Another of our recreations was poaching. From my earliest days I was taught to shoot, myself and my brothers being each provided with his little single-barrelled flint and steel 'Joe Manton.' At - we were surrounded by grouse moors on one side, and by well-preserved coverts on the other. The grouse I used to shoot in the evening while they fed amongst the corn stooks; for pheasants and hares, I used to get the other pupils to walk through the woods, while I with a gun walked outside. Scouts were posted to look out for keepers.

Did our tutor know? Of course he knew. But think of the saving in the butcher's bill! Besides which, Mr. B. was otherwise preoccupied; he was in love with Mrs. B. I say 'in love,' for although I could not be sure of it then, (having no direct experience of the AMANTIUM IRAE,) subsequent observation has persuaded me that their perpetual quarrels could mean nothing else. This was exceedingly favourable to the independence of Mr. B.'s pupils. But when asked by Mr. Ellice how I was getting on, I was forced in candour to admit that I was in a fair way to forget all I ever knew.

By the advice of Lord Spencer I was next placed under the tuition of one of the minor canons of Ely. The Bishop of Ely - Dr. Allen - had been Lord Spencer's tutor, hence his elevation to the see. The Dean - Dr. Peacock, of algebraic and Trinity College fame - was good enough to promise 'to keep an eye' on me. Lord Spencer himself took me to Ely; and there I remained for two years. They were two very important years of my life. Having no fellow pupil to beguile me, I was the more industrious. But it was not from the better acquaintance with ancient literature that I mainly benefited, - it was from my initiation to modern thought. I was a constant guest at the Deanery; where I frequently met such men as Sedgwick, Airey the Astronomer-Royal, Selwyn, Phelps the Master of Sydney, Canon Heaviside the master of Haileybury, and many other friends of the Dean's, distinguished in science, literature, and art. Here I heard discussed opinions on these subjects by some of their leading representatives. Naturally, as many of them were Churchmen, conversation often turned on the bearing of modern science, of geology especially if Sedgwick were of the party, upon Mosaic cosmogony, or Biblical exegesis generally.

The knowledge of these learned men, the lucidity with which they expressed their views, and the earnestness with which they defended them, captivated my attention, and opened to me a new world of surpassing interest and gravity.

What startled me most was the spirit in which a man of Sedgwick's intellectual power protested against the possible encroachments of his own branch of science upon the orthodox tenets of the Church. Just about this time an anonymous book appeared, which, though long since forgotten, caused no slight disturbance amongst dogmatic theologians. The tendency of this book, 'Vestiges of the Creation,' was, or was then held to be, antagonistic to the arguments from design. Familiar as we now are with the theory of evolution, such a work as the 'Vestiges' would no more stir the ODIUM THEOLOGICUM than Franklin's kite. Sedgwick, however, attacked it with a vehemence and a rancour that would certainly have roasted its author had the professor held the office of Grand Inquisitor.

Though incapable of forming any opinion as to the scientific merits of such a book, or of Hugh Miller's writings, which he also attacked upon purely religious grounds, I was staggered by the fact that the Bible could possibly be impeached, or that it was not profanity to defend it even. Was it not the 'Word of God'? And if so, how could any theories of creation, any historical, any philological researches, shake its eternal truth?

Day and night I pondered over this new revelation. I bought the books - the wicked books - which nobody ought to read. The INDEX EXPURGATORIUS became my guide for books to be digested. I laid hands on every heretical work I could hear of. By chance I made the acquaintance of a young man who, together with his family, were Unitarians. I got, and devoured, Channing's works. I found a splendid copy of Voltaire in the Holkham library, and hunted through the endless volumes, till I came to the 'Dialogues Philosophiques.' The world is too busy, fortunately, to disturb its peace with such profane satire, such withering sarcasm as flashes through an 'entretien' like that between 'Frere Rigolet' and 'L'Empereur de la Chine.' Every French man of letters knows it by heart; but it would wound our English susceptibilities were I to cite it here. Then, too, the impious paraphrase of the Athanasian Creed, with its terrible climax, from the converting Jesuit: 'Or vous voyez bien . . . qu'un homme qui ne croit pas cette histoire doit etre brule dans ce monde ci, et dans l'autre.' To which 'L'Empereur' replies: 'Ca c'est clair comme le jour.'

Could an ignorant youth, fevered with curiosity and the first goadings of the questioning spirit, resist such logic, such scorn, such scathing wit, as he met with here?

Then followed Rousseau; 'Emile' became my favourite. Froude's 'Nemesis of Faith' I read, and many other books of a like tendency. Passive obedience, blind submission to authority, was never one of my virtues, and once my faith was shattered, I knew not where to stop - what to doubt, what to believe. If the injunction to 'prove all things' was anything more than an empty apophthegm, inquiry, in St. Paul's eyes at any rate, could not be sacrilege.

It was not happiness I sought, - not peace of mind at least; for assuredly my thirst for knowledge, for truth, brought me anything but peace. I never was more restless, or, at times, more unhappy. Shallow, indeed, must be the soul that can lightly sever itself from beliefs which lie at the roots of our moral, intellectual, and emotional being, sanctified too by associations of our earliest love and reverence. I used to wander about the fields, and sit for hours in sequestered spots, longing for some friend, some confidant to take counsel with. I knew no such friend. I did not dare to speak of my misgivings to others. In spite of my earnest desire for guidance, for more light, the strong grip of childhood's influences was impossible to shake off. I could not rid my conscience of the sin of doubt.

It is this difficulty, this primary dependence on others, which develops into the child's first religion, that perpetuates the infantile character of human creeds; and, what is worse, generates the hideous bigotry which justifies that sad reflection of Lucretius: 'Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum!'



CHAPTER IX



TO turn again to narrative, and to far less serious thoughts. The last eighteen months before I went to Cambridge, I was placed, or rather placed myself, under the tuition of Mr. Robert Collyer, rector of Warham, a living close to Holkham in the gift of my brother Leicester. Between my Ely tutor and myself there was but little sympathy. He was a man of much refinement, but with not much indulgence for such aberrant proclivities as mine. Without my knowledge, he wrote to Mr. Ellice lamenting my secret recusancy, and its moral dangers. Mr. Ellice came expressly from London, and stayed a night at Ely. He dined with us in the cloisters, and had a long private conversation with my tutor, and, before he left, with me. I indignantly resented the clandestine representations of Mr. S., and, without a word to Mr. Ellice or to anyone else, wrote next day to Mr. Collyer to beg him to take me in at Warham, and make what he could of me, before I went to Cambridge. It may here be said that Mr. Collyer had been my father's chaplain, and had lived at Holkham for several years as family tutor to my brothers and myself, as we in turn left the nursery. Mr. Collyer, upon receipt of my letter, referred the matter to Mr. Ellice; with his approval I was duly installed at Warham. Before describing my time there, I must tell of an incident which came near to affecting me in a rather important way.

My mother lived at Longford in Derbyshire, an old place, now my home, which had come into the Coke family in James I.'s reign, through the marriage of a son of Chief Justice Coke's with the heiress of the De Langfords, an ancient family from that time extinct. While staying there during my summer holidays, my mother confided to me that she had had an offer of marriage from Mr. Motteux, the owner of considerable estates in Norfolk, including two houses - Beachamwell and Sandringham. Mr. Motteux - 'Johnny Motteux,' as he was called - was, like Tristram Shandy's father, the son of a wealthy 'Turkey merchant,' which, until better informed, I always took to mean a dealer in poultry. 'Johnny,' like another man of some notoriety, whom I well remember in my younger days - Mr. Creevey - had access to many large houses such as Holkham; not, like Creevey, for the sake of his scandalous tongue, but for the sake of his wealth. He had no (known) relatives; and big people, who had younger sons to provide for, were quite willing that one of them should be his heir. Johnny Motteux was an epicure with the best of CHEFS. His capons came from Paris, his salmon from Christchurch, and his Strasburg pies were made to order. One of these he always brought with him as a present to my mother, who used to say, 'Mr. Motteux evidently thinks the nearest way to my heart is down my throat.'

A couple of years after my father's death, Motteux wrote to my mother proposing marriage, and, to enhance his personal attractions, (in figure and dress he was a duplicate of the immortal Pickwick,) stated that he had made his will and had bequeathed Sandringham to me, adding that, should he die without issue, I was to inherit the remainder of his estates.

Rather to my surprise, my mother handed the letter to me with evident signs of embarrassment and distress. My first exclamation was: 'How jolly! The shooting's first rate, and the old boy is over seventy, if he's a day.'

My mother apparently did not see it in this light. She clearly, to my disappointments did not care for the shooting; and my exultation only brought tears into her eyes.

'Why, mother,' I exclaimed, 'what's up? Don't you - don't you care for Johnny Motteux?'

She confessed that she did not.

'Then why don't you tell him so, and not bother about his beastly letter?'

'If I refuse him you will lose Sandringham.'

'But he says here he has already left it to me.'

'He will alter his will.'

'Let him!' cried I, flying out at such prospective meanness. 'Just you tell him you don't care a rap for him or for Sandringham either.'

In more lady-like terms she acted in accordance with my advice; and, it may be added, not long afterwards married Mr. Ellice.

Mr. Motteux's first love, or one of them, had been Lady Cowper, then Lady Palmerston. Lady Palmerston's youngest son was Mr. Spencer Cowper. Mr. Motteux died a year or two after the above event. He made a codicil to his will, and left Sandringham and all his property to Mr. Spencer Cowper. Mr. Spencer Cowper was a young gentleman of costly habits. Indeed, he bore the slightly modified name of 'Expensive Cowper.' As an attache at Paris he was famous for his patronage of dramatic art - or artistes rather; the votaries of Terpsichore were especially indebted to his liberality. At the time of Mr. Motteux's demise, he was attached to the Embassy at St. Petersburg. Mr. Motteux's solicitors wrote immediately to inform him of his accession to their late client's wealth. It being one of Mr. Cowper's maxims never to read lawyers' letters, (he was in daily receipt of more than he could attend to,) he flung this one unread into the fire; and only learnt his mistake through the congratulations of his family.

