Faces and Places Part 3

A few minutes later the distinguished vehicle itself--a plain, dark-blue brougham, drawn by a finely bred bay mare--drove into the yard, and, taking up its position a little on one side of the entrance to the Hall, became the object of curious and respectful consideration.

As the great clock boomed four strokes, the doors of the Court opened, and the privileged few who had been present at the day's proceedings issued forth.

The excitement increased as the Court emptied, culminating when, after a brief lull, the Claimant himself appeared, and waddled down the living lane that marked the route to his carriage. There was much cheering and a great amount of pocket-handkerchief waving, which "Sir Roger" acknowledged by raising his hat and smiling that "smile of peculiar sweetness and grace" which Dr. Kenealy brought under the notice of the three judges and a special jury. As the Claimant walked through the doorway, closely followed by the Inspector, the policemen on guard suddenly closed the doors, and the public within Westminster Hall found themselves netted and hopelessly frustrated in what was evidently their intention of rus.h.i.+ng out and sharing the outside crowd's privilege of staring at the Claimant, as he actually stepped into his carriage.

The outside throng in Palace Yard, meanwhile, made the most of their special privilege, crowding round "Sir Roger" and cheering in a manner that made the bay mare plunge and rear. With the least possible delay, the Claimant is got into the brougham, the door is banged to, and the bay mare is driven swiftly through the Yard, the crowd closing in behind. But when they reach the gates, and essay to pa.s.s and flood the streets beyond, where the gigantic umbrella of the aged gentleman looms uplifted over the shoulders of the line of police like the section of a windmill sail, the iron gates are swung to, and this, the second and larger portion of the crowd, is likewise safely trapped, and can gaze upon the retreating brougham only through iron bars that, in this instance at least, "do make a cage." There are not many people outside, for it is hard to catch even a pa.s.sing glimpse of the occupant of the carriage as it drives swiftly westward to Pimlico, finally pulling up in a broad street of a severely respectable appearance, not to be marred even by the near contiguity of Millbank convict prison.

Here also is a crowd, though only a small one, and select to wit, being composed chiefly of well-dressed ladies, forming part of a band of pilgrims who daily walked up and down the street, waiting and watching the outgoing and incoming of "Sir Roger." They are rewarded by the polite upraising of "Sir Roger's" hat, and a further diffusion of the sweet and gracious smile; and having seen the door shut upon the portly form, and having watched the brougham drive off, they, too, go their way, and the drama is over for the day.

But the crowd in and about Palace Yard have not accomplished their mission when they have seen the blue brougham fade in the distance.

There is the "Doctor" to come yet, and all the cheering has to be repeated, even with added volume of sound. When the Claimant has got clear away, and the crowd have had a moment or two of breathing-time, the "Doctor" walks forth from the counsels'

entrance, and is received with a burst of cheering and clapping of hands, which, "just like Sir Roger", he acknowledges by raising his hat, but, unlike him, permits no trace of a smile to illumine his face. Without looking right or left, the "Doctor" walks northward, raising his hat as he pa.s.ses the caged and cheering crowd in Palace Yard. With the same grave countenance, not moved in the slightest degree by the comical effect of the big men in the crowd at his heels waving their hats over his head, the "Doctor"

crosses Bridge Street, and walks into Parliament Street, as far as the Treasury, where a cab is waiting. Into this he gets with much deliberation, and, with a final waving of his hat, and always with the same imperturbable countenance, is driven off, and Parliament Street, subsiding from the turmoil in which the running, laughing, shouting mob have temporarily thrown it, finds time to wonder whether it would not have been more convenient for all concerned if the "Doctor's" cab had picked him up at the door of Westminster Hall.

Slowly approached the end of this marvellous, and to a succeeding generation almost incredible, and altogether inexplicable, phenomenon. It came about noon, on Sat.u.r.day, the final day of February, 1874.

