Consular funds—a failure confessed. Nobody likes to be beaten, and it seemed to me at that moment that I tasted the full flavour of ignominy, and whilst I was floundering in the depths of my despondency I heard a voice speaking in English. "There you are—the Weekly Dispatch—Constantinople in a state of siege. If I could find the man who wrote that article, I should like to commission him to-morrow." Now it happened that I had written that article and had sent it home within a day or two of my arrival. I had not even known that it had been accepted and the revival of hope ran through me like an electric shock. I claimed the article for my own and in ten minutes I had concluded a bargain with the authorised agent of the Scotsman, had agreed to accept the services of an interpreter, and had arranged, with a taskerai or without one, to take the 7.30 train to Adrianople from the Stamboul station. There followed a hurried interview with the Vice-Consul, Mr Wrench, at which it was arranged that my hotel bill should be defrayed from future earnings, my baggage was released by the Consular influence, and next morning, at the appointed hour, my dragoman and I were being pulled across the waters of the Golden Horn by a pair of sturdy caiquejees, and were bound for the front. With what a rebound of high spirits on my part it is quite impossible to say t I thought I had never seen so beautiful a morning, and indeed the scene, apart from all considerations of mood, was very charming. The receding hill of Galata, with its bowers of green, its mosques and minarets and palaces, lay steeped in the early sunrise, and looked as lovely as a dream.

It was on the eve of the Feast of Bairam that we set out, and when we arrived at Adrianople, the city was illuminated and the street was filled with joyful crowds. News had arrived to the effect that a pitched battle had been fought between the Russian army and the forces of Raouf Pasha, and the Turks were reported to have been magnificently victorious. But Adrianople saw another sight next morning when the trains from Yeni Zaghra, where the action had taken place, crawled slowly into the station with their burden of one thousand two hundred wounded. To one who was new to war, the spectacle of this one thousand two hundred was a reminder of its horrors. There was a good deal of talk about the Russians having fired on the white protective flag, but if they had broken the rules of civilised combat in that way they had been but indifferent marksmen, for no one of the long row of carriages was so much as scarred. It was evident, however, that the trains had been unskilfully driven and that there had been checks and shocks upon the road, for the wounded, who had been bestowed along the benches at the beginning of the journey, were lying all higgledy-piggledy on the floor when they arrived. I helped to carry some of them from the train to the rough eight-wheeled springless arabas in which they were borne to hospital. In these wretched vehicles the wheel was not a cycle but an octagon, and the wounded, who were jolted along the street, filled the air with cries of agony. I made an immediate dash to the scene of conflict and there I encountered seventeen officers who, with the exception of the wounded I had seen already, were the sole survivors of Raouf's army of seventeen thousand. One man, an artillerist, who had been educated at Chatham and who spoke English faultlessly, gave me the history of yesterday's battle. The man had looked at doom, and there was doom still in his eyes. "We were beaten by their artillery," he said, "there was never such a scene of carnage. The Russians had a shell for every man."

In Philipopolis I was introduced to the Gueschoffs, a Bulgarian mercantile family who had been established there for some generations. The two sons had been educated at Owen's College, Manchester, and might easily have passed anywhere for Englishmen. One of them was Deputy Vice-Consul for Great Britain and the other held a similar office for the United States. I dined with them and spent a very pleasant evening, and I am sure that no visible shadow of mischance was then hanging over the household. But a fortnight later I was amazed to learn that the father and the two sons had alike been arrested on a charge of treason, that they had all three been tried before a military tribunal and condemned to death, whilst the whole of their possessions had been sequestrated by the commandant of the city, Ibrahim Pasha. This was in no special degree an affair of mine, but as soon as I heard the news I hastened back to Philipopolis, and in the course of a hurried interview with Mr Calvert, the British Vice-Consul, the conclusion was arrived at that the official position of the two younger men was of a character to afford them some protection against proceedings of so summary a nature. It became entirely obvious as the result of a mere surface inquiry that the charge against the Gueschoffs had been trumped up by the military authorities simply and purely because they were wealthy people, and the commandant saw his way to a handsome windfall.