The Prince Consort happened about this time to be in quest of a suitable country seat for his present Majesty; and Sandringham, through the adroit negotiations of Lord Palmerston, became the property of the Prince of Wales. The soul of the 'Turkey merchant,' we cannot doubt, will repose in peace.

The worthy rector of Warham St. Mary's was an oddity deserving of passing notice. Outwardly he was no Adonis. His plain features and shock head of foxy hair, his antiquated and neglected garb, his copious jabot - much affected by the clergy of those days - were becoming investitures of the inward man. His temper was inflammatory, sometimes leading to excesses, which I am sure he rued in mental sackcloth and ashes. But visitors at Holkham (unaware of the excellent motives and moral courage which inspired his conduct) were not a little amazed at the austerity with which he obeyed the dictates of his conscience.

For example, one Sunday evening after dinner, when the drawing-room was filled with guests, who more or less preserved the decorum which etiquette demands in the presence of royalty, (the Duke of Sussex was of the party,) Charles Fox and Lady Anson, great-grandmother of the present Lord Lichfield, happened to be playing at chess. When the irascible dominie beheld them he pushed his way through the bystanders, swept the pieces from the board, and, with rigorous impartiality, denounced these impious desecrators of the Sabbath eve.

As an example of his fidelity as a librarian, Mr. Panizzi used to relate with much glee how, whenever he was at Holkham, Mr. Collyer dogged him like a detective. One day, not wishing to detain the reverend gentleman while he himself spent the forenoon in the manuscript library, (where not only the ancient manuscripts, but the most valuable of the printed books, are kept under lock and key,) he considerately begged Mr. Collyer to leave him to his researches. The dominie replied 'that he knew his duty, and did not mean to neglect it.' He did not lose sight of Mr. Panizzi.

The notion that he - the great custodian of the nation's literary treasures - would snip out and pocket the title-page of the folio edition of Shakespeare, or of the Coverdale Bible, tickled Mr. Panizzi's fancy vastly.

In spite, however, of our rector's fiery temperament, or perhaps in consequence of it, he was remarkably susceptible to the charms of beauty. We were constantly invited to dinner and garden parties in the neighbourhood; nor was the good rector slow to return the compliment. It must be confessed that the pupil shared to the full the impressibility of the tutor; and, as it happened, unknown to both, the two were in one case rivals.

As the young lady afterwards occupied a very distinguished position in Oxford society, it can only be said that she was celebrated for her many attractions. She was then sixteen, and the younger of her suitors but two years older. As far as age was concerned, nothing could be more compatible. Nor in the matter of mutual inclination was there any disparity whatever. What, then, was the pupil's dismay when, after a dinner party at the rectory, and the company had left, the tutor, in a frantic state of excitement, seized the pupil by both hands, and exclaimed: 'She has accepted me!'

'Accepted you?' I asked. 'Who has accepted you?'

'Who? Why, Miss -, of course! Who else do you suppose would accept me?'

'No one,' said I, with doleful sincerity. 'But did you propose to her? Did she understand what you said to her? Did she deliberately and seriously say "Yes?"'

'Yes, yes, yes,' and his disordered jabot and touzled hair echoed the fatal word.

'O Smintheus of the silver bow!' I groaned. 'It is the woman's part to create delusions, and - destroy them! To think of it! after all that has passed between us these - these three weeks, next Monday! "Once and for ever." Did ever woman use such words before? And I - believed them!' 'Did you speak to the mother?' I asked in a fit of desperation.

'There was no time for that. Mrs. - was in the carriage, and I didn't pop [the odious word!] till I was helping her on with her cloak. The cloak, you see, made it less awkward. My offer was a sort of OBITER DICTUM - a by-the-way, as it were.'

'To the carriage, yes. But wasn't she taken by surprise?'

'Not a bit of it. Bless you! they always know. She pretended not to understand, but that's a way they have.'

'And when you explained?'

'There wasn't time for more. She laughed, and sprang into the carriage.'

'And that was all?'

'All! would you have had her spring into my arms?'

'God forbid! You will have to face the mother to-morrow,' said I, recovering rapidly from my despondency.

'Face? Well, I shall have to call upon Mrs. -, if that's what you mean. A mere matter of form. I shall go over after lunch. But it needn't interfere with your work. You can go on with the "Anabasis" till I come back. And remember - NEANISKOS is not a proper name, ha! ha! ha! The quadratics will keep till the evening.' He was merry over his prospects, and I was not altogether otherwise.

But there was no Xenophon, no algebra, that day! Dire was the distress of my poor dominie when he found the mother as much bewildered as the daughter was frightened, by the mistake. 'She,' the daughter, 'had never for a moment imagined, &c., &c.'

My tutor was not long disheartened by such caprices - so he deemed them, as Miss Jemima's (she had a prettier name, you may be sure), and I did my best (it cost me little now) to encourage his fondest hopes. I proposed that we should drink the health of the future mistress of Warham in tea, which he cheerfully acceded to, all the more readily, that it gave him an opportunity to vent one of his old college jokes. 'Yes, yes,' said he, with a laugh, 'there's nothing like tea. TE VENIENTE DIE, TE DECEDENTE CANEBAM.' Such sallies of innocent playfulness often smoothed his path in life. He took a genuine pleasure in his own jokes. Some men do. One day I dropped a pot of marmalade on a new carpet, and should certainly have been reprimanded for carelessness, had it not occurred to him to exclaim: 'JAM SATIS TERRIS!' and then laugh immoderately at his wit.

That there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, was a maxim he acted upon, if he never heard it. Within a month of the above incident he proposed to another lady upon the sole grounds that, when playing a game of chess, an exchange of pieces being contemplated, she innocently, but incautiously, observed, 'If you take me, I will take you.' He referred the matter next day to my ripe judgment. As I had no partiality for the lady in question, I strongly advised him to accept so obvious a challenge, and go down on his knees to her at once. I laid stress on the knees, as the accepted form of declaration, both in novels and on the stage.

In this case the beloved object, who was not embarrassed by excess of amiability, promptly desired him, when he urged his suit, 'not to make a fool of himself.'

My tutor's peculiarities, however, were not confined to his endeavours to meet with a lady rectoress. He sometimes surprised his hearers with the originality of his abstruse theories. One morning he called me into the stable yard to join in consultation with his gardener as to the advisability of killing a pig. There were two, and it was not easy to decide which was the fitter for the butcher. The rector selected one, I the other, and the gardener, who had nurtured both from their tenderest age, pleaded that they should be allowed to 'put on another score.' The point was warmly argued all round.

'The black sow,' said I (they were both sows, you must know) - 'The black sow had a litter of ten last time, and the white one only six. Ergo, if history repeats itself, as I have heard you say, you should keep the black, and sacrifice the white.'

'But,' objected the rector, 'that was the white's first litter, and the black's second. Why shouldn't the white do as well as the black next time?'

'And better, your reverence,' chimed in the gardener. 'The number don't allays depend on the sow, do it?'

'That is neither here nor there,' returned the rector.

'Well,' said the gardener, who stood to his guns, 'if your reverence is right, as no doubt you will be, that'll make just twenty little pigs for the butcher, come Michaelmas.'

'We can't kill 'em before they are born,' said the rector.

'That's true, your reverence. But it comes to the same thing.'

'Not to the pigs,' retorted the rector.

'To your reverence, I means.'

'A pig at the butcher's,' I suggested, 'is worth a dozen unborn.'

'No one can deny it,' said the rector, as he fingered the small change in his breeches pocket; and pointing with the other hand to the broad back of the black sow, exclaimed, 'This is the one, DUPLEX AGITUR PER LUMBOS SPINA! She's got a back like an alderman's chin.'

'EPICURI DE GREGE PORCUS,' I assented, and the fate of the black sow was sealed.

Next day an express came from Holkham, to say that Lady Leicester had given birth to a daughter. My tutor jumped out of his chair to hand me the note. 'Did I not anticipate the event'? he cried. 'What a wonderful world we live in! Unconsciously I made room for the infant by sacrificing the life of that pig.' As I never heard him allude to the doctrine of Pythagoras, as he had no leaning to Buddhism, and, as I am sure he knew nothing of the correlation of forces, it must be admitted that the conception was an original one.

Be this as it may, Mr. Collyer was an upright and conscientious man. I owe him much, and respect his memory. He died at an advanced age, an honorary canon, and - a bachelor.

Another portrait hangs amongst the many in my memory's picture gallery. It is that of his successor to the vicarage, the chaplaincy, and the librarianship, at Holkham - Mr. Alexander Napier - at this time, and until his death fifty years later, one of my closest and most cherished friends. Alexander Napier was the son of Macvey Napier, first editor of the 'Edinburgh Review.' Thus, associated with many eminent men of letters, he also did some good literary work of his own. He edited Isaac Barrow's works for the University of Cambridge, also Boswell's 'Johnson,' and gave various other proofs of his talents and his scholarship. He was the most delightful of companions; liberal-minded in the highest degree; full of quaint humour and quick sympathy; an excellent parish priest, - looking upon Christianity as a life and not a dogma; beloved by all, for he had a kind thought and a kind word for every needy or sick being in his parish.

With such qualities, the man always predominated over the priest. Hence his large-hearted charity and indulgence for the faults - nay, crimes - of others. Yet, if taken aback by an outrage, or an act of gross stupidity, which even the perpetrator himself had to suffer for, he would momentarily lose his patience, and rap out an objurgation that would stagger the straiter-laced gentlemen of his own cloth, or an outsider who knew less of him than - the recording angel.

A fellow undergraduate of Napier's told me a characteristic anecdote of his impetuosity. Both were Trinity men, and had been keeping high jinks at a supper party at Caius. The friend suddenly pointed to the clock, reminding Napier they had but five minutes to get into college before Trinity gates were closed. 'D-n the clock!' shouted Napier, and snatching up the sugar basin (it was not EAU SUCREE they were drinking), incontinently flung it at the face of the offending timepiece.

