The Days Before Yesterday Part 10

If I may be permitted a rather lengthy digression, "bowdlerised"

derives its name from Thomas Bowdler, who in 1818 published an expurgated edition of Shakespeare. It would be rather interesting to make a list of words which have pa.s.sed into common parlance but which were originally derived from some peculiarity of the person whose surname they perpetuate. A few occur to me. In addition to "bowdlerise," there is "sandwich." As is well known, this compact form of nourishment derives its name from John, fourth Earl of Sandwich, who lived between 1718-1792. Lord Sandwich was a confirmed gambler, and such was his anxiety to lose still more money, and to impoverish further himself, his family, and his descendants, that he grudged the time necessary for meals, and had slices of bread and slices of meat placed by his side. The inventive faculty being apparently but little developed during the eighteenth century, he was the first person who thought of placing meat between two slices of bread. Owing to the economy of time thus effected, he was able to ruin himself very satisfactorily, and his name is now familiar all over the world, thanks to the condensed form of food he introduced.

Again, Admiral Edward Vernon was Naval Commander-in-Chief in the West Indies in 1740. The Admiral was known as "Old Grog," from his habit of always having his breeches and the linings of his boat-cloaks made of grogram, a species of coa.r.s.e white poplin (from the French grosgrain).

It occurred to "Old Grog" that, in view of the ravages of yellow fever amongst the men of the Fleet, it would be advisable, in the burning climate of the West Indies, to dilute the blue-jackets' rations of rum with water before serving them out. This was accordingly done, to the immense dissatisfaction of the men, who probably regarded it as a forerunner of "p.u.s.s.yfoot" legislation. They at once christened the mixture "grog," after the Admiral's nickname, and "grog" as a term for spirits and water has spread all over the world, and is used just as much in French as in English.

The origin of the expression "to burke an inquiry," in the sense of suppressing or stifling it, is due to Burke and Hare, two enterprising malefactors who supplied the medical schools of Edinburgh with "subjects" for anatomical research, early in the nineteenth century.

Their procedure was simple. Creeping behind unsuspecting citizens in lonely streets, they stifled them to death by placing pitch-plasters over their mouths and noses. Burke was hanged for this in Edinburgh in 1829.

In our own time, an almost unknown man has enriched the language with a new verb. A Captain Boycott of Lough Mask House, Co. Mayo, was a small Irish land-agent in 1880. The means that were adopted to try and drive him out of the country are well known. Since that time the expression to "boycott" a person, in the sense of combining with others to refuse to have any dealings with him, has become a recognised English term, and is just as widely used in France as with us.

A less familiar term is a "Collins," for the usual letter of thanks which a grateful visitor addresses to his recent host. This, of course, is derived from the Rev. Mr. Collins of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, who prided himself on the dexterity with which he worded these acknowledgments of favours received. As another example, most bridge-players are but too familiar with the name of a certain defunct Earl of Yarborough, who, whatever his other good qualities may have been, scarcely seems to have been a consistently good card-holder.

There must be quite a long list of similar words, and they would make an interesting study.

To return to the Diplomatic Theatricals at Petrograd, Lab.i.+.c.he's piece, La Cagnotte, is extraordinarily funny, though written over sixty years ago. We gave a very successful performance of this, in which I played the restaurant waiter--a capital part. La Lettre Chargee and Le Sous-Prefet are both most amusing pieces, which can be played, with very slight "cuts," before any audience, and they both bubble over with that gaiete francaise which appeals so to me. We were coached at Petrograd by Andrieux, the jeune premier of the Theatre Michel, and we all became very professional indeed, never talking of Au Seconde Acte, but saying Au Deux, in proper French stage style. We also endeavoured to cultivate the long-drawn-out "a's" of the Comedie Francaise, and p.r.o.nounced "adorahtion" and "imaginahtion" in the traditional manner of the "Maison de Moliere."

The British business community in Petrograd were also extremely fond of getting up theatricals, in this case, of course, in English. If in the French plays I was invariably cast for old men, in the English ones I was always allotted the extremely juvenile parts, being still very slim and able to "make up" young. I must confess to having appeared on the stage in an Eton jacket and collar at the age of twenty-four, as the schoolboy in Peril.

Russians are extremely clever at parody. Two brothers Narishkin wrote an intensely amusing mock serious opera, ent.i.tled Gargouillada, ou la Belle de Venise. It was written half in French and mock-Italian, and half in Russian, and was an excellent skit on an old-fas.h.i.+oned Italian opera. All the ladies fought shy of the part of "Countess Gorganzola,"

the heroine's grandmother. This was partly due to the boldness of some of "Gorganzola's" lines, and also to the fact that whoever played the role would have to make-up frankly as an old woman. I was asked to take "Countess Gorganzola" instead of the villain of the piece, which I had rehea.r.s.ed, and I did so, turning it into a sort of Charley's Aunt part.

Garouillada went with a roar from the opening chorus to the final tableau, and so persistently enthusiastic were the audience that we agreed to give the opera again four nights in succession.

I was at work in the Chancery of the Emba.s.sy next morning when three people were ushered in to me. They were a family from either St.

Helens, Runcorn, or Widnes, I forget which, all speaking the broadest Lancas.h.i.+re. The navigation of the Neva being again opened, they had come on a little trip to Russia on a tramp-steamer belonging to a friend of theirs. There was the father, a short, thickset man in s.h.i.+ny black broadcloth, with a shaven upper lip, and a voluminous red "Newgate-frill" framing his face--exactly the type of face one a.s.sociates with the Deacon of a Calvinistic-Methodist Chapel; there was the mother, a very grim-looking female; and the son, a nondescript hobbledehoy with goggle-eyes. It appeared that after their pa.s.sports had been inspected on landing, the goggle-eyed boy had laid his down somewhere and had lost it. No hotel would take him in without a pa.s.sport, but these people were so obviously genuine, that I had no hesitation in issuing a fresh pa.s.sport to the lad, after swearing the father to an affidavit that the protuberant-eyed youth was his lawful son. After a few kind words as to the grave effects of any carelessness with pa.s.sports in a country like Russia, I let the trio from Runcorn (or St. Helens) depart.