A few minutes before ten o'clock on that morning the familiar bay mare and the well-known blue brougham--where are they now?--appeared in sight, with a contingent of volunteer running footmen, who cheered "Sir Roger" with unabated enthusiasm. As the carriage pa.s.sed through into the yard, a cordon of police promptly drew up behind it across the gateway, and stopped the crowd that would have entered with it. But inside there was, within reasonable limits, no restraint upon the movements of the Claimant's admirers, who l.u.s.tily cheered, and wildly waved their hats, drowning in the greater sound the hisses that came from a portion of the a.s.semblage. The Claimant looked many shades graver than in the days when Kenealy's speech was in progress. Nevertheless, he smiled acknowledgment of the reception, and repeatedly raised his hat. When he had pa.s.sed in, the throng in Palace Yard rapidly vanished, not more than a couple of hundred remaining in a state of vague expectation. Westminster Hall itself continued to be moderately full, a compact section of the crowd that had secured places of vantage between the barricade and the temporary telegraph station evidently being prepared to see it out at whatever hour the end might come.

For the next hour there was scarcely any movement in the Hall, save that occasioned by persons who lounged in, looked round, and either ranged themselves in the ranks behind the policemen, or strolled out again, holding to the generally prevalent belief that if they returned at two o'clock they would still have sufficient hours to wait. In the Yard a thin line extended from the side of the Hall gateway backwards to the railings in St. Margaret's Street, with another line drawn up across the far edge of the broad carriage-way before the entrance. There was no ostentatious show of police, but they had a way of silently filing out from under the sheds or out of the Commons' gateway in proportion as the crowd thickened, which conveyed the impression that there was a force somewhere about that would prove sufficient to meet any emergency. As a matter of fact, Mr. Superintendent Denning had under his command three hundred men, who had marched down to Westminster Hall at six o'clock in the morning, and were chiefly disposed in reserve, ready for action as circ.u.mstances might dictate.

At half-past eleven, there being not more than three or four hundred people in Palace Yard, a number of Press messengers, rus.h.i.+ng helter-skelter out of the court and into waiting cabs, indicated the arrival of some critical juncture within the jealously guarded portals. Presently it was whispered that the Lord Chief Justice had finished his summing up, and that Mr. Justice Mellor was addressing the jury. A buzz of conversation rose and fell in the Hall, and the ranks drew closer up, waiting in silence the consummation that could not now be far distant.

The news spread with surprising swiftness, not only in Palace Yard, but throughout Bridge Street and St. Margaret's Street, and the railings looking thence into the yard became gradually banked with rows of earnest faces. Little groups formed on the pavement about the corners of Parliament Street. Faces appeared at the windows of the houses overlooking the Yard, and the whole locality a.s.sumed an aspect of grave and anxious expectation. A few minutes after the clock in the tower had slowly boomed forth twelve strokes it was known in the Bail Court, where a dozen rapid hands were writing out words the echo of which had scarcely died away in the inner court, that the Judges had finished their task, and that the Jury had retired to consider their verdict. It was known also in the lobbies, where a throng of gowned and wigged barristers were a.s.sembled, hanging on as the fringe of the densely packed audience that sat behind the Claimant, and overflowed by the opened doorway. Thence it reached the crowd outside, and after the first movement and hum of conversation had subsided, a dead silence fell upon Westminster Hall, and all eyes were fixed upon the door by which, at any moment, messengers might issue with the word or words up to the utterance of which by the Foreman of the Jury the great trial slowly dragged its length.

Half an hour later the door burst open, and messengers came leaping in breathless haste down the steps and across the Hall, shouting as they ran,--

"Guilty! Guilty on all counts!" The words were taken up by the crowd, and pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth in voices scarcely above a whisper. It was a flock of junior barristers, issuing from the court, radiant and laughing, who brought the next news.

"Fourteen years! Fourteen years!" they called out.

This time the crowd in Westminster Hall took up the cry in louder tones, and there was some attempt at cheering, but it did not prevail. The less dense crowd in the Yard received the intelligence without any demonstration and after a brief pause made off with one consent for the judges' entrance in St. Margaret's Street, where, peradventure, they might see the prisoner taken away, or at least would catch a glimpse of the judges and counsel.

From this hour up to nearly four o'clock the crowd, in numbers far exceeding those present at the first intimation of the verdict and sentence, hung about St. Margaret's Street and Palace Yard waiting for the coming forth of the prisoner, who had long ago been safely lodged in Newgate. They did not know that as soon as the convict was given in charge of the tipstaff of the court he was led away by Inspector Denning, along a carefully planned and circuitous route that entirely baffled the curiosity of the waiting crowd. Through the Court of Exchequer the prisoner and his guards went, by the members'

private staircase, across the lobby, along the corridor, through the smoking-room into the Commons Courtyard, where a plain police omnibus was in waiting with an escort of eleven men. In this the prisoner took his seat, and was driven through the Victoria Tower gate _en route_ for Newgate. He accompanied his custodians as quietly as if they were conducting him to his brougham, and only once broke the silence of the journey to Newgate.

"It's very hot," he said, as he panted along the pa.s.sages of the House of Commons, "and I am so fat."

CHAPTER V.

WITH PEGGOTTY AND HAM.

A careful survey of the map of Kent will disclose Lydd lying within four miles of the coast, in the most southerly portion of the promontory tipped by Dungeness. Lydd has now its own branch line from Ashford, but when I first knew it the nearest point by rail on one hand was Folkestone, and on the other Appledore. Between these several points lies a devious road, sometimes picking its way through the marshes, and occasionally breaking in upon a sinking village, which it would probably be delightful to dwell in if it did not lie so low, was not so damp, and did not furnish the inhabitants with an opportunity for obtaining remarkably close acquaintance with the symptoms of the ague. Few of the marsh towns are more picturesque than Lydd, owing to the st.u.r.dy independence shown by the architects of the houses, and to the persistent and successful efforts made to avoid anything like a straight line in the formation of the streets. The houses cl.u.s.ter "anyhow" round the old church, and seem to have dropped accidentally down in all sorts of odd nooks and corners. They face all ways, and stand at angles, several going the length of turning their backs upon the streets and placidly opening out from their front door into the nearest field.

In the main street, through which her Majesty's cart pa.s.ses, and along which all the posting is done, a serious attempt has made at the production of something like an ordinary street. But even here the approach to regularity is a failure, owing to some of the houses along the line putting forth a porch, or blooming into a row of utterly unnecessary pillars before the parlour windows. In short, Lydd, being entirely out of the tracks of the world, cares little for what other towns may do, and has just built its houses where and how it pleased. Between Dungeness and Lydd there is an expanse of s.h.i.+ngle which makes the transit an arduous undertaking, and one not to be accomplished easily without the aid of "backstays" (p.r.o.nounced "backster"), a simple contrivance somewhat upon the principle of snowshoes. When the p.r.o.neness to slip off the unaccustomed foot has been overcome, backstays are not so awkward as they look. A couple of flat pieces of inch-thick wood, four inches wide by six long, with a loop of leather defectively fastened for the insertion of the foot went to make up the pair of "backsters" by whose a.s.sistance I succeeded in traversing two miles of rough, loose s.h.i.+ngle that separates the southern and eastern edge of Lydd marsh from the sea.

The lighthouse stands on the farthest point, jutting into the sea, and has at the right of it West Bay, and on the left East Bay. A signboard on the top of a pole stuck in the s.h.i.+ngle, almost within hail of the lighthouse, announces the proximity of "The Pilot." "The Pilot" is a small shanty run up on the s.h.i.+ngle, and possessed of accommodation about equal in extent to that afforded by the residence of the Peggottys. Reminiscences of the well-known abode on the beach at Yarmouth are further favoured, as we draw nearer, by the appearance of the son of the house, who comes lounging out in a pilot-cloth suit, with a telescope under his arm, and a smile of welcome upon his bright, honest face. This must be Ham, who we find occupies the responsible position of signalman at this station, and frequently has the current of his life stirred by the appearance of strange sail upon the horizon. Peggotty, his father, is the proprietor of "The Pilot," which hostelry drives a more or less extensive trade in malt liquor with the eight men const.i.tuting the garrison of a neighbouring fort, supplemented by such stray customers as wind and tide may bring in.

I made the acquaintance of the Peggotty family and was made free of the cabin many years ago, in the dark winter time when the _Northfleet_ went down off Dungeness, and over three hundred pa.s.sengers were lost.

All the coast was then alive with expectancy of some moment finding the sea crowded with the bodies of the drowned. The nine days during which, according to all experience at Dungeness, the sea might hold its dead were past, and at any moment the resurrection might commence. But it never came, and other theories had to be broached to explain the unprecedented circ.u.mstance. The most generally acceptable, because the most absolutely irrefragable, was that the dead men and women had been carried away by an under-current out into the Atlantic, and for ever lost amid its wilds.

My old friend Peggotty tells me, in a quiet, matter-of-fact manner, a story much more weird than this. He says that after we watchers had left the scene, the divers got fairly to work and attained a fair run of the s.h.i.+p. They found she lay broadside on to a bank of sand, by the edge of which she had sunk till it overtopped her decks. By the action of the tide the sand had drifted over the s.h.i.+p, and had even at that early date commenced to bury her. The bodies of the pa.s.sengers were there by the hundred, all huddled together on the lee-side.

"The divers could not see them," Peggotty adds, "for what with the mud and sand the water is pretty thick down there. But they could feel them well enough--an arm sticking out there, and a knee sticking out here, and sometimes half a body clear of the silt, owing to lying one over another. They could have got them all up easy enough, and would, too, if they had been paid for it. They were told that they were to have a pound apiece for all they brought up. They sent up one, but there was no money for it, and no one particularly glad to see it, and so they left them all there, snug enough as far as burying goes. The diving turned out a poor affair altogether. The cargo wasn't much good for bringing up, bein' chiefly railway iron, spades, and such like. There were one or two sales at Dover of odd stores they brought up, but it didn't fetch in much altogether, and they soon gave up the job as a bad un."

The years have brought little change to this strange out-of-the-way corner of the world, an additional wreck or two being scarcely a noteworthy incident. The section of an old boat in which, with fortuitous bits of building tacked on at odd times as necessity has arisen, the Peggottys live is as brightly tarred as ever, and still stoutly braves the gales in which many a fine s.h.i.+p has foundered just outside the front door. One peculiarity of the otherwise desirable residence is that, with the wind blowing either from the eastward, westward, or southward, Mrs. Peggotty will never allow the front door to be opened. As these quarters of the wind comprehend a considerable stretch of possible weather, the consequence is that the visitor approaching the house in the usual manner is on eight days out of ten disturbed by the apparition of Peggotty at the little look-out window, violently, and to the stranger, mysteriously, beckoning him away to the northward, apparently in the direction of the lighthouse.

This means, however, only that he is to go round by the back, and the _detour_ is not to be regretted, as it leads by Peggotty's garden, which in its way is a marvel, a monument of indomitable struggle with adverse circ.u.mstances. It is not a large plot of ground, and perhaps looks unduly small by reason of being packed in by a high paling, made of the staves of wrecked barrels and designed to keep the sand and grit from blowing across it. But it is large enough to produce a serviceable crop of potatoes, which, with peas and beans galore occupy the centre beds, Peggotty indulging a weakness for wallflowers and big red tulips on the narrow fringe of soil running under the shadow of the palings. The peculiarity about the garden is that every handful of soil that lies upon it has been carried on Peggotty's back across the four-mile waste of s.h.i.+ngle that separates the sea-coast from Lydd. That is, perhaps, as severe a test as could be applied to a man's predilection for a garden.

There are many people who like to have a bit of garden at the back of their house. But how many would gratify their taste at the expense of bringing the soil on their own backs, plodding on "backstays"

over four miles of loose s.h.i.+ngle?

One important change has happened in this little household since I last sat by its hearthstone. Ham is married, and is, in some incomprehensible manner, understood to reside both at Lydd with Mrs. Ham and at the cabin with his mother. As for Mrs. Peggotty, she is as lively and as "managing" as ever--perhaps a trifle smaller in appearance, and with her smooth clean face more than ever suggestive of the idea of a pebble smoothed and shaped by the action of the tide.