This youthful vivacity did not desert him in later years. An old college friend - also a Scotchman - had become Bishop of Edinburgh. Napier paid him a visit (he described it to me himself). They talked of books, they talked of politics, they talked of English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, of Brougham, Horner, Wilson, Macaulay, Jeffrey, of Carlyle's dealings with Napier's father - 'Nosey,' as Carlyle calls him. They chatted into the small hours of the night, as boon companions, and as what Bacon calls 'full' men, are wont. The claret, once so famous in the 'land of cakes,' had given place to toddy; its flow was in due measure to the flow of soul. But all that ends is short - the old friends had spent their last evening together. Yes, their last, perhaps. It was bed-time, and quoth Napier to his lordship, 'I tell you what it is, Bishop, I am na fou', but I'll be hanged if I haven't got two left legs.'

'I see something odd about them,' says his lordship. 'We'd better go to bed.'

Who the bishop was I do not know, but I'll answer for it he was one of the right sort.

In 1846 I became an undergraduate of Trinity College, Cambridge. I do not envy the man (though, of course, one ought) whose college days are not the happiest to look back upon. One should hope that however profitably a young man spends his time at the University, it is but the preparation for something better. But happiness and utility are not necessarily concomitant; and even when an undergraduate's course is least employed for its intended purpose (as, alas! mine was) - for happiness, certainly not pure, but simple, give me life at a University,

Heaven forbid that any youth should be corrupted by my confession! But surely there are some pleasures pertaining to this unique epoch that are harmless in themselves, and are certainly not to be met with at any other. These are the first years of comparative freedom, of manhood, of responsibility. The novelty, the freshness of every pleasure, the unsatiated appetite for enjoyment, the animal vigour, the ignorance of care, the heedlessness of, or rather, the implicit faith in, the morrow, the absence of mistrust or suspicion, the frank surrender to generous impulses, the readiness to accept appearances for realities - to believe in every profession or exhibition of good will, to rush into the arms of every friendship, to lay bare one's tenderest secrets, to listen eagerly to the revelations which make us all akin, to offer one's time, one's energies, one's purse, one's heart, without a selfish afterthought - these, I say, are the priceless pleasures, never to be repeated, of healthful average youth.

What has after-success, honour, wealth, fame, or, power - burdened, as they always are, with ambitions, blunders, jealousies, cares, regrets, and failing health - to match with this enjoyment of the young, the bright, the bygone, hour? The wisdom of the worldly teacher - at least, the CARPE DIEM - was practised here before the injunction was ever thought of. DU BIST SO SCHON was the unuttered invocation, while the VERWEILE DOCH was deemed unneedful.

Little, I am ashamed to own, did I add either to my small classical or mathematical attainments. But I made friendships - lifelong friendships, that I would not barter for the best of academical prizes.

Amongst my associates or acquaintances, two or three of whom have since become known - were the last Lord Derby, Sir William Harcourt, the late Lord Stanley of Alderley, Latimer Neville, late Master of Magdalen, Lord Calthorpe, of racing fame, with whom I afterwards crossed the Rocky Mountains, the last Lord Durham, my cousin, Sir Augustus Stephenson, ex- solicitor to the Treasury, Julian Fane, whose lyrics were edited by Lord Lytton, and my life-long friend Charles Barrington, private secretary to Lord Palmerston and to Lord John Russell.

But the most intimate of them was George Cayley, son of the member for the East Riding of Yorkshire. Cayley was a young man of much promise. In his second year he won the University prize poem with his 'Balder,' and soon after published some other poems, and a novel, which met with merited oblivion. But it was as a talker that he shone. His quick intelligence, his ready wit, his command of language, made his conversation always lively, and sometimes brilliant. For several years after I left Cambridge I lived with him in his father's house in Dean's Yard, and thus made the acquaintance of some celebrities whom his fascinating and versatile talents attracted thither. As I shall return to this later on, I will merely mention here the names of such men as Thackeray, Tennyson, Frederick Locker, Stirling of Keir, Tom Taylor the dramatist, Millais, Leighton, and others of lesser note. Cayley was a member of, and regular attendant at, the Cosmopolitan Club; where he met Dickens, Foster, Shirley Brooks, John Leech, Dicky Doyle, and the wits of the day; many of whom occasionally formed part of our charming coterie in the house I shared with his father.

Speaking of Tom Taylor reminds me of a good turn he once did me in my college examination at Cambridge. Whewell was then Master of Trinity. One of the subjects I had to take up was either the 'Amicitia' or the 'Senectute' (I forget which). Whewell, more formidable and alarming than ever, opened the book at hazard, and set me on to construe. I broke down. He turned over the page; again I stuck fast. The truth is, I had hardly looked at my lesson, - trusting to my recollection of parts of it to carry me through, if lucky, with the whole.

'What's your name, sir?' was the Master's gruff inquiry. He did not catch it. But Tom Taylor - also an examiner - sitting next to him, repeated my reply, with the addition, 'Just returned from China, where he served as a midshipman in the late war.' He then took the book out of Whewell's hands, and giving it to me closed, said good-naturedly: 'Let us have another try, Mr. Coke.' The chance was not thrown away; I turned to a part I knew, and rattled off as if my first examiner had been to blame, not I.



CHAPTER X



BEFORE dropping the curtain on my college days I must relate a little adventure which is amusing as an illustration of my reverend friend Napier's enthusiastic spontaneity. My own share in the farce is a subordinate matter.

During the Christmas party at Holkham I had 'fallen in love,' as the phrase goes, with a young lady whose uncle (she had neither father nor mother) had rented a place in the neighbourhood. At the end of his visit he invited me to shoot there the following week. For what else had I paid him assiduous attention, and listened like an angel to the interminable history of his gout? I went; and before I left, proposed to, and was accepted by, the young lady. I was still at Cambridge, not of age, and had but moderate means. As for the maiden, 'my face is my fortune' she might have said. The aunt, therefore, very properly pooh-poohed the whole affair, and declined to entertain the possibility of an engagement; the elderly gentleman got a bad attack of gout; and every wire of communication being cut, not an obstacle was wanting to render persistence the sweetest of miseries.

Napier was my confessor, and became as keen to circumvent the 'old she-dragon,' so he called her, as I was. Frequent and long were our consultations, but they generally ended in suggestions and schemes so preposterous, that the only result was an immoderate fit of laughter on both sides. At length it came to this (the proposition was not mine): we were to hire a post chaise and drive to the inn at G-. I was to write a note to the young lady requesting her to meet me at some trysting place. The note was to state that a clergyman would accompany me, who was ready and willing to unite us there and then in holy matrimony; that I would bring the licence in my pocket; that after the marriage we could confer as to ways and means; and that - she could leave the REST to me.

No enterprise was ever more merrily conceived, or more seriously undertaken. (Please to remember that my friend was not so very much older than I; and, in other respects, was quite as juvenile.)

Whatever was to come of it, the drive was worth the venture. The number of possible and impossible contingencies provided for kept us occupied by the hour. Furnished with a well- filled luncheon basket, we regaled ourselves and fortified our courage; while our hilarity increased as we neared, or imagined that we neared, the climax. Unanimously we repeated Dr. Johnson's exclamation in a post chaise: 'Life has not many things better than this.'

But where were we? Our watches told us that we had been two hours covering a distance of eleven miles.

'Hi! Hullo! Stop!' shouted Napier. In those days post horses were ridden, not driven; and about all we could see of the post boy was what Mistress Tabitha Bramble saw of Humphrey Clinker. 'Where the dickens have we got to now?'

'Don't know, I'm sure, sir,' says the boy; 'never was in these 'ere parts afore.'

'Why,' shouts the vicar, after a survey of the landscape, 'if I can see a church by daylight, that's Blakeney steeple; and we are only three miles from where we started.'

Sure enough it was so. There was nothing for it but to stop at the nearest house, give the horses a rest and a feed, and make a fresh start, - better informed as to our topography.

It was past four on that summer afternoon when we reached our destination. The plan of campaign was cut and dried. I called for writing materials, and indicted my epistle as agreed upon.

'To whom are you telling her to address the answer?' asked my accomplice. 'We're INCOG. you know. It won't do for either of us to be known.'

'Certainly not,' said I. 'What shall it be? White? Black? Brown? or Green?'

'Try Browne with an E,' said he. 'The E gives an aristocratic flavour. We can't afford to risk our respectability.'

The note sealed, I rang the bell for the landlord, desired him to send it up to the hall and tell the messenger to wait for an answer.

As our host was leaving the room he turned round, with his hand on the door, and said:

'Beggin' your pardon, Mr. Cook, would you and Mr. Napeer please to take dinner here? I've soom beatiful lamb chops, and you could have a ducklin' and some nice young peas to your second course. The post-boy says the 'osses is pretty nigh done up; but by the time - '

'How did you know our names?' asked my companion.

'Law sir! The post-boy, he told me. But, beggin' your pardon, Mr. Napeer, my daughter, she lives in Holkham willage; and I've heard you preach afore now.'

'Let's have the dinner by all means,' said I.

'If the Bishop sequesters my living,' cried Napier, with solemnity, 'I'll summon the landlord for defamation of character. But time's up. You must make for the boat-house, which is on the other side of the park. I'll go with you to the head of the lake.'

We had not gone far, when we heard the sound of an approaching vehicle. What did we see but an open carriage, with two ladies in it, not a hundred yards behind us.

'The aunt! by all that's - !'

What - I never heard; for, before the sentence was completed, the speaker's long legs were scampering out of sight in the direction of a clump of trees, I following as hard as I could go.

As the carriage drove past, my Friar Lawrence was lying in a ditch, while I was behind an oak. We were near enough to discern the niece, and consequently we feared to be recognised. The situation was neither dignified nor romantic. My friend was sanguine, though big ardour was slightly damped by the ditch water. I doubted the expediency of trying the boat-house, but he urged the risk of her disappointment, which made the attempt imperative.

