'An Englishman,' I reflected aloud.

He nodded. 'You're a Britisher, I reckon, ain't yer?'

'Yes; why?'

'Wal, you've a puty strong accent.'

'Think so?'

'Wal, I could jest tie a knot in it.'

This is a vulgar and repulsive story. But it is not fiction; and any picture of Californian life in 1850, without some such faithful touch of its local colour, would be inadequate and misleading.



CHAPTER XXXII



A STEAMER took us down to Acapulco. It is probably a thriving port now. When we were there, a few native huts and two or three stone buildings at the edge of the jungle constituted the 'town.' We bought some horses, and hired two men - a Mexican and a Yankee - for our ride to the city of Mexico. There was at that time nothing but a mule-track, and no public conveyance of any kind. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the scenery. Within 160 miles, as the crow flies, one rises up to the city of Mexico some 12,000 feet, with Popocatepetl overhanging it 17,500 feet high. In this short space one passes from intense tropical heat and vegetation to pines and laurels and the proximity of perpetual snows. The path in places winds along the brink of precipitous declivities, from the top of which one sees the climatic gradations blending one into another. So narrow are some of the mountain paths that a mule laden with ore has often one panier overhanging the valley a thousand feet below it. Constantly in the long trains of animals descending to the coast, a slip of the foot or a charge from behind, for they all come down the steep track with a jolting shuffle, sends mule and its load over the ledge. We found it very difficult in places to get out of the way in time to let the trains pass. Flocks of parrots and great macaws screeching and flying about added to the novelty of the scene.

The villages, inhabited by a cross between the original Indians and the Spaniards, are about twenty miles apart. At one of these we always stayed for the night, sleeping in grass hammocks suspended between the posts of the verandah. The only travellers we fell in with were a party of four Americans, returning to the Eastern States from California with the gold they had won there. They had come in our steamer to Acapulco, and had left it a few hours before we did. As the villages were so far apart we necessarily had to stop at night in the same one. The second time this happened they, having arrived first, had quartered themselves on the Alcalde or principal personage of the place. Our guide took us to the same house; and although His Worship, who had a better supply of maize for the horses, and a few more chickens to sell than the other natives, was anxious to accommodate us, the four Americans, a very rough-looking lot and armed to the teeth, wouldn't hear of it, but peremptorily bade us put up elsewhere. Our own American, who was much afraid of them, obeyed their commands without more ado. It made not the slightest difference to us, for one grass hammock is as soft as another, and the Alcalde's chickens were as tough as ours.

Before the morning start, two of the diggers, rifles in hand, came over to us and plainly told us they objected to our company. Fred, with perfect good humour, assured them we had no thought of robbing them, and that as the villages were so far apart we had no choice in the matter. However, as they wished to travel separate from us, if there should be two villages at all within suitable distances, they could stop at one and we at the other. There the matter rested. But our guide was more frightened than ever. They were four to two, he argued, for neither he nor the Mexican were armed. And there was no saying, etc., etc. . . . In short we had better stay where we were till they got through. Fred laughed at the fellow's alarm, and told him he might stop if he liked, but we meant to go on.

As usual, when we reached the next stage, the diggers were before us; and when our men began to unsaddle at a hut about fifty yards from where they were feeding their horses, one of them, the biggest blackguard to look at of the lot, and though the fiercest probably the greatest cur, shouted at us to put the saddles on again and 'get out of that.' He had warned us in the morning that they'd had enough of us, and, with a volley of oaths, advised us to be off. Fred, who was in his shirt-sleeves, listened at first with a look of surprise at such cantankerous unreasonableness; but when the ruffian fell to swear and threaten, he burst into one of his contemptuous guffaws, turned his back and began to feed his horse with a corncob. Thus insulted, the digger ran into the hut (as I could see) to get his rifle. I snatched up my own, which I had been using every day to practise at the large iguanas and macaws, and, well protected by my horse, called out as I covered him, 'This is a double-barrelled rifle. If you raise yours I'll drop you where you stand.' He was forestalled and taken aback. Probably he meant nothing but bravado. Still, the situation was a critical one. Obviously I could not wait till he had shot my friend. But had it come to shooting there would have been three left, unless my second barrel had disposed of another. Fortunately the 'boss' of the digging party gauged the gravity of the crisis at a glance; and instead of backing him up as expected, swore at him for a 'derned fool,' and ordered him to have no more to do with us.

After that, as we drew near to the city, the country being more thickly populated, we no longer clashed.

This is not a guide-book, and I have nothing to tell of that readers would not find better described in their 'Murray.' We put up in an excellent hotel kept by M. Arago, the brother of the great French astronomer. The only other travellers in it besides ourselves were the famous dancer Cerito, and her husband the violin virtuoso, St. Leon. Luckily for me our English Minister was Mr. Percy Doyle, whom I had known as ATTACHE at Paris when I was at Larue, and who was a great friend of the De Cubriers. We were thus provided with many advantages for 'sight-seeing' in and about the city, and also for more distant excursions through credentials from the Mexican authorities. Under these auspices we visited the silver mines at Guadalajara, Potosi, and Guanajuata.

The life in Mexico city was delightful, after a year's tramp. The hotel, as I have said, was to us luxurious. My room under the verandah opened on to a large and beautiful garden partially enclosed on two sides. As I lay in bed of a morning reading Prescott's 'History of Mexico,' or watching the brilliant humming birds as they darted from flower to flower, and listened to the gentle plash of the fountain, my cup of enjoyment and romance was brimming over.

Just before I left, an old friend of mine arrived from England. This was Mr. Joseph Clissold. He was a schoolfellow of mine at Sheen. He had pulled in the Cambridge boat, and played in the Cambridge eleven. He afterwards became a magistrate either in Australia or New Zealand. He was the best type of the good-natured, level- headed, hard-hitting Englishman. Curiously enough, as it turned out, the greater part of the only conversation we had (I was leaving the day after he came) was about the brigandage on the road between Mexico and Vera Cruz. He told me the passengers in the diligence which had brought him up had been warned at Jalapa that the road was infested by robbers; and should the coach be stopped they were on no account to offer resistance, for the robbers would certainly shoot them if they did.

Fred chose to ride down to the coast, I went by coach. This held six inside and two by the driver. Three of the inside passengers sat with backs to the horses, the others facing them. My coach was full, and stifling hot and stuffy it was before we had done with it. Of the five others two were fat priests, and for twenty hours my place was between them. But in one way I had my revenge: I carried my loaded rifle between my knees, and a pistol in my belt. The dismay, the terror, the panic, the protestations, the entreaties and execrations of all the five, kept us at least from ENNUI for many a weary mile. I doubt whether the two priests ever thumbed their breviaries so devoutly in their lives. Perhaps that brought us salvation. We reached Vera Cruz without adventure, and in the autumn of '51 Fred and I landed safely at Southampton.

Two months after I got back, I read an account in the 'Times' of 'Joe' Clissold's return trip from Mexico. The coach in which he was travelling was stopped by robbers. Friend Joseph was armed with a double-barrelled smooth-bore loaded with slugs. He considered this on the whole more suitable than a rifle. When the captain of the brigands opened the coach door and, pistol in hand, politely proffered his request, Mr. Joe was quite ready for him, and confided the contents of one barrel to the captain's bosom. Seeing the fate of their commander, and not knowing what else the dilly might contain, the rest of the band dug spurs into their horses and fled. But the sturdy oarsman and smart cricketer was too quick for one of them - the horse followed his friends, but the rider stayed with his chief.



CHAPTER XXXIII



THE following winter, my friend, George Cayley, was ordered to the south for his health. He went to Seville. I joined him there; and we took lodgings and remained till the spring. As Cayley published an amusing account of our travels, 'Las Aforjas, or the Bridle Roads of Spain,' as this is more than fifty years ago - before the days of railways and tourists - and as I kept no journal of my own, I will make free use of his.

A few words will show the terms we were on.

I had landed at Cadiz, and had gone up the Guadalquivir in a steamer, whose advent at Seville my friend was on the look- out for. He describes his impatience for her arrival. By some mistake he is misinformed as to the time; he is a quarter of an hour late.

'A remnant of passengers yet bustled around the luggage, arguing, struggling and bargaining with a contentious company of porters. Alas! H. was not to be seen among them. There was still a chance; he might be one of the passengers who had got ashore before my coming down, and I was preparing to rush back to the city to ransack the hotels. Just then an internal convulsion shook the swarm around the luggage pile; out burst a little Gallego staggering under a huge British portmanteau, and followed by its much desired, and now almost despaired of, proprietor.

'I saw him come bowling up the slope with his familiar gait, evidently unconscious of my presence, and wearing that sturdy and almost hostile demeanour with which a true Briton marches into a strange city through the army of officious importunates who never fail to welcome the true Briton's arrival. As he passed the barrier he came close to me in the crowd, still without recognising me, for though straight before his nose I was dressed in the costume of the people. I touched his elbow and he turned upon me with a look of impatient defiance, thinking me one persecutor more.