That evening I had just finished dressing and making-up as Countess Gorganzola, when I was told that three English people who had come on from the Emba.s.sy wished to see me. The curtain would be going up in ten minutes, so I got an obliging Russian friend who spoke English to go down and interview them. The strong Lancas.h.i.+re accent defeated him. All he could tell me was that it was something about a pa.s.sport, and that it was important. I was in a difficulty. It would have taken at least half an hour to change and make-up again, and the curtain was going up almost at once, so after some little hesitation I decided to go down as I was. I was wearing a white wig with a large black lace cap, and a gown of black moire-antique trimmed with flounces and hanging sleeves of an abominable material known as black Chantilly lace. Any one who has ever had to wear this hateful fabric knows how it catches in every possible thing it can do. Down I went, and the trio from Widnes (or Runcorn) seemed surprised at seeing an old lady enter the room. But when I spoke, and they recognised in the old lady the frock-coated (and I trust sympathetic) official they had interviewed earlier in the day, their astonishment knew no bounds. The father gazed at me horror-stricken, as though I were a madman; the mother kept on swallowing, as ladies of her type do when they wish to convey strong disapprobation; and the prominent-orbed boy's eyes nearly fell out of his head. I explained that some theatricals were in progress, but that did not mend matters; evidently in the serious circles in which they moved in St. Helens (or Widnes), theatricals were regarded as one of the snares of the Evil One. To make matters worse, one of my Chantilly lace sleeves caught in the handle of a drawer, and perhaps excusably, but quite audibly, I condemned all Chantilly lace to eternal punishment, but in a much shorter form. After that they looked on me as clearly beyond the pale. The difficulty about the pa.s.sport was easily adjusted. The police had threatened to arrest the young man, as his new pa.s.sport was clearly not the one with which he had entered Russia. The Russian Minister of the Interior happened to be in the green-room, and on my personal guarantee as to the ident.i.ty of the Widnes youth, he wrote an order to the police on his visiting-card, bidding them to leave the goggle-eyed boy in peace. I really tremble to think of the reports this family must have circulated upon their return to Widnes (or Runcorn) as to the frivolity of junior members of the British Diplomatic Service, who dressed up as old women, and used bad language about Chantilly lace.

There is a wearisome formality known as "legalising" which took up much time at the Berlin Emba.s.sy. Commercial agreements, if they are to be binding in two countries, say Germany and England, have to be "legalised," and this must be done at the Emba.s.sy, not at the Consulate. The individual bringing the doc.u.ment has to make a sworn affidavit that the contents of his papers are true; he then signs it, the dry-seal of the Emba.s.sy is embossed on it, and a rubber stamp impressed, declaring that the affidavit has been duly sworn to before a member of the Emba.s.sy staff. This is then signed and dated, and the process is complete. There were strings of people daily in Berlin with doc.u.ments to be legalised, and on a little shelf in the Chancery reposed an Authorized Version of the Bible, a German Bible, a Vulgate version of the Gospels in Latin, and a Pentateuch in Hebrew, for the purpose of administering the oath, according to the religion professed by the individual. I was duly instructed how to administer the oath in German, and was told that my first question must be as to the religion the applicant professed, and that I was then to choose my Book accordingly. My great friend at Berlin was my fellow-attache Maude, a most delightful little fellow, who was universally popular. Poor Maude, who was a near relation of Mr. Cyril Maude the actor's, died four years afterwards in China. Most of the applicants for legalisation were of one particular faith. I admired the way in which little Maude, without putting the usual question as to religion, would scan the features of the applicant closely and then hand him the Hebrew Pentateuch, and request him to put on his hat. (Jews are always sworn covered.) About a month after my arrival in Berlin, I was alone in the Chancery when a man arrived with a doc.u.ment for legalisation. I was only twenty at the time, and felt rather "bucked" at administering my first oath. I thought that I would copy little Maude's methods, and after a good look at my visitor's prominent features, I handed him the Pentateuch and requested him to put on his hat. He was perfectly furious, and declared that both he and his father had been pillars of the Lutheran Church all their lives. I apologised profusely, but all the same I am convinced that the original family seat had been situated in the valley of the Jordan. I avoided, however, guesses as to religions for the future.

Both at Berlin and at Petrograd I kept what are known as the "Extraordinary Accounts" of the Emba.s.sies. I am therefore in a position to give the exact amount spent on Secret Service, but I have not the faintest intention of doing anything of the sort. Suffice it to say that it is less than one-twentieth of the sum the average person would imagine. Bought information is nearly always unreliable information. A moment's consideration will show that, should a man be base enough to sell his country's secrets to his country's possible enemy, he would also unhesitatingly cheat, if he could, the man who purchases that information, which, from the very nature of the case, it is almost impossible to verify. In all probability the so-called information would have been carefully prepared at the General Staff for the express purpose of fooling the briber. There is a different cla.s.s of information which, it seems to me, is more legitimate to acquire. The Russian Ministries of Commerce and Finance always imagined that they could overrule economic laws by decrees and stratagems. For instance, they were perpetually endeavouring to divert the flow of trade from its accustomed channels to some port they wished to stimulate artificially into prosperity, by granting rebates, and by exceptionally favourable railway rates. Large quant.i.ties of jute sacking were imported from Dundee to be made into bags for the s.h.i.+pment of Russian wheat. One Minister of Commerce elaborated an intricate scheme for supplanting the jute sacking by coa.r.s.e linen sacking of Russian manufacture, by granting a bonus to the makers of the latter, and by doubling the import duties on the Scottish-woven material. I could multiply these economic schemes indefinitely. Now let us suppose that we had some source of information in the Ministry of Commerce, it was obviously of advantage to the British Government and to British traders to be warned of the pending economic changes some two years in advance, for nothing is ever done quickly in Russia. People in England then knew what to expect, and could make their arrangements accordingly. I can see nothing repugnant to the most rigid code of honour in obtaining information of this kind.

On May 6, 1882, Lord Frederick Cavendish, the newly appointed Irish Secretary, and Mr. Burke, the Permanent Under-Secretary for Ireland, were a.s.sa.s.sinated in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. I knew Tom Burke very well indeed. The British Government offered a reward of ten thousand pounds for the apprehension of the murderers, and every policeman in Europe had rosy dreams of securing this great prize, and was constantly on the alert for the criminals and the reward.

In July 1882, the Amba.s.sador and half the Emba.s.sy staff were on leave in England. As matters were very slack just then, the Charge d'Affaires and the Second Secretary had gone to Finland for four days' fis.h.i.+ng, leaving me in charge of the Emba.s.sy, with an Attache to help me. My servant came to me early one morning as I was in bed, and told me that an official of the Higher Police was outside my front door, and begged for permission to come into my flat. I have explained elsewhere that Amba.s.sadors, their families, their staffs, and even all the Emba.s.sy servants enjoy what is called exterritoriality; that is, that by a polite fiction the Emba.s.sy and the houses or apartments of the Secretaries are supposed to be on the actual soil of the country they represent. Consequently, the police of the country cannot enter them except by special permission, and both the Secretaries and their servants are immune from arrest, and are not subject to the laws of the country, though they can, of course, be expelled from it. I gave the policeman leave to enter, and he came into my bedroom. "I have caught one of the Phoenix Park murderers," he told me triumphantly in Russian, visions of the possible ten thousand pounds wreathing his face in smiles. I jumped up incredulously. He went on to inform me that a man had landed from the Stockholm steamer early that morning. Though he declared that he had no arms with him, a revolver and a dagger had been found in his trunk. His pa.s.sport had only been issued at the British Legation in Stockholm, and his description tallied exactly with the signalment issued by Scotland Yard in eight languages. The policier showed me the description: "height about five feet nine; complexion sallow, with dark eyes. Thickset build; probably with some recent cuts on face and hands." The policeman declared that the cuts were there, and that it was unquestionably the man wanted. Then he put the question point-blank, would the Emba.s.sy sanction this man's arrest? I was only twenty-five at the time. I had to act on "my own," and I had to decide quickly. "Yes, arrest him," I said, "but you are not to take him to prison. Confine him to his room at his hotel, with two or three of your men to watch him. I will dress and come there as quickly as I can."

Half an hour later I was in a grubby room of a grubby hotel, where a short, sallow, thickset man, with three recent cuts on his face, was walking up and down, smoking cigarettes feverishly, and throwing frightened glances at three sinister-looking plain-clothes men, who pretended to be quite at ease. I looked again at the description and at the man. There could be no doubt about it. I asked him for his own account of himself. He told me that he was the Manager of the Gothenburg Tramway Company in Sweden, an English concern, and that he had come to Russia for a little holiday. He accounted for the cuts on his face and hands by saying that he had slipped and fallen on his face whilst alighting from a moving tram-car. He declared that he was well known in Stockholm, and that his wife, when packing his things, must have put in the revolver and dagger without his knowledge. It all sounded grotesquely improbable, but I promised to telegraph both to Stockholm and Gothenburg, and to return to him as soon as I had received the answers. In the meanwhile I feared that he must consider himself as under close arrest. He himself was under the impression that all the trouble was due to the concealed arms; the Phoenix Park murders had never once been mentioned. I sent off a long telegram in cypher to the Stockholm Legation, making certain inquiries, and a longer one en clair to the British Consul at Gothenburg. By nagging at the Attache, and by keeping that dapper young gentleman's nose pretty close to the grindstone, I got the first telegram cyphered and dispatched by 10 a.m.; the answers arrived about 4 p.m. The man's story was true in every particular. He HAD fallen off a moving tram and cut his face; his wife, terrified at the idea of unknown dangers in Russia, HAD borrowed a revolver and dagger from a friend, and had packed them in her husband's trunk without his knowledge. Mr. D---- (I remember his name perfectly) was well known in Stockholm, and was a man of the highest respectability. I drove as fast as I could to the grubby hotel, where I found the poor fellow still restlessly pacing the room, and still smoking cigarette after cigarette. There was a perfect Mont Blanc of cigarette stumps on a plate, and the s.h.i.+fty-looking plain-clothes men were still watching their man like hawks. I told the police that they had got hold of the wrong man, that the Emba.s.sy was quite satisfied about him, and that they must release the gentleman at once. They accordingly did so, and the alluring vision of the ten thousand pounds vanished into thin air! The poor man was quite touchingly grateful to me; he had formed the most terrible ideas about a Russian State prison, and seemed to think that he owed his escape entirely to me. I had not the moral courage to tell him that I had myself ordered his arrest that morning, still less of the awful crime of which he had been suspected.

Looking back, I do not see how I could have acted otherwise; the prima facie case against him was so strong; never was circ.u.mstantial evidence apparently clearer. Mr. D---- went back to Sweden next day, as he had had enough of Russia. Should Mr. D---- still be alive, and should he by any chance read these lines, may I beg of him to accept my humblest apologies for the way I behaved to him thirty-eight years ago.

I happened to see the four a.s.sa.s.sins of Alexander II. driven through the streets of Petrograd on their way to execution. They were seated in chairs on large tumbrils, with their backs to the horses. Each one had a placard on his, or her breast, inscribed "Regicide" ("Tsaryubeeyetz"

in Russian). Two military bra.s.s bands, playing loudly, followed the tumbrils. This was to make it impossible for the condemned persons to address the crowd, but the music might have been selected more carefully. One band played the well-known march from Fatinitza. There was a ghastly incongruity between the merry strains of this captivating march and the terrible fate that awaited the people escorted by the band at the end of their last drive on earth. When the first band rested, the second replaced it instantly to avoid any possibilities of a speech. The second band seemed to me to have made an equally unhappy selection of music. "Kaiser Alexander," written as a complimentary tribute to the murdered Emperor by a German composer, is a spirited and tuneful march, but as "Kaiser Alexander" was dead, and had been killed by the very people who were now going to expiate their crime, the familiar tune jarred horribly. A jaunty, lively march tune, and death at the end of it, and in a sense at the beginning of it too. At times even now I can conjure up a vision of the broad, sombre Petrograd streets, with the dull cotton-wool sky pressing down almost on to the house-tops; the vast silent crowds thronging the thoroughfares, and the tumbrils rolling slowly forward through the crowded streets to the place of execution, accompanied by the gay strains of the march from Fatinitza. The hideous incongruity between the tune and the occasion made one positively shudder.

There is in the Russian temperament a peculiar unbalanced hysterical element. This, joined to a distinct bent towards the mystic, and to a large amount of credulity, has made Russia for two hundred years the happy hunting-ground of charlatans and impostors of various sorts claiming supernatural powers: clairvoyants, mediums, yogis, and all the rest of the tribe who batten on human weaknesses, and the perpetual desire to tear away the veil from the Unseen. It so happened that my chief at Lisbon had in his youth dabbled in the Black Art. Sir Charles Wyke was a dear old man, who had spent most of his Diplomatic career in Mexico and the South American Republics. He spoke Spanish better than any other Englishman I ever knew, with the one exception of Sir William Barrington. He was unmarried, and was a most distinguished-looking old gentleman with his snow-white imperial and moustache. He was unquestionably a little eccentric in his habits. He had rendered some signal service to the Mexican Government while British Minister there, by settling a dispute between them and the French authorities. The Mexican Government had out of grat.i.tude presented him with a splendid Mexican saddle, with pommel, stirrups and bit of solid silver, and with the leather of the saddle most elaborately embroidered in silver. Sir Charles kept this trophy on a saddle-tree in his study at Lisbon, and it was his custom to sit on it daily for an hour or so. He said that as he was too old to ride, the feel of a saddle under him reminded him of his youth. When every morning I brought the old gentleman the day's dispatches, I always found him seated on his saddle, a cigar in his mouth, a skull-cap on his head, and his feet in the silver shoe-stirrups. Sir Charles had been a great friend of the first Lord Lytton, the novelist, and they had together dabbled in Black Magic. Sir Charles declared that the last chapters in Bulwer-Lytton's wonderful imaginative work, A STRANGE STORY, describing the preparation of the Elixir of Life in the heart of the Australian Bush, were all founded on actual experience, with the notable reservation that all the recorded attempts made to produce this magic fluid had failed from their very start. He had in his younger days joined a society of Rosicrucians, by which I do not mean the Masonic Order of that name, but persons who sought to penetrate into the Forbidden Domain. Some forty years ago a very interesting series of articles appeared in Vanity Fair (the weekly newspaper, not Thackeray's masterpiece), under the t.i.tle of "The Black Art." In one of these there was an account of a seance which took place at the Pantheon in Oxford Street, in either the "forties" or the "fifties." A number of people had hired the hall, and the Devil was invoked in due traditional form, Then something happened, and the entire a.s.semblage rushed terror-stricken into Oxford Street, and nothing would induce a single one of them to re-enter the building. Sir Charles owned that he had been present at the seance, but he would never tell me what it was that frightened them all so; he said that he preferred to forget the whole episode. Sir Charles had an idea that I was a "sensitive," so, after getting my leave to try his experiment, he poured into the palm of my hand a little pool of quicksilver, and placing me under a powerful shaded lamp, so that a ray of light caught the mercury pool, he told me to look at the bright spot for a quarter of an hour, remaining motionless meanwhile. Any one who has shared this experience with me, knows how the speck of light flashes and grows until that little pool of quicksilver seems to fill the entire horizon, darting out gleaming rays like an Aurora Borealis. I felt myself growing dazed and hypnotised, when Sir Charles emptied the mercury from my hand, and commenced making pa.s.ses over me, looking, with his slender build and his white hair and beard, like a real mediaeval magician.

"Now you can neither speak nor move," he cried at length. "I think I can do both, Sir Charles," I answered, as I got out of the chair. He tried me on another occasion, and then gave me up. I was clearly not a "sensitive."

Sir Charles had quite a library of occult books, from which I endeavoured to glean a little knowledge, and great rubbish most of them were. Raymond Lully, Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, and Van Helmont; they were all there, in French, German, Latin, and English. The Alchemists had two obsessions: one was the discovery of the Elixir of Life, by the aid of which you could live forever; the other that of the Philosopher's Stone, which had the property of trans.m.u.ting everything it touched into gold. Like practical men, they seemed to have concentrated their energies more especially on the latter, for a moment's consideration will show the exceedingly awkward predicament in which any one would be placed with only the first of these conveniences at his command. Should he by the aid of the Elixir of Life have managed to attain the age of, say, 300 years, he might find it excessively hard to obtain any remunerative employment at that time of life; whereas with the Philosopher's Stone in his pocket, he would only have to touch the door-sc.r.a.per outside his house to find it immediately trans.m.u.ted into the purest gold. In case of pressing need, he could extend the process with like result to his area railings, which ought to be enough to keep the wolf from the door for some little while even at the present-day scale of prices.

Basil Valentine, the German Benedictine monk and alchemist, who wrote a book which he quaintly termed The Triumphant Wagon, in praise of the healing properties of antimony, actually thought that he had discovered the Elixir of Life in tartrate of antimony, more generally known as tartar emetic. He administered large doses of this turbulent remedy to some ailing monks of his community, who promptly all died of it.

The main characteristics of the Alchemists is their wonderful clarity.

For instance, when they wish to refer to mercury, they call it "the green lion," and the "Pontic Sea," which makes it quite obvious to every one. They attached immense importance to the herb "Lunary," which no one as yet has ever been able to discover. Should any one happen to see during their daily walks "a herb with a black root, and a red and violet stalk, whose leaves wax and wane with the moon," they will at once know that they have found a specimen of the rare herb "Lunary."

The juice of this plant, if boiled with quicksilver, has only to be thrown over one hundred ounces of copper, to change them instantly into fine gold. Paracelsus' directions for making the Philosopher's Stone are very simple: "Take the rosy-coloured blood of the lion, and gluten from the eagle. Mix them together, and the Philosopher's Stone is thine. Seek the lion in the west, and the eagle in the south." What could be clearer? Any child could make sufficient Philosopher's Stones from this simple recipe to pave a street with--a most useful a.s.set, by the way, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the present time, for every bicycle, omnibus and motor-lorry driving over the Philosopher Stone-paved street would instantly be changed automatically into pure gold, and the National Debt could be satisfactorily liquidated in this fas.h.i.+on in no time.

Whenever I returned home on leave, whether from Berlin, Petrograd, Lisbon, or Buenos Ayres, I invariably spent a portion of my leave at Glamis Castle. This venerable pile, "whose birth tradition notes not,"

though the lower portions were undoubtedly standing in 1016, rears its forest of conical turrets in the broad valley lying between the Grampians and the Sidlaws, in the fertile plains of Forfars.h.i.+re. Apart from the prestige of its immense age, Glamis is one of the most beautiful buildings in the Three Kingdoms. The exquisitely weathered tints of grey-pink and orange that its ancient red sandstone walls have taken on with the centuries, its many gables and towers rising in summer-time out of a sea of greenery, the richness of its architectural details, make Glamis a thing apart. There is nothing else quite like it. No more charming family can possibly be imagined than that of the late Lord Strathmore, forty years ago. The seven sons and three daughters of the family were all born musicians. I have never heard such perfect and finished part-singing as that of the Lyon family, and they were always singing: on the way to a cricket-match; on the road home from shooting; in the middle of dinner, even, this irrepressible family could not help bursting into harmony, and such exquisite harmony, too! Until their sisters grew up, the younger boys sang the treble and alto parts, but finally they were able to manage a male-voice quartet, a trio of ladies' voices, and a combined family octette. The dining-room at Glamis is a very lofty hall, oak-panelled, with a great Jacobean chimney-piece rising to the roof. After dinner it was the custom for the two family pipers to make the circuit of the table three times, and then to walk slowly off, still playing, through the tortuous stone pa.s.sages of the ancient building until the last faint echoes of the music had died away. Then all the lights in the dining-room were extinguished except the candles on the table, and out came a tuning-fork, and one note was sounded--"Madrigal," "Spring is Come, third beat," said the conducting brother, and off they went, singing exquisitely; glees, madrigals, part-songs, anything and everything, the acoustic properties of the lofty room adding to the effect. All visitors to Glamis were charmed with this most finished singing--always, of course, without accompaniment. They sang equally well in the private chapel, giving admirable renderings of the most intricate "Services," and, from long practice together, their voices blended perfectly. This gifted family were equally good at acting. They had a permanent stage during the winter months at Glamis, and as every new Gilbert and Sullivan opera was produced in London, the concerted portions were all duly repeated at Glamis, and given most excellently.

I have never heard the duet and minuet between "Sir Marmaduke" and "Lady Sangazure" from The Sorcerer better done than at Glamis, although Sir Marmaduke was only nineteen, and Lady Sangazure, under her white wig, was a boy of twelve. The same boy sang "Mabel" in the Pirates of Penzance most admirably.

In 1884 it was conveyed to Lord Strathmore that Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone, whom he did not know personally, were most anxious to see Glamis. Of course an invitation was at once dispatched, and in spite of the rigorously Tory atmosphere of the house, we were all quite charmed with Mr. Gladstone's personality. Lord Strathmore wished to stop the part-singing after dinner, but I felt sure that Mr. Gladstone would like it, so it took place as usual. The old gentleman was perfectly enchanted with it, and complimented this tuneful family enthusiastically on the perfect finish of their singing. Next evening Mr. Gladstone asked for a part-song in the middle of dinner, and as the singing was continued in the drawing-room afterwards, he went and, with a deferential courtesy charming to see in a man of his age and position, asked whether the young people would allow an old man to sing ba.s.s in the glees with them. Mr. Gladstone still had a very fine resonant ba.s.s, and he read quite admirably. It was curious to see the Prime Minister reading off the same copy as an Eton boy of sixteen, who was singing alto. Being Sunday night, they went on singing hymns and anthems till nearly midnight; there was no getting Mr. Gladstone away.

Mrs. Gladstone told me next day that he had not enjoyed himself so much for many months.

There was a blend of simplicity, dignity, and kindliness in Mrs.

Gladstone's character that made her very attractive. My family were exceedingly fond of her, and though two of my brothers were always attacking Mr. Gladstone in the most violent terms, this never strained their friendly relations with Mrs. Gladstone herself. I always conjure up visions of Mrs. Gladstone in her sapphire-blue velvet, her invariable dress of ceremony. Though a little careless as to her appearance, she always looked a "great lady," and her tall figure, and the kindly old face with its crown of silvery hair, were always welcomed in the houses of those privileged to know her.

The Lyon family could do other things besides singing and acting. The sons were all excellent shots, and were very good at games. One brother was lawn-tennis champion of Scotland, whilst another, with his partner, won the Doubles Champions.h.i.+p of England.

Glamis is the oldest inhabited house in Great Britain. As Shakespeare tells us in Macbeth,

"This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses."

The vaulted crypt was built before 1016, and another ancient stone-flagged, stone-vaulted hall leading out of it is the traditional scene of the murder of Duncan by Macbeth, the "Thane of Glamis." In a room above it King Malcolm II. of Scotland was murdered in 1034. The castle positively teems with these agreeable traditions. The staircases and their pa.s.sages are stone-walled, stone-roofed, and stone-floored, and their flags are worn into hollows by the feet which have trodden them for so many centuries. Unusual features are the secret winding staircases debouching in the most unexpected places, and a well in the front hall, which doubtless played a very useful part during the many sieges the castle sustained in the old days. The private chapel is a beautiful little place of wors.h.i.+p, with eighty painted panels of Scriptural subjects by De Witt, the seventeenth-century Dutch artist, and admirable stained gla.s.s. The Castle, too, is full of interesting historical relics. It boasts the only remaining Fool's dress of motley in the kingdom; Prince Charlie's watch and clothes are still preserved there, for the Prince, surprised by the Hanoverian troops at Glamis, had only time to jump on a horse and escape, leaving all his belongings behind him. There is a wonderful collection of old family dresses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and above all there is the very ancient silver-gilt cup, "The Lion of Glamis," which holds an entire bottle of wine, and on great family occasions is still produced and used as a loving-cup, circulating from hand to hand round the table. Walter Scott in a note to Waverly states that it was the "Lion of Glamis" cup which gave him the idea of the "Blessed Bear of Bradwardine." In fact, there is no end to the objects of interest this wonderful old castle contains, and the Lyon family have inhabited it for six hundred years in direct line from father to son.

It is difficult for me to write impartially about Glamis, for it is as familiar to me as my own home. I have been so much there, and have received such kindness within its venerable walls, that it can never be to me quite as other places are. I can see vast swelling stretches of purple heather, with the dainty little harebells all a-quiver in the strong breeze sweeping over the grouse-b.u.t.ts, as a brown ma.s.s of whirling wings rushes past at the pace of an express train, causing one probably to reflect how well-nigh impossible it is to "allow" too much for driven grouse flying down-wind. I can picture equally vividly the curling-pond in winter-time, tuneful with the merry chirrup of the curling-stones as they skim over the ice, whilst cries of "Soop her up, man, soop! Soop!" from the anxious "skip" fill the keen air. I like best, though, to think of the Glamis of my young days, when the ancient stone-built pa.s.sages and halls, that have seen so many generations pa.s.s through them and disappear, rang with perpetual youthful laughter, or echoed beautifully finished part-singing; when nimble young feet twinkled, and kilts whirled to the skirl of the pipes under the vaulted roof of the nine-hundred-year-old crypt; when the whole place was vibrant with joyous young life, and the stately, grey-bearded owner of the historic castle, and of many broad acres in Strathmore besides, found his greatest pleasure in seeing how happy his children and his guests could be under his roof.

CHAPTER IX

Canada--The beginnings of the C.P.R.--Att.i.tude of British Columbia--The C.P.R. completed--Quebec--A swim at Niagara--Other mighty waterfalls--Ottawa and Rideau Hall--Effects of dry climate--Personal electricity--Every man his own dynamo--Attraction of Ottawa--Curling--The "roaring game"--Skating--An ice-palace--A ball on skates--Difficulties of translating the Bible into Eskimo--The building of the snow hut--The snow hut in use--Sir John Macdonald--Some personal traits--The Canadian Parliament buildings--Monsieur l'Orateur--A quaint oration--The "Pages' Parliament"--An all-night sitting--The "Arctic Cremorne"--A curious Lisbon custom--The Balkan "souvenir-hunters"--Personal inspection of Canadian convents--Some incidents--The unwelcome novice--The Montreal Carnival--The Ice-castle--The Skating Carnival--A stupendous toboggan slide--The pioneer of "ski" in Canada--The old-fas.h.i.+oned raquettes--A Canadian Spring--Wonder of the Dominion.

When I was in Canada for the first time in 1884, the Canadian Pacific Railway was not completed, and there was no through railway connection between the Maritime Provinces, "Upper" and "Lower" Canada, and the Pacific Coast, though, of course, in 1884 those old-fas.h.i.+oned terms for the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec had been obsolete for some time.

Since the Federation of the Dominion in 1867, the opening of the Trans-Continental railway has been the most potent factor in the knitting together of Canada, and has developed the resources of the Dominion to an extent which even the most enthusiastic of the original promoters of the C.P.R. never antic.i.p.ated. When British Columbia threw in its lot with the Dominion in 1871, one of the terms upon which the Pacific Province insisted was a guarantee that the Trans-Continental railway should be completed in ten years--that is, in 1881. Two rival Companies received in 1872 charters for building the railway; the result was continual political intrigue, and very little construction work. British Columbia grew extremely restive under the continual delays, and threatened to retire from the Dominion. Lord Dufferin told me himself, when I was his Private Secretary in Petrograd, that on the occasion of his official visit to British Columbia (of course by sea), in either 1876 or 1877, as Governor-General, he was expected to drive under a triumphal arch which had been erected at Victoria, Vancouver Island. This arch was inscribed on both sides with the word "Separation." I remember perfectly Lord Dufferin's actual words in describing the incident: "I sent for the Mayor of Victoria, and told him that I must have a small--a very small--alteration made in the inscription, before I could consent to drive under it; an alteration of one letter only. The initial 'S' must be replaced with an 'R' and then I would pledge my word that I would do my best to see that 'Reparation'

was made to the Province." This is so eminently characteristic of Lord Dufferin's methods that it is worth recording. The suggested alteration in the inscription was duly made, and Lord Dufferin drove under the arch. In spite of continued efforts the Governor-General was unable to expedite the construction of the railway under the Mackenzie Administration, and it needed all his consummate tact to quiet the ever-growing demand for separation from the Dominion on the part of British Columbia, owing to the non-fulfilment of the terms of union. It was not until 1881, under Sir John Macdonald's Premiers.h.i.+p, that a contract was signed with a new Company to complete the Canadian Pacific within ten years, but so rapid was the progress made, that the last spike was actually driven on November 7, 1886, five years before the stipulated time. The names of three Scotsmen will always be a.s.sociated with this gigantic undertaking: those of the late Donald Smith, afterwards Lord Strathcona; George Stephen, now Lord Mount-stephen; and Mr. R. B. Angus of Montreal. The last spike, which was driven in at a place called Craigellachie, by Mrs. Mackenzie, widow of the Premier under whom the C.P.R. had been commenced, was of an unusual character, for it was of eighteen-carat gold. In the course of an hour it was replaced by a more serviceable spike of steel. I have often seen Mrs.

Mackenzie wearing the original gold spike, with "Craigellachie" on it in diamonds.

There are few finer views in the world than that from the terrace of the Citadel of Quebec over the mighty expanse of the St. Lawrence, with ocean-going steamers lying so close below that it would be possible to drop a stone from the Citadel on to their decks; and the view from the Dufferin Terrace, two hundred feet lower down, is just as fine. My brother-in-law, Lord Lansdowne, had been appointed Governor-General in 1883, and I well remember my first arrival in Quebec. We had been living for five weeks in the backwoods of the Cascapedia, the famous salmon-river, under the most primitive conditions imaginable. I had come there straight from the Argentine Republic on a tramp steamer, and we lived on the Cascapedia coatless and flannel-s.h.i.+rted, with our legs encased in "beef moccasins" as a protection against the hordes of voracious flies that battened ravenously on us from morning to night.

It was a considerable change from a tent on the banks of the rus.h.i.+ng, foaming Cascapedia to the Citadel of Quebec, which was then appointed like a comfortable English country house, and gave one a thoroughly home-like feeling at once. After my prolonged stay in South America I was pleased, too, to recognise familiar pictures, furniture and china which I had last met in their English Wilts.h.i.+re home, all of them with the stolid impa.s.siveness of inanimate objects unaware that they had been spirited across the Atlantic, three thousand miles from their accustomed abiding-place.

In September 1884, at a point immediately below the Falls, I swam Niagara with Mr. Cecil Baring, now a partner in Baring Brothers, then an Oxford undergraduate. We were standing at the foot of the American Falls, when we noticed a little board inscribed, "William Grenfell of Taplow Court, England" (the present Lord Desborough), "swam Niagara at this spot." I looked at Baring, Baring looked at me. "I don't see why we shouldn't do it too," he observed, to which I replied, "We might have a try," so we stripped, sent our clothes over to the Canadian side, and entered the water. It was a far longer swim than either of us had antic.i.p.ated, the current was very strong, and the eddies bothered us. When we landed on the Canadian sh.o.r.e, I was utterly exhausted, though Baring, being eight years younger than me, did not feel the effects of the exertion so much. I remember that the Falls, seen from only six inches above the surface of the water, looked like a splendid range of snow-clad hills tumbling about in mad confusion, and that the roar of waters was deafening. As we both lay panting and gasping, puris naturalibus, on the Canadian bank, I need hardly say, as we were on the American continent, that a reporter made his appearance from nowhere, armed with notebook and pencil. This young newspaper-man was not troubled with false delicacy. He asked us point-blank what we had made out of our swim. On learning that we had had no money on it, but had merely done it for the fun of the thing, he mentioned the name of a place of eternal punishment, shut up his notebook in disgust, and walked off: there was evidently no "story" to be made out of us. After some luncheon and a bottle of Burgundy, neither Baring nor I felt any the worse for our swim, nor were we the least tired during the remainder of the day. I have seen Niagara in summer, spring and in mid-winter, and each time the fascination of these vast ma.s.ses of tumbling waters has grown on me. I have never, to my regret, seen the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, as on two separate occasions when starting for them unforeseen circ.u.mstances detained me in Cape Town.