The padre returned to the inn to dry himself, and, in due course, I rejoined him. He met me with the answer to my note. 'The boat-house,' it declared, 'was out of the question. But so, of course, was the POSSIBILITY of CHANGE. We must put our trust in PROVIDENCE. Time could make NO difference in OUR case, whatever it might do with OTHERS. SHE, at any rate, could wait for YEARS.' Upon the whole the result was comforting - especially as the 'years' dispensed with the necessity of any immediate step more desperate than dinner. This we enjoyed like men who had earned it; and long before I deposited my dear friar in his cell both of us were snoring in our respective corners of the chaise.

A word or two will complete this romantic episode. The next long vacation I spent in London, bent, needless to say, on a happy issue to my engagement. How simple, in the retrospect, is the frustration of our hopes! I had not been a week in town, had only danced once with my FIANCEE, when, one day, taking a tennis lesson from the great Barre, a forced ball grazed the frame of my racket, and broke a blood vessel in my eye.

For five weeks I was shut up in a dark room. It was two more before I again met my charmer. She did not tell me, but her man did, that their wedding day was fixed for the 10th of the following month; and he 'hoped they would have the pleasure of seeing me at the breakfast!' [I made the following note of the fact: N.B. - A woman's tears may cost her nothing; but her smiles may be expensive.]

I must, however, do the young lady the justice to state that, though her future husband was no great things as a 'man,' as she afterwards discovered, he was the heir to a peerage and great wealth. Both he and she, like most of my collaborators in this world, have long since passed into the other.

The fashions of bygone days have always an interest for the living: the greater perhaps the less remote. We like to think of our ancestors of two or three generations off - the heroes and heroines of Jane Austen, in their pantaloons and high-waisted, short-skirted frocks, their pigtails and powdered hair, their sandalled shoes, and Hessian boots. Our near connection with them entrances our self-esteem. Their prim manners, their affected bows and courtesies, the 'dear Mr. So-and-So' of the wife to her husband, the 'Sir' and 'Madam' of the children to their parents, make us wonder whether their flesh and blood were ever as warm as ours; or whether they were a race of prigs and puppets?

My memory carries me back to the remnants of these lost externals - that which is lost was nothing more; the men and women were every whit as human as ourselves. My half-sisters wore turbans with birds-of-paradise in them. My mother wore gigot sleeves; but objected to my father's pigtail, so cut it off. But my father powdered his head, and kept to his knee- breeches to the last; so did all elderly gentlemen, when I was a boy. For the matter of that, I saw an old fellow with a pigtail walking in the Park as late as 1845. He, no doubt, was an ultra-conservative.

Fashions change so imperceptibly that it is difficult for the historian to assign their initiatory date. Does the young dandy of to-day want to know when white ties came into vogue? - he knows that his great-grandfather wore a white neckcloth, and takes it for granted, may be, that his grandfather did so too. Not a bit of it. The young Englander of the Coningsby type - the Count d'Orsays of my youth, scorned the white tie alike of their fathers and their sons. At dinner-parties or at balls, they adorned themselves in satin scarfs, with a jewelled pin or chained pair of pins stuck in them. I well remember the rebellion - the protest against effeminacy - which the white tie called forth amongst some of us upon its first invasion on evening dress. The women were in favour of it, and, of course, carried the day; but not without a struggle. One night at Holkham - we were a large party, I daresay at least fifty at dinner - the men came down in black scarfs, the women in white 'chokers.' To make the contest complete, these all sat on one side of the table, and we men on the other. The battle was not renewed; both factions surrendered. But the women, as usual, got their way, and - their men.

For my part I could never endure the original white neckcloth. It was stiffly starched, and wound twice round the neck; so I abjured it for the rest of my days; now and then I got the credit of being a coxcomb - not for my pains, but for my comfort. Once, when dining at the Viceregal Lodge at Dublin, I was 'pulled up' by an aide-de-camp for my unbecoming attire; but I stuck to my colours, and was none the worse. Another time my offence called forth a touch of good nature on the part of a great man, which I hardly know how to speak of without writing me down an ass. It was at a crowded party at Cambridge House. (Let me plead my youth; I was but two-and-twenty.) Stars and garters were scarcely a distinction. White ties were then as imperative as shoes and stockings; I was there in a black one. My candid friends suggested withdrawal, my relations cut me assiduously, strangers by my side whispered at me aloud, women turned their shoulders to me; and my only prayer was that my accursed tie would strangle me on the spot. One pair of sharp eyes, however, noticed my ignominy, and their owner was moved by compassion for my sufferings. As I was slinking away, Lord Palmerston, with a BONHOMIE peculiarly his own, came up to me; and with a shake of the hand and hearty manner, asked after my brother Leicester, and when he was going to bring me into Parliament? - ending with a smile: 'Where are you off to in such a hurry?' That is the sort of tact that makes a party leader. I went to bed a proud, instead of a humiliated, man; ready, if ever I had the chance, to vote that black was white, should he but state it was so.

Beards and moustache came into fashion after the Crimean war. It would have been an outrage to wear them before that time. When I came home from my travels across the Rocky Mountains in 1851, I was still unshaven. Meeting my younger brother - a fashionable guardsman - in St. James's Street, he exclaimed, with horror and disgust at my barbarity, 'I suppose you mean to cut off that thing!'

Smoking, as indulged in now, was quite out of the question half a century ago. A man would as soon have thought of making a call in his dressing-gown as of strolling about the West End with a cigar in his mouth. The first whom I ever saw smoke a cigarette at a dining-table after dinner was the King; some forty years ago, or more perhaps. One of the many social benefits we owe to his present Majesty.



CHAPTER XI.



DURING my blindness I was hospitably housed in Eaten Place by Mr. Whitbread, the head of the renowned firm. After my recovery I had the good fortune to meet there Lady Morgan, the once famous authoress of the 'Wild Irish Girl.' She still bore traces of her former comeliness, and had probably lost little of her sparkling vivacity. She was known to like the company of young people, as she said they made her feel young; so, being the youngest of the party, I had the honour of sitting next her at dinner. When I recall her conversation and her pleasing manners, I can well understand the homage paid both abroad and at home to the bright genius of the Irish actor's daughter.

We talked a good deal about Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb. This arose out of my saying I had been reading 'Glenarvon,' in which Lady Caroline gives Byron's letters to herself as Glenarvon's letters to the heroine. Lady Morgan had been the confidante of Lady Caroline, had seen many of Byron's letters, and possessed many of her friend's - full of details of the extraordinary intercourse which had existed between the two.

Lady Morgan evidently did not believe (in spite of Lady Caroline's mad passion for the poet) that the liaison ever reached the ultimate stage contemplated by her lover. This opinion was strengthened by Lady Caroline's undoubted attachment to her husband - William Lamb, afterwards Lord Melbourne - who seems to have submitted to his wife's vagaries with his habitual stoicism and good humour.

Both Byron and Lady Caroline had violent tempers, and were always quarrelling. This led to the final rupture, when, according to my informant, the poet's conduct was outrageous. He sent her some insulting lines, which Lady Morgan quoted. The only one I remember is:

Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!

Among other amusing anecdotes she told was one of Disraeli. She had met him (I forget where), soon after his first success as the youthful author of 'Vivian Grey.' He was naturally made much of, but rather in the Bohemian world than by such queens of society as Lady Holland or Lady Jersey. 'And faith!' she added, with the piquante accent which excitement evoked, 'he took the full shine out of his janius. And how do ye think he was dressed? In a black velvet jacket and suit to match, with a red sash round his waist, in which was stuck a dagger with a richly jew'lled sheath and handle.'

The only analogous instance of self-confidence that I can call to mind was Garibaldi's costume at a huge reception at Stafford House. The ELITE of society was there, in diamonds, ribbons, and stars, to meet him. Garibaldi's uppermost and outermost garment was a red flannel shirt, nothing more nor less.

The crowd jostled and swayed around him. To get out of the way of it, I retreated to the deserted picture gallery. The only person there was one who interested me more than the scarlet patriot, Bulwer-Lytton the First. He was sauntering to and fro with his hands behind his back, looking dingy in his black satin scarf, and dejected. Was he envying the Italian hero the obsequious reverence paid to his miner's shirt? (Nine tenths of the men, and still more of the women there, knew nothing of the wearer, or his cause, beyond that.) Was he thinking of similar honours which had been lavished upon himself when HIS star was in the zenith? Was he muttering to himself the usual consolation of the 'have- beens' - VANITAS VANITATUM? Or what new fiction, what old love, was flitting through that versatile and fantastic brain? Poor Bulwer! He had written the best novel, the best play, and had made the most eloquent parliamentary oration of any man of his day. But, like another celebrated statesman who has lately passed away, he strutted his hour and will soon be forgotten - 'Quand on broute sa gloire en herbe de son vivant, on ne la recolte pas en epis apres sa mort.' The 'Masses,' so courted by the one, however blatant, are not the arbiters of immortal fame.

To go back a few years before I met Lady Morgan: when my mother was living at 18 Arlington Street, Sydney Smith used to be a constant visitor there. One day he called just as we were going to lunch. He had been very ill, and would not eat anything. My mother suggested the wing of a chicken.

'My dear lady,' said he, 'it was only yesterday that my doctor positively refused my request for the wing of a butterfly.'

Another time when he was making a call I came to the door before it was opened. When the footman answered the bell, 'Is Lady Leicester at home?' he asked.

'No, sir,' was the answer.

'That's a good job,' he exclaimed, but with a heartiness that fairly took Jeames' breath away.

As Sydney's face was perfectly impassive, I never felt quite sure whether this was for the benefit of myself or of the astounded footman; or whether it was the genuine expression of an absent mind. He was a great friend of my mother's, and of Mr. Ellice's, but his fits of abstraction were notorious.

He himself records the fact. 'I knocked at a door in London, asked, "Is Mrs. B- at home?" "Yes, sir; pray what name shall I say?" I looked at the man's face astonished. What name? what name? aye, that is the question. What is my name? I had no more idea who I was than if I had never existed. I did not know whether I was a dissenter or a layman. I felt as dull as Sternhold and Hopkins. At last, to my great relief, it flashed across me that I was Sydney Smith.'