I find on chatting with Peggotty that the old gentleman's mind is in somewhat of a chaotic state with respect to the wrecks that abound in the bay. He has been here for forty-eight years, and the fact is, in that time, he has seen so many wrecks that the timbers are, as it were, floating in an indistinguishable ma.s.s through his mind, and when he tries to recall events connected with them, the jib-boom of "the _Rhoda_ brig" gets mixed up with the rigging of "the _Spendthrift_,"

and "the _Branch_, a coal-loaded brig," that came to grief thirty years ago, gets inextricably mixed up with the "Roos.h.i.+an wessel." But, looking with far-away gaze towards the Ness Lighthouse, and sweeping slowly round as far east as New Romney, Peggotty can tot off a number of wrecks, now to be seen at low water, which with others, the names whereof he "can't just remember," bring the total past a score.

The first he sees on this side of the lighthouse is the _Mary_, a bit of black hull that has been lying there for more than twenty years.

She was "bound somewheres in France," and running round the Ness, looking for shelter in the bay, stuck fast in the sand, "and broke up in less than no time." She was loaded with linseed and millstones, which I suspect, from a slight tinge of sadness in Peggotty's voice as he mentioned the circ.u.mstance, is not for people living on the coast the best cargo which s.h.i.+ps that _will_ go down in the bay might be loaded with. Indeed, I may remark that though Peggotty, struggling with the recollections of nearly fifty years, frequently fails to remember the name of the s.h.i.+p whose wreck shows up through the sand, the nature of her cargo comes back to him with singular freshness.

Near the _Mary_ is another French s.h.i.+p, which had been brought to anchor there in order that the captain might run ash.o.r.e and visit the s.h.i.+p's agent at Lydd. Whilst he was ash.o.r.e a gale of wind came on "easterdly"; s.h.i.+p drifted down on Ness Point, and knocked right up on the sh.o.r.e, the crew scrambling out on to dry land as she went to pieces. Another bit of wreck over there is all that is left of the _Westbourne_, of Chichester, coal-laden. She was running for Ness Point at night, and, getting too far in, struck where she lay, and all the crew save one were drowned. Nearer is the _Branch_, also a coal-loaded brig, a circ.u.mstance which suggests to Peggotty the parenthetical remark that "at times there is a good deal of coal about the s.h.i.+ngle."

A little more to the east is "the Roos.h.i.+an wessel _Nicholas I._," in which Peggotty has a special interest so strong that he forgets to mention what her cargo was. It is forty-six years since _Nicholas I._ came to grief; and no other help being near, the whole of the crew were saved through the instrumentality of Peggotty's dog. It was broad daylight, with a sea running no boat could live in. The "Roos.h.i.+an" was rapidly breaking up, and the crew were shrieking in an unknown tongue, the little group on sh.o.r.e well knowing that the unfamiliar sound was a cry for help. Peggotty's Newfoundland dog was there, barking with mad delight at the huge waves that came tumbling on the sh.o.r.e, when it occurred to Peggotty that perhaps the dog could swim out to the drowning men. So he signalled him off, and in the dog went, gallantly buffeting the waves till it reached the s.h.i.+p.

The Russian sailors tied a piece of rope to a stick, put the stick in the dog's mouth, and he, leaping overboard, carried it safely to sh.o.r.e, and a line of communication being thus formed, every soul on board was saved.

"They've got it in the school-books for the little children to read," Peggotty says, permitting himself to indulge in the slightest possible chuckle. I could not ascertain what particular school-book was meant, because last winter, when another Russian s.h.i.+p came ash.o.r.e here and was totally wrecked, Peggotty presented the captain with his only copy of the work as a souvenir of the compulsory visit. But when we returned to the cabin, Mrs. Peggotty brought down a faded, yellow, much-worn copy of the _Kent Herald_, in which an account of the incident appears among other items of the local news of the day.