The Victoria Falls are more than double the height of Niagara, Niagara falling 160 feet, and the Zambesi 330 feet, and the Falls are over one mile broad, but I fancy that except in March and April, the volume of water hurling itself over them into the great chasm below is smaller than at Niagara. I have heard that the width of the Victoria Falls is to within a few yards exactly the distance between the Marble Arch and Oxford Circus. When I was in the Argentine Republic, the great Falls of the River Iguazu, a tributary of the Parana, were absolutely inaccessible. To reach them vast tracts of dense primeval forest had to be traversed, where every inch of the track would have to be laboriously hacked through the jungle. Their very existence was questioned, for it depended on the testimony of wandering Indians, and of one solitary white man, a Jesuit missionary. Now, since the railway to Paraguay has been completed, the Iguazu Falls can be reached, though the journey is still a difficult one. The Falls are 200 feet high, and nearly a mile wide. In the very heart of the City of Ottawa there are the fine Chaudiere Falls, where the entire River Ottawa drops fifty feet over a rocky ledge. The boiling whirl of angry waters has well earned its name of cauldron, or "Chaudiere," but so much of the water has now been drawn off to supply electricity and power to the city, that the volume of the falls has become sensibly diminished. I know of no place in Europe where the irresistible might of falling waters is more fully brought home to one than at Trollhattan in Sweden. Here the Gotha River whirls itself down 120 feet in seven cataracts. They are rapids rather than falls, but it is the immense volume of water which makes them so impressive. Every year Trolhattan grows more and more disfigured by saw-mills, carbide of calcium works, and other industrial buildings sprouting up like unsightly mushrooms along the river-banks.

The last time that I was there it was almost impossible to see the falls in their entirety from any point, owing to this congestion of squalid factories.

Rideau Hall, the Government House at Ottawa, stands about two miles out of the town, and is a long, low, unpretentious building, exceedingly comfortable as a dwelling-house, if somewhat inadequate as an official residence for the Governor-General of Canada. Lord Dufferin added a large and very handsome ball-room, fitted with a stage at one end of it, and a full-sized tennis-court. This tennis-court, by an ingenious arrangement, can be converted in a few hours into a splendid supper-room. A red and white tent is lowered bodily from the roof; a carpet is spread over the floor; great white-and-gold electric standards bearing the arms of the different Provinces are placed in position, and the thing is done. The intense dryness of the Canadian winter climate, especially in houses where furnace-heat intensifies the dryness, produces some unexpected results. My brother-in-law had brought out a number of old pieces of French inlaid furniture. The excessive dryness forced out some of the inlaid marqueterie of these pieces, and upon their return to Europe they had to undergo a long and expensive course of treatment. Some fine Romneys and Gainesboroughs also required the picture-restorer's attentions before they could return to their Wilts.h.i.+re home after a five years' sojourn in the dry air of Canada. The ivory handles of razors shrink in the dry atmosphere; as the steel frame cannot shrink correspondingly the ivory splits in two. The thing most surprising to strangers was that it was possible in winter-time to light the gas with one's finger. All that was necessary was to shuffle over the carpet in thin shoes, and then on touching any metal object, an electric spark half an inch long would crack out of your finger. The size and power of the spark depended a great deal on the temperament of the experimenter. A high-strung person could produce quite a large spark; a stolid, bovine individual could not obtain a glimmer of one. The late Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, whilst staying at Government House, was told of this, but was inclined to be sceptical. My sister, Lady Lansdowne, made him shuffle over the carpet, and then and there touch a gas-burner from which she had removed the globe. Mr. Chamberlain, with his nervous temperament, produced a spark an inch long out of himself, and of course the gas flared up immediately. I do not think that I had ever seen any one more surprised. This power of generating static electricity from their own bodies was naturally a source of immense delight to the Lansdowne children. They loved, after shuffling their feet on the carpet, to creep up to any adult relation and touch them lightly on the ear, a most sensitive spot. There would be a little spark, a little shock, and a little exclamation of surprise. Outside the children's schoolroom there was a lobby warmed by a stove, and the air there was peculiarly dry. The young people, with a dozen or so of their youthful friends, would join hands, taking, however, care not to complete the circle, and then shuffle their feet vigorously. On completing the circuit, they could produce a combined spark over two inches long, with a correspondingly sharp shock. In my bedroom at Ottawa there was an old-fas.h.i.+oned high bra.s.s fender. Had I put on slippers, and have attempted to warm myself at the fire previous to turning-in. I should be reminded, by a sharp discharge from my protesting calves into the metal fender, that I was in dry Canada. (At that date the dryness of Canada was atmospherical only.) Curiously enough, a spark leaving the body produces the same shock as one entering it, and no electricity whatever can be generated with bare feet. One of the footmen at Ottawa must have been an abnormally high-strung young man, for should one inadvertently touch silver dinner-plate he handed one, a sharp electric shock resulted. The children delighted in one very pretty experiment.

Many books for the young have their bindings plentifully adorned with gold, notably the French series, the "Bibliotheque Rose." Should one of these highly-gilt volumes be taken into a warm and dry place, and the lights extinguished, the INNER side of the binding had only to be rubbed briskly with a fur-cap for all the gilding to begin to sparkle and coruscate, and to send out little flashes of light. The children took the utmost pleasure in this example of the curious properties of electricity.

The Ottawa of the "eighties" was an attractive little place, and Ottawa Society was very pleasant. There was then a note of unaffected simplicity about everything that was most engaging, and the people were perfectly natural and free from pretence. The majority of them were Civil servants of limited means, and as everybody knew what their neighbours' incomes were, there was no occasion for make-believe. The same note of simplicity ran through all amus.e.m.e.nts and entertaining, and I think that it const.i.tuted the charm of the place. I called one afternoon on the very agreeable wife of a high official, and was told at the door that Lady R--was not at home. Recognizing my voice, a cry came up from the kitchen-stairs. "Oh, yes! I am at home to you. Come right down into the kitchen," where I found my friend, with her sleeves rolled up, making with her own hands the sweets for the dinner-party she was giving that night, as she mistrusted her cook's capabilities.

The Ottawa people had then that gift of being absolutely unaffected, which makes the majority of Australians so attractive. Now everything has changed; Ottawa has trebled in size since I first knew it, and on revisiting it twenty-five years later, I found that it had become very "smart" indeed, with elaborate houses and gorgeous raiment.