In the summer of the year 1848 Napier and I stayed a couple of nights with Captain Marryat at Langham, near Blakeney. He used constantly to come over to Holkham to watch our cricket matches. His house was a glorified cottage, very comfortable and prettily decorated. The dining and sitting-rooms were hung with the original water-colour drawings - mostly by Stanfield, I think - which illustrated his minor works. Trophies from all parts of the world garnished the walls. The only inmates beside us two were his son, a strange, but clever young man with considerable artistic abilities, and his talented daughter, Miss Florence, since so well known to novel readers.

Often as I had spoken to Marryat, I never could quite make him out. Now that I was his guest his habitual reserve disappeared, and despite his failing health he was geniality itself. Even this I did not fully understand at first. At the dinner-table his amusement seemed, I won't say to make a 'butt' of me - his banter was too good-natured for that - but he treated me as Dr. Primrose treated his son after the bushel-of-green-spectacles bargain. He invented the most wonderful stories, and told them with imperturbable sedateness. Finding a credulous listener in me, he drew all the more freely upon his invention. When, however, he gravely asserted that Jonas was not the only man who had spent three days and three nights in a whale's belly, but that he himself had caught a whale with a man inside it who had lived there for more than a year on blubber, which, he declared, was better than turtle soup, it was impossible to resist the fooling, and not forget that one was the Moses of the extravaganza.

In the evening he proposed that his son and daughter and I should act a charade. Napier was the audience, and Marryat himself the orchestra - that is, he played on his fiddle such tunes as a ship's fiddler or piper plays to the heaving of the anchor, or for hoisting in cargo. Everyone was in romping spirits, and notwithstanding the cheery Captain's signs of fatigue and worn looks, which he evidently strove to conceal, the evening had all the freshness and spirit of an impromptu pleasure.

When I left, Marryat gave me his violin, with some sad words about his not being likely to play upon it more. Perhaps he knew better than we how prophetically he was speaking. Barely three weeks afterwards I learnt that the humorous creator of 'Midshipman Easy' would never make us laugh again.

In 1846 Lord John Russell succeeded Sir Robert Peel as premier. At the General Election, a brother of mine was the Liberal candidate for the seat in East Norfolk. He was returned; but was threatened with defeat through an occurrence in which I was innocently involved.

The largest landowner in this division of the county, next to my brother Leicester, was Lord Hastings - great-grandfather of the present lord. On the occasion I am referring to, he was a guest at Holkham, where a large party was then assembled. Leicester was particularly anxious to be civil to his powerful neighbour; and desired the members of his family to show him every attention. The little lord was an exceedingly punctilious man: as scrupulously dapper in manner as he was in dress. Nothing could be more courteous, more smiling, than his habitual demeanour; but his bite was worse than his bark, and nobody knew which candidate his agents had instructions to support in the coming contest. It was quite on the cards that the secret order would turn the scales.

One evening after dinner, when the ladies had left us, the men were drawn together and settled down to their wine. It was before the days of cigarettes, and claret was plentifully imbibed. I happened to be seated next to Lord Hastings on his left; on the other side of him was Spencer Lyttelton, uncle of our Colonial Secretary. Spencer Lyttelton was a notable character. He had much of the talents and amiability of his distinguished family; but he was eccentric, exceedingly comic, and dangerously addicted to practical jokes. One of these he now played upon the spruce and vigilant little potentate whom it was our special aim to win.

As the decanters circulated from right to left, Spencer filled himself a bumper, and passed the bottles on. Lord Hastings followed suit. I, unfortunately, was speaking to Lyttelton behind Lord Hastings's back, and as he turned and pushed the wine to me, the incorrigible joker, catching sight of the handkerchief sticking out of my lord's coat-tail, quick as thought drew it open and emptied his full glass into the gaping pocket. A few minutes later Lord Hastings, who took snuff, discovered what had happened. He held the dripping cloth up for inspection, and with perfect urbanity deposited it on his dessert plate.

Leicester looked furious, but said nothing till we joined the ladies. He first spoke to Hastings, and then to me. What passed between the two I do not know. To me, he said: 'Hastings tells me it was you who poured the claret into his pocket. This will lose the election. After to-morrow, I shall want your room.' Of course, the culprit confessed; and my brother got the support we hoped for. Thus it was that the political interests of several thousands of electors depended on a glass of wine.



CHAPTER XII



I HAD completed my second year at the University, when, in October 1848, just as I was about to return to Cambridge after the long vacation, an old friend - William Grey, the youngest of the ex-Prime-Minister's sons - called on me at my London lodgings. He was attached to the Vienna Embassy, where his uncle, Lord Ponsonby, was then ambassador. Shortly before this there had been serious insurrections both in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin.

Many may still be living who remember how Louis Philippe fled to England; how the infection spread over this country; how 25,000 Chartists met on Kennington Common; how the upper and middle classes of London were enrolled as special constables, with the future Emperor of the French amongst them; how the promptitude of the Iron Duke saved London, at least, from the fate of the French and Austrian capitals.

This, however, was not till the following spring. Up to October, no overt defiance of the Austrian Government had yet asserted itself; but the imminence of an outbreak was the anxious thought of the hour. The hot heads of Germany, France, and England were more than meditating - they were threatening, and preparing for, a European revolution. Bloody battles were to be fought; kings and emperors were to be dethroned and decapitated; mobs were to take the place of parliaments; the leaders of the 'people' - I.E. the stump orators - were to rule the world; property was to be divided and subdivided down to the shirt on a man's - a rich man's - back; and every 'po'r' man was to have his own, and - somebody else's. This was the divine law of Nature, according to the gospels of Saint Jean Jacques and Mr. Feargus O'Connor. We were all naked under our clothes, which clearly proved our equality. This was the simple, the beautiful programme; once carried out, peace, fraternal and eternal peace, would reign - till it ended, and the earthly Paradise would be an accomplished fact.

I was an ultra-Radical - a younger-son Radical - in those days. I was quite ready to share with my elder brother; I had no prejudice in favour of my superiors; I had often dreamed of becoming a leader of the 'people' - a stump orator, I.E. - with the handsome emoluments of ministerial office.

William Grey came to say good-bye. He was suddenly recalled in consequence of the insurrection. 'It is a most critical state of affairs,' he said. 'A revolution may break out all over the Continent at any moment. There's no saying where it may end. We are on the eve of a new epoch in the history of Europe. I wouldn't miss it on any account.'

'Most interesting! most interesting!' I exclaimed. 'How I wish I were going with you!'

'Come,' said he, with engaging brevity.

'How can I? I'm just going back to Cambridge.'

'You are of age, aren't you?'

I nodded.

'And your own master? Come; you'll never have such a chance again.'

'When do you start?'

'To-morrow morning early.'

'But it is too late to get a passport.'

'Not a bit of it. I have to go to the Foreign Office for my despatches. Dine with me to-night at my mother's - nobody else - and I'll bring your passport in my pocket.'

'So be it, then. Billy Whistle [the irreverend nickname we undergraduates gave the Master of Trinity] will rusticate me to a certainty. It can't be helped. The cause is sacred. I'll meet you at Lady Grey's to-night.'

We reached our destination at daylight on October 9. We had already heard, while changing carriages at Breslau station, that the revolution had broken out at Vienna, that the rails were torn up, the Bahn-hof burnt, the military defeated and driven from the town. William Grey's official papers, aided by his fluent German, enabled us to pass the barriers, and find our way into the city. He went straight to the Embassy, and sent me on to the 'Erzherzog Carl' in the Karnthner Thor Strasse, at that time the best hotel in Vienna. It being still nearly dark, candles were burning in every window by order of the insurgents.

The preceding day had been an eventful one. The proletariats, headed by the students, had sacked the arsenal, the troops having made but slight resistance. They then marched to the War Office and demanded the person of the War Minister, Count Latour, who was most unpopular on account of his known appeal to Jellachich, the Ban of Croatia, to assist, if required, in putting down the disturbances. Some sharp fighting here took place. The rioters defeated the small body of soldiers on the spot, captured two guns, and took possession of the building. The unfortunate minister was found in one of the upper garrets of the palace. The ruffians dragged him from his place of concealment, and barbarously murdered him. They then flung his body from the window, and in a few minutes it was hanging from a lamp-post above the heads of the infuriated and yelling mob.

In 1848 the inner city of Vienna was enclosed within a broad and lofty bastion, fosse, and glacis. These were levelled in 1857. As soon as the troops were expelled, cannon were placed on the Bastei so as to command the approaches from without. The tunnelled gateways were built up, and barricades erected across every principal thoroughfare. Immediately after these events Ferdinand I. abdicated in favour of the present Emperor Francis Joseph, who retired with the Court to Schobrunn. Foreigners at once took flight, and the hotels were emptied. The only person left in the 'Archduke Charles' beside myself was Mr. Bowen, afterwards Sir George, Governor of New Zealand, with whom I was glad to fraternise.

These humble pages do not aspire to the dignity of History; but a few words as to what took place are needful for the writer's purposes. The garrison in Vienna had been comparatively small; and as the National Guard had joined the students and proletariats, it was deemed advisable by the Government to await the arrival of reinforcements under Prince Windischgratz, who, together with a strong body of Servians and Croats under Jellachich, might overawe the insurgents; or, if not, recapture the city without unnecessary bloodshed. The rebels were buoyed up by hopes of support from the Hungarians under Kossuth. But in this they were disappointed. In less than three weeks from the day of the outbreak the city was beleaguered. Fighting began outside the town on the 24th. On the 25th the soldiers occupied the Wieden and Nussdorf suburbs. Next day the Gemeinderath (Municipal Council) sent a PARLEMENTAR to treat with Windischgratz. The terms were rejected, and the city was taken by storm on October 30.