'How quickly the expression changed, etc., etc. We rushed into each other's arms, as much as the many great coats slung over his shoulders, and the deep folds of cloak in which I was enveloped, would mutually permit. Then, saying more than a thousand things in a breath, or rather in no breath at all, we set off in great glee for my lodgings, forgetting in the excitement the poor little porter who was following at full trot, panting and puffing under the heavy portmanteau. We got home, but were no calmer. We dined, but could not eat. We talked, but the news could not be persuaded to come out quick enough.'

Who has not known what is here described? Who does not envy the freshness, the enthusiasm, of such bubbling of warm young hearts? Oh, the pity of it! if these generous emotions should prove as transient as youth itself. And then, when one of those young hearts is turned to dust, and one is left to think of it - why then, 'tis not much comfort to reflect that - nothing in the world is commoner.

We got a Spanish master and worked industriously, also picked up all the Andalusian we could, which is as much like pure Castilian as wold-Yorkshire is to English. I also took lessons on the guitar. Thus prepared, I imitated my friend and adopted the ordinary costume of the Andalusian peasant: breeches, ornamented with rows of silvered buttons, gaiters, a short jacket with a red flower-pot and blue lily on the back, and elbows with green and scarlet patterns, a red FAJA or sash, and the sombrero which I believe is worn nowhere except in the bull-ring. The whole of this picturesque dress is now, I think, given up. I have spent the last two winters in the south of Spain, but have not once seen it.

It must not be supposed that we chose this 'get-up' to gratify any aesthetic taste of our own or other people's; it was long before the days of the 'Too-toos,' whom Mr. Gilbert brought to a timely end. We had settled to ride through Spain from Gibraltar to Bayonne, choosing always the bridle- roads so as to avoid anything approaching a beaten track. We were to visit the principal cities and keep more or less a northerly course, staying on the way at such places as Malaga, Cordova, Toledo, Madrid, Valladolid, and Burgos. The rest was to be left to chance. We were to take no map; and when in doubt as to diverging roads, the toss of a coin was to settle it. This programme was conscientiously adhered to. The object of the dress then was obscurity. For safety (brigands abounded) and for economy, it was desirable to pass unnoticed. We never knew in what dirty POSADA or road-side VENTA we should spend the night. For the most part it was at the resting-place of the muleteers, which would be nothing but a roughly paved dark chamber, one end occupied by mules and the other by their drivers. We made our own omelets and salad and chocolate; with the exception of the never failing BACALLAO, or salt fish, we rarely had anything else; and rolling ourselves into our cloaks, with saddles for pillows, slept amongst the muleteers on the stone flags. We had bought a couple of ponies in the Seville market for 7L. and 8L. Our ALFORJAS or saddlebags contained all we needed. Our portmanteaus were sent on from town to town, wherever we had arranged to stop. Rough as the life was, we saw the people of Spain as no ordinary travellers could hope to see them. The carriers, the shepherds, the publicans, the travelling merchants, the priests, the barbers, the MOLINERAS of Antequera, the Maritornes', the Sancho Panzas - all just as they were seen by the immortal knight.

From the MOZOS DE LA CUADRA (ostlers) and ARRIEROS, upwards and downwards, nowhere have I met, in the same class, with such natural politeness. This is much changed for the worse now; but before the invasion of tourists one never passed a man on the road who did not salute one with a 'Vaya usted con Dios.' Nor would the most indigent vagabond touch the filthy BACALLAO which he drew from his wallet till he had courteously addressed the stranger with the formula 'Quiere usted comer?' ('Will your Lordship please to eat?') The contrast between the people and the nobles in this respect was very marked. We saw something of the latter in the club at Seville, where one met men whose high-sounding names and titles have come down to us from the greatest epochs of Spanish history. Their ignorance was surprising. Not one of them had been farther than Madrid. Not one of them knew a word of any language but his own, nor was he acquainted with the rudiments even of his country's history. Their conversation was restricted to the bull-ring and the cockpit, to cards and women. Their chief aim seemed to be to stagger us with the number of quarterings they bore upon their escutcheons; and they appraised others by a like estimate.

Cayley, tickled with the humour of their childish vanity, painted an elaborate coat of arms, which he stuck in the crown of his hat, and by means of which he explained to them that he too was by rights a Spanish nobleman. With the utmost gravity he delivered some such medley as this: His Iberian origin dated back to the time of Hannibal, who, after his defeat of the Papal forces and capture of Rome, had, as they well knew, married Princess Peri Banou, youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. The issue of the marriage was the famous Cardinal Chicot, from whom he - George Cayley - was of direct male descent. When Chicot was slain by Oliver Cromwell at the battle of Hastings, his descendants, foiled in their attempt to capture England with the Spanish Armada, settled in the principality of Yorkshire, adopted the noble name of Cayley, and still governed that province as members of the British Parliament.

From that day we were treated with every mark of distinction.

Here is another of my friend's pranks. I will let Cayley speak; for though I kept no journal, we had agreed to write a joint account of our trip, and our notebooks were common property.

After leaving Malaga we met some beggars on the road, to one of whom, 'an old hag with one eye and a grizzly beard,' I threw the immense sum of a couple of 2-cuarto pieces. An old man riding behind us on an ass with empty panniers, seeing fortunes being scattered about the road with such reckless and unbounded profusion, came up alongside, and entered into a piteous detail of his poverty. When he wound up with plain begging, the originality and boldness of the idea of a mounted beggar struck us in so humorous a light that we could not help laughing. As we rode along talking his case over, Cayley said, 'Suppose we rob him. He has sold his market produce in Malaga, and depend upon it, has a pocketful of money.' We waited for him to come up. When he got fairly between us, Cayley pulled out his revolver (we both carried pistols) and thus addressed him:

'Impudent old scoundrel! stand still. If thou stirr'st hand or foot, or openest thy mouth, I will slay thee like a dog. Thou greedy miscreant, who art evidently a man of property and hast an ass to ride upon, art not satisfied without trying to rob the truly poor of the alms we give them. Therefore hand over at once the two dollars for which thou hast sold thy cabbages for double what they were worth.'

The old culprit fell on his knees, and trembling violently, prayed Cayley for the love of the Virgin to spare him.

'One moment, CABALLEROS,' he cried, 'I will give you all I possess. But I am poor, very poor, and I have a sick wife at the disposition of your worships.'

'Wherefore art thou fumbling at thy foot? Thou carriest not thy wife in thy shoe?'

'I cannot untie the string - my hand trembles; will your worships permit me to take out my knife?'

He did so, and cutting the carefully knotted thong of a leather bag which had been concealed in the leg of his stocking, poured out a handful of small coin and began to weep piteously.

Said Cayley, 'Come, come, none of that, or we shall feel it our duty to shoot thy donkey that thou may'st have something to whimper for.'

The genuine tears of the poor old fellow at last touched the heart of the jester.

'We know now that thou art poor,' said he, 'for we have taken all thou hadst. And as it is the religion of the Ingleses, founded on the practice of their celebrated saint, Robino Hoodo, to levy funds from the rich for the benefit of the needy, hold out thy sombero, and we will bestow a trifle upon thee.'

So saying he poured back the plunder; to which was added, to the astonishment of the receiver, some supplementary pieces that nearly equalled the original sum.



CHAPTER XXXIV



BEFORE setting out from Seville we had had our Foreign Office passports duly VISED. Our profession was given as that of travelling artists, and the VISE included the permission to carry arms. More than once the sight of our pistols caused us to be stopped by the CARABINEROS. On one occasion these road-guards disputed the wording of the VISE. They protested that 'armas' meant 'escopetas,' not pistols, which were forbidden. Cayley indignantly retorted, 'Nothing is forbidden to Englishmen. Besides, it is specified in our passports that we are 'personas de toda confianza,' which checkmated them.

We both sketched, and passed ourselves off as 'retratistas' (portrait painters), and did a small business in this way - rather in the shape of caricatures, I fear, but which gave much satisfaction. We charged one peseta (seven-pence), or two, a head, according to the means of the sitter. The fiction that we were earning our bread wholesomely tended to moderate the charge for it.

Passing through the land of Don Quixote's exploits, we reverentially visited any known spot which these had rendered famous. Amongst such was the VENTA of Quesada, from which, or from Quixada, as some conjecture, the knight derived his surname. It was here, attracted by its castellated style, and by two 'ladies of pleasure' at its door - whose virginity he at once offered to defend, that he spent the night of his first sally. It was here that, in his shirt, he kept guard till morning over the armour he had laid by the well. It was here that, with his spear, he broke the head of the carrier whom he took for another knight bent on the rape of the virgin princesses committed to his charge. Here, too, it was that the host of the VENTA dubbed him with the coveted knighthood which qualified him for his noble deeds.

To Quesada we wended our way. We asked the Senor Huesped whether he knew anything of the history of his VENTA. Was it not very ancient?

'Oh no, it was quite modern. But on the site of it had stood a fine VENTA which was burnt down at the time of the war.'

'An old building?'

'Yes, indeed! A COSA DE SIEMPRE - thing of always. Nothing, was left of it now but that well, and the stone trough.'

These bore marks of antiquity, and were doubtless as the gallant knight had left them. Curiously, too, there were remains of an outhouse with a crenellated parapet, suggestive enough of a castle.

From Quesada we rode to Argamasilla del Alba, where Cervantes was imprisoned, and where the First Part of Don Quixote was written.

In his Life of Cervantes, Don Gregorio Mayano throws some doubt upon this. Speaking of the attacks of his contemporary, the 'Aragonian,' Don Gregorio writes (I give Ozell's translation): 'As for this scandalous fellow's saying that Cervantes wrote his First Part of "Don Quixote" in a prison, and that that might make it so dull and incorrect, Cervantes did not think fit to give any answer concerning his being imprisoned, perhaps to avoid giving offence to the ministers of justice; for certainly his imprisonment must not have been ignominious, since Cervantes himself voluntarily mentions it in his Preface to the First Part of "Don Quixote."'

This reasoning, however, does not seem conclusive; for the only reference to the subject in the preface is as follows: 'What could my sterile and uncultivated genius produce but the history of a child, meagre, adust, and whimsical, full of various wild imaginations never thought of before; like one you may suppose born in a prison, where every inconvenience keeps its residence, and every dismal sound its habitation?'

We took up our quarters in the little town at the 'Posada de la Mina.' While our OLLA was being prepared; we asked the hostess whether she had ever heard of the celebrated Don Miguel de Cervantes, who had been imprisoned there? (I will quote Cayley).

'No, Senores; I think I have heard of one Cervantes, but he does not live here at present.'

'Do you know anything of Don Quixote?'

'Oh, yes. He was a great CABALLERO, who lived here some years ago. His house is over the way, on the other side of the PLAZA, with the arms over the door. The father of the Alcalde is the oldest man in the PUEBLO; perhaps he may remember him.'

We were amused at his hero's fame outliving that of the author. But is it not so with others - the writers of the Book of Job, of the Pentateuch, and perhaps, too, of the 'Iliad,' if not of the 'Odyssey'?

But, to let Cayley speak:

'While we were undressing to go to bed, three gentlemen were announced and shown in. We begged them to be seated. . . . We sat opposite on the ends of our respective beds to hear what they might have to communicate. A venerable old man opened the conference.

'"We have understood, gentlemen, that you have come hither seeking for information respecting the famous Don Quixote, and we have come to give you such information as we may; but, perhaps you will understand me better if I speak in Latin."

'"We have learnt the Latin at our schools, but are more accustomed to converse in Castilian; pray proceed."

'"I am the Medico of the place, an old man, as you see; and what little I know has reached me by tradition. It is reported that Cervantes was paying his addresses to a young lady, whose name was Quijana or Quijada. The Alcalde, disapproving of the suit, put him into a dungeon under his house, and kept him there a year. Once he escaped and fled, but he was taken in Toboso, and brought back. Cervantes wrote 'Don Quixote' as a satire on the Alcalde, who was a very proud man, full of chivalresque ideas. You can see the dungeon to-morrow; but you should see the BATANES (water- mills) of the Guadiana, whose 'golpear' so terrified Sancho Panza. They are at about three leagues distance."'

The old gentleman added that he was proud to receive strangers who came to do honour to the memory of his illustrious townsman; and hoped we would visit him next day, on our return from the fulling-mills, when he would have the pleasure of conducting us to the house of the Quijanas, in the cellars of which Cervantes was confined.

To the BATANES we went next morning. Their historical importance entitles them to an accurate description. None could be more lucid than that of my companion. 'These clumsy, ancient machines are composed of a couple of huge wooden mallets, slung in a timber framework, which, being pushed out of the perpendicular by knobs on a water-wheel, clash back again alternately in two troughs, pounding severely whatever may be put in between the face of the mallet and the end of the trough into which the water runs.'

It will be remembered that, after a copious meal, Sancho having neglected to replenish the gourd, both he and his master suffered greatly from thirst. It was now 'so dark,' says the history, 'that they could see nothing; but they had not gone two hundred paces when a great noise of water reached their ears. . . . The sound rejoiced them exceedingly; and, stopping to listen from whence it came, they heard on a sudden another dreadful noise, which abated their pleasure occasioned by that of the water, especially Sancho's. . . . They heard a dreadful din of irons and chains rattling across one another, and giving mighty strokes in time and measure which, together with the furious noise of the water, would have struck terror into any other heart than that of Don Quixote.' For him it was but an opportunity for some valorous achievement. So, having braced on his buckler and mounted Rosinante, he brandished his spear, and explained to his trembling squire that by the will of Heaven he was reserved for deeds which would obliterate the memory of the Platirs, Tablantes, the Olivantes, and Belianesas, with the whole tribe of the famous knights-errant of times past.

'Wherefore, straighten Rosinante's girths a little,' said he, 'and God be with you. Stay for me here three days, and no more; if I do not return in that time you may go to Toboso, where you shall say to my incomparable Lady Dulcinea that her enthralled knight died in attempting things that might have made him worthy to be styled "hers."'

Sancho, more terrified than ever at the thoughts of being left alone, reminded his master that it was unwise to tempt God by undertaking exploits from which there was no escaping but by a miracle; and, in order to emphasize this very sensible remark, secretly tied Rosinante's hind legs together with his halter. Seeing the success of his contrivance, he said: 'Ah, sir! behold how Heaven, moved by my tears and prayers, has ordained that Rosinante cannot go,' and then warned him not to set Providence at defiance. Still Sancho was much too frightened by the infernal clatter to relax his hold of the knight's saddle. For some time he strove to beguile his own fears with a very long story about the goatherd Lope Ruiz, who was in love with the shepherdess Torralva - 'a jolly, strapping wench, a little scornful, and somewhat masculine.' Now, whether owing to the cold of the morning, which was at hand, or whether to some lenitive diet on which he had supped, it so befell that Sancho . . . what nobody could do for him. The truth is, the honest fellow was overcome by panic, and under no circumstances would, or did, he for one instant leave his master's side. Nay, when the knight spurred his steed and found it could not move, Sancho reminded him that the attempt was useless, since Rosinante was restrained by enchantment. This the knight readily admitted, but stoutly protested that he himself was anything but enchanted by the close proximity of his squire.

We all remember the grave admonitions of Don Quixote, and the ingenious endeavours of Sancho to lay the blame upon the knight. But the final words of the Don contain a moral apposite to so many other important situations, that they must not be omitted here. 'Apostare, replico Sancho, que pensa vuestra merced que yo he hecho de mi persona alguna cosa que no deba.' 'I will lay a wager,' replied Sancho, 'that your worship thinks that I have &c.' The brief, but memorable, answer was: 'Peor es meneallo, amigo Sancho,' which, as no translation could do justice to it, must be left as it stands. QUIETA NON MOVERE.

We were nearly meeting with an adventure here. While I was busy making a careful drawing of the BATANES, Cayley's pony was as much alarmed by the rushing waters as had been Sancho Panza. In his endeavours to picket the animal, my friend dropped a pistol which I had lent him to practise with, although he carried a revolver of his own. Not till he had tied up the pony at some little distance did he discover the loss. In vain he searched the spot where he knew the pistol must have escaped from his FAJA. Near it, three rough- looking knaves in shaggy goatskin garments, with guns over their shoulders, were watching the progress of my sketch. On his return Cayley asked two of these (the third moved away as he came up) whether they had seen the pistol. They declared they had not; upon which he said he must search them. He was not a man to be trifled with, and although they refused at first, they presently submitted. He then overtook the third, and at once accused him of the theft. The man swore he knew nothing of the lost weapon, and brought his gun to the charge. As he did so, Cayley caught sight of the pistol under the fellow's sheepskin jacket, and with characteristic promptitude seized it, while he presented a revolver at the thief's head. All this he told me with great glee a minute or two later.

When we got back to Argamasilla the Medico was already awaiting us. He conducted us to the house of the Quijanas, where an old woman-servant, lamp in hand, showed the way down a flight of steps into the dungeon. It was a low vaulted chamber, eight feet high, ten broad, and twenty-four long, dimly lighted by a lancet window six feet from the ground. She confidently informed us that Cervantes was in the habit of writing at the farthest end, and that he was allowed a lamp for the purpose. We accepted the information with implicit faith; silently picturing on our mental retinas the image of him whose genius had brightened the dark hours of millions for over three hundred years. One could see the spare form of the man of action pacing up and down his cell, unconscious of prison walls, roaming in spirit through the boundless realms of Fancy, his piercing eyes intent upon the conjured visions of his brain. One noted his vast expanse of brow, his short, crisp, curly hair, his high cheek-bones and singularly high-bridged nose, his refined mouth, small projecting chin and pointed beard. One noticed, too, as he turned, the stump of the left wrist clasped by the remaining hand. Who could stand in such a presence and fail to bow with veneration before this insulted greatness! Potentates pass like Ozymandias, but not the men who, through the ages, help to save us from this tread-mill world, and from ourselves.

We visited Cuenca, Segovia, and many an out-of-the-way spot. If it be true, as Don Quixote declares, that 'No hay libro tan malo que no tenga alguna cosa buena' ('there is no book so worthless that has not some good in it'), still more true is this of a country like Spain. And the pleasantest places are just those which only by-roads lead to. In and near the towns every other man, if not by profession still by practice, is a beggar. From the seedy-looking rascal in the street, of whom you incautiously ask the way, and who piteously whines 'para zapatos' - for the wear and tear of shoe leather, to the highest official, one and all hold out their hands for the copper CUARTO or the eleemosynary sinecure. As it was then, so is it now; the Government wants support, and it is always to be had, at a price; deputies always want 'places.' For every duty the functionary performs, or ought to perform, he receives his bribe. The Government is too poor to keep him honest, but his POUR- BOIRES are not measured by his scruples. All is winked at, if the Ministry secures a vote.

Away in the pretty rural districts, in the little villages amid the woods and the mountains, with their score or so of houses and their little chapel with its tinkling old bell and its poverty-stricken curate, the hard-working, simple-minded men are too proud and too honest to ask for more than a pinch of tobacco for the CIGARILLO. The maidens are comely, and as chaste as - can reasonably be expected.

Madrid is worth visiting - not for its bull-fights, which are disgusting proofs of man's natural brutality, but for its picture gallery. No one knows what Velasquez could do, or has done, till he has seen Madrid; and Charles V. was practically master of Europe when the collection was in his hands. The Escurial's chief interests are in its associations with Charles V. and Philip II. In the dark and gloomy little bedroom of the latter is a small window opening into the church, so that the King could attend the services in bed if necessary.

It cannot be said of Philip that he was nothing if not religious, for Nero even was not a more indefatigable murderer, nor a more diabolical specimen of cruelty and superstition. The very thought of the wretch tempts one to revolt at human piety, at any rate where priestcraft and its fabrications are at the bottom of it.

When at Madrid we met Mr. Arthur Birch. He had been with Cayley at Eton, as captain of the school. While we were together, he received and accepted the offer of an Eton mastership. We were going by diligence to Toledo, and Birch agreed to go with us. I mention the fact because the place reminds me of a clever play upon its name by the Eton scholar. Cayley bought a Toledo sword-blade, and asked Birch for a motto to engrave upon it. In a minute or two he hit off this: TIMETOLETUM, which reads Time Toletum=Honour Toledo, or Timeto Letum=Fear death. Cayley's attempts, though not so neat, were not bad. Here are a couple of them:-

Though slight I am, no slight I stand, Saying my master's sleight of hand.

or:-

Come to the point; unless you do, The point will shortly come to you.

Birch got the Latin poem medal at Cambridge the same year that Cayley got the English one.

Before we set forth again upon our gipsy tramp, I received a letter from Mr. Ellice bidding me hasten home to contest the Borough of Cricklade in the General Election of 1852. Under these circumstances we loitered but little on the Northern roads. At the end of May we reached Yrun. Here we sold our ponies - now quite worn out - for twenty-three dollars - about five guineas. So that a thousand miles of locomotion had cost us a little over five guineas apiece. Not counting hotels at Madrid and such smart places, our daily cost for selves and ponies rarely exceeded six pesetas, or three shillings each all told. The best of it was, the trip restored the health of my friend.



CHAPTER XXXV



IN February of this year, 1852, Lord Palmerston, aided by an incongruous force of Peelites and Protectionists, turned Lord John Russell out of office on his Militia Bill. Lord Derby, with Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, came into power on a cry for Protection.

Not long after my return to England, I was packed off to canvas the borough of Cricklade. It was then a very extensive borough, including a large agricultural district, as well as Swindon, the headquarters of the Great Western Railway. For many years it had returned two Conservative members, Messrs. Nield and Goddard. It was looked upon as an impregnable Tory stronghold, and the fight was little better than a forlorn hope.

My headquarters were at Coleshill, Lord Radnor's. The old lord had, in his Parliamentary days, been a Radical; hence, my advanced opinions found great favour in his eyes. My programme was - Free Trade, Vote by Ballot, and Disestablishment. Two of these have become common-places (one perhaps effete), and the third is nearer to accomplishment than it was then.

My first acquaintance with a constituency, amongst whom I worked enthusiastically for six weeks, was comic enough. My instructions were to go to Swindon; there an agent, whom I had never seen, would join me. A meeting of my supporters had been arranged by him, and I was to make my maiden speech in the market-place.

My address, it should be stated - ultra-Radical, of course - was mainly concocted for me by Mr. Cayley, an almost rabid Tory, and then member for the North Riding of Yorkshire, but an old Parliamentary hand; and, in consequence of my attachment to his son, at that time and until his death, like a father to me.

When the train stopped at Swindon, there was a crowd of passengers, but not a face that I knew; and it was not till all but one or two had left, that a business-looking man came up and asked if I were the candidate for Cricklade. He told me that a carriage was in attendance to take us up to the town; and that a procession, headed by a band, was ready to accompany us thither. The procession was formed mainly of the Great Western boiler-makers and artisans. Their enthusiasm seemed slightly disproportioned to the occasion; and the vigour of the brass, and especially of the big drum, so filled my head with visions of Mr. Pickwick and his friend the Honourable Samuel Slumkey, that by the time I reached the market-place, I had forgotten every syllable of the speech which I had carefully learnt by heart. Nor was it the band alone that upset me; going up the hill the carriage was all but capsized by the frightened horses and the breaking of the pole. The gallant boiler-makers, however, at once removed the horses, and dragged the carriage with cheers of defiance into the crowd awaiting us.

My agent had settled that I was to speak from a window of the hotel. The only available one was an upper window, the lower sash of which could not be persuaded to keep up without being held. The consequence was, just as I was getting over the embarrassment of extemporary oration, down came the sash and guillotined me. This put the crowd in the best of humours; they roared with laughter, and after that we got on capitally together.

A still more inopportune accident happened to me later in the day, when speaking at Shrivenham. A large yard enclosed by buildings was chosen for the meeting. The difficulty was to elevate the speaker above the heads of the assembly. In one corner of the yard was a water-butt. An ingenious elector got a board, placed it on the top of the butt - which was full of water - and persuaded me to make this my rostrum. Here, again, in the midst of my harangue - perhaps I stamped to emphasize my horror of small loaves and other Tory abominations - the board gave way; and I narrowly escaped a ducking by leaping into the arms of a 'supporter.'

The end of it all was that my agent at the last moment threw up the sponge. The farmers formed a serried phalanx against Free Trade; it was useless to incur the expense of a poll. Then came the bill. It was a heavy one; for in addition to my London agent - a professional electioneering functionary - were the local agents at towns like Malmesbury, Wootton Bassett, Shrivenham, &c., &c. My eldest brother, who was a soberer-minded politician than I, although very liberal to me in other ways, declined to support my political opinions. I myself was quite unable to pay the costs. Knowing this, Lord Radnor called me into his study as I was leaving Coleshill, and expressed himself warmly with respect to my labours; regretting the victory of the other side, he declared that, as the question of Protection would be disposed of, one of the two seats would be safe upon a future contest.

'And who,' asked the old gentleman, with a benevolent grin on his face, 'who is going to pay your expenses?'

'Goodness knows, sir,' said I; 'I hope they won't come down upon me. I haven't a thousand pounds in the world, unless I tap my fortune.'

'Well,' said his Lordship, with a chuckle, 'I haven't paid my subscription to Brooks's yet, so I'll hand it over to you,' and he gave me a cheque for 500 pounds.

The balance was obtained through Mr. Ellice from the patronage Secretary to the Treasury. At the next election, as Lord Radnor predicted, Lord Ashley, Lord Shaftesbury's eldest son, won one of the two seats for the Liberals with the greatest ease.

As Coleshill was an open house to me from that time as long as Lord Radnor lived, I cannot take leave of the dear old man without an affectionate word at parting. Creevey has an ill- natured fling at him, as he has at everybody else, but a kinder-hearted and more perfect gentleman would be difficult to meet with. His personality was a marked one. He was a little man, with very plain features, a punch-like nose, an extensive mouth, and hardly a hair on his head. But in spite of these peculiarities, his face was pleasant to look at, for it was invariably animated by a sweet smile, a touch of humour, and a decided air of dignity. Born in 1779, he dressed after the orthodox Whig fashion of his youth, in buff and blue, his long-tailed coat reaching almost to his heels. His manner was a model of courtesy and simplicity. He used antiquated expressions: called London 'Lunnun,' Rome 'Room,' a balcony a 'balcony'; he always spoke of the clergyman as the 'pearson,' and called his daughter Lady Mary, 'Meary.' Instead of saying 'this day week' he would say this day sen'nit' (for sen'night).

The independence of his character was very noticeable. As an instance: A party of twenty people, say, would be invited for a given day. Abundance of carriages would be sent to meet the trains, so that all the guests would arrive in ample time for dinner. It generally happened that some of them, not knowing the habits of the house, or some duchess or great lady who might assume that clocks were made for her and not she for clocks, would not appear in the drawing-room till a quarter of an hour after the dinner gong had sounded. If anyone did so, he or she would find that everybody else had got through soup and fish. If no one but Lady Mary had been down when dinner was announced, his Lordship would have offered his arm to his daughter, and have taken his seat at the table alone. After the first night, no one was ever late. In the morning he read prayers to the household before breakfast with the same precise punctuality.

Lady Mary Bouverie, his unmarried daughter, was the very best of hostesses. The house under her management was the perfection of comfort. She married an old and dear friend of mine, Sir James Wilde, afterwards the Judge, Lord Penzance. I was his 'best man.'

My 'Ride over the Rocky Mountains' was now published; and, as the field was a new one, the writer was rewarded, for a few weeks, with invitations to dinner, and the usual tickets for 'drums' and dances. To my astonishment, or rather to my alarm, I received a letter from the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society (Charles Fox, or perhaps Sir George Simpson had, I think, proposed me - I never knew), to say that I had been elected a member. Nothing was further from my ambition. The very thought shrivelled me with a sense of ignorance and insignificance. I pictured to myself an assembly of old fogies crammed with all the 'ologies. I broke into a cold perspiration when I fancied myself called upon to deliver a lecture on the comparative sea-bottomy of the Oceanic globe, or give my theory of the simultaneous sighting by 'little Billee' of ' Madagascar, and North, and South Amerikee.' Honestly, I had not the courage to accept; and, young Jackanapes as I was, left the Secretary's letter unanswered.

But a still greater honour - perhaps the greatest compliment I ever had paid me - was to come. I had lodgings at this time in an old house, long since pulled down, in York Street. One day, when I was practising the fiddle, who should walk into my den but Rogers the poet! He had never seen me in his life. He was in his ninetieth year, and he had climbed the stairs to the first floor to ask me to one of his breakfast parties. To say nothing of Rogers' fame, his wealth, his position in society, those who know what his cynicism and his worldliness were, will understand what such an effort, physical and moral, must have cost him. He always looked like a death's head, but his ghastly pallor, after that Alpine ascent, made me feel as if he had come - to stay.

These breakfasts were entertainments of no ordinary distinction. The host himself was of greater interest than the most eminent of his guests. All but he, were more or less one's contemporaries: Rogers, if not quite as dead as he looked, was ancient history. He was old enough to have been the father of Byron, of Shelley, of Keats, and of Moore. He was several years older than Scott, or Wordsworth, or Coleridge, and only four years younger than Pitt. He had known all these men, and could, and did, talk as no other could talk, of all of them. Amongst those whom I met at these breakfasts were Cornewall Lewis, Delane, the Grotes, Macaulay, Mrs. Norton, Monckton Milnes, William Harcourt (the only one younger than myself), but just beginning to be known, and others of scarcely less note.

During the breakfast itself, Rogers, though seated at table in an armchair, took no part either in the repast or in the conversation; he seemed to sleep until the meal was over. His servant would then place a cup of coffee before him, and, like a Laputian flapper, touch him gently on the shoulder. He would at once begin to talk, while others listened. The first time I witnessed this curious resurrection, I whispered something to my neighbour, at which he laughed. The old man's eye was too sharp for us.

'You are laughing at me,' said he; 'I dare say you young gentlemen think me an old fellow; but there are younger than I who are older. You should see Tommy Moore. I asked him to breakfast, but he's too weak - weak here, sir,' and he tapped his forehead. 'I'm not that.' (This was the year that Moore died.) He certainly was not; but his whole discourse was of the past. It was as though he would not condescend to discuss events or men of the day. What were either to the days and men that he had known - French revolutions, battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo, a Nelson and a Buonaparte, a Pitt, a Burke, a Fox, a Johnson, a Gibbon, a Sheridan, and all the men of letters and all the poets of a century gone by? Even Macaulay had for once to hold his tongue; and could only smile impatiently at what perhaps he thought an old man's astonishing garrulity. But if a young and pretty woman talked to him, it was not his great age that he vaunted, nor yet the 'pleasures of memory' - one envied the adroitness of his flattery, and the gracefulness of his repartee.

My friend George Cayley had a couple of dingy little rooms between Parliament Street and the river. Much of my time was spent there with him. One night after dinner, quite late, we were building castles amidst tobacco clouds, when, following a 'May I come in?' Tennyson made his appearance. This was the first time I had ever met him. We gave him the only armchair in the room; and pulling out his dudeen and placing afoot on each side of the hob of the old-fashioned little grate, he made himself comfortable before he said another word. He then began to talk of pipes and tobacco. And never, I should say, did this important topic afford so much ingenious conversation before. We discussed the relative merits of all the tobaccos in the world - of moist tobacco and dry tobacco, of old tobacco and new tobacco, of clay pipes and wooden pipes and meerschaum pipes. What was the best way to colour them, the advantages of colouring them, the beauty of the 'culotte,' the coolness it gave to the smoke, &c. We listened to the venerable sage - he was then forty-three and we only five or six and twenty - as we should have listened to a Homer or an Aristotle, and he thoroughly enjoyed our appreciation of his jokes.

Some of them would have startled such of his admirers who knew him only by his poems; for his stories were anything but poetical - rather humorous one might say, on the whole. Here's one of them: he had called last week on the Duchess of Sutherland at Stafford House. Her two daughters were with her, the Duchess of Argyll and the beautiful Lady Constance Grosvenor, afterwards Duchess of Westminster. They happened to be in the garden. After strolling about for a while, the Mama Duchess begged him to recite some of his poetry. He chose 'Come into the garden, Maud' - always a favourite of the poet's, and, as may be supposed, many were the fervid exclamations of 'How beautiful!' When they came into the house, a princely groom of the chambers caught his eye and his ear, and, pointing to his own throat, courteously whispered: 'Your dress is not quite as you would wish it, sir.'

'I had come out without a necktie; and there I was, spouting my lines to the three Graces, as DECOLLETE as a strutting turkey cock.'

The only other allusion to poetry or literature that night was a story I told him of a Mr. Thomas Wrightson, a Yorkshire banker, and a fanatical Swedenborgian. Tommy Wrightson, who was one of the most amiable and benevolent of men, spent his life in making a manuscript transcript of Swedenborg's works. His writing was a marvel of calligraphic art; he himself, a curiosity. Swedenborg was for him an avatar; but if he had doubted of Tennyson's ultimate apotheosis, I think he would have elected to seek him in 'the other place.' Anyhow, Mr. Wrightson avowed to me that he repeated 'Locksley Hall' every morning of his life before breakfast. This I told Tennyson. His answer was a grunt; and in a voice from his boots, 'Ugh! enough to make a dog sick!' I did my utmost to console him with the assurance that, to the best of my belief, Mr. Wrightson had once fallen through a skylight.

As illustrating the characters of the admired and his admirer, it may be related that the latter, wishing for the poet's sign-manual, wrote and asked him for it. He addressed Tennyson, whom he had never seen, as 'My dear Alfred.' The reply, which he showed to me, was addressed 'My dear Tom.'



CHAPTER XXXVI



MY stepfather, Mr. Ellice, having been in two Ministries - Lord Grey's in 1830, and Lord Melbourne's in 1834 - had necessarily a large parliamentary acquaintance; and as I could always dine at his house in Arlington Street when I pleased, I had constant opportunities of meeting most of the prominent Whig politicians, and many other eminent men of the day. One of the dinner parties remains fresh in my memory - not because of the distinguished men who happened to be there, but because of the statesman whose name has since become so familiar to the world.

Some important question was before the House in which Mr. Ellice was interested, and upon which he intended to speak. This made him late for dinner, but he had sent word that his son was to take his place, and the guests were not to wait. When he came Lord John Russell greeted him with -

'Well, Ellice, who's up?'

'A younger son of Salisbury's,' was the reply; 'Robert Cecil, making his maiden speech. If I hadn't been in a hurry I should have stopped to listen to him. Unless I am very much mistaken, he'll make his mark, and we shall hear more of him.'

There were others dining there that night whom it is interesting to recall. The Grotes were there. Mrs. Grote, scarcely less remarkable than her husband; Lord Mahon, another historian (who married a niece of Mr. Ellice's), Lord Brougham, and two curious old men both remarkable, if for nothing else, for their great age. One was George Byng, father of the first Lord Strafford, and 'father' of the House of Commons; the other Sir Robert Adair, who was Ambassador at Constantinople when Byron was there. Old Mr. Byng looked as aged as he was, and reminded one of Mr. Smallweed doubled up in his porter's chair. Quite different was his compeer. We were standing in the recess of the drawing-room window after dinner when Sir Robert said to me:

'Very shaky, isn't he! Ah! he was my fag at Eton, and I've got the best of it still.'

Brougham having been twice in the same Government with Mr. Ellice, and being devoted to young Mrs. Edward Ellice, his charming daughter-in-law, was a constant visitor at 18 Arlington Street. Mrs. Ellice often told me of his peculiarities, which must evidently have been known to others. Walter Bagehot, speaking of him, says:

'Singular stories of eccentricity and excitement, even of something more than either of these, darken these latter years.'

What Mrs. Ellice told me was, that she had to keep a sharp watch on Lord Brougham if he sat near her writing-table while he talked to her; for if there was any pretty little knick- knack within his reach he would, if her head were turned, slip it into his pocket. The truth is perhaps better than the dark hint, for certainly we all laughed at it as nothing but eccentricity.

But the man who interested me most (for though when in the Navy I had heard a hundred legends of his exploits, I had never seen him before) was Lord Dundonald. Mr. Ellice presented me to him, and the old hero asked why I had left the Navy.

'The finest service in the world; and likely, begad, to have something to do before long.'

This was only a year before the Crimean war. With his strong rough features and tousled mane, he looked like a grey lion. One expected to see him pick his teeth with a pocket boarding-pike.

The thought of the old sailor always brings before me the often mooted question raised by the sentimentalists and humanitarians concerning the horrors of war. Not long after this time, the papers - the sentimentalist papers - were furious with Lord Dundonald for suggesting the adoption by the Navy of a torpedo which he himself, I think, had invented. The bare idea of such wholesale slaughter was revolting to a Christian world. He probably did not see much difference between sinking a ship with a torpedo, and firing a shell into her magazine; and likely enough had as much respect for the opinions of the woman-man as he had for the man-woman.

There is always a large number of people in the world who suffer from emotional sensitiveness and susceptibility to nervous shocks of all kinds. It is curious to observe the different and apparently unallied forms in which these characteristics manifest themselves. With some, they exhibit extreme repugnance to the infliction of physical pain for whatever end; with others there seems to be a morbid dread of violated pudicity. Strangely enough the two phases are frequently associated in the same individual. Both tendencies are eminently feminine; the affinity lies in a hysterical nature. Thus, excessive pietism is a frequent concomitant of excessive sexual passion; this, though notably the case with women, is common enough with men of unduly neurotic temperaments.

Only the other day some letters appeared in the 'Times' about the flogging of boys in the Navy. And, as a sentimental argument against it, we were told by the Humanitarian Leaguers that it is 'obscene.' This is just what might be expected, and bears out the foregoing remarks. But such saintly simplicity reminds us of the kind of squeamishness of which our old acquaintance Mephisto observes:

Man darf das nicht vor keuschen Ohren nennen, Was keusche Herzen nicht entbehren konnen.

(Chaste ears find nothing but the devil in What nicest fancies love to revel in.)

The same astute critic might have added:

And eyes demure that look away when seen, Lose ne'er a chance to peep behind the screen.

It is all of a piece. We have heard of the parlour-maid who fainted because the dining-table had 'ceder legs,' but never before that a 'switching' was 'obscene.' We do not envy the unwholesomeness of a mind so watchful for obscenity.

Be that as it may, so far as humanity is concerned, this hypersensitive effeminacy has but a noxious influence; and all the more for the twofold reason that it is sometimes sincere, though more often mere cant and hypocrisy. At the best, it is a perversion of the truth; for emotion combined with ignorance, as it is in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, is a serious obstacle in the path of rational judgment.

Is sentimentalism on the increase? It seems to be so, if we are to judge by a certain portion of the Press, and by speeches in Parliament. But then, this may only mean that the propensity finds easier means of expression than it did in the days of dearer paper and fewer newspapers, and also that speakers find sentimental humanity an inexhaustible fund for political capital. The excess of emotional attributes in man over his reasoning powers must, one would think, have been at least as great in times past as it is now. Yet it is doubtful whether it showed itself then so conspicuously as it does at present. Compare the Elizabethan age with our own. What would be said now of the piratical deeds of such men as Frobisher, Raleigh, Gilbert, and Richard Greville? Suppose Lord Roberts had sent word to President Kruger that if four English soldiers, imprisoned at Pretoria, were molested, he would execute 2,000 Boers and send him their heads? The clap-trap cry of 'Barbaric Methods' would have gone forth to some purpose; it would have carried every constituency in the country. Yet this is what Drake did when four English sailors were captured by the Spaniards, and imprisoned by the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico.

Take the Elizabethan drama, and compare it with ours. What should we think of our best dramatist if, in one of his tragedies, a man's eyes were plucked out on the stage, and if he that did it exclaimed as he trampled on them, 'Out, vile jelly! where is thy lustre now?' or of a Titus Andronicus cutting two throats, while his daughter ''tween her stumps doth hold a basin to receive their blood'?

'Humanity,' says Taine, speaking of these times, 'is as much lacking as decency. Blood, suffering, does not move them.'

Heaven forbid that we should return to such brutality! I cite these passages merely to show how times are changed; and to suggest that with the change there is a decided loss of manliness. Are men more virtuous, do they love honour more, are they more chivalrous, than the Miltons, the Lovelaces, the Sidneys of the past? Are the women chaster or more gentle? No; there is more puritanism, but not more true piety. It is only the outside of the cup and the platter that are made clean, the inward part is just as full of wickedness, and all the worse for its hysterical fastidiousness.

To what do we owe this tendency? Are we degenerating morally as well as physically? Consider the physical side of the question. Fifty years ago the standard height for admission to the army was five feet six inches. It is now lowered to five feet. Within the last ten years the increase in the urban population has been nearly three and a half millions. Within the same period the increase in the rural population is less than a quarter of one million. Three out of five recruits for the army are rejected; a large proportion of them because their teeth are gone or decayed. Do these figures need comment? Can you look for sound minds in such unsound bodies? Can you look for manliness, for self- respect, and self-control, or anything but animalistic sentimentality?

It is not the character of our drama or of our works of fiction that promotes and fosters this propensity; but may it not be that the enormous increase in the number of theatres, and the prodigious supply of novels, may have a share in it, by their exorbitant appeal to the emotional, and hence neurotic, elements of our nature? If such considerations apply mainly to dwellers in overcrowded towns, there is yet another cause which may operate on those more favoured, - the vast increase in wealth and luxury. Wherever these have grown to excess, whether in Babylon, or Nineveh, or Thebes, or Alexandria, or Rome, they have been the symptoms of decadence, and forerunners of the nation's collapse.

Let us be humane, let us abhor the horrors of war, and strain our utmost energies to avert them. But we might as well forbid the use of surgical instruments as the weapons that are most destructive in warfare. If a limb is rotting with gangrene, shall it not be cut away? So if the passions which occasion wars are inherent in human nature, we must face the evil stout-heartedly; and, for one, I humbly question whether any abolition of dum-dum bullets or other attempts to mitigate this disgrace to humanity, do, in the end, more good than harm.

It is elsewhere that we must look for deliverance, - to the overwhelming power of better educated peoples; to closer intercourse between the nations; to the conviction that, from the most selfish point of view even, peace is the only path to prosperity; to the restraint of the baser Press which, for mere pelf, spurs the passions of the multitude instead of curbing them; and, finally, to deliverance from the 'all- potent wills of Little Fathers by Divine right,' and from the ignoble ambition of bullet-headed uncles and brothers and cousins - a curse from which England, thank the Gods! is, and let us hope, ever will be, free. But there are more countries than one that are not so - just now; and the world may ere long have to pay the bitter penalty.



CHAPTER XXXVII



IT is curious if one lives long enough to watch the change of taste in books. I have no lending-library statistics at hand, but judging by the reading of young people, or of those who read merely for their amusement, the authors they patronise are nearly all living or very recent. What we old stagers esteemed as classical in fiction and BELLES-LETTRES are sealed books to the present generation. It is an exception, for instance, to meet with a young man or young woman who has read Walter Scott. Perhaps Balzac's reason is the true one. Scott, says he, 'est sans passion; il l'ignore, ou peut-etre lui etait-elle interdite par les moeurs hypocrites de son pays. Pour lui la femme est le devoir incarne. A de rares exceptions pres, ses heroines sont absolument les memes ... La femme porte le desordre dans la societe par la passion. La passion a des accidents infinis. Peignez donc les passions, vous aurez les sources immenses dont s'est prive ce grand genie pour etre lu dans toutes les familles de la prude Angleterre.' Does not Thackeray lament that since Fielding no novelist has dared to face the national affectation of prudery? No English author who valued his reputation would venture to write as Anatole France writes, even if he could. Yet I pity the man who does not delight in the genius that created M. Bergeret.

A well-known author said to me the other day, he did not believe that Thackeray himself would be popular were he writing now for the first time - not because of his freedom, but because the public taste has altered. No present age can predict immortality for the works of its day; yet to say that what is intrinsically good is good for all time is but a truism. The misfortune is that much of the best in literature shares the fate of the best of ancient monuments and noble cities; the cumulative rubbish of ages buries their splendours, till we know not where to find them. The day may come when the most valuable service of the man of letters will be to unearth the lost treasures and display them, rather than add his grain of dust to the ever-increasing middens.

Is Carlyle forgotten yet, I wonder? How much did my contemporaries owe to him in their youth? How readily we followed a leader so sure of himself, so certain of his own evangel. What an aid to strength to be assured that the true hero is the morally strong man. One does not criticise what one loves; one didn't look too closely into the doctrine that, might is right, for somehow he managed to persuade us that right makes the might - that the strong man is the man who, for the most part, does act rightly. He is not over- patient with human frailty, to be sure, and is apt, as Herbert Spencer found, to fling about his scorn rather recklessly. One fancies sometimes that he has more respect for a genuine bad man than for a sham good one. In fact, his 'Eternal Verities' come pretty much to the same as Darwin's 'Law of the advancement of all organic bodies'; 'let the strong live, and the weakest die.' He had no objection to seeing 'the young cuckoo ejecting its foster-brothers, or ants making slaves.' But he atones for all this by his hatred of cant and hypocrisy. It is for his manliness that we love him, for his honesty, for his indifference to any mortal's approval save that of Thomas Carlyle. He convinces us that right thinking is good, but that right doing is much better. And so it is that he does honour to men of action like his beloved Oliver, and Fritz, - neither of them paragons of wisdom or of goodness, but men of doughty deeds.

Just about this time I narrowly missed a longed-for chance of meeting this hero of my PENATES. Lady Ashburton - Carlyle's Lady Ashburton - knowing my admiration, kindly invited me to The Grange, while he was there. The house was full - mainly of ministers or ex-ministers, - Cornewall Lewis, Sir Charles Wood, Sir James Graham, Albany Fonblanque, Mr. Ellice, and Charles Buller - Carlyle's only pupil; but the great man himself had left an hour before I got there. I often met him afterwards, but never to make his acquaintance. Of course, I knew nothing of his special friendship for Lady Ashburton, which we are told was not altogether shared by Mrs. Carlyle; but I well remember the interest which Lady Ashburton seemed to take in his praise, how my enthusiasm seemed to please her, and how Carlyle and his works were topics she was never tired of discussing.

The South Western line to Alresford was not then made, and I had to post part of the way from London to The Grange. My chaise companion was a man very well known in 'Society'; and though not remarkably popular, was not altogether undistinguished, as the following little tale will attest. Frederick Byng, one of the Torrington branch of the Byngs, was chiefly famous for his sobriquet 'The Poodle'; this he owed to no special merit of his own, but simply to the accident of his thick curly head of hair. Some, who spoke feelingly of the man, used to declare that he had fulfilled the promises of his youth. What happened to him then may perhaps justify the opinion.

The young Poodle was addicted to practical jokes - as usual, more amusing to the player than to the playee. One of his victims happened to be Beau Brummell, who, except when he bade 'George ring the bell,' was as perfect a model of deportment as the great Mr. Turveydrop himself. His studied decorum possibly provoked the playfulness of the young puppy; and amongst other attempts to disturb the Beau's complacency, Master Byng ran a pin into the calf of that gentleman's leg, and then he ran away. A few days later Mr. Brummell, who had carefully dissembled his wrath, invited the unwary youth to breakfast, telling him that he was leaving town, and had a present which his young friend might have, if he chose to fetch it. The boy kept the appointment, and the Beau his promise. After an excellent breakfast, Brummell took a whip from his cupboard, and gave it to the Poodle in a way the young dog was not likely to forget.

The happiest of my days then, and perhaps of my life, were spent at Mr. Ellice's Highland Lodge, at Glenquoich. For sport of all kinds it was and is difficult to surpass. The hills of the deer forest are amongst the highest in Scotland; the scenery of its lake and glens, especially the descent to Loch Hourne, is unequalled. Here were to be met many of the most notable men and women of the time. And as the house was twenty miles from the nearest post-town, and that in turn two days from London, visitors ceased to be strangers before they left. In the eighteen years during which this was my autumn home, I had the good fortune to meet numbers of distinguished people of whom I could now record nothing interesting but their names. Still, it is a privilege to have known such men as John Lawrence, Guizot, Thiers, Landseer, Merimee, Comte de Flahault, Doyle, Lords Elgin and Dalhousie, Duc de Broglie, Pelissier, Panizzi, Motley, Delane, Dufferin; and of gifted women, the three Sheridans, Lady Seymour - the Queen of Beauty, afterwards Duchess of Somerset - Mrs. Norton, and Lady Dufferin. Amongst those who have a retrospective interest were Mr. and Lady Blanche Balfour, parents of Mr. Arthur Balfour, who came there on their wedding tour in 1843. Mr. Arthur Balfour's father was Mrs. Ellice's first cousin.

It would be easy to lengthen the list; but I mention only those who repeated their visits, and who fill up my mental picture of the place and of the life. Some amongst them impressed me quite as much for their amiability - their loveableness, I may say - as for their renown; and regard for them increased with coming years. Panizzi was one of these. Dufferin, who was just my age, would have fascinated anyone with the singular courtesy of his manner. Dicky Doyle was necessarily a favourite with all who knew him. He was a frequent inmate of my house after I married, and was engaged to dine with me, alas! only eight days before he died. Motley was a singularly pleasant fellow. My friendship with him began over a volume of Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures. He asked what I was reading - I handed him the book.

'A-h,' said he, 'there's no mental gymnastic like metaphysics.'

Many a battle we afterwards had over them. When I was at Cannes in 1877 I got a message from him one day saying he was ill, and asking me to come and see him. He did not say how ill, so I put off going. Two days after I heard he was dead.

Merimee's cynicism rather alarmed one. He was a capital caricaturist, though, to our astonishment, he assured us he had never drawn, or used a colour-box, till late in life. He had now learnt to use it, in a way that did not invariably give satisfaction. Landseer always struck me as sensitive and proud, a Diogenes-tempered individual who had been spoilt by the toadyism of great people. He was agreeable if made much of, or almost equally so if others were made little of.

But of all those named, surely John Lawrence was the greatest. I wish I had read his life before it ended. Yet, without knowing anything more of him than that he was Chief Commissioner of the Punjab, which did not convey much to my understanding, one felt the greatness of the man beneath his calm simplicity. One day the party went out for a deer- drive; I was instructed to place Sir John in the pass below mine. To my disquietude he wore a black overcoat. I assured him that not a stag would come within a mile of us, unless he covered himself with a grey plaid, or hid behind a large rock there was, where I assured him he would see nothing.

'Have the deer to pass me before they go on to you?' he asked.

'Certainly they have,' said I; 'I shall be up there above you.'

'Well then,' was his answer, 'I'll get behind the rock - it will be more snug out of the wind.'

One might as well have asked the deer not to see him, as try to persuade John Lawrence not to sacrifice himself for others. That he did so here was certain, for the deer came within fifty yards of him, but he never fired a shot.

Another of the Indian viceroys was the innocent occasion of great discomfort to me, or rather his wife was. Lady Elgin had left behind her a valuable diamond necklace. I was going back to my private tutor at Ely a few days after, and the necklace was entrusted to me to deliver to its owner on my way through London. There was no railway then further north than Darlington, except that between Edinburgh and Glasgow. When I reached Edinburgh by coach from Inverness, my portmanteau was not to be found. The necklace was in a despatch-box in my portmanteau; and by an unlucky oversight, I had put my purse into my despatch-box. What was to be done? I was a lad of seventeen, in a town where I did not know a soul, with seven or eight shillings at most in my pocket. I had to break my journey and to stop where I was till I could get news of the necklace; this alone was clear to me, for the necklace was the one thing I cared for.

At the coach office all the comfort I could get was that the lost luggage might have gone on to Glasgow; or, what was more probable, might have gone astray at Burntisland. It might not have been put on board, or it might not have been taken off the ferry-steamer. This could not be known for twenty- four hours, as there was no boat to or from Burntisland till the morrow. I decided to try Glasgow. A return third-class ticket left me without a copper. I went, found nothing, got back to Edinburgh at 10 P.M., ravenously hungry, dead tired, and so frightened about the necklace that food, bed, means of continuing my journey, were as mere death compared with irreparable dishonour. What would they all think of me? How could I prove that I had not stolen the diamonds? Would Lord Elgin accuse me? How could I have been such an idiot as to leave them in my portmanteau! Some rascal might break it open, and then, goodbye to my chance for ever! Chance? what chance was there of seeing that luggage again? There were so many 'mights.' I couldn't even swear that I had seen it on the coach at Inverness. Oh dear! oh dear! What was to be done? I walked about the streets; I glanced woefully at door-steps, whereon to pass the night; I gazed piteously through the windows of a cheap cook's shop, where solid wedges of baked pudding, that would have stopped digestion for a month, were advertised for a penny a block. How rich should I have been if I had had a penny in my pocket! But I had to turn away in despair.

At last the inspiration came. I remembered hearing Mr. Ellice say that he always put up at Douglas' Hotel when he stayed in Edinburgh. I had very little hope of success, but I was too miserable to hesitate. It was very late, and everybody might be gone to bed. I rang the bell. 'I want to see the landlord.'

'Any name?' the porter asked.

'No.' The landlord came, fat, amiable looking. 'May I speak to you in private?' He showed the way to an unoccupied room. 'I think you know Mr. Ellice?'

'Glenquoich, do you mean?'

'Yes.'

'Oh, very well - he always stays here on his way through.'

'I am his step-son; I left Glenquoich yesterday. I have lost my luggage, and am left without any money. Will you lend me five pounds?' I believe if I were in the same strait now, and entered any strange hotel in the United Kingdom at half- past ten at night, and asked the landlord to give me five pounds upon a similar security, he would laugh in my face, or perhaps give me in charge of a policeman.

My host of Douglas' did neither; but opened both his heart and his pocket-book, and with the greatest good humour handed me the requested sum. What good people there are in this world, which that crusty old Sir Peter Teazle calls 'a d-d wicked one.' I poured out all my trouble to the generous man. He ordered me an excellent supper, and a very nice room. And on the following day, after taking a great deal of trouble, he recovered my lost luggage and the priceless treasure it contained. It was a proud and happy moment when I returned his loan, and convinced him, of what he did not seem to doubt, that I was positively not a swindler.

But the roofless night and the empty belly, consequent on an empty pocket, was a lesson which I trust was not thrown away upon me. It did not occur to me to do so, but I certainly might have picked a pocket, if - well, if I had been brought up to it. Honesty, as I have often thought since, is dirt cheap if only one can afford it.

Before departing from my beloved Glenquoich, I must pay a passing tribute to the remarkable qualities of Mrs. Edward Ellice and of her youngest sister Mrs. Robert Ellice, the mother of the present member for St. Andrews. It was, in a great measure, the bright intelligence, the rare tact, and social gifts of these two ladies that made this beautiful Highland resort so attractive to all comers.



CHAPTER XXXVIII



THE winter of 1854-55 I spent in Rome. Here I made the acquaintance of Leighton, then six-and-twenty. I saw a good deal of him, as I lived almost entirely amongst the artists, taking lessons myself in water colours of Leitch. Music also brought us into contact. He had a beautiful voice, and used to sing a good deal with Mrs. Sartoris - Adelaide Kemble - whom he greatly admired, and whose portrait is painted under a monk's cowl, in the Cimabue procession.

Calling on him one morning, I found him on his knees buttering and rolling up this great picture, preparatory to sending it to the Academy. I made some remark about its unusual size, saying with a sceptical smile, 'It will take up a lot of room.'

'If they ever hang it,' he replied; 'but there's not much chance of that.'

Seeing that his reputation was yet to win, it certainly seemed a bold venture to make so large a demand for space to begin with. He did not appear the least sanguine. But it was accepted; and Prince Albert bought it before the Exhibition opened.

Gibson also I saw much of. He had executed a large alto- rilievo monument of my mother, which is now in my parish church, and the model of which is on the landing of one of the staircases of the National Gallery. His studio was always an interesting lounge, for he was ever ready to lecture upon antique marbles. To listen to him was like reading the 'Laocoon,' which he evidently had at his fingers' ends. My companion through the winter was Mr. Reginald Cholmondeley, a Cambridge ally, who was studying painting. He was the uncle of Miss Cholmondeley the well-known authoress, whose mother, by the way, was a first cousin of George Cayley's, and also a great friend of mine.

On my return to England I took up my abode in Dean's Yard, and shared a house there with Mr. Cayley, the Yorkshire member, and his two sons, the eldest a barrister, and my friend George. Here for several years we had exceedingly pleasant gatherings of men more or less distinguished in literature and art. Tennyson was a frequent visitor - coming late, after dinner hours, to smoke his pipe. He varied a good deal, sometimes not saying a word, but quietly listening to our chatter. Thackeray also used to drop in occasionally.

George Cayley and I, with the assistance of his father and others, had started a weekly paper called 'The Realm.' It was professedly a currency paper, and also supported a fiscal policy advocated by Mr. Cayley and some of his parliamentary clique. Coming in one day, and finding us hard at work, Thackeray asked for information. We handed him a copy of the paper. 'Ah,' he exclaimed, with mock solemnity, '"The Rellum," should be printed on vellum.' He too, like Tennyson, was variable. But this depended on whom he found. In the presence of a stranger he was grave and silent. He would never venture on puerile jokes like this of his 'Rellum' - a frequent playfulness, when at his ease, which contrasted so unexpectedly with his impenetrable exterior. He was either gauging the unknown person, or feeling that he was being gauged. Monckton Milnes was another. Seeing me correcting some proof sheets, he said, 'Let me give you a piece of advice, my young friend. Write as much as you please, but the less you print the better.'

'For me, or for others?'

'For both.'

George Cayley had a natural gift for, and had acquired considerable skill, in the embossing and working of silver ware. Millais so admired his art that he commissioned him to make a large tea-tray; Millais provided the silver. Round the border of the tray were beautifully modelled sea-shells, cray-fish, crabs, and fish of quaint forms, in high relief. Millais was so pleased with the work that he afterwards painted, and presented to Cayley, a fine portrait in his best style of Cayley's son, a boy of six or seven years old.

Laurence Oliphant was one of George Cayley's friends. Attractive as he was in many ways, I had little sympathy with his religious opinions, nor did I comprehend Oliphant's exalted inspirations; I failed to see their practical bearing, and, at that time I am sorry to say, looked upon him as an amiable faddist. A special favourite with both of us was William Stirling of Keir. His great work on the Spanish painters, and his 'Cloister Life of Charles the Fifth,' excited our unbounded admiration, while his BONHOMIE and radiant humour were a delight we were always eager to welcome.

George Cayley and I now entered at Lincoln's Inn. At the end of three years he was duly called to the Bar. I was not; for alas, as usual, something 'turned up,' which drew me in another direction. For a couple of years, however, I 'ate' my terms - not unfrequently with William Harcourt, with whom Cayley had a Yorkshire intimacy even before our Cambridge days.

Old Mr. Cayley, though not the least strait-laced, was a religious man. A Unitarian by birth and conviction, he began and ended the day with family prayers. On Sundays he would always read to us, or make us read to him, a sermon of Channing's, or of Theodore Parker's, or what we all liked better, one of Frederick Robertson's. He was essentially a good man. He had been in Parliament all his life, and was a broad-minded, tolerant, philosophical man-of-the-world. He had a keen sense of humour, and was rather sarcastical; but, for all that, he was sensitively earnest, and conscientious. I had the warmest affection and respect for him. Such a character exercised no small influence upon our conduct and our opinions, especially as his approval or disapproval of these visibly affected his own happiness.

He was never easy unless he was actively engaged in some benevolent scheme, the promotion of some charity, or in what he considered his parliamentary duties, which he contrived to make very burdensome to his conscience. As his health was bad, these self-imposed obligations were all the more onerous; but he never spared himself, or his somewhat scanty means. Amongst other minor tasks, he used to teach at the Sunday-school of St. John's, Westminster; in this he persuaded me to join him. The only other volunteer, not a clergyman, was Page Wood - a great friend of Mr. Cayley's - afterwards Lord Chancellor Hatherley. In spite of Mr. Cayley's Unitarianism, like Frederick the Great, he was all for letting people 'go to Heaven in their own way,' and was moreover quite ready to help them in their own way. So that he had no difficulty in hearing the boys repeat the day's collect, or the Creed, even if Athanasian, in accordance with the prescribed routine of the clerical teachers.

This was right, at all events for him, if he thought it right. My spirit of nonconformity did not permit me to follow his example. Instead thereof, my teaching was purely secular. I used to take a volume of Mrs. Marcet's 'Conversations' in my pocket; and with the aid of the diagrams, explain the application of the mechanical forces, - the inclined plane, the screw, the pulley, the wedge, and the lever. After two or three Sundays my class was largely increased, for the children keenly enjoyed their competitive examinations. I would also give them bits of poetry to get by heart for the following Sunday - lines from Gray's 'Elegy,' from Wordsworth, from Pope's 'Essay on Man' - such in short as had a moral rather than a religious tendency.

After some weeks of this, the boys becoming clamorous in their zeal to correct one another, one of the curates left his class to hear what was going on in mine. We happened at the moment to be dealing with geography. The curate, evidently shocked, went away and brought another curate. Then the two together departed, and brought back the rector - Dr. Jennings, one of the Westminster Canons - a most kind and excellent man. I went on as if unconscious of the censorship, the boys exerting themselves all the more eagerly for the sake of the 'gallery.' When the hour was up, Canon Jennings took me aside, and in the most polite manner thanked me for my 'valuable assistance,' but did not think that the 'Essay on Man,' or especially geography, was suited for the teaching in a Sunday-school. I told him I knew it was useless to contend with so high a canonical authority; personally I did not see the impiety of geography, but then, as he already knew, I was a confirmed latitudinarian. He clearly did not see the joke, but intimated that my services would henceforth be dispensed with.