Further eastward are the remains of a West Indiaman, loaded with mahogany and turtles, the latter disappearing in a manner still a marvel at Dungeness, whilst of the former a good deal of salvage money was made. It is not far from this wreck that the Russian last-mentioned came to grief. She met her fate in a peculiarly sad manner. The _Alliance_, a tar-loaded vessel, drifting inwards before a strong east wind, began to burn pitch barrels as a signal for a.s.sistance. The Russian, thinking she was on fire, ran down to her a.s.sistance, and took the ground close by. Both s.h.i.+ps were totally wrecked, and the crews saved with no other property save the clothes they stood in.

Still glancing from Dungeness eastward, we see at every hundred yards a black ma.s.s of timber, sometimes showing the full length of a s.h.i.+p, oftener only a few jagged ribs marking where the carcase lies deeply embedded. Each has its name and its history, and is a memento of some terrible disaster in which strong s.h.i.+ps have been broken up as if they were built of cardboard, and through which men and women have not always successfully struggled for life.

"We don't have so much loss of life in this bay as in the west bay round the point," said Ham. "Here, you see, when there's been a rumpus, the water quiets soon after, and the s.h.i.+pwrecked folk can take to their boats; on the other side the water is rougher, and there's less chance for them. There was one wreck here not long since, though, when all hands were lost. It was a Danish s.h.i.+p that came running down one stormy night, and run ash.o.r.e there before she could make the light. We saw her flash her flare-up lights, and made ready to help her, but before we could get up she went to pieces, and what is most singular, never since has a body been seen from the wreck. Ah, sir, it's a bad spot. Often between Sat.u.r.day and Monday you'll see three fine s.h.i.+ps all stranded together on this beach. When there's a big wreck like the _Northfleet_ over there, everybody talks about it, and all the world knows full particulars.

But there's many and many a s.h.i.+pwreck here the newspapers never notice, and hundreds of s.h.i.+ps get on, and with luck get off, without a word being said anywhere."

"There's mother signallin' the heggs and bakin is done," said Peggotty, looking back at the cabin, where a white ap.r.o.n waved out of one of the port-holes that served for window.

So we turned and left this haunted spot, where, with the ebbing tide, twenty-three wrecks, one after the other, thrust forth a rugged rib or a jagged spar to remind the pa.s.ser-by of a tragedy.

CHAPTER VI.

TO THOSE ABOUT TO BECOME JOURNALISTS.

AN OPEN LETTER.

My dear young friends,__ I suppose no one not prominently engaged in journalism knows how widely spread is the human conviction that, failing all else, any one can "write for the papers," making a lucrative living on easy terms, amid agreeable circ.u.mstances. I have often wondered how d.i.c.kens, familiar as he was with this frailty, did not make use of it in the closing epoch of Micawber's life before he quitted England. Knowing what he did, as letters coming to light at this day testify, it would seem to be the most natural thing in the world that finally, nothing else having turned up, it should occur to d.i.c.kens that Mr. Micawber would join the Press--probably as editor, certainly on the editorial staff, possibly as dramatic critic, a position which involves a free run of the theatres and a more than nodding acquaintance with the dramatic stars of the day.

Perhaps d.i.c.kens avoided this episode because it was too literally near the truth in the life of the person who, all unconsciously, stood as the lay figure of David Copperfield's incomparable friend.

It is, I believe, not generally known that Charles d.i.c.kens's father did in his last desolate days become a member of the Press. When d.i.c.kens was made editor of the Daily News, he thoughtfully provided for his father by installing him leader of the Parliamentary Corps of that journal. The old gentleman, of course, knew nothing of journalism, was not even capable of shorthand. Providentially he was not required to take notes, but generally to overlook things, a post which exactly suited Mr. Micawber. So he was inducted, and filled the office even for a short time after his son had impetuously vacated the editorial chair. Only the other day there died an original member of the _Daily News_ Parliamentary Corps, who told me he quite well remembered his first respected leader, his grandly vague conception of his duties, and his almost ducal manner of not performing them.