A few days before the bombardment, the Austrian commander gave the usual notice to the Ambassadors to quit the town. This they accordingly did. Before leaving, Lord Ponsonby kindly sent his private secretary, Mr. George Samuel, to warn me and invite me to join him at Schonbrunn. I politely elected to stay and take my chance. After the attack on the suburbs began I had reason to regret the decision. The hotels were entered by patrols, and all efficient waiters KOMMANDIERE'D to work at the barricades, or carry arms. On the fourth day I settled to change sides. The constant banging of big guns, and rattle of musketry, with the impossibility of getting either air or exercise without the risk of being indefinitely deprived of both, was becoming less amusing than I had counted on. I was already provided with a PASSIERSCHEIN, which franked me inside the town, and up to the insurgents' outposts. The difficulty was how to cross the neutral ground and the two opposing lines. Broad daylight was the safest time for the purpose; the officious sentry is not then so apt to shoot his friend. With much stalking and dodging I made a bolt; and, notwithstanding violent gesticulations and threats, got myself safely seized and hurried before the nearest commanding officer.

He happened to be a general or a colonel. He was a fierce looking, stout old gentleman with a very red face, all the redder for his huge white moustache and well-filled white uniform. He began by fuming and blustering as if about to order me to summary execution. He spoke so fast, it was not easy to follow him. Probably my amateur German was as puzzling to him. The PASSIERSCHEIN, which I produced, was not in my favour; unfortunately I had forgotten my Foreign Office passport. What further added to his suspicion was his inability to comprehend why I had not availed myself of the notice, duly given to all foreigners, to leave the city before active hostilities began. How anyone, who had the choice, could be fool enough to stay and be shelled or bayoneted, was (from his point of view) no proof of respectability. I assured him he was mistaken if he thought I had a predilection for either of these alternatives.

'It was just because I desired to avoid both that I had sought, not without risk, the protection I was so sure of finding at the hands of a great and gallant soldier.'

'Dummes Zeug! dummes Zeug!' (stuff o' nonsense), he puffed. But a peppery man's good humour is often as near the surface as his bad. I detected a pleasant sparkle in his eye.

'Pardon me, Excellenz,' said I, 'my presence here is the best proof of my sincerity.'

'That,' said he sharply, 'is what every rascal might plead when caught with a rebel's pass in his pocket. Geleitsbriefe fur Schurken sind Steckbriefe fur die Gerechtigkeit.' (Safe- conduct passes for knaves are writs of capias to honest men.)

I answered: 'But an English gentleman is not a knave; and no one knows the difference better than your Excellenz.' The term 'Schurken' (knaves) had stirred my fire; and though I made a deferential bow, I looked as indignant as I felt.

'Well, well,' he said pacifically, 'you may go about your business. But SEHEN SIE, young man, take my advice, don't satisfy your curiosity at the cost of a broken head. Dazu gehoren Kerle die eigens geschaffen sind.' As much as to say: 'Leave halters to those who are born to be hanged.' Indeed, the old fellow looked as if he had enjoyed life too well to appreciate parting with it gratuitously.

I had nothing with me save the clothes on my back. When I should again have access to the 'Erzherzcg Carl' was impossible to surmise. The only decent inn I knew of outside the walls was the 'Golden Lamm,' on the suburb side of the Donau Canal, close to the Ferdinand bridge which faces the Rothen Thurm Thor. Here I entered, and found it occupied by a company of Nassau JAGERS. A barricade was thrown up across the street leading to the bridge. Behind it were two guns. One end of the barricade abutted on the 'Golden Lamm.' With the exception of the soldiers, the inn seemed to be deserted; and I wanted both food and lodging. The upper floor was full of JAGERS. The front windows over-looked the Bastei. These were now blocked with mattresses, to protect the men from bullets. The distance from the ramparts was not more than 150 yards, and woe to the student or the fat grocer, in his National Guard uniform, who showed his head above the walls. While I was in the attics a gun above the city gate fired at the battery below. I ran down a few minutes later to see the result. One artilleryman had been killed. He was already laid under the gun-carriage, his head covered with a cloak.

The storming took place a day or two afterwards. One of the principal points of resistance had been at the bottom of the Jagerzeile. The insurgents had a battery of several guns here; and the handsome houses at the corners facing the Prater had been loop-holed and filled with students. I walked round the town after all was over, and was especially impressed with the horrors I witnessed. The beautiful houses, with their gorgeous furniture, were a mass of smoking ruins. Not a soul was to be seen, not even a prowling thief. I picked my way into one or two of them without hindrance. Here and there were a heap of bodies, some burnt to cinders, some with their clothes still smouldering. The smell of the roasted flesh was a disgusting association for a long time to come. But the whole was sickening to look at, and still more so, if possible, to reflect upon; for this was the price which so often has been, so often will be, paid for the alluring dream of liberty, and for the pursuit of that mischievous will-o'-the-wisp - jealous Equality.



CHAPTER XIII



VIENNA in the early part of the last century was looked upon as the gayest capital in Europe. Even the frightful convulsion it had passed through only checked for a while its chronic pursuit of pleasure. The cynical philosopher might be tempted to contrast this not infrequent accessory of paternal rule with the purity and contentment so fondly expected from a democracy - or shall we say a demagoguey? The cherished hopes of the so-called patriots had been crushed; and many were the worse for the struggle. But the majority naturally subsided into their customary vocations - beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, music, dancing, and play-going.

The Vienna of 1848 was the Vienna described by Madame de Stael in 1810: 'Dans ce pays, l'on traite les plaisirs comme les devoirs. . . . Vous verrez des hommes et des femmes executer gravement, l'un vis-a-vis de l'autre, les pas d'un menuet dont ils sont impose l'amusement, . . . comme s'il [the couple] dansait pour l'acquit de sa conscience.'

Every theatre and place of amusement was soon re-opened. There was an excellent opera; Strauss - the original - presided over weekly balls and concerts. For my part, being extremely fond of music, I worked industriously at the violin, also at German. My German master, Herr Mauthner by name, was a little hump-backed Jew, who seemed to know every man and woman (especially woman) worth knowing in Vienna. Through him I made the acquaintance of several families of the middle class, - amongst them that of a veteran musician who had been Beethoven's favourite flute-player. As my veneration for Beethoven was unbounded, I listened with awe to every trifling incident relating to the great master. I fear the conviction left on my mind was that my idol, though transcendent amongst musicians, was a bear amongst men. Pride (according to his ancient associate) was his strong point. This he vindicated by excessive rudeness to everyone whose social position was above his own. Even those that did him a good turn were suspected of patronising. Condescension was a prerogative confined to himself. In this respect, to be sure, there was nothing singular.

At the house of the old flutist we played family quartets, - he, the father, taking the first violin part on his flute, I the second, the son the 'cello, and his daughter the piano. It was an atmosphere of music that we all inhaled; and my happiness on these occasions would have been unalloyed, had not the young lady - a damsel of six-and-forty - insisted on poisoning me (out of compliment to my English tastes) with a bitter decoction she was pleased to call tea. This delicate attention, I must say, proved an effectual souvenir till we met again - I dreaded it.

Now and then I dined at the Embassy. One night I met there Prince Paul Esterhazy, so distinguished by his diamonds when Austrian Ambassador at the coronation of Queen Victoria. He talked to me of the Holkham sheep-shearing gatherings, at which from 200 to 300 guests sat down to dinner every day, including crowned heads, and celebrities from both sides of the Atlantic. He had twice assisted at these in my father's time. He also spoke of the shooting; and promised, if I would visit him in Hungary, he would show me as good sport as had ever seen in Norfolk. He invited Mr. Magenis - the Secretary of Legation - to accompany me.

The following week we two hired a BRITZCKA, and posted to Eisenstadt. The lordly grandeur of this last of the feudal princes manifested itself soon after we crossed the Hungarian frontier. The first sign of it was the livery and badge worn by the postillions. Posting houses, horses and roads, were all the property of His Transparency.

Eisenstadt itself, though not his principal seat, is a large palace - three sides of a triangle. One wing is the residence, that opposite the barrack, (he had his own troops,) and the connecting base part museum and part concert-hall. This last was sanctified by the spirit of Joseph Haydn, for so many years Kapellmeister to the Esterhazy family. The conductor's stand and his spinet remained intact. Even the stools and desks in the orchestra (so the Prince assured me) were ancient. The very dust was sacred. Sitting alone in the dim space, one could fancy the great little man still there, in his snuff-coloured coat and ruffles, half buried (as on state occasions) in his 'ALLONGE PERUCKE.' A tap of his magic wand starts into life his quaint old-fashioned band, and the powder flies from their wigs. Soft, distant, ghostly harmonies of the Surprise Symphony float among the rafters; and now, as in a dream, we are listening to - nay, beholding - the glorious process of Creation; till suddenly the mighty chord is struck, and we are startled from our trance by the burst of myriad voices echoing the command and its fulfilment, 'Let there be light: and there was light.'

Only a family party was assembled in the house. A Baron something, and a Graf something - both relations, - and the son, afterwards Ambassador at St. Petersburg during the Crimean War. The latter was married to Lady Sarah Villiers, who was also there. It is amusing to think that the beautiful daughter of the proud Lady Jersey should be looked upon by the Austrians as somewhat of a MESALLIANCE for one of the chiefs of their nobility. Certain it is that the young Princess was received by them, till they knew her, with more condescension than enthusiasm.

An air of feudal magnificence pervaded the palace: spacious reception-rooms hung with armour and trophies of the chase; numbers of domestics in epauletted and belaced, but ill- fitting, liveries; the prodigal supply and nationality of the comestibles - wild boar with marmalade, venison and game of all sorts with excellent 'Eingemachtes' and 'Mehlspeisen' galore - a feast for a Gamache or a Gargantua. But then, all save three, remember, were Germans - and Germans! Noteworthy was the delicious Chateau Y'quem, of which the Prince declared he had a monopoly - meaning the best, I presume. After dinner the son, his brother-in-law, and I, smoked our meerschaums and played pools of ECARTE in the young Prince's room. Magenis, who was much our senior, had his rubber downstairs with the elders.