Armed with such scanty proofs as I could gather, I set out for Constantinople and, arriving there in the space of two days, I laid my case before Sir Arthur Laird, who was then our Ambassador to the Porte, and the Honourable Horace Maynard, who was Minister for the United States. Sir Arthur was a pronounced Philo-Turk and would not for a moment believe that any such abominable intrigue as I suggested could have occurred to the mind of any Turkish official. He received me with marked coldness and I felt from the first that I could make no headway with him. Mr Horace Maynard met me in another spirit "One of these men," he told me, "is under the protection of the American flag and in his case I shall insist upon a new trial and in the meantime the execution shall be suspended." A fortunate chance threw me into communication with Lady Laird, who was less violently prepossessed in favour of the Turkish Government than her husband. She promised me her most cordial assistance, but for three days I hung about Constantinople in a fever of apprehension, waiting for the imperial firman, by virtue of which I trusted to secure an arrest of sentence.

The execution of the three Bulgarian merchants was fixed for eight o'clock on the morning of the ensuing Saturday, and late on Wednesday night the longed-for document came into my hands. I attempted at once to telegraph the news to Philipopolis, but the wires had been cut in a score of places and communication was impossible. The next train up country started at seven o'clock in the morning and it seemed as if I had ample time before me, but somewhere in the neighbourhood of Adrianople a culvert had been blown up by the Bulgarian insurgents and we were brought to a decisive standstill. There was nothing for it but to complete the journey on horseback and here I was heavily handicapped by the fact that I had mastered but a scattered phrase or two of the language, and had the greatest difficulty in making my wants known. At length, by good hap, I encountered a Bulgarian who spoke a little French and by his aid I contrived to get a mount The moon was almost at the full and it was absolutely impossible to miss the road. I set out upon my journey with a better heart than I should have had if I had known what I learned afterwards. The whole district between Adrianople and Philipopolis had been suddenly overrun by the Irregulars, who were carrying everything before them with fire and sword. Luckily for me they shunned the high road and devoted their attentions to the outlying villages. Anything at once more dreary and more exasperating than that ride I cannot recall. I was badly mounted at the first and at each succeeding stage, when after an infinitude of difficulty and misunderstanding I had secured an exchange, it seemed to be always for the worse. Some two months before at Kara Bounar, I had been affected by a touch of dysentery and this assailing me anew when my journey was only half through, made progress dreadfully difficult. But in the failing light of Friday evening the great rock on which Philipopolis is built came into sight and I could afford to make the last stage of my journey at a foot pace, with the certainty that I held a good nine hours in hand. I rode to the Roumelia Khan, the hostel at which I had left my interpreter, and thence after a hurried meal, he and I set out in search of the commandant who, with his staff, had taken possession of the mansion of some Bulgarian notable. I produced the firman, duly signed and sealed, and demanded that, in accordance with its provisions, the prisoners should be removed, under safe escort, for re-trial at the port of Varna. The Pasha—a little man with a close-cropped beard, which looked like black varnished wire—glanced at the document and angrily pronounced it an impudent forgery. I have not often seen a man so inspired by rage; the hand in which he held the official document was apparently as steady as a rock, but all the while he talked to us, the stiff paper rustled noisily. He declared that the execution should proceed and he threatened to hang me with the others. It was not at all impossible in the existing condition of the country that he might have ventured on that course, but I saw fit to remind him that I was for the moment the authorized representative of Great Britain and the United States, and that if he did violence to me in that capacity Turkey would be wiped off the map of Europe in a fortnight. The little commandant spoke French, and he surprised me greatly when I spoke of "Les Etats Unis," by interjecting in a tone of incredulous scorn: "Les Etats Unis! ou sont les Etats Unis?" My interpreter broke in volubly with the statement that Les Etats Unis were twenty times the size and had twice the power of Great Britain, and he and the little Pasha were both shouting together when, as Providence would have it, Mr Fawcett, the British Consul-General, was announced. His presence calmed the storm at once and he sternly bade Ibrahim to obey the "firman," on peril of his own head.

The Gueschoffs were duly deported, were retried and acquitted, and were allowed, I believe, to retire to Odessa until the close of the campaign. After that they returned to Philipopolis and, according to the latest news I had of them, were prospering exceedingly. I had many other things to see to for months to come, but it surprised me somewhat to find that no communication reached me from them after they were known to be in safety. I had a notion that the salvation of three lives at some personal risk and trouble and expense was worth at least a "thank you," but years went on and the whole thing had almost faded out of mind when it was brought back suddenly by my encounter with another Bulgarian merchant, Melikoffby name, whom I met one fine summer's day at the Strand end of Waterloo Bridge. I had met him at the Gueschoffs' table and I asked for news of them. Such intelligence as he had to give was wholly favourable; they were all well and prosperous. I suggested to him that I thought it at least a little odd that no one of them had ever thought it worth while to send me a line. "Well," he answered, in some embarrassment, "they found it impossible to recover a very large part of their property when they got back to Philipopolis, and for some time I can assure you that they were in considerable straits." I answered that they could scarcely have been in such straits as not to be able to buy a postage stamp, but the upshot of the matter was simply this: At the time at which I had been able to be of service to them I was the representative of the Scotsman and the Times, and was supposed to be something of a personage. It was impossible at the time for them to have offered what they thought would be a fitting recognition of my services, and on the whole: it seems that they had thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie and to say nothing at all about the matter. I might, it appeared, have made some kind of claim against them which, though I could not have enforced it legally, they would have been bound in honour to recognise. I told him that this did not quite accord, with British ideas of gratitude, but he appeared to think that he had offered a perfectly satisfactory explanation. It was quite obviously beyond him to conceive that I could have extracted any satisfaction from a mere acknowledgment of service rendered, or that such an acknowledgment would not have been used as the foundation for some more substantial claim.

As Edmund Burke said years ago, "It is impossible to indict a nation," but my experience does not lead me to believe that the Bulgarians are a grateful people. In Kalofer, for example, I was introduced under circumstances of dramatic secrecy to a refugee who was hiding for his life and who had been concealed for days in a dark cupboard with a sliding panel. I shall never forget the face of the haggard and fear-stricken wretch who crawled out of that hiding-place into the light of a solitary candle, or the enthusiastic protestations of gratitude on the part of his wife when I proposed that he should disguise himself as a farm labourer and should take a place amongst the men who were driving down for me a set of empty arabas to Philipopolis. The simple plan succeeded and the fugitive got over the frontier. The wife was very eager to show how much she felt beholden to me. Her husband had been a rose-grower and she had for sale a quantity of the precious attar which she was willing to dispose of to me, and to me only, for a mere song. She would have given it gladly but she had to join her husband and some small amount of ready money was essential to her purpose. I bought from her five very small phials each containing perhaps a spoonful and a half of the liquid. She assured me that the essence was absolutely pure and that I could hardly have secured its like for love or money elsewhere. I was not the best pleased man in the world when I discovered that she had palmed off on me a perfumed olive oil, which, by the time I examined it in Constantinople, had turned rancid.

When I was engaged in the administration of the Turkish Benevolent Fund., the raising of which was mainly due to the late Baroness Burdett-Coutts, the fact that I was bound upon an errand of mercy, and that I was instructed not to spare relief by any consideration of religion or race, enabled me to penetrate into parts of the disturbed districts into which I should not otherwise have dared to venture. In the course of my journey I came to Kalofer, where I found a singularly intelligent and attractive little Bulgarian boy whom I resolved to rescue from the almost certain starvation which lay before him. His father had been the Vakeel of the place and the child of course had been decently reared. He was pinched and pallid with hunger, and he had but a single garment, a pair of the baggy knickerbockers worn by the peasants of the district, which enveloped him from heel to shoulder. I got him decently attired, and in a while managed to place him in the care of a colleague in Constantinople, and when I left the country my brother-in-law, Captain William Thompson, who was engaged in the Levantine shipping trade, gave him a free passage to Liverpool, where for the space of some months he lived with my sisters, the younger of whom turned schoolmistress for his advantage, and began to teach him English. Mr Crummies used to wonder how things got into the papers, though perhaps he was under some slight suspicion of having contributed to their circulation. How the news of the young Bulgarian's arrival in England got there I do not know, but there was a considerable journalistic fuss about him, and the result was that a wealthy Bulgarian family, resident in Manchester, made overtures to my sister, and with my free consent, formally adopted the child. Before this happened he paid them a preliminary visit during which he was presented with a pony, and a male domestic was told off specially to his service. When his adoption was finally decided upon he went back to my sister's house in Liverpool to gather up his belongings and to say good-bye. The little ingrate refused to say one word of farewell to either of them. "I not English any longer," he declared, "I Bulgar again," and Bulgar through and through he was, to my thinking, sure enough. It is quite true that you can't indict a nation, but I shall need some persuasion before I go out of my way again to be of use to any member of that particular section of the human family.



CHAPTER XI

Retrospect—Return to London—Interview with Mr Gladstone at Hawarden—Reminiscences.

The memories of that adventurous year in Turkey come thronging back so quickly that it is hard to choose amongst them. In the retrospect it looks as if it had been in the main a rather jolly sort of picnic, and at least there were streaks of splendid enjoyment in it Even our hardships made fun for us at times. I suppose you can know more about a man in a month if you go campaigning with him than you might find out in the course of years in a mere stay-at-home existence. Little generosities and selfishnesses display themselves more freely when commons are running short and shelter is scanty than they do amongst those who, in the phrase of Tennyson's northern farmer, "has coats to their backs, and takes their regular meals." One British gentlemen we had with us during the siege of Plevna was a perpetual source of joy to me. He was a sort of human jackdaw, the picker-up of unconsidered trifles; and especially in the way of provender and of medical comforts he took care to be well provided whatever might befall the rest of us. It happened one day during the siege that some member of our party discovered in some huckster's shop in the village a couple of bottles of rum. He bore these triumphantly to the two-storeyed hut in which the greater number of us lived together, and that night we held a symposium. The liquor was vile stuff, but we set fire to it and burned most of the malice out of it. I made a ballad about that night a year or two later, and perhaps I may be forgiven if I quote a verse or two of it here. It gives at least a fair picture of the scene.

"Through ceaseless rain the rival cannon sounded With sulky iteration boom on boom, And while assailant and defender pounded Each other with those epigrams of doom, I sat at table, by my friends surrounded, Where mirth and laughter lit the dingy room And we made merry one and all, though dinner Had failed for days, and we were growing thinner.

There, while that sulky iterated boom Shook the thick air, our songs of home we sang; And memory wrought for each on fancy's loom, Unmoved, unshaken by War's clash and clang, Some dreamy picture woven of light and gloom, Of home and peace."

Who shall forget that night who took a part in it? The ceaseless downpour of the rain, The incessant thundering of the guns, The shells that ricochetted from the glacis Or went howling overhead.

"We pushed the gourd about and jested hard, Sang rattling songs, told many a rattling tale,— A jest might keep the heart's deep floodgates barred. Chant gaily, Pity! lest thy blood grow pale: Bid every sprightly fancy stand at guard! Be noisy, Mirth! lest all thy mirth should fail, And yet, and yet our neighbour miseries Would blur the sparkle in our hearts and eyes.

"For near at hand there lay such countless woes, Such up-heaped horrors as no tongue can tell, Where helpless Pity's ineffectual throes Made that long shambles seem one ghastly hell, And all the broken, battered, blood-stained rows Of dead seem blessed in that they sleep so well; Where the soul sickened and the heart grew faint At scenes which Dante scarce had striven to paint."

The rum was all drunk and the wine-gourds were all empty—the last song was sung and the last tale told, and we betook ourselves to rest. Our jackdaw friend, for economic reasons, had found a lodging elsewhere. He found it better to drop in upon the rest of us when there was anything special going than it would have been to forage for himself. By the time at which he left us, it had turned much colder, and the rain was freezing as it fell. The village streets were covered with a slippery verglas and here and there, where a siege shell had fallen, there was an embarrassing hole, not easily to be distinguished in the night-time from the merest puddle. There was scarcely a light agleam in the whole village, and it is not at all a thing to be surprised at that our jackdaw lost his way and had a stumble or two into the icy pools which beset him. He did succeed at last in finding the hut in which he lived, or rather, he found the site of it, for an 18 centimetre shell had burst there in his absence and the hut was not. We were making our apology for breakfast in the dusk before dawn when he returned to us. He was clothed in a thin armour of ice from head to foot and it trickled from him in little showers as he stood forlornly before us. The hardest heart must needs have pitied him, but it was he himself who gave the pathos of the show away. "Has nobody got a cup of tea?" he asked. "Tea," cried Bond Moore, who had a special mis-liking for him, "tea, you———" (the blank may be filled in according to fancy, on the understanding that it was neither polite nor complimentary) "there's no tea within five hundred miles." "Oh!" said the unhappy man, "I wish I had never come on this campaign, I do so miss my little comforts!" There was nobody there, I am sure, who would have been much shocked if, in the circumstances, our jackdaw had been even blasphemously profane. A man in his condition may say almost anything and may expect to be forgiven, but at this most inadequate bleat we yelled with laughter, and the poor jackdaw stood staring at us with eyes of suffering wonder for a full three minutes before we could rouse ourselves to attend to his necessities.

When I first went out to Turkey I was very much under the domination of Mr Gladstone's opinion. I was quite full of the unspeakable Turk and his wickednesses and was quite as anxious as the great Liberal statesman himself to see the "sick man" bundled out of Europe bag and baggage. But when I began to move about the country and to meet, as I was forced to do, men of all sorts and conditions among its native population, my sentiments with respect to the Turk underwent a thorough and rapid change. The real people, the men of the commercial and artisan classes and the rank and file of the army, are amongst the best people I have ever known. Their religion enjoins them to sobriety, and as a race they are brave, truthful and kindly, and I never met one authentic instance in which an act of cruelty was chargeable to the men of the regular forces. The hordes of Bashi-Bazouks, of Smyrniotes and Tripolites were of course a set of most unspeakable ruffians, and there are probably no more deplorable specimens of human nature in the world than are to be found among the Paris-bred spawn of the harem.

Almost immediately on my return to London I lunched with Canon Liddon of St Paul's. Our talk naturally turned upon the campaign, and in the course of it I gave him an account of the affair at Guemlik, as being typical of whatever disturbances had taken place between the citizen Turk and the Bulgarians. When General Gourko first broke into the great plain south of the Balkans with his Cossack advance guard, the Christian population rose rejoicingly to receive them and persuaded themselves without difficulty that the rule of their Mahommedan masters was dead and done with then and there. They were supplied with arms and were urged to revolt. There is no doubt whatever that they had a great deal to complain of. They had been under the heel of official oppression for centuries, although in that respect they were not much worse off than their Mahommedan neighbours, but they were a despised and abject race who ate forbidden food and who lived in an almost inconceivable condition of personal uncleanness. To the Turkish peasant dirt is anathema maranatha; in his own station of life he is the cleanest man in the world, and if there is any dirtier person to be found than a Bulgarian peasant, as I knew him in the war year, I can only say that I have not yet discovered him. The Christian population (God save the mark!) were forbidden by law to bear arms, and they were cowards by tradition. Villagers of the two races lived peacefully enough together, though there was an open disdain on the one side always and a smouldering hatred on the other.

It befell that in a neighbouring village the Bulgarians broke into revolution, and all the able-bodied Turks in Guemlik sallied out to the assistance of their countrymen, leaving only a few infirm old men and the women and children. The Guemlik Christians, being persuaded that the fighting force would never return, rose en masse and put every Turkish soul to death. The massacre was characterised by a terrible ferocity; the bodies of the dead were hideously mutilated and were all hurled pell-mell into the well at the Turkish end of the village, and all the houses of that quarter were looted and burned down. Contrary to the expectations of the victors, the Turkish residents returned triumphant. They took their revenge; they put the Christians to the sword, fired the Christian houses, and filled up the Christian well with corpses. The account was quite equally balanced, but it is certain that the Bulgarians made the first move in the game. It was so everywhere, so far as my experience went, wherever the citizen Turk was drawn into the conflict Nothing viler than the conduct of the Government in letting loose its vast hordes of irregular soldiery with license to slay and pillage an unarmed population could possibly be conceived. But what I was concerned to prove was that the Mahommedan villagers had no part or lot in the cruelties of that time unless by way of stern reprisal.

Canon Liddon was anxious that I should lay my facts before Mr Gladstone. He despatched a telegram to him and ascertained that he would be willing to receive me at Hawarden on the morrow, and armed with a brief letter of introduction, I set out next day, and found the great Liberal statesman placidly dozing in an armchair in a little study on the ground floor of the house. At first he hardly seemed to recognise why I was there, but in less than a minute he became astonishingly alert, and providing himself with hat and walking-stick took me out into the park. He walked at an extraordinary pace and plied me with questions in those ringing, rolling, parliamentary tones of his, with which I had been familiar in the House of Commons two or three years before. He could not for one instant lay aside his platform manner, and before I had been in his society for two minutes I appreciated the statement attributed to Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, that Mr Gladstone always addressed her as if she were a public meeting. Every sentence was rounded, polished and precise, every syllable had its particular rhythmic weight and value, and with it all there was a certain suavity and courtesy which, for my own part, I thought very gracious and charming. I had heard one of his remarkable Budget speeches and knew already with what ease he handled figures, but he surprised me more than once by his quickness in calculation. He was questioning me as to Turkish methods of taxation: population of a province so many—piastres per head of population so many—what was the precise value of the piastre? Twopence and a fraction of a farthing.—Ah! in pounds sterling that would be approximately so much. He made his reckoning with lightning rapidity and he was always accurate, as I could tell, having all the figures at my fingers' ends just then.

After two hours' hard walking, he took me in to luncheon. We were by this time in the thick of our theme, and on our arrival at table he banished the servants from the room and himself carved at the sideboard and handed round the dishes. H e ate his own meal standing, and he carried on his questions all the while. I do not know if he had then made his famous rule about the seventy-two bites to a mouthful, but I certainly thought him anything but deliberate in eating. Whether he took much or little I could not tell, but he was certainly talking all the time, and I shall never forget the noble sonorosity of the tone with which he approached me with a dish in either hand and asked': "Can I assist you to another potato, Mr Murray?" The simple query was offered in the finest parliamentary manner. There were present at the meal the members of the family and one guest beside myself, a Mr Howard, a corpulent, silent gentleman, who accompanied us when we went out into the park again. We recommenced our walk at about two o'clock, and kept it up until the evening shades were growing pretty thick about us. I was inclined to be pretty glad when it was over, for though I was as hard as nails at that time, being fresh as I was from the severe training of the campaign, I was walked almost off my legs. The talk went on ding-dong all the time, and in the course of it my host asked me with what weapons the Zaptiehs—the mounted police who were relied on to keep order—and the irregulars who were committing unchecked atrocities everywhere, were respectively armed. I was compelled to tell him that the Zaptiehs carried an old-fashioned matchlock, whilst the Irregulars were in great part armed with the Winchester repeating rifle, which was then the latest invention of destructive science. The corpulent visitor had long since resigned the effort to keep within hearing. Gladstone faced round, and in those noble, oratorical tones of his called out, "Is it not odious, Howard; is it not odious?" The gentleman appealed to was utterly out of earshot, and came trotting briskly towards us to find out what the question meant, but Gladstone was away again at score, and he was again out-distanced in a minute. Gladstone spoke of the duty which was imposed upon him to turn out the Government of Lord Beaconsfield, of whom he invariably spoke as Mr Disraeli. I ventured to say to him, "You will have to fight for that, sir," when he turned upon me with a most vivid gesture, and striking his walking-stick upon the pathway with such vehemence that he made the gravel fly, answered me, "Aye, sir, and we shall fight." When the time came for me to go, he accompanied me to the hall, and with great courtesy assisted me into my overcoat with his own hands. It was a rather remarkable-looking garment, that overcoat, and one of a sort not often seen in England, but I had passed through London so rapidly that I had had no time to replenish my wardrobe. The garment itself was woven of camel's hair, and it was lined with bearskin. As he was helping me into it he asked, "Where did you obtain possession of this extraordinary garment, Mr Murray?" "I bought it, sir, in Bulgaria," I answered. "Ah," said he, with a perfectly grave face and falling back a step to look at it, "I have had much to say of the Bulgarian atrocities of late years, but this is the only one of which I have had ocular demonstration."