The life was pleasant enough, but there was one little medieval peculiarity which almost made one look for retainers in goat-skins and rushes on the floor, - there was not a bath (except the Princess's) in the palace! It was with difficulty that my English servant foraged a tub from the kitchen or the laundry. As to other sanitary arrangements, they were what they doubtless had been in the days of Almos and his son, the mighty Arped. In keeping with these venerable customs, I had a sentry at the door of my apartments; to protect me, belike, from the ghosts of predatory barons and marauders.

During the week we had two days' shooting; one in the coverts, quite equal to anything of the kind in England, the other at wild boar. For the latter, a tract of the Carpathian Mountains had been driven for some days before into a wood of about a hundred acres. At certain points there were sheltered stands, raised four or five feet from the ground, so that the sportsmen had a commanding view of the broad alley or clearing in front of him, across which the stags or boar were driven by an army of beaters.

I had my own double-barrelled rifle; but besides this, a man with a rack on his back bearing three rifles of the prince's, a loader, and a FORSTER, with a hunting knife or short sword to despatch the wounded quarry. Out of the first rush of pigs that went by I knocked over two; and, in my keenness, jumped out of the stand with the FORSTER who ran to finish them off. I was immediately collared and brought back; and as far as I could make out, was taken for a lunatic, or at least for a 'duffer,' for my rash attempt to approach unarmed a wounded tusker. When we all met at the end of the day, the bag of the five guns was forty-five wild boars. The biggest - and he was a monster - fell to the rifle of the Prince, as was of course intended.

The old man took me home in his carriage. It was a beautiful drive. One's idea of an English park - even such a park as Windsor's - dwindled into that of a pleasure ground, when compared with the boundless territory we drove through. To be sure, it was no more a park than is the New Forest; but it had all the character of the best English scenery - miles of fine turf, dotted with clumps of splendid trees, and gigantic oaks standing alone in their majesty. Now and then a herd of red deer were startled in some sequestered glade; but no cattle, no sheep, no sign of domestic care. Struck with the charm of this primeval wilderness, I made some remark about the richness of the pasture, and wondered there were no sheep to be seen. 'There,' said the old man, with a touch of pride, as he pointed to the blue range of the Carpathians; 'that is my farm. I will tell you. All the celebrities of the day who were interested in farming used to meet at Holkham for what was called the sheep-shearing. I once told your father I had more shepherds on my farm than there were sheep on his.'



CHAPTER XIV



IT WAS with a sorry heart that I bade farewell to my Vienna friends, my musical comrades, the Legation hospitalities, and my faithful little Israelite. But the colt frisks over the pasture from sheer superfluity of energy; and between one's second and third decades instinctive restlessness - spontaneous movement - is the law of one's being. 'Tis then that 'Hope builds as fast as knowledge can destroy.' The enjoyment we abandon is never so sweet as that we seek. 'Pleasure never is at home.' Happiness means action for its own sake, change, incessant change.

I sought and found it in Bavaria, Bohemia, Russia, all over Germany, and dropped anchor one day in Cracow; a week afterwards in Warsaw. These were out-of-the-way places then; there were no tourists in those days; I did not meet a single compatriot either in the Polish or Russian town.

At Warsaw I had an adventure not unlike that which befell me at Vienna. The whole of Europe, remember, was in a state of political ferment. Poland was at least as ready to rise against its oppressor then as now; and the police was proportionately strict and arbitrary. An army corps was encamped on the right bank of the Vistula, ready for expected emergencies. Under these circumstances, passports, as may be supposed, were carefully inspected; except in those of British subjects, the person of the bearer was described - his height, the colour of his hair (if he had any), or any mark that distinguished him.

In my passport, after my name, was added 'ET SON DOMESTIQUE.' The inspector who examined it at the frontier pointed to this, and, in indifferent German, asked me where that individual was. I replied that I had sent him with my baggage to Dresden, to await my arrival there. A consultation thereupon took place with another official, in a language I did not understand; and to my dismay I was informed that I was - in custody. The small portmanteau I had with me, together with my despatch-box, was seized; the latter contained a quantity of letters and my journal. Money only was I permitted to retain.

Quite by the way, but adding greatly to my discomfort, was the fact that since leaving Prague, where I had relinquished everything I could dispense with, I had had much night travelling amongst native passengers, who so valued cleanliness that they economised it with religious care. By the time I reached Warsaw, I may say, without metonymy, that I was itching (all over) for a bath and a change of linen. My irritation, indeed, was at its height. But there was no appeal; and on my arrival I was haled before the authorities.

Again, their head was a general officer, though not the least like my portly friend at Vienna. His business was to sit in judgment upon delinquents such as I. He was a spare, austere man, surrounded by a sharp-looking aide-de-camp, several clerks in uniform, and two or three men in mufti, whom I took to be detectives. The inspector who arrested me was present with my open despatch-box and journal. The journal he handed to the aide, who began at once to look it through while his chief was disposing of another case.

To be suspected and dragged before this tribunal was, for the time being (as I afterwards learnt) almost tantamount to condemnation. As soon as the General had sentenced my predecessor, I was accosted as a self-convicted criminal. Fortunately he spoke French like a Frenchman; and, as it presently appeared, a few words of English.

'What country do you belong to?' he asked, as if the question was but a matter of form, put for decency's sake - a mere prelude to committal.

'England, of course; you can see that by my passport.' I was determined to fence him with his own weapons. Indeed, in those innocent days of my youth, I enjoyed a genuine British contempt for foreigners - in the lump - which, after all, is about as impartial a sentiment as its converse, that one's own country is always in the wrong.

'Where did you get it?' (with a face of stone).

PRISONER (NAIVELY): 'Where did I get it? I do not follow you.' (Don't forget, please, that said prisoner's apparel was unvaleted, his hands unwashed, his linen unchanged, his hair unkempt, and his face unshaven).

GENERAL (stonily): '"Where did you get it?" was my question.'

PRISONER (quietly): 'From Lord Palmerston.'

GENERAL (glancing at that Minister's signature): 'It says here, "et son domestique" - you have no domestique.'

PRISONER (calmly): 'Pardon me, I have a domestic.'

GENERAL (with severity), 'Where is he?'

PRISONER: 'At Dresden by this time, I hope.'

GENERAL (receiving journal from aide-de-camp, who points to a certain page): 'You state here you were caught by the Austrians in a pretended escape from the Viennese insurgents; and add, "They evidently took me for a spy" [returning journal to aide]. What is your explanation of this?'

PRISONER (shrugging shoulders disdainfully): 'In the first place, the word "pretended" is not in my journal. In the second, although of course it does not follow, if one takes another person for a man of sagacity or a gentleman - it does not follow that he is either - still, when - '

GENERAL (with signs of impatience): 'I have here a PASSIERSCHEIN, found amongst your papers and signed by the rebels. They would not have given you this, had you not been on friendly terms with them. You will be detained until I have further particulars.'

PRISONER (angrily): 'I will assist you, through Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, with whom I claim the right to communicate. I beg to inform you that I am neither a spy nor a socialist, but the son of an English peer' (heaven help the relevancy!). 'An Englishman has yet to learn that Lord Palmerston's signature is to be set at naught and treated with contumacy.'

The General beckoned to the inspector to put an end to the proceedings. But the aide, who had been studying the journal, again placed it in his chief's hands. A colloquy ensued, in which I overheard the name of Lord Ponsonby. The enemy seemed to waver, so I charged with a renewed request to see the English Consul. A pause; then some remarks in Russian from the aide; then the GENERAL (in suaver tones): 'The English Consul, I find, is absent on a month's leave. If what you state is true, you acted unadvisedly in not having your passport altered and REVISE when you parted with your servant. How long do you wish to remain here?'

Said I, 'Vous avez bien raison, Monsieur. Je suis evidemment dans mon tort. Ma visite a Varsovie etait une aberration. As to my stay, je suis deja tout ce qu'il y a de plus ennuye. I have seen enough of Warsaw to last for the rest of my days.'

Eventually my portmanteau and despatch-box were restored to me; and I took up my quarters in the filthiest inn (there was no better, I believe) that it was ever my misfortune to lodge at. It was ancient, dark, dirty, and dismal. My sitting- room (I had a cupboard besides to sleep in) had but one window, looking into a gloomy courtyard. The furniture consisted of two wooden chairs and a spavined horsehair sofa. The ceiling was low and lamp-blacked; the stained paper fell in strips from the sweating walls; fortunately there was no carpet; but if anything could have added to the occupier's depression it was the sight of his own distorted features in a shattered glass, which seemed to watch him like a detective and take notes of his movements - a real Russian mirror.

But the resources of one-and-twenty are not easily daunted, even by the presence of the CIMEX LECTULARIUS or the PULEX IRRITANS. I inquired for a LAQUAIS DE PLACE, - some human being to consort with was the most pressing of immediate wants. As luck would have it, the very article was in the dreary courtyard, lurking spider-like for the innocent traveller just arrived. Elective affinity brought us at once to friendly intercourse. He was of the Hebrew race, as the larger half of the Warsaw population still are. He was a typical Jew (all Jews are typical), though all are not so thin as was Beninsky. His eyes were sunk in sockets deepened by the sharpness of his bird-of-prey beak; a single corkscrew ringlet dropped tearfully down each cheek; and his one front tooth seemed sometimes in his upper, sometimes in his lower jaw. His skull-cap and his gabardine might have been heirlooms from the Patriarch Jacob; and his poor hands seemed made for clawing. But there was a humble and contrite spirit in his sad eyes. The history of his race was written in them; but it was modern history that one read in their hopeless and appealing look.

His cringing manner and his soft voice (we conversed in German) touched my heart. I have always had a liking for the Jews. Who shall reckon how much some of us owe them! They have always interested me as a peculiar people - admitting sometimes, as in poor Beninsky's case, of purifying, no doubt; yet, if occasionally zealous (and who is not?) of interested works - cent. per cent. works, often - yes, more often than we Christians - zealous of good works, of open- handed, large-hearted munificence, of charity in its democratic and noblest sense. Shame upon the nations which despise and persecute them for faults which they, the persecutors, have begotten! Shame on those who have extorted both their money and their teeth! I think if I were a Jew I should chuckle to see my shekels furnish all the wars in which Christians cut one another's Christian weasands.

And who has not a tenderness for the 'beautiful and well- favoured' Rachels, and the 'tender-eyed' Leahs, and the tricksy little Zilpahs, and the Rebekahs, from the wife of Isaac of Gerar to the daughter of Isaac of York? Who would not love to sit with Jessica where moonlight sleeps, and watch the patines of bright gold reflected in her heavenly orbs? I once knew a Jessica, a Polish Jessica, who - but that was in Vienna, more than half a century ago.

Beninsky's orbs brightened visibly when I bade him break his fast at my high tea. I ordered everything they had in the house I think, - a cold Pomeranian GANSEBRUST, a garlicky WURST, and GERAUCHERTE LACHS. I had a packet of my own Fortnum and Mason's Souchong; and when the stove gave out its glow, and the samovar its music, Beninsky's gratitude and his hunger passed the limits of restraint. Late into the night we smoked our meerschaums.

When I spoke of the Russians, he got up nervously to see the door was shut, and whispered with bated breath. What a relief it was to him to meet a man to whom he could pour out his griefs, his double griefs, as Pole and Israelite. Before we parted I made him put the remains of the sausage (!) and the goose-breast under his petticoats. I bade him come to me in the morning and show me all that was worth seeing in Warsaw. When he left, with tears in his eyes, I was consoled to think that for one night at any rate he and his GANSEBRUST and sausage would rest peacefully in Abraham's bosom. What Abraham would say to the sausage I did not ask; nor perhaps did my poor Beninsky.



CHAPTER XV



THE remainder of the year '49 has left me nothing to tell. For me, it was the inane life of that draff of Society - the young man-about-town: the tailor's, the haberdasher's, the bootmaker's, and trinket-maker's, young man; the dancing and 'hell'-frequenting young man; the young man of the 'Cider Cellars' and Piccadilly saloons; the valiant dove-slayer, the park-lounger, the young lady's young man - who puts his hat into mourning, and turns up his trousers because - because the other young man does ditto, ditto.

I had a share in the Guards' omnibus box at Covent Garden, with the privilege attached of going behind the scenes. Ah! that was a real pleasure. To listen night after night to Grisi and Mario, Alboni and Lablache, Viardot and Ronconi, Persiani and Tamburini, - and Jenny Lind too, though she was at the other house. And what an orchestra was Costa's - with Sainton leader, and Lindley and old Dragonetti, who together but alone, accompanied the RECITATIVE with their harmonious chords on 'cello and double-bass. Is singing a lost art? Or is that but a TEMPORIS ACTI question? We who heard those now silent voices fancy there are none to match them nowadays. Certainly there are no dancers like Taglioni, and Cerito, and Fanny Elsler, and Carlotta Grisi.

After the opera and the ball, one finished the night at Vauxhall or Ranelagh; then as gay, and exactly the same, as they were when Miss Becky Sharpe and fat Jos supped there only five-and-thirty years before.

Except at the Opera, and the Philharmonic, and Exeter Hall, one rarely heard good music. Monsieur Jullien, that prince of musical mountebanks - the 'Prince of Waterloo,' as John Ella called him, was the first to popularise classical music at his promenade concerts, by tentatively introducing a single movement of a symphony here and there in the programme of his quadrilles and waltzes and music-hall songs.

Mr. Ella, too, furthered the movement with his Musical Union and quartett parties at Willis's Rooms, where Sainton and Cooper led alternately, and the incomparable Piatti and Hill made up the four. Here Ernst, Sivori, Vieuxtemps, and Bottesini, and Mesdames Schumann, Dulcken, Arabella Goddard, and all the famous virtuosi played their solos.

Great was the stimulus thus given by Ella's energy and enthusiasm. As a proof of what he had to contend with, and what he triumphed over, Halle's 'Life' may be quoted, where it says: 'When Mr. Ella asked me [this was in 1848] what I wished to play, and heard that it was one of Beethoven's pianoforte sonatas, he exclaimed "Impossible!" and endeavoured to demonstrate that they were not works to be played in public.' What seven-league boots the world has stridden in within the memory of living men!

John Ella himself led the second violins in Costa's band, and had begun life (so I have been told) as a pastry-cook. I knew both him and the wonderful little Frenchman 'at home.' According to both, in their different ways, Beethoven and Mozart would have been lost to fame but for their heroic efforts to save them.

I used occasionally to play with Ella at the house of a lady who gave musical parties. He was always attuned to the highest pitch, - most good-natured, but most excitable where music was to the fore. We were rehearsing a quintett, the pianoforte part of which was played by the young lady of the house - a very pretty girl, and not a bad musician, but nervous to the point of hysteria. Ella himself was in a hypercritical state; nothing would go smoothly; and the piano was always (according to him) the peccant instrument. Again and again he made us restart the movement. There were a good many friends of the family invited to this last rehearsal, which made it worse for the poor girl, who was obviously on the brink of a breakdown. Presently Ella again jumped off his chair, and shouted: 'Not E flat! There's no E flat there; E natural! E natural! I never in my life knew a young lady so prolific of flats as you.' There was a pause, then a giggle, then an explosion; and then the poor girl, bursting into tears, rushed out of the room.

It was at Ella's house that I first heard Joachim, then about sixteen, I suppose. He had not yet performed in London. All the musical celebrities were present to hear the youthful prodigy. Two quartetts were played, Ernst leading one and Joachim the other. After it was over, everyone was enraptured, but no one more so than Ernst, who unhesitatingly predicted the fame which the great artist has so eminently achieved.

One more amusing little story belongs to my experiences of these days. Having two brothers and a brother-in-law in the Guards, I used to dine often at the Tower, or the Bank, or St. James's. At the Bank of England there is always at night an officer's guard. There is no mess, as the officer is alone. But the Bank provides dinner for two, in case the officer should invite a friend. On the occasion I speak of, my brother-in-law, Sir Archibald Macdonald, was on duty. The soup and fish were excellent, but we were young and hungry, and the usual leg of mutton was always a dish to be looked forward to.

When its cover was removed by the waiter we looked in vain; there was plenty of gravy, but no mutton. Our surprise was even greater than our dismay, for the waiter swore 'So 'elp his gawd' that he saw the cook put the leg on the dish, and that he himself put the cover on the leg. 'And what did you do with it then?' questioned my host. 'Nothing, S'Archibald. Brought it straight in 'ere.' 'Do you mean to tell me it was never out of your hands between this and the kitchen?' 'Never, but for the moment I put it down outside the door to change the plates.' 'And was there nobody in the passage?' 'Not a soul, except the sentry.' 'I see,' said my host, who was a quick-witted man. 'Send the sergeant here.' The sergeant came. The facts were related, and the order given to parade the entire guard, sentry included, in the passage.

The sentry was interrogated first. 'No, he had not seen nobody in the passage.' 'No one had touched the dish?' 'Nobody as ever he seed.' Then came the orders: 'Attention. Ground arms. Take off your bear-skins.' And the truth - I.E., the missing leg - was at once revealed; the sentry had popped it into his shako. For long after that day, when the guard either for the Tower or Bank marched through the streets, the little blackguard boys used to run beside it and cry, 'Who stole the leg o' mutton?'



CHAPTER XVI



PROBABLY the most important historical event of the year '49 was the discovery of gold in California, or rather, the great Western Exodus in pursuit of it. A restless desire possessed me to see something of America, especially of the Far West. I had an hereditary love of sport, and had read and heard wonderful tales of bison, and grisly bears, and wapitis. No books had so fascinated me, when a boy, as the 'Deer-slayer,' the 'Pathfinder,' and the beloved 'Last of the Mohicans.' Here then was a new field for adventure. I would go to California, and hunt my way across the continent. Ruxton's 'Life in the Far West' inspired a belief in self-reliance and independence only rivalled by Robinson Crusoe. If I could not find a companion, I would go alone. Little did I dream of the fortune which was in store for me, or how nearly I missed carrying out the scheme so wildly contemplated, or indeed, any scheme at all.

The only friend I could meet with both willing and able to join me was the last Lord Durham. He could not undertake to go to California; but he had been to New York during his father's reign in Canada, and liked the idea of revisiting the States. He proposed that we should spend the winter in the West Indies, and after some buffalo-shooting on the plains, return to England in the autumn.

The notion of the West Indies gave rise to an off-shoot. Both Durham and I were members of the old Garrick, then but a small club in Covent Garden. Amongst our mutual friends was Andrew Arcedeckne - pronounced Archdeacon - a character to whom attaches a peculiar literary interest, of which anon. Arcedeckne - Archy, as he was commonly called - was about a couple of years older than we were. He was the owner of Glevering Hall, Suffolk, and nephew of Lord Huntingfield. These particulars, as well as those of his person, are note- worthy, as it will soon appear.

Archy - 'Merry Andrew,' as I used to call him, - owned one of the finest estates in Jamaica - Golden Grove. When he heard of our intended trip, he at once volunteered to go with us. He had never seen Golden Grove, but had often wished to visit it. Thus it came to pass that we three secured our cabins in one of the West India mailers, and left England in December 1849.

To return to our little Suffolk squire. The description of his figure, as before said, is all-important, though the world is familiar with it, as drawn by the pencil of a master caricaturist. Arcedeckne was about five feet three inches, round as a cask, with a small singularly round face and head, closely cropped hair, and large soft eyes, - in a word, so like a seal, that he was as often called 'Phoca' as Archy.

Do you recognise the portrait? Do you need the help of 'Glevering Hall' (how curious the suggestion!). And would you not like to hear him talk? Here is a specimen in his best manner. Surely it must have been taken down by a shorthand writer, or a phonograph: