THE MAKING OF A NOVELIST

An Experiment In Autobiography

By David Christie Murray

CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY

1894

[Portrait]From a Photograph by Thomas Fall

TO J. M. BARRIE

PREFACE

Every man who writes about himself is, on the face of the matter, obnoxious to the suspicion which haunts the daily pathway of the Bore. To talk of self and not be offensive demands an art which is not alwaysgiven to man. And yet we are always longing to get near each other andto understand each other; and in default of a closer communion withour living fellows we take to our bosoms the shadows of fiction and thestage. If the real man could be presented to us by any writer of his ownhistory we should all hail him with enthusiasm. 

Pepys, of course, came nearer than anybody else; but this is onlybecause he wrote for his own reading and meant to keep himself a secret. Dickens exquisitely veils and unveils his own personality and career in_Copperfield_, and scores of smaller writers have done the same thing infiction to our great pleasure. But to set down boldly, openly, and as afact for general publication the things of one's own doing, saying, andthinking is an impertinence whose only justification can be found in thepublic approval. If Pepys had written his Diary for publication he wouldhave been left to oblivion as a driveller. But we surprise the man'ssecret, we see what he never meant to show us, the peering jackdawinstinct is satisfied; and we feel, besides, a certain sense of humorouspity and affectionate disdain which the man himself, had we known him inlife as we know him in his book, could never have excited. Rousseau, tome, is flatly intolerable, because he meant to tell the world what everyman should have the decency to hide. 

The perfect autobiography is yet to seek, and will probably neverbe written. A partial solution of a difficulty is offered in thisexperimental booklet. It is offered without diffidence, because it isoffered in perfect modesty. I have tried to show how one particularnovelist was made; where he got some of his experiences, and inwhat varying fashions the World and Fate have tried to teach him hisbusiness. It has been my effort to do this in the least egotistical andthe most straightforward fashion. The narrative is quite informal andwanders where it will; but in its serial publication it received markedfavour from an indulgent public, and I like to give it an equal chanceof permanence with the rest of my writings, which I trust will notconvey the notion that I covet a too-exaggerated longevity. Shouldthe public favour continue, the field of experience is wide; and I mayrepeat Dick Swiveller's saying to Mr. Quilp--'There is plenty more inthe shop this comes from. '

THE MAKING OF A NOVELIST

I

Only a day or two ago I found myself arrested on my eastward way alongthe Strand by the hand of a friend upon my shoulder. We chatted for aminute or two, and I found that I was in front of Lipscombe's window. A ball of cork, which has had a restless time of it for many years, was dodging up and down the limits of a glass shade, tossed by a jet ofwater. The sight of it carried me back twenty years in a flash. 'Inthe year 1872 I came to London, as many young men had done before me, without funds, without friends, and without employment, trusting, withthe happy-go-lucky disposition of youth, to the chapter of accidents. For some time the accidents were all unfavourable, and there came amorning when I owned nothing in the world but the clothes I stood in. I found myself that morning very tired, very hungry, very down in themouth, staring at the cork ball on the jet of water under the glassshade, and drearily likening it to my own mental condition, flung hitherand thither, drenched, rolled over, lifted and dropped by a capricebeyond the power of resistance. It was at this mournful moment that Ifound my first friend in London. The story of that event shall be toldhereafter. What I want to say now is that the sight of that permanentshow in Lipscombe's window made me younger for a minute by a scoreof years, and opened my mind to such a rush of recollections that Idetermined then and there to put my memories on paper. 

I am not such an egotist as to suppose my experiences to be altogetherunique; but I know them to be curious and in places surprising. Adventures, as Mr. Disraeli said a good many years ago, are to theadventurous, and in a smallish kind of way I have sought and foundenough to stock the lives of a thousand stay-at-homes. At the firstblush it would not appear to the outside observer that the literarylife is likely to be fruitful in adventure; but in the circle of my ownacquaintance there are a good many men who have found it so. 

In the city of Prague the most astonishing encounters pass for every-dayincidents. In these days of universal enlightenment nobody needs to betold that Prague is the capital of Bohemia. There is a note that ringsfalse in the very name of that happy country now. Its traditions havebeen vulgarised by people who have never passed its borders. All sortsof charlatans have soiled its history with ignoble use, and thevery centre and citadel of its capital has an air of being built ofgingerbread. In point of fact, though its inhabitants are sparser thanthey once were, and its occasional guests of distinction fewer, theplace itself is as real as ever it was. I have lived in it for a quarterof a century, and, without vanity, may claim to know it as well as anyman alive. 

Eight or ten years ago I was sitting in the Savage Club in the companyof four distinguished men of letters. One was the editor of a Londondaily, and he was talking rather too humbly, as I thought, about his owncareer. 

'I do not suppose, ' he said, 'that any man in my present position hasexperienced in London the privations I knew when I first came here. Iwent hungry for three days, twenty years back, and for three nights Islept in the Park. '

One of the party turned to me. 'You cap that, Christie?'

I answered, 'Four nights on the Embankment. Four days hungry. '

My left-hand neighbour was a poet, and he chimed in laconically, 'Five. '

In effect, it proved that there was not one of us who had not slept inthat Hotel of the Beautiful Star which is always open to everybody. Wehad all been frequent guests there, and now we were all prosperous, and had found other and more comfortable lodgings. There is a gentlerbrotherhood to be found among men who have put up in that greatcaravanserai than can be looked for elsewhere. He jests at scars thatnever felt a wound, and a fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind. 

There are many people still alive who remember the name of GeorgeDawson. There used to be thousands who recognized it with venerationand affection. He was my first chief, editor of the _Birmingham MorningNews_, and had been my idol for years. My red-letter nights were whenhe came over to my native town of West Bromwich to lecture for the YoungMen's Christian Association there on Tennyson, 'Vanity Fair, ' OliverGoldsmith, and kindred themes. 

Every Sunday night it was my habit to tramp with a friend of mine, deadlong ago, into Birmingham to hear Dawson preach in the Church of theSaviour. The trains ran awkwardly for us, and many scores of times poorNed and myself walked the five miles out and five miles home in rain andsnow and summer weather to listen to the helpful and inspiriting wordsof the strongest and most helpful man I have ever known. 

I am not sure at this time of day what I should think of George Dawsonif he still survived; but nothing can now diminish the affection andreverence with which I bless his memory. I had been writing prose andverse for the local journals for a year or two. I was proud and pleasedbeyond expression to be allowed to write the political leaders for the_Wednesday Advertiser_. I got no pay, and I dare say the editor was aspleased to find an enthusiast who did his work for nothing as I was tobe allowed to do it. In practical journalism I had had no experiencewhatever; but when Dawson was announced as the editor of the forthcoming_Birmingham Morning News_ I wrote to him, asking to be allowed tojoin the staff. I had already secured a single meeting with him a yearbefore, and he had spoken not unkindly of some juvenile verses which Ihad dared to submit to his judgment

He proved to be as well acquainted with practical journalism as myself, for in answer to my application he at once offered me the post ofsub-editor. Dr. Langford, who held actual command, set his veto on thisrather absurd appointment, and told me that if I wished to join thejournalistic guild at all I must begin at the beginning. I asked whatthe beginning might be, and learned that the lowest grade in journalismin the provinces is filled by the police-court reporter. The salaryoffered was 25s. A week. The work began at eleven o'clock in themorning and finished at about eleven o'clock at night. I have known manysleepless nights since then; but the first entirely wakeful time I hadpassed between the sheets was spent in the mental discussion of thatoffer. There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth at home whenI decided to accept it. The journal was very loosely conducted--a leaderin the Birmingham Daily Post spoke of us once as the people acrossthe street who were playing at journalism--and the junior reporterwas permitted to write leaders, theatrical criticisms, and a series ofarticles on the works of Thomas Carlyle, then first appearing in popularform in a monthly issue. 

I have always maintained, and must always continue to believe, thatthere is no school for a novelist which can equal that of journalism. In the police court, at inquests in the little upper rooms of tenth-ratepublic-houses, and in the hospitals which it was my business to visitnightly, I began to learn and understand the poor. I began on my ownaccount to investigate their condition, and as a result of one or twoarticles about the Birmingham slums, was promoted at a bound from thepost of police-court reporter to that of Special Correspondent. Sixguineas a week, with a guinea a day for expenses, looked like an entryinto Eldorado. There was a good deal of heartburning and jealousyamongst the members of the staff; but I dare say all that is forgottenlong ago. 

The first real chance I got was afforded me by the first election byballot which took place in England. This was at Pontefract, where theHon. Hugh Childers was elected in a contest against Lord Pollington. Some barrister-at-law had published a synopsis of the Ballot Act, whichI bought for a shilling at New Street Station and studied all the way toPontefract I sent off five columns of copy by rail in time to catchthe morning issue of the paper, and received the first open sign ofeditorial favour on my return in the form of a cheque for ten poundsover and above my charges. The money was welcome enough; but that itshould come from the hands of my hero and man of men, and shouldbe accompanied by words of unqualified approval, was, I think, moreinspiriting than anything could possibly be to me now. A very littlewhile later Dawson came to me with a new commission. 

'I hate this kind of business, ' he said, 'but it has to be done, and wewill do it once for all. '

There was an execution to take place at Worcester. One Edward Hughes, a plasterer, I think, had murdered his wife under circumstances ofextraordinary provocation. The woman had left him once with a paramour, and when she was deserted he had taken her back again. She left him asecond time and was again deserted, and again he condoned her offence. She left him a third time, and he went to look for her. She was livingin clover, and she jeered when he begged her to return. It was set forthin evidence that he had told her that he would see her once more. He walked home--a distance of three or four miles--borrowed a razor, returned to the house in which the woman was living, asked for aninterview outside in the darkness, and there almost severed her headfrom her body. He surrendered himself immediately to the police, wastried for his life, and sentenced to be hanged. 

Rightly or wrongly, the man's story inspired me with a dreadfulsympathy. I cannot help thinking to this day that the tragedy of thatman's life went unappreciated, and that his long-suffering devotionand the passion of jealousy which at length overcame him might havefurnished Shakspeare himself with a theme as terrible as he found in'Othello. ' Anyway, the man was to be hanged and I was deputed to attendthe execution. 

At that time I had never been a witness at a death scene. I have seenthousands hurried out of life since then; and though even now I shouldfind an execution ugly and repellant, I recall with some astonishmentthe agony of horror which this commission cost me. I had an introductionto the sub-sheriff and another to the governor of the gaol; and Ipresented these at the gaol itself on a night of rainy misery which wasin complete accord with my own feelings. I went hoping with all my heartthat the permission to attend the awful ceremony of the next morningwould be refused. It was accorded, and I left the gaol in a sick whirlof pity and horror. 

I shall remember whilst I remember anything my last look at the gloomybuilding from the fields which lie between it and the town. The flyingafterguard of the late storm was hurrying across the sky, the fieldswere sodden, and rainpools lay here and there reflecting the dull steelyhue of the heavens. A single light burned red and baleful in one window, and right over the black bulk of the gaol one star beamed. It seemed tome like a promise of mercy beyond, and I went back to my hotel filledwith thoughts which will hardly bear translation. 

Next day I had a first lesson in one or two things. I saw death for thefirst time; for the first time in my life I saw a human creature in theextremity of fear, and I had my first lesson in human stupidity. I havetold the story of this execution in another place and have no mindto repeat it here. But I shall never forget the spidery black-paintedgalleries and staircases and the whitewashed walls of the corridor. I shall never forget the living man who stood trembling and almostunconscious in the very gulf of cowardice and horror. I shall neverforget the face of the wretched young chaplain who, like myself, foundhimself face to face with his first encounter with sudden death, andwho, poor soul, had over-primed himself with stimulant. I shall neverforget, either, that ghoul of a Calcraft, with his disreputable greyhair, his disreputable undertaker's suit of black, and a million dirtypin-pricks which marked every pore of the skin of his face. Calcrafttook the business business-like, and pinioned his man in the cell(with a terror-stricken half-dozen of us looking on) as calmly to allappearance as if he had been a tailor fitting on a coat. 

The chaplain read the Burial Service, or such portion of it as isreserved for these occasions, in a thick and indistinct voice. A bellclanged every half-minute or thereabouts, and it seemed to me as ifit had always been ringing and would always ring. I have the dimmestnotion--indeed, to speak the truth, I have no idea at all--as to how theprocession formed and how we found ourselves at the foot of the gallows. The doomed man gabbled a prayer under his breath at galloping speed, thewords tumbling one over the other. 'Lord Jesus have mercy upon me andreceive my spirit. ' The hapless chaplain read the service. Calcraftbustled ahead. The bell boomed. Hughes came to the foot of the gallows, and I counted mechanically nineteen black steps, fresh-tarred andsticky. 'I can't get up, ' said the murderer. A genial warder clapped himon the shoulder, for all the world as if there had been no mischief inthe business. Judging by look and accent, the one man might have invitedthe other to mount the stairs of a restaurant. 'You'll get up rightenough, ' said the warder. He got up, and they hanged him. 

Where everything was strange and dreamlike, the oddest thing of allwas to see Calcraft take the pinioned fin-like hand of the prisoner andshake it when he had drawn the white cap over the face and arrangedthe rope. He came creaking in new boots down the sticky steps of thegallows, pulled a rope to free a support which ran on a single wheel inan iron groove, and the man was dead in a second. The white cap fittedclose to his face, and the thin white linen took a momentary stain ofpurple, as if a bag of blackberries had been bruised and had suddenlyexuded the juice of the fruit. It sagged away a moment later and assumedits natural hue. 

I learned from the evening paper and from the journals of next morningthat the prisoner met his fate with equanimity. I think that in thatreport I bottomed the depths of human stupidity, if such a thing ispossible. I had never seen a man afraid before; and, when I found timeto think about it, I prayed that I might never see that shameful andawful sight again. 

II

I wrote three small-type columns--three columns of leaded minion--aboutthat execution, describing everything I had seen with a studiedminuteness. Dawson was nervous about the whole affair, and, whilst thecopy was yet in the hands of the printer, asked two or three times whathad been done with the theme. He was kept at bay by the subeditor, whoscented a sensation, and was afraid that the editor-in-chief might cutthe copy to pieces. Dawson was purposely kept waiting for proofs so longthat at last he went home without seeing them; and he often spoke to meafterwards of the rage and anguish he felt when he opened the paper athis breakfast-table and found that great mass of space devoted to thereport of an execution. He began, so he told me, by reading the lastparagraph first; then he read the paragraph preceding it; and next, beginning resolutely at the beginning, found himself compelled to readthe whole ghastly narrative clean through. The machine was at workall day to supply the local demand for this particular horror, and Mr. George Augustus Sala wrote specially to ask who was the author of thenarrative. I began to think my fortune made. 

The journalist is like the doctor, his services are in requisitionmainly in times of trouble. The Black Country which lies north ofBirmingham is full of disaster, and the special correspondent has a bigfield there. Quite early in my career I was sent out to Pelsall Hall, near Walsall, where a mine had been flooded and two-and-thirty men wereknown to be in the workings. I was born and bred in the mining district, and was familiar with the heroism of the miners. They are not allheroes, and even those who are are not always heroic. But use breeds acurious indifference to danger. 

I remember once paying a visit to the Tump Pit at or near Rowley Regisat a time when the men were taking their midday meal. There was a sortof Hall of Eblis there, a roof thirty feet high or thereabouts, and themen sat in a darkness dimly revealed by the light of one or twotallow candles. Down in the midst of them fell a portion of the rockyroof--enough to have filled a wheelbarrow, and enough certainly to haveput out the vital spark of any man on whom it might have fallen. Onecoal-grimed man, at whose feet the mass had fallen, looked up placidlyand said, 'That stuck up till it couldn't stick no longer;' and thatwas all that was said about the matter. I suppose there was a tacitrecognition of the fact that the same thing might happen in any part ofthe mine at any moment, and that it was useless to attempt to runaway from it. A passive scorn of danger is an essential element in theminer's life, and when need arises he shows an active scorn of it whichis finer than anything I have ever seen in battle. 

The Pelsall Hall Colliery disaster was the hinge on which the door of myfate was hung. I wrote an unspeakably bad novel which had that disasterfor its central incident, and it was published from Saturday to Saturdayin the _Morning News_, to the great detriment of that journal; and solong as the story ran, angry subscribers wrote to the editor to vilifyit and its author. There was some very good work in it none the less;and an eminent critic told me that, though it was capital flesh andblood, it had no bones. It resulted years afterwards in 'Joseph's Coat, 'which is, if I may say so, less inchoate and formless than its dead andburied original. 

But it was not that exasperating novel which made the Pelsall Halldisaster memorable in my personal history. I made an acquaintancethere--an acquaintance curiously begun--which did much for me. I metthere the king of all special correspondents, and had an immediateshindy with him. There was only one decent room to be found by way oflodging in the village, and this was in the cottage of one Bailey, aworking engineer. Mr. Bailey, without his wife's knowledge, had letthat room to me for a week at a rent of one sovereign, and Mrs. Bailey, without her husband's knowledge, had let the room at a similar rentto the great Special. Box and Cox encountered, each determined on hisrights and each resolute to oust the other. 

I was leaving the cottage at about seven in the morning, when I meta man in a flannel shirt with no collar attached to it, a three days'beard, a suit of homespun, and heavy ankle jack-boots much bemired withthe clay of the rain-sodden fields. He smoked a short clay pipe andlooked like anything but what he was--the comet of the newspaperfirmament. 

'What are you doing here?' he asked--The manner was aggressive anddictatorial, and I resented it. 

'Is that your business?' I retorted. 

'Who are you?' he asked. I told him that I was the representative of the_Birmingham Morning News_, but questioned his right to the information. 

'Look here, young man, ' he said; 'there's only one spare room in thatcottage, and it belongs to me. I've rented it from the woman of thehouse for a pound a week. '

'And I have rented it, ' I answered, 'from the woman's husband for apound a week. '

'Well, ' said the great man with much composure, 'if I find you there Ishall chuck you out of window. '

I told him that that was a game which two might play at; at which heburst into a great laugh and clapped me on the shoulder. We agreed totake bed and sofa on alternate nights, and there the matter ended; butI found out my rival's name, and would have been willing, in theenthusiasm of my hero-worship, to resign anything to him. Anything, thatis to say, but my own ambitions as a journalist and the interests of the_Morning News_. 

Here was a chance indeed. Here was a foeman worthy of any man's steel. To beat Archibald Forbes would be, as it seemed then, to crown oneselfwith everlasting glory, and I was not altogether without hope ofdoing it. For one thing, I was native to the country-side. I spoke thedialect, and that was a great matter. Forbes was incomprehensible tohalf the men, and three-fourths of what they said was incomprehensibleto him. There was to be a descent and an attempt at rescue on themidnight of the third day after the breaking in of the waters, and I hadsecured permission to accompany the party. 

I hired a horse at a livery-stable at Walsall, and had him kept inreadiness in the back yard of a beerhouse. My giant enemy, aftermaintaining a strict watch on matters for eight-and-forty hours at astretch, had gone to bed at last, convinced that nothing could be done. It was a dreadful night, and not an easy matter for one unaccustomedto the place to find his way to the pit's mouth. The iron cages of firethat burned there in the windy rain and the dark impeded rather thanhelped the stranger on his way towards them. The feet of thousands ofpeople, who had visited the spot since the news of the accident was madeknown, had worn away the last blade of grass from the slippery fieldsand had left a very Slough of Despond behind them. I was down half adozen times, and when I reached the hovel where the rescue-party hadgathered I was as much like a mud statue as a man. Everything was inreadiness, and the descent was made at once. 

We were under the command of Mr. Walter Ness, a valiant Scotchman, whoafterwards became the manager of her Majesty's mines in Warora, CentralIndia. Five or six of us huddled together on the 'skip, ' the word wasgiven, and we shot down into the black shaft, which seemed in the lightof the lamps we carried as if its wet and shining walls of brick rushedupwards whilst we kept stationary. In a while we stopped, with a blackpool of water three or four fathoms below us. 

'This 'll be the place, ' said one of the men, and tapped the wall with apick. 

'Yes, ' said Mr. Ness, 'that will be about the place; try it. '

The man lay down upon his stomach upon the floor of the skip and workedaway a single brick, which fell with a splash into the pool below. Thenout came another and another, until there was a hole there big enoughfor a man to crawl through. We had struck upon an old disused airwaywhich led into the inner workings of the mine. One by one we snaked ourway from the skip into the hole; and, whatever the miners thought aboutit, it was rather a scarey business for me. We all got over safelyenough and began a journey on all fours through mud and slush five orsix inches deep. Here and there the airway was lofty enough to allow usto walk with bent heads and rounded shoulders. Sometimes it was so lowthat we had to go snakewise. There was one place where the floor androof of the passage had sunk so that we actually had to dive for it. This seemed a little comfortless at the time, but it saved our livesafterwards. After a toilsome scramble we came upon the stables, andfound there the first dead body. 

It was that of a lad named Edward Colman, who had met his death in acurious and dreadful manner. He was sitting on a rocky bench, and at hisfeet lay a rough hunch of bread and meat and a clasp-knife. He had heardevidently the cry of alarm, had sprung to his feet, and had struck thetop of his head with fatal force against a projecting lance of rockimmediately above him. There had been a speedy end to his troubles, poorfellow, and he sat there stiff and cold and pallid, staring before himlike a figure in an exhibition of waxworks. 

The waters barred our further descent into the mine, but there wasa belief that by breaking through the earthy wall of the stable acontinuation of the old airway would be found. The experiment was triedwith an alarming result No sooner was the breach made than a slow streamof choke-damp flowed into the chamber, and the lights began to go outone by one. We scrambled back at once for our lives, and once pastthe pool were safe; the water effectually blocked the passage of thepoisonous gas. I got but one whiff of it; but it gave me a painfulsensation at the bridge of the nose which lasted acutely for some days. In all, our expedition had not lasted an hour; but it had proved todemonstration the impossibility of saving a single life. 

I was dressed and mounted in another quarter of an hour and scouringhard through the dark and the rain in the direction of Birmingham. WhenI arrived there the country edition of the _News_ was already on themachine and the compositors were leaving work. Word was given at once, however, the whole contingent detained, and I sat down to write anaccount of the night's adventure--the printer's devil coming for thecopy sheet by sheet as it was written, and each folio being scissoredinto half a dozen pieces so that as many men as possible might work onit at once. I slept a few hours, and then rode back to Pelsall with acopy of the paper in my pocket. Forbes packed up his belongings an hourlater and left the scene. 

I had an idea that I had made an enemy, and that Forbes would neverforgive me for beating him. I did not know my man, however; for it washe who took me by the hand in London a year afterwards and secured forme the first regular engagements I ever held there. He introduced me toEdmund Yates, who found me a place on the original staff of the _World_, and to J. R. Robinson, manager of the _Daily News_, who gave me a seatin the gallery of the House of Commons and a chance to show what I wasgood for as a descriptive writer. Forbes did more than this; but thematter I have in mind is private and confidential. I have no right tospeak of it here, except to say that it was an act of large-heartedgenerosity performed in a fashion altogether characteristic of the man, and that I shall never cease to be affectionately grateful for it. 

There were two instances of escape at the Pelsall Hall disaster whichseem worth recording. Every mine has what is known as an 'upcastshaft'--a perpendicular tunnel which runs side by side with the workingshaft, and is connected with it at the foot by an airway which serves toventilate the workings. When the first rush of water, breaking in fromsome old deserted working, came tearing down, a man and a boy werestanding at the bottom of the downcast. They were carried on the crestof the wave clean through the airway, borne some distance upwards inthe upcast, and were there floated on to the floor of a skip, where theywere found insensible, but living, some hours later. No other creaturewas brought to bank alive. 

One special correspondent turned up at Pelsall on a Sunday, just asthe pumping apparatus, which had broken down, was on the point of beingrepaired, and when everybody concerned was working for the bare life. Ithad not then been finally established that hope was over, and everybodywas inspired with an almost superhuman vigour. The correspondent, whowas a mighty person in his own esteem, sent his card to the manager, whosent him back a sufficiently courteous message, saying how busy he wasand asking to be excused for an hour or two. 

'Take back that card, ' said the special (I was a witness of the scene), 'say that I represent' (he named one of the most influential of theLondon dailies), 'and that I insist upon an interview. '

This time a sufficiently discourteous message came back; and the mightypersonage, after loafing about for an hour or two, retired and wrotean article in which he described the people of the Black Country assavages, and revived a foolish old libel or two which at one time hadcurrency concerning them. The old nonsense about the champagne wasthere, for one thing. I know the Black Country miners pretty well--Iought to do so, at least, for I was born in the thick of them andwatched their ways from childhood to manhood--and I never knew a workingminer who had so much as heard of champagne. Now and then a prosperous'butty' (_Anglicè_, chartermaster) may have tried a bottle; but theworking collier's beverage is 'pit beer. ' The popular recipe for thisdrink is to 'chuck three grains of malt into the cut, and drink as muchas ye like of it. '

I remember the story of one wine party which met at the Scott's Arms atBarr. I dare say Mr. Henry Irving knows the house, for he is Presidentof the Literary Society there. The tale was told me by the landlord. Three chartermasters sat at a table in the bar, and old Pountneyoverheard their whispered talk. 

'Didst iver drink port, Jim?'

'No; what is it?'

'Why, port--port wine; it's a stuff as the gentlefolks is fond on. '

'I reckon it'll be main expensive, then. '

'Oh, we can stand it amongst the three on us. Got any port wine, landlord?'

'Yes, some of the finest in the county. '

'What's it run to?'

'Seven-and-six a bottle. '

'They figured it out, ' the landlord told me, 'with a bit of a stump ofan ode pencil on the top o' the table, and when they'd made up theirminds as siven and sixpence was half a crown apiece amongst the three on'em they ordered a bottle. I sent my man down the cellar for it, andI went out to look at my pigs. When I come back again there they wassittin' wry-mouthed an' looking at one another, wi' some muddy-lookin'stuff in the glasses afore 'em. "Gentlemen, " I says, "ye don't seem tolike your liquor. " "Like it!" says one on 'em; "if this is the stuffthe gentlefolks drinkin', the gentlefolks is welcome to it for we. " Iturns to my man, and "Bill, " says I, "where did ye get this bottle o'port from?" "Why, " he says, "I got it from the fust bin on the left-handside. " "Why, you cussid ode idiot, " I says, "you've browt 'em mushroomketchup!"'

III

It was on May 25, 1865, that I enlisted in her Majesty's Fourth RoyalIrish Dragoon Guards. I was just past my eighteenth birthday, and, forreasons not worth specifying nowadays, the world had come to an end. Civil life afforded no appropriate means of exit from this mortal stage, and I was in a condition (theoretically) to march with pleasure againsta savage foe. I was ignorant of these little matters, and was notaware of the fact that the Fourth Royal Irish was mainly a stay-at-homeregiment. 

My ardour for the military life was cooled pretty early. I dare say thatthings have mended somewhat in the last seven-and-twenty years; but myexperience was in the main a record of petty tyrannies and oppressions, at the memory of some of which my blood boils even unto this day. Thereis a comic side to everything, however, and I can laugh over a good manyof my own experiences. I had a dinner engagement that day with a friendin the Haymarket, and finding myself a little too early for it, I stoodto watch the fountains playing in Trafalgar Square. My mind was in astate of moody grandeur, which is both comic and affecting to recall atthis distance of time. I was quite a misunderstood young person, and wasdetermined to be revenged for it, on all and sundry, myself included. The blue-coated brass-buttoned old spider who came to weave his webaround me had no need to be elaborate. I closed with him at once, and heled me with a stealthy seeming of indifference into a back yard, wherehe put the statutory questions and handed over the statutory shilling. 

I had supposed that I should at once enter upon my military career, but, to my surprise, I was ordered to report myself at the depot atSt. George's Barracks on the following day at noon. Failing this, I wasinstructed that I should be held a rogue and vagabond, and should beliable to a period of imprisonment I went on to dinner, and bore myselfthere with a mysterious gloom, which, as I learned long afterwards, gaverise to a good deal of conjecture. Next day I was sworn in in a frowsyback room behind the Westminster Police Court, and learned that I wasnow formally bound to the service of her Majesty for a term of twelveyears, my sole hope of escape being the payment of a sum of thirtypounds as purchase-money. 

My military ardour had been a little cooled already at the medicalexamination, where, to my horrible embarrassment, I was made to stripstark naked, and was inspected by an elderly gentleman in a _pince-nez_, with half a dozen uninterested people looking on, amongst them two orthree louts in fustian who were awaiting their turn. I was put intoa variety of postures, all of which I felt to be ridiculous andhumiliating; and when this ordeal was over there came the swearing-inand a visit to the depot canteen, where I received payment of a sum ofseven and sixpence and was introduced to some of the raw material of thefighting forces of the nation. 

I may say quite frankly that I did not like the raw material. The youngmen who composed it were without exception vulgar and loutish. Theirlanguage was absolutely unreportable, and they were all more or lessflushed with beer. I had been almost a total abstainer all my life, andthough I drank a little of it out of complaisance I thought the canteentack the nastiest stuff I had ever tasted The depot barrack-room inwhich the recruits slept until the time of their deportation echoedmorning, noon, and night with unmeaning ribaldries and obscenities, and was stale with the smoke of bad tobacco and the fumes of that mostindifferent beer. I learned that I was bound for Ireland, and that thehead-quarters of my regiment were at Cahir. One respectable old depotsergeant took some interest in my quiet and isolation. 'You'll be out ofthis lot soon, ' he said, 'and you'll never see anything like it again. These chaps'll learn manners when they join the colours; and you'relucky in the regiment you're going to--there's no smarter in theservice. '

I have made one or two uncomfortable journeys in my time, but I canrecall nothing quite so comfortless as the march with that ragged anddisreputable contingent along Piccadilly, across Hyde Park, down theEdgware Road, and so on to Paddington Station. It was all very well forthe sore and rebellious heart to be singing inwardly, 'Yes, let me likea soldier fall, ' but this was a sordid beginning for military glory, and I would sooner have been shot outright than I would have encounteredanybody I knew on that journey. I reached the station unobserved, so faras I know, and was glad to hide myself in a third-class carriage, intowhich the sergeant in charge of the party beckoned me. He was very kindand friendly indeed, advising me in a score of ways suggested by his ownexperience, and talking constantly with his hand upon my shoulder. I hadbegun to think him quite a genuine good fellow, and my heart was warmingto him, when he let the cat out of the bag. 

I was handsomely attired, and the morning suit I was wearing was barelya week old. He was good enough to offer me ten shillings and a rig-outfor a scarecrow in exchange for it. I declined the friendly offer, and the sergeant cooled. He condescended to accept a drink at DidcotJunction; indeed, he did me the honour to ask for it; but when it wasconsumed he ordered me into a carriage already fully occupied by half ascore of my fellow recruits, and in their society I finished the journeyto Bristol. 

We put up at the Gloucester Barracks, which, as I understood, had oncebeen an hotel, and the escort sergeant, who had turned spiteful, set meto work to carry coal upstairs. 

This was my first experience of fatigue duty, and I was kept at ittill I was very fatigued indeed, and my smart summer trousers andspick-and-span shirt-cuffs were a little damaged. This duty over, I metthe escort sergeant no more, but was transferred to the care of a quaintold boy who made an astonishing display of learning. He had four or fiveLatin proverbs at his command. He knew the Greek alphabet, had pickedup a bit of Hindostani on Indian service, and a little bit of Frenchand Turkish in the Crimea. All these he aired upon me in a very naturalmanner, and I was much impressed with his erudition, until a grinningdepot man got me into a corner and told me that 'the sergeant hadshown me the whole bag o' thricks at wonst, ' He paid every well-dressedrecruit that compliment, it seemed; and the depot man warned me thathe too would make a bid for my clothes, and would offer me a scarecrowrig-out in return. 

'If ye'll take my tip, ' said the depot man, 'ye'll say neither yes norno till ye get to barracks. Kape the ould blagyard hangin' on and offtill ye get inside the gates, and then tell him to go to blazes. If yeloike to work him properly, ye can kape him as smooth as soft soap allthe way. If ye say no too early he'll be on t'ye like a ton o' pig-iron. It's the truth I'm tellin' ye, ' he added, 'as sure as God made littleapples. '

He thought his advice was worth a drink. I thought so too, and he gotit. 

We steamed away next day in the _Apollo_, bound for Cork. We had arough passage, and the depot sergeant took me into his private cabinand cheered me with a glass of whisky, the first I had ever tasted. Hebegan, when he had thus softened my heart, to try the bargain about thesuit of clothes, and produced a set of garments the like of which I donot think I ever saw. 

'You'll not be allowed to keep these, ' he explained, fingering me allover to test the quality of the cloth I wore. 'You'll be in regimentalsin a day or two, and it'll make no difference to you. '

One of the officers of the vessel looked in whilst this business wasgoing on and broke in gruffly, 'You join your regiment looking like agentleman, young man. Your officers won't think any the worse of youfor going in decent. Damn it all, sergeant, what d'ye want to spoil thelad's prospects for?'

So a second time the suit was saved; but it went a week later to an oldsoldier who was leaving the regiment and whom it fitted to a hair. Hewas to leave a certain portion of his kit behind for me, which, as heassured me, would be of the utmost use; but he sold such articles asbelonged to him to the men in his own barrack-room that evening, anddecamped without seeing me again. 

The stormy passage ended delightfully amidst the quiet beauties andserene shelter of the Cove of Cork. I have seen a great many of theworld's show-places since 1865, and I dare say that my inexperiencecounted for much; but I cannot recall any natural spectacle whichafforded me a more genuine delight. It was the morning of the 30th ofMay. The sun was just rising, and the roofs and spires of the citywere outlined against a lucent belt of sky. Spike Island lay green andsmiling in the middle of the cove; and on either side, on the emeraldslopes, white villas were dotted here and there. The whole scene lookedvery sweet and pure and homelike, and there were certain thoughts in myown mind which made the view memorable. 

We were all bundled up to the Cat's Hill Barracks, and there held overSunday. My companions melted away unregarded, and I travelled down toCahir under the charge of a decent old fellow who did not try to buy myclothes, but spent a good deal of time in exhorting me to write to myfriends and beg their pardon for having made a fool of myself. 

'Yell be doing it late, ' he said, 'and ye may as well be doing it soon. '

I was quite lonely and sore enough to have taken the advice, andmilitary glory looked a long way off; but a silly pride withheld me, andI pretended to feel well satisfied with my prospects and surroundings. 

When I came to understand things a little I could see that the regimentwas in a splendid state of discipline and efficiency. It had not been soa few years before, when the Lieutenant Robinson episode at Birminghamhad brought the command of Colonel Bentinck into grave disrepute. Lieutenant-Colonel Shute, on whom the actual charge of the regimentdevolved, set to work to bring cosmos out of chaos; and did it, thoughit took him a day or two of very uphill work. I know more of what aregiment should be than I did then, and I do not ask a firmer or amore judicious discipline. The men were enthusiastically loyal to theircolonel, and believed in him as if he had been a sort of deity. I ampersuaded that they would have gone anywhere and have done anything forhim. There is nothing the British soldier respects like justice, and helikes it none the less if it is a little stern. We all had a holy dreadof the colonel, though he was not a bit more of a martinet than any goodofficer should be; and his wife, who had a habit of giving autographedPrayer Books to the men, was regarded with a genuine affection. 

I found the men, in the main, very good fellows indeed. Of course therewere all sorts among them. Many were well bred and well educated, andone or two might have been met without surprise in almost any society. Some, again, were thorough-going blackguards, and others, who wereamong the most popular and the best soldiers, were incurably rackety andundisciplined. One man, who had thrice won his stripes as full corporal, was for the third time broken and reduced to the ranks during my firstmonth of service. He would keep away from drink for two or three yearsat a time, and then in a night would undo all the results of hard workand self-denial. Take the men in the main, and it would be difficult tofind a better lot; but the petty officers seemed to make it the businessof their lives to put the heaviest of burdens on the shoulders of anypromising recruit. They were none of them very well educated, and Isuppose that it was only natural that they should fear the advancementof a youngster better tutored than themselves, and should do their bestto keep him down. One only found this disposition amongst the youngernon-coms. --men who had not held their places long enough to grow used tothe dignity of rank. 

There is, or was in my time, a soldiers' proverb, 'As nasty as anew-made corporal, ' With one exception the sergeant-majors were goodfellows and popular with their men. I shall not give the name of theexception, for he may be still alive; but he was commonly known as 'ThePig, ' and he deserved his title. There was no meanness and no denialof military etiquette of which he would not be guilty to get a man intotrouble. One badgered private assaulted him violently with a pitchfork, and suffered two years' imprisonment for that misdemeanour. 'The Pig'was quite uncured by this experience; and one night, prowling round thebarrack-rooms after 'lights out' to see if he could find an after-darksmoker, he was assailed with a tremendous shower of highlows from everyquarter of the room. The cavalry highlow, well aimed and low, as CountBilly Considine said about the decanter, may be made a very effectivemissile, and its powers of offence are not diminished by the fact thatit pretty often carries a spur in the heel of it This event was spokenof with bated breath about the regiment for a day or two, but nothingcame of it 'The Pig' was by no means sure of his popularity with hissuperiors; and there is an admirable and most trustworthy militarytradition to the effect that no good officer is ever assaulted by hismen. 

IV

The Fourth Royal Irish prided themselves particularly, and not withoutreason, on the smart and soldierlike aspect of the regiment Recruitswere looked on with a jealous eye, and a gawky or loutish fellow wasreceived with open disfavour. While we were at Cahir a couple of youngfishermen from the North of Ireland joined. They came in sea-boots, pilot-cloth trousers, and knitted jerseys; and they were for a whileobjects of derision. I dare say one story is remembered in the regimentstill. They were sent into the riding-school before they had had timeto get their regimentals. It is no easy business for any unaccustomedperson to mount a saddled horse without the aid of stirrups, and theyoung sailors in their huge sea-boots were at a double disadvantage. 

'I can't get aboard this here craft nohow, Captain, ' said one of themto old Barron, the riding drill. I shall never forget his expression ofcontempt and scorn as he saw the young men ignominiously hoisted intothe saddle. At the first order to trot the fishermen hung on desperatelyto saddle and headstall. 

'Jack, ' said Barron, wrinkling his red nose in disdain, 'look out, oryou'll be overboard!'

'Not me, ' says Jack; 'not so long as the bloomin' riggin' holds. '

The sea-going brethren turned out very smart soldiers later on; butwithin a month of their arrival there came about the most hopelessspecimen I can remember to have seen. His name was Sullivan, though hepronounced it Soolikan, and he was an embodiment of every awkwardnessand stupidity. He was a shambling, flat-footed, weak-kneed, round-shouldered youth, and the Fourth asked with amazement how on earththe doctors had been induced to pass him. So far as I remember, he neverlearned anything. The various drills laboured at him like galley-slaves, but never succeeded in teaching him the difference between 'port arms'and 'carry arms. ' When he had been diligently instructed in the swordexercise, he asked the sergeant what was the use of it all. 'While I wasgoing through that, ' says he, 'some bloody-minded Russian 'd be choppin'me head off. ' It was his idea that a soldier was supposed to go throughthe sword exercise in face of the enemy; and the notion that it wassimply intended to give dexterity in the use of the weapon neveroccurred to him. 

There was never anything in the world more hopeless than the attempt toteach Soolikan to ride. Of course he was never trusted in the _manège_;but he tumbled about on the tan of the riding-school in an astonishingmanner, breaking no bones and incurring, somehow or other, no sort ofdamage. Every morning the recruits led their horses into the school andmounted there, and every morning old Barron addressed his _bête noire_in the same words, 'Pick a soft place, Sullivan. ' It was all very wellso long as the ride circled at a walk at the lower end of the schoolBut then came the order, 'Go large!' and shortly afterwards the longdrawling command, 'Tr-r-o-o-o-t!'

The horses, which were old stagers and knew the words of command farbetter than their riders, started at the beginning of the note; andbefore the call had well ended the brisk impressive 'Halt!' would snapacross it like a pistol-shot. 'Pick up Sullivan, somebody!' The lucklessman, after more than three months' lessons, came to me one morning intriumph and told me with a broad grin, 'I didn't fall, off the day, ' Hewas recognised from the first as incorrigible, and when he had spent butfour months in the regiment he disappeared. It was darkly whisperedin the barrack-rooms that he had been told to go, and that he had beenbribed with a ten-pound note to desert the regiment. I dare not mentionnames; but I think I could lay my hand on the gallant officer who wentto this expense for the credit of the corps. 

I suppose the School Boards have done much within the last score ofyears to minimise the mass of popular ignorance; but in '65 onefound here and there an amazing corner of mental darkness amongst therank-and-file of a dandy regiment like the Fourth. There was a greathulking fellow named Gardiner, who was boasting one day that he couldcarry twice his own weight He was told that he could not so much as lifthis own, and was persuaded into a two-handled hamper, in which he madeherculean efforts to lift himself. There was another man who receivedwith perfect gravity the chaffing statement of a comrade, to the effectthat he had shot a wood-pigeon at the North Pole, and that the bird hadfallen on the needle on the top of the Pole, and had frozen so hard thatit was impossible to remove it. 

'Ye know the song, ' said the humourist, "True as the needle to thepole. " There's no gettin' the needle out of the Pole, and now there's nogettin' the pigeon off the needle. '

The man for whose benefit the narrative was told smoked his pipestolidly, and answered, 'Begorra, but it must be cold up there!'

Some of the men had odd ideas about the uses to which learning shouldbe put. One came to me on a Sunday afternoon bearing a Bible, with arequest that I would find for him and read to him all the indelicatepassages. I met this proposal with so loud a negative, and heaped suchinvective on the head of its author, that the corporal of the room, whowas smoking a tranquil pipe outside, came in to find out what was thematter, and, being satisfied, fell to beating the man about the headwith a boot. From the person thus chastised I heard no more of thematter; but I learned enough from others to know that my refusal had nothelped to make me popular. There was a tacit sense to the effect that Iwas not a friendly fellow--that I was not willing to share the resultsof my reading with the less favoured. 

At this distance of time I can write dispassionately; but for many yearsI had recollections of petty tyrannies which made my blood boil. Therewas a lanky youth, four or five months older in the regiment thanmyself, who was related to one of the sergeant-majors, and who was, ofcourse, booked by his relative for promotion. It was never, so far asI can learn, a part of army etiquette, but it was a common practice atthat time, to steal the belongings of a new arrival, and in that way toeke out a deficiency in the kit of the plunderer. My valise had not beenserved out to me a week before it was denuded of one-half its contents, and I was reduced to a draft of one penny a day for pocket-money untilsuch time as the depredations were made good. The sergeant-major'snephew was found in the act of pipeclaying a pair of gauntlet gloveswhich bore my number, and the immediate consequence of this was astand-up fight in the riding-school in the presence of some fiftyor sixty of the men and two or three officers who looked on fromthe gallery. I came out more than conqueror and recovered the stolenproperty; but the lanky young man was made lance-corporal next week, andit became part of his duty to instruct me in military exercises in whichI was far more proficient than himself. It became a regular habit of histo keep me at work while the rest of the squad stood at ease, and he hada vocabulary which, though limited and unoriginal, was as offensive ascan easily be conceived. 

He applied to me at last so vile an epithet that, in the heat ofthe moment, I forgot that I had a sabre in my hand, and, hitting outstraight from the shoulder, I landed him on the mouth with the guard ofthe weapon. This, of course, was flat mutiny, and before I knew whereI was I was seized from behind, the sabre whirled in the air, and I waslying all abroad with a sprained wrist. Then I was solemnly marched tothe guardroom, and there taken in charge to await an interview with thecolonel in the morning. 

One of the men on guard had borrowed from the regimental library acopy of Charles Reades 'It is Never too Late to Mend, ' and I read thatmasterpiece all the afternoon and as long into the night as the waninglight would allow. The guard-room bed, with its sloping board and woodenpillow, made no very luxurious sleeping-place, and I was up at daylightto finish the most absorbing and enchanting story I had ever, untilthen, encountered. The book retains a great portion of its old charm andpower until this day for me, but at that time it shut out everything;and though, for aught I knew to the contrary, I might be sentenced tobe flogged or shot, I resigned myself to the spell of the story ascompletely as if the future had been altogether clear. The colonel wasrather dreadful when the time came, and I remember one axiom which I gotfrom him in the first three minutes of our interview. 

'Well, what have you to say for yourself?'

'The fact is, sir, ' I answered, 'this man has been most abominablyinsolent. '

'Nonsense, ' said the colonel; 'a private can be insolent to hissuperior; a superior cannot be insolent to a private. '

I doubt whether the gallant colonel would have felt inclined to sustainthat thesis in the House of Commons, of which assembly he afterwardsbecame a popular and honoured member; but I dare say it did very wellas an orderly-room apothegm. It had to come out, however, that thenewly-made lance-corporal and I had had a fight a week or so before thedate of his promotion, and that I had come out uppermost. I spoke of thecorporal's language, but declined to repeat it One of the squad, whowas called in evidence, was less particular, and the colonel, in effect, read the young non-com, a dreadful lesson and committed me to cells forten days, giving orders that I was not to be disgraced--by which wasmeant that I was not to receive the prison crop which is made to markthe ordinary turbulent soldier. From that time care was taken that thelanky youth no longer had me in charge; but we used to scowl at eachother when we passed, and for a year or two after my return to civillife I cherished a warm hope that I might meet him and repeat in hissociety the exercise I had so sweetly relished in the riding-school. 

After this episode the crowd was down upon me. It was felt that I hadtriumphed, and it was felt that no recruit had a right to triumphover any officer, however young or however lowly placed. Even alance-corporal must be respected, or it was clear that the service wasgoing to the devil. A brace of sergeants, with whom I had been none toomuch of a favourite already, laid themselves out to get me into trouble, and the plan they adopted was delightfully simple and easy. It is therule on retiring from the _manège_ to make the grooming of one's horsethe first duty, though an old soldier will take the precaution on wet ormuddy days to run an oily rag rapidly over the burnished portions of thehorse's fittings in the first instance. This is a labour-saving practiceand is almost universally followed. But I saw one of my enemies with asidelong eye upon me, and tackled my horse at once. In two minutes hisconfederate was round. 

'What the ----' (any competent person who knows barrack life can fillin the blank) 'do you mean by letting your bridoon and stirrup-irons lierusting here? Put 'em in oil at once. '

Number Two, having delivered this order, went away, clothed with cursesas with a garment, and back came Number One. 

'Now, what the ---- (break to be filled as before, for these people haveno sense of style or invention) 'do you mean by leaving your horse tostand and shiver in that beastly lather? A nice bargain the Queen madewhen she gave a bob for you!'

This form of insult is traditional, but at first hearing it has powerto gall. The discovery that it is no more than a formula takes off itsedge. Back to the horse, to be again assailed by Number Two for nothaving obeyed the order about the bridoon and stirrup-irons. Back tothem, and then the last scene in the comedy, in which, under a chargeof neglecting to groom my horse in spite of repeated warnings, Iwas marched straight to the orderly-room, there to appear before thecolonel. 

I boiled over in his presence and denounced the little conspiracy. The colonel was something of a martinet, but he was justice incarnate. Witnesses were called from the stable; my story was made good; and as Istood in the ante-room adjusting my forage-cap I heard the beginning ofa tongue-walking which those non-commissioned officers were not likelyto forget. 

'If you dare to bully my recruits again, ' said the colonel, 'I'll breakthe pair of you. I won't have my recruits bullied. '

I smiled at this; but I was not allowed to enjoy a further triumph. Theorderly sergeant wrathfully ordered me away, and I went back to my duty. From that hour any question of comfort in the regiment was, of course, over, and it would take a volume to tell the history of the shifts anddodges which made life unbearable; though, of course, that history wouldbe worth neither the writing nor the reading. Most of the officers wereinvariably kind and considerate; but there was one whom I never forgaveuntil I learned, years afterwards, that he was dead. It was my habit tothink and believe of him that he was the stupidest person that ever satupon the magisterial bench in any capacity, civil or military. A widerexperience of the world has modified that opinion, but he deserves aplace in this record for all that. 

He was a pale-faced man, with a slight lisp; and the men despisedhim because he had not the nerve even to handle them on church paradewithout priming himself beforehand. I had been vaccinated by virtue of ageneral order, and in a while my arm became swollen and very painful. I stuck to duty as long as I could, and at last presented myself onhospital parade to ask to be excused. The doctor, for some reason, wasabsent, and, failing his order, I was compelled to join the ride in the_manège_. It was a beastly morning, and the field was a mere bog. Wewere splashed to the very buttons of our forage-caps, and the horseswere loaded with mud to the flaps of the saddles. I was tired and faintenough before the ride was over, but my poor beast had to be groomed onthe return to stables, and I must needs set to work upon him. It was allno good. I might as well have tried to carry him as to groom him, and Irepresented my case to a non-commissioned officer, who straightway ranme in. I passed the night in the guardroom, chilled and wet, and nowand then light-headed. Had I been at head-quarters the colonel wouldundoubtedly have sent me to the infirmary, which was the proper placefor me. The lisping captain sent me to the cells. 

'Ma-an, ' he said, in a drawl which half the regiment used to loathe andimitate, 'what have you to tha-ay?'

I explained my case, and whilst I did so he read something which lay onthe table before him. When I had done he said, with his finicking lisp, 'Seven days' cells, hard labour. ' The old regimental sergeant happenedto be there, and for an instant arrested judgment. 

'I beg your pardon, sir, the man is really unfit to perform hardlabour. '

'Then, ' said the Solon, 'in that case let him have forty-eight hours'solitary confinement. '

I ventured as respectfully as I could to protest. I represented that itwas hardly just to punish a man for not performing a heavy physical taskwhilst admitting in the very terms of the sentence that he was unfit todo it. The answer was, 'Right about face, march!' I went to cells. I hadmy hair cut, and I spent thirty-six delirious hours alone. At the endof that time my condition was reported and I was removed; but fromthat hour I was sullen and rebellious, and whatever spirit of order anddiscipline might have lived in me until then vanished completely. 

Only four years ago, on a very memorable occasion in my life, I satside by side with one of my old officers. He assured me, with everyappearance of gravity, that if I had stayed much longer I should havedisintegrated the regiment. I was sure, on the other hand, that theregiment would have disintegrated me; and though I was smart enough andwilling enough to have made a good soldier at the beginning, I was tooangry at stupidity and injustice to care to please anybody any longer. I knew one man who, having been gently nurtured, found himself suddenlythrown upon his own resources. He enlisted with a full determinationto rise. When I last heard of him, years ago, he held brevet rank inanother regiment; but I know what slights he endured, to what numberlessinsults he submitted, and how harsh and cruel the pathway to success wasmade for him at the beginning. They tell me things are better now, andI hope with all my heart they may be. As I knew the ranks they weremade well-nigh intolerable for any well-educated youngster who showed adisposition to get on. 

V

Thousands of people remember the excitement created five or six yearsago by the story of the Missing Journalist. Scores still cherish thememory of poor MacNeill and think of him as amongst the cheeriest, friendliest, and most helpful of men. He was a delightful fellow anda good fellow; but he had a certain boisterous exaggeration of mannerwhich sometimes made his friends laugh at him. So far as I know, heneither had nor deserved an enemy through all his effusive, genial, andblameless life. 

He burst into the Savage Club one day when I happened to be there alone. He was unusually radiant and assured, and 'At last, at last, ' he said, 'I've got my foot on the neck of this big London!' The triumphant phraseset me thinking at the moment, and has often recalled to me since, thetime when this big London had its foot on me: a thing of the two whichI am afraid is the much more likely to happen in the experience of anyyoung aspirant to literary honours when he has neither friends nor moneyto back him, and no reputation to begin with. 

I came to London just after the opening of the Parliamentary session of1872, at a time when every nook and corner of the journalistic work-roomwas filled, and when the doors were besieged, as they always are at sucha season, by scores of outsiders eager for a turn at the good thingsgoing. I forget now precisely how it came about, but I went to live ata frowsy caravanserai in Bouverie Street, an astonishingly dirty anddisreputable hotel called the 'Sussex. ' It is down now, and its site isoccupied by the extended offices of the _Daily News_; but in its day itwas the home of as much shabby gentility as could be found under any oneroof in London. Beds were to be had there at threepence and sixpence. I remember no arrangement for meals, and certainly never troubled theestablishment in that way myself. The linen had a look of having beenwashed in pea-soup and dried in a chimney, and the whole aspect ofthe house and its _clientèle_ was wo-begone and neglected to the lastextreme. Paper and pen and ink are cheap enough, and I used to sit allday long in my bedroom, fireless in the winter weather, wrapped up in anulster and with a counterpane about my knees, writing for bare life. I wrote verses grave and gay, special articles, leading articles, andleaderettes. These were delivered at all manner of likely and unlikelyplaces, and came back again, like the curses and the chickens and thebad penny in the proverbs. 

I lived for weeks on hard-rinded rolls and thick chocolate, procured atan Italian restaurant on the opposite side of Fleet Street, and foundmyself admirably healthy on that simple diet. I wrote now and then tofriends in the country, disguising my estate, and telling them whatI was working at without hinting what became of the work when it wasfinished. One of my correspondents remonstrated with me for taking upmy quarters in a hotel in that part of London, and advised me to trycheaper lodgings. Until I had something regular to rely upon, I wastold, it was absurd to launch into an extravagance of that sort. I haveoften had to think how many hundreds of men, better equipped for theintellectual arena than I was, as plucky, as determined, and as full ofhope, have gone down in the lonely and bitter sea of poverty in whichI floated in those days. My breakfast expenditure of threepence, witha halfpenny to the waiter, secured me a look at the daily papers, and every morning I went back to that beastly bedroom to write at mydressing-table in denunciation of the Ministry, or to hold up to publiccontumely some unpaid justice of the peace who had given a hungrylabourer six months for stealing twopenny-worth of turnips. I redressedcountless wrongs on paper in that draughty garret; but nothing came ofit There is no use in being too minute in narrating the history of thattime. It was bad enough to begin with, and grew at last to be about asbad as it could be. That obliging uncle, who becomes your aunt when youcross the Channel, was useful for a time. But at last there was nothingmore for him to take or for me to offer, and I was alone in London witha vengeance. 

Thousands of well-to-do people endure privation and discomfort everyyear for the pure pleasure of it. In my campaigning days I lived onblack bread and onions and dirty water for seven weeks, and topped upthat agreeable record with four days' absolute starvation, But I had apocketful of money, though there was nothing to be bought with it, andI had staunch comrades, and we were marching on with the certainty ofplenty before us. It was all endured easily enough, and now and thenthere were outbursts of rollicking jocundity in spite of it The merephysical suffering of privation is not a thousandth part of its pain. The sense of loneliness, of defeat, of unmerited neglect; the blindrebellion against the inequality with which the world's chances aredistributed; the impotent sense of power which finds no outlet--theseare the things which make poverty bitter. But there was nothing else forit, and I took up _la vie en plein air_. 

My favourite chamber in the Hotel of the Beautiful Star during thehours of darkness was the Thames Embankment. I have passed many yearsin London since then, and must have heard the boom of Big Ben and themonotonous musical chime which precedes it many thousands of times. Theyhave rarely greeted a conscious ear without bringing back a memory ofthe stealing river (all dull shine and deep shadow), the lights on thespanning bridges, the dim murmur of distant traffic, the shot-towerglooming up against the sky, the bude-light flaring from the tower ofthe Palace of Parliament, the sordid homeless folks huddled togetheron the benches, the solemn tramp of the peeler, and the flash of thebullseye light that awoke the chilled and stiffened sleepers. There is acertain odour of Thames Embankment which I should recognise anywhere. Ihave encountered it often, and it brings back the scene as suddenly andas vividly as the chimes themselves. 

There is plenty of elbow-room in the Hôtel de la Belle Etoile, and thereis water enough; but in other respects the provision it offers is scantyand comfortless. I spent four days and nights in it, and was on theborders of despair, when what looked like a mere chance saved me. Suppose I had not walked down Fleet Street; suppose I had not stoppedto look at the little cork balls in Lipscombe's window, so mournfullyemblematic of my own condition; suppose that the unsuspectedgood-hearted friend had not come by and clapped me on the shoulder, whatwould have happened? _Quien sabe?_ These are the narrow chances oflife which give one pause sometimes. He came, however, the unsuspectedhelpful friend. 

It was John Lovel, then manager of the Press Association. I have sincehad reason to believe that he deliberately deceived me from the firstmoment of our encounter, and that later in the day he was guilty of aplagiarism. If deceit were always as kindly and guileless, lying wouldgrow to be the chief of human virtues; and if plagiarism always covereda jest so generous, the plagiarist would be amongst the most popular menalive. 

Was I busy? he asked. Was I too busy to undertake for him a verypressing piece of work he had on hand? I made an effort not to seemquite overborne, and told him that I was entirely at his service. Hesaid (I suppose it was the first thing he could think of) that to-morrowwas the anniversary of the birthday of Christopher Columbus. He wantedan article about that event for a country paper and had no time to writeit He wanted no dates, no historic facts, but simply--'a good, rattling, tarry-breeches, sea-salt column. ' The pay was a couple of guineas;and if I could so far oblige him as to let him have the article thatmorning, he could make it money down. 

I wrote the article in the reporters' room at the P. A. And sent it into the chief. In return I received a pill-box, on the top of which waswritten, 'The prescription to be taken immediately. ' I found within thepillbox two sovereigns and two shillings wrapped in cotton-wool, and Iwent my way to a square meal with the first money I had ever earned inLondon. I found out afterwards that the date was nowhere near that ofChristopher Columbus's birthday; and, so far as I know, the article Ihad written was never used. I was telling the story years afterwards, and somebody informed me that the prescription on top of the pill-boxwas Thackeray's. I was quite content to discover that, and I don't thinkpoor Lovel would have minded it either. He paid the debt of nature sometime ago, and when he left this world had the memory of more than onegood deed to sweeten his parting moments. 

I went back to that gruesome hostelry and wrote an article on'Impecunious Life in London. ' It appeared in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, then published by Messrs. Grant & Co. And under the editorship of myold friend Richard Gowing. The article was not far from beingautobiographical. I think--but I am not quite sure--that I got sixteenguineas for it. I know that it set me on my feet, and that since thenany acquaintance I may have had with the Thames Embankment has beenpurely voluntary. 

Poverty makes a man acquainted with strange bedfellows; and I made oneor two queer acquaintances on the Thames Embankment and acquired a tastefor vagabondising about among the poor which lasted a year or two andhas proved to be of no small service since. Slumming had not becomea fashion at that time of day; but I have never aimed at being in thefashion, and I did a good deal of it. Through Archibald Forbes's kindoffices, I found an introduction to the _World_ journal, and, at EdmundYates's instigation, wrote a series of articles therein under the titleof 'Our Civilisation, ' picking up all the quaint and picturesque oddsand ends of humanity I could find in London. 

I met many people whom it was very difficult to describe and impossibleto caricature. Amongst them was a street artist who lived in Gee'sCourt, off Oxford Street--a worthless, drunken, and pretentiousscoundrel, who seriously believed himself to be the most neglected manof genius in London. I employed him to repeat what he called his _chiefde hover_ on cardboard, and paid him half a crown for it. He called thiswork 'The Guard Ship Attacked. ' It represented a Dead Sea of Reckitt'sBlue with two impossible ships wedged tightly into it, each broadside onto the spectator. From the port-holes of each issued little streaks ofvermilion, and puffs of smoke like pills. The artist gloated overthis work, and was ready to resent criticism of it like another PietroVanucci. He told me he was unappreciated; that he was a man of thesupremest talent, and was kept out of the great theatres, where he couldhave shone as a scene-painter, by nothing but the pettiest and shabbiestjealousies. I don't know where he had picked up the phrase, but he hadsomething to say about the dissipation of the grey matter of the brain, and he returned to it fondly as long as I would allow him to talk tome. His artistic labours and his art invention were dissipating the greymatter of _his_ brain. All he asked for was a fair field and no favour. If I would give him three pound ten he could buy an easel, a canvas, and a set of painting tools, and would at once proceed to show the RoyalAcademy what was what I was well to do by this time, but yet not quitewealthy enough to venture on such an experiment. The most amusing thingthis vagabond said was when he found in my room the painting materialsand sketches of an artistic friend of mine with whom I was chumming atthe time. His nose wrinkled with an infinite disdain as he turned thesketches over, and he said, with a delightful air of patronage, 'I see, I see. A brother of the brush. ' He brought with him on his journeyfrom Gee's Court to the north of London an incredible ghoul of a man, acreature whose face was muffled in a huge beard alive with vermin. He, it seemed, was another neglected man of genius; but I declined to beintroduced to him. I looked up the artist's address, however, and got toknow his neighbourhood pretty well. Boulter's Rents, in my first novel, 'A Life's Atonement, ' were drawn from Gee's Court. 

I thought the picture rather like at the time, within limits; but Inever had the heart--or the stomach--to be a realist. Feebly as I daredto paint it, I had to re-form it in fancy before the book was finished. The original horror stands there, pretty much unreformed; though I daresay its walls get a coat or two more whitewash than they did when I wasintimate with them. 

I have kept for this place in a rambling record a story which might havebeen told in my last paper. When I left the barracks of Ballincollig andsaid good-bye to her Majesty's service, I had an encounter with one ofmy non-commissioned enemies. I had my leave of absence in my pocket, andmy discharge was to follow me by post I was in civilian dress and wassmoking a cigar at the barrack gates. My enemy saluted before he had hadtime to recognise me, and then, seeing to whom he had done this homage, stood abashed at himself for a minute and then exploded. He could thinkof nothing better to say than to order me to put out my cigar. I refusedto obey, for I was yards beyond the magazine limit, within which it was, of course, forbidden to smoke, and I gave that sergeant a piece of mymind. One is a good deal more vehement at nineteen than one grows to bewhen creeping on towards the fifties, and I made my sergeant a dreadfulpromise. I told him that he had acted like an unmitigated brute to me, and I undertook, if ever I should meet him in civil life, to inflictupon him a chastisement which should repay us both amply. I never methim again for thirteen years, and I was slumming when I ran against him. He was acting as commissionaire at a big manufacturing place in the EastEnd, and when I accosted him he had no idea of my identity. I wore abeard and had taken to wearing spectacles, and, if ever I had lookedwarlike, had lost that aspect long ago. I asked him if he wereSergeant ----. He admitted that at once. He had served in the FourthRoyal Irish?

'Seventeen years, sir; but I don't remember you. '

He had been quartered at Cahir, I reminded him, in the year '65, andin '66 at Ballincollig. He admitted that quite willingly and seemedinterested. Did he remember a recruit who was nicknamed 'Oxford?' Hethought he remembered that recruit, and paled visibly. He was not thestalwart fellow he had been, but looked bowed down as if by a prematureold age. I asked him why he had left his regiment. 

'Hernia, sir; hernia and pulmonary consumption, '

I had promised this man a hiding thirteen years ago, and thirteen yearsago I am persuaded he had richly merited it, and am quite sure it wouldhave done him good. It is very likely that at that time I might havebeen unable to give it him; but now, between a florid manhood on my sideand hernia and pulmonary consumption on his, the task should have beeneasy. But the events of '65-66 looked a long way off in '78; and somehowit seemed hardly worth while to reveal one's identity. So the sergeantgot half a crown and was left with a bit of a puzzle to occupy hisleisure moments. 

VI

I have seen a good deal of the working of the English Poor-law, and havelearned to have some decisive opinions about it It has always seemed tome, since I had any acquaintance with it at all, that it might have beenconstructed on purpose to restrict the free action of honest labour andto set a premium on idle vagabondage. I determined, fourteen or fifteenyears ago, to put the system to a test in my own person, and for my ownsake to start with the odds in favour of the institution. My belief was, and is, that no law-abiding man could travel in search of work throughEngland under the provisions of the Poor-law without danger to healthand even life, whilst any worthless and shiftless idler can by itsprovisions eke out a tolerably comfortable subsistence. 

I got me a shabby suit of clothes, sent a portmanteau to the place whereI intended to end my journey, and, posting a ten-pound note in advance, carried a money order for that sum in the lining of my hat. Thusprovisioned, and with a shilling in my pocket, I started to walk towardsthe money. I was David Vane, compositor, and it was my object to seeif David, with the best will in the world, could live under Poor-lawprovisions without bringing himself into the mesh of the policeman's netI gave him seven weeks of it, and walked over half the south, midland, and western counties; giving him an occasional rest in a cheaplodging-house when workhouse fare had come to be too much for him. 

When; I came to a town where my money lay at a post-office, I drew ashilling or two and sent the bulk on further; but during the whole sevenweeks I only trespassed on my hoard to the extent of fifty shillings. Without that hoard, or without a breach of the law, my imaginarycompositor would surely have died. I see now and again in the newspapersa sporadic correspondence about the treatment of men on tramp, about thefood supplied them, the hours of their imprisonment, and the amount oflabour they are compelled to perform. I notice that chairmen of boardsof guardians are quite satisfied with the existing condition of things. I encounter, in the newspapers, gentlemen who have tasted workhouseskilly and soup, and who like it, and consider it well made andnourishing. I meet others who account the sleeping accommodation good, the bread excellent, and the labour demanded no more than reasonablyadequate. I should ask nothing better than to see these easily contentedgentlemen each enjoying a seventh part of my personal experience. 

I may say at once that my notes of this journey were destroyed yearsago, and that I cannot tell with absolute certainty in what placescertain things happened. My experiences were challenged at the time, andthe challengers got little good by their denial of my statements. I hadhoped that my Quixotic enterprise might have some good result, but theabsurd old system has undergone no alteration. 

It was in a green lane in Oxfordshire that I came across my firsttravelling companion. He was a man of about sixty, a decent-looking oldfellow, and, as I found out when I got into talk with him, by trade atailor. He had stopped to bathe his feet in a little brook spanned bya single arch of mossy brickwork, and whilst he cooled his feet in thestream he rubbed his cotton socks with a bit of yellow soap the sizeof half a crown. He was civil and ready to talk; but he was verydownhearted, He showed me his fingers, the tips of which were raw andsmeared with tar. 

'That's this mornings work, ' he said. He named the workhouse he hadstayed in. 'That's put me off earning a living for a good week to come. A man can't sew whilst his fingers is in this state. Stone breaking'sbad enough; but when it comes to oakum-picking it's all up with work forone while. There was another chap there last night, ' he went on, as Ishould take to be worse off than me. He's a watchmaker. Dressed verynice and tidy he was, and got a job to go to in the town this morning. He begged hard to be let off, and offered to pay for his night'slodgings if they'd let him. They kep' him to it, hows'ever, and he didhis work, 'wouldn't ha' done it, ' he concluded. 'I'd ha' gone afore theBench first; though that ain't mostly any good in these 'ere countryplaces. '

This disclosure interested me, for I myself belonged provisionally toone of the light-fingered professions. It would be about as easy for acompositor to earn a living fresh from oakum-picking as for a tailoror a watchmaker; and I determined, if that task were set before me, toplead my trade and see what came of it I had no longer to wait than nextmorning; but when the work was given out it looked to my ignorant eye soinconsiderable that I forbore to make any complaint about it. A pieceof old tarred rope, six or seven inches long and an inch and a half indiameter, had to be picked into fine oakum between seven o'clock in themorning and eleven. The business looked anything but formidable, and Ibegan upon it with a light heart. 

The accustomed men began by hammering the ends of their strands upon thestone floor, and I followed their example, and, having secured a holdfor the finger-tips, went ahead with the work. I may say that until aman of delicate fingers has tried this occupation he can have no ideaof the long-drawn and exasperating misery of it. It is no use to beimpatient, for in attempting to go too fast you succeed only in skinningyour thumb and fingers. The only chance is patience, and that is not aneasy thing. The old stagers, who had had years of it, got along quitecomfortably, and were thankful that they were not stone-breaking. Thenew men swore and grumbled and flayed their fingers. The result ofmy own experience was that David Vane, compositor, was put beyond thechance of earning a living at his legitimate trade for a good fortnightThe accommodation paid for by the labour consisted, all told, in onehunk of dry bread--weight, I should say, about four ounces; one pintof stirabout made of Indian meal and flavoured with soot; anda particularly dirty and uninviting bed. Having bestowed thesebenefactions on the harmless workman, the British Poor-law in returninsists that he shall become a hopeless pauper by stealing from him hishandicraft. 

I tried stone-breaking pretty often later in the course of my tramp, andfound it a much less painful occupation. The handling of cricket-batand sculls hardens the palm of the hand whilst it leaves the tips of thefingers unprotected. But though at the time of my excursion I was freshfrom life on the river, it took me some time to get inured to this newoccupation, and stone-breaking alone would, of course, unfit for hiswork any man who needed lightness and steadiness of hand. Work andaccommodation varied very widely. In one or two places we got good breadat night, good broth in the morning, and a bed to sleep in which, as Isuppose, the average tramp would find almost luxurious. The bedclotheswere coarse, as they had a perfect right to be, but they were clean;and the food, though scanty and of the plainest, was wholesome andnourishing. In one place, I remember, the bread actually stank, and thehungriest of the hungry crowd left it uneaten. The broth served out nextmorning was nothing more or less than the water in which bacon had beenboiled. The beds were kennels. A long wooden bench was divided intocompartments by upright boards; a quantity of dirty straw which might, by the look of it, have served already in a stable was spread in eachrecess, and was covered with foul sacks which bore the name of a localmiller. Several of these sacks, cut open and stitched together, servedfor a counterpane. 

'I'd 'eard about this place, ' said my neighbour when the able-bodiedpauper who superintended us had trooped us into this abominable chamber, 'and I'd a dam good mind to smash a lamp or summat and get run ininstead o' comin' here. If I'd ha' knowed the truth about it, I'd ha'done it. '

This was the worst, and by far the worst, of the places I encountered. Indeed, I met nothing else comparable to it. I made a trifling error inmy description of it at the time. By a slip of the pen I represented theshed in which the casual paupers were accommodated as being a lean-toagainst the body of the workhouse, whereas it was in fact a lean-toagainst the outer wall of the workhouse grounds. This was enough in theminds of the guardians to justify them in denouncing me, through theirchairman, as a liar, and was held to be triumphant proof that I hadnever been there, though I proved 'David Vane, compositor, ' upon theirbooks and upon those of the two neighbouring workhouses. 

In some country places we went straight to the relieving officer, whogave us our tickets for the night. In other places of more considerablepopulation we were allowed to lounge about the outside of the policestation until the hour appointed for distribution. Once inside theworkhouse, we were prisoners until at least eleven o'clock next morningwhether the tale of stones were broken or no, or the strands of ropewere or were not reduced to oakum. In default, men were occasionallydetained to be taken before the Bench; but what became of them Inever had an opportunity of learning apart from the experiences of mytravelling companions, who estimated the punishment at seven or fourteendays. A good many of these had gaol experiences, and I am forcedto admit that the decent folk on tramp were few in number. But theoccasional honest mechanic or skilled workman in search of employmentwas hard bestead. 

I met two journeymen printers, one of whom, having threepence for abed outside the workhouse, was able to find employment in the town ofGloucester; whilst the other, being unable to get away from durancebefore eleven, was left out in the cold. I met other men who, in orderto escape this absurd imprisonment, slept in the fields, and so riskedliberty on the other side rather than miss the early labour market; forto sleep in the fields is a misdemeanour punishable at law: though whyit should be so, if nothing else be provable against a man, Heaven onlyknows. In the language of the road, to sleep in the open is to 'skipper'and to sleep in the workhouse is to go 'on the spike. ' It was a commonquestion in fine weather, 'Skipper or spike to-night?' The habitualloafer invariably chose the spike. The man who had business and wantedto get along elected to skipper, though he lost two meals thereby. 

The law, which ruins the hands of the skilled workman, and detainsskilled and unskilled alike until the labour market is closed tothem, supplies a dietary which would kill anybody but a professionalfasting-man in a month, and keeps a keen eye on mendicancy. It is likethe sun, with a difference: it looks alike on the just and the unjustThe mischief is, it is made for the comfort of the worthless and isthe plague of the deserving. There are easy-going boards of guardians, easy-going workhouse masters and labour masters, who do not insist uponthe tale of work which is demanded by others. The old stagers know theeasy places and give them a natural preference. 

The one place of terror on the line I took was Gloucester. The guardiansof the Gloucester Union had made up their minds to put down the casualpauper, and, as the means readiest to hand, they determined to make thework too hard for him. I was so persistently warned against Gloucesterthat I went there to see for myself what it was like. The house itselfwas orderly and clean, and the discipline as complete as in a gaol. Theonly thing which distinguished it from other places of its kind was theseverity of the labour imposed. 

The limits of labour are fixed by law. There is such and such a weightof oakum to be picked, or such a weight of stone to be broken; butthe good guardians of Gloucester, without in the least infringing theprovisions of the Poor Law Board, made the work twice as severe asit was in other houses than their own. Before every casual pauper wasplaced the regulation quantity of stone--it was the hardest I tackled onmy pilgrimage--and beyond the morning's stint was set a screen throughwhich every atom of the stone had to be passed before the job wasfinished and the wanderer was allowed out upon his way again. It was nobusiness of mine to be refractory, and I hammered away with such zealas I could command; but it took me six hours to get through the taleof work. When I had earned my own discharge I left a handful ofunfortunates behind me who had theirs yet to finish. They wereall unaccustomed and inexperienced, or they would not have been atGloucester. Whether that charming western city keeps up its reputationuntil now I do not know; but the guardians found their system succeedso well that they have probably adhered to it I had forgotten to mentionone fact which is common to all workhouses. The casual tramp breakfastswhen he has done his work, but not before. 

Discerning private critics of my novels have noticed how much capital Ihave made of this odd adventure. In 'A Life's Atonement' Frank Fairholtgoes on tramp, seeking to efface himself amidst the offscourings ofthe poor after an accidental deed of homicide, In 'Joseph's Coat' YoungGeorge goes on tramp, slinking from casual ward to casual ward until hemeets Ethel Donne at Wreath-dale. In 'Val Strange' Hiram Search on trampopens the story; and it was by way of spike and skipper that John Jones, of Seven Dials, brought fortune to his sweetheart in 'Skeleton Keys, 'I fully admit the impeachment, and, indeed, I am not indisposed to bragabout it. Perhaps few writers of fiction have gone as close to naturefor their facts. 

I met more queer people and found more queer adventures on that trampthan I have ever been able to find a literary use for. One amazingvagabond with a moustache announced himself to me, when I had found away into his confidence, as a professional deserter. He had enlisted inevery militia regiment in the country and in half the regiments of theline. When he had secured the first instalment of his bounty he made abolt of it, and, by way of securing safety, took immediate refuge in thenext military depot. I understood that he had pledged himself to serveher Majesty for a period of something like a thousand years. Wherever Ihad the chance to test him I found him a most enterprising liar, andI dare say he exaggerated a little here. I asked him what tradehe followed or professed between whiles. The rascal grinned with adelightful cunning and said he was a hand comb-maker. 

'The trade's dead, ' he told me; 'machinery's knocked the bottom outof it. There's only one shop in England where they makes combs by 'andnowadays, and you can bet as _I_ steers clear o' _that_. It's a lovelylay to go on, matey. "The trade's ruined, " you says, "by machinery, "you says. "I was brought up to it for a livin', " says you, "an' it'sthe only thing, " you says, "as I've got to yearn my daily bread by thesweat of my brow by, " you says. Lord! I've had as much as ninepence in aday out o' that yarn on the very road as we're a travellin' now. '

I had a qualm of conscience; but his artless tale was told, as it were, under the seal of confession, and I never betrayed him. 

VII

It was at least as agreeable to starve on the non-proceeds of landscapepainting as on those of journalism, and when nothing in the way of meatand drink was to be got out of either, it was only a choice as to theform of euthanasia. I guessed I could make no money out of painting;but I knew by practical experience that there was nothing to be made byjournalism. 

I was daubing in a friend's chambers when the angel of opportunity came. He appeared in the form of an American gentleman with a fur collar andan astonishing Massachusetts accent. War had been actually declaredbetween Russia and Turkey a week or two before. The Russians werealready at Giurgevo, building a bridge of boats with intent to cross theDanube, and the Turks were gathered in force at Rustchuk and Schumla. So much I knew from I the newspapers, but no further intelligence of theopening campaign had reached me. 

My visitors card announced him as Colonel ------, and he bore a letterof introduction from the representative of a leading New York journal. He was himself in London as the representative of a newspaper publishedin Chicago, and in the course of a five minutes' conversation he told methat he was in search of a young, healthy, and enterprising journalistwho was willing to risk his life for the honour of his craft, and arather considerable sum per column for copy delivered at the officeof the newspaper of which he made himself the flying herald, The onlyengagement I had in the world was to breakfast with a man on Sundaymorning, and that I waived instantly. An immediate 40L. Was put into myhands; an arrangement was made that on calling at the American Embassyat Vienna I should receive more, and that at the bank at ConstantinopleI should find a sum of two hundred sterling on arrival. With thisunderstanding I started for the seat of war at seven o'clock on thefollowing morning, and in due course found myself at Vienna. There Itried, in pursuance of instructions, for an interview with the TurkishAmbassador, who steadfastly declined to see me. I made certain necessarypreparations, and called at the bank half a dozen times over. There wasno hint or sign of my Chicago friend; and possibly if I had been moreexperienced than I was I might have at once taken warning and returnedhome. As things were at the time no such idea entered my head; and when, after a delay of two days, half the promised money reached me, I tookticket gladly for Trieste, and embarked on a Messageries Maritimes boatfor Constantinople. 

It was the twelfth of May of that year when we set sail down theAdriatic, and I had never seen anything so heavenly beautiful as thecoast and sea. We were five days on our journey; and now, when I havetravelled the wide world over, have seen most of its show places, andhave made myself familiar with exotic beauties of the landscape andseascape sort, I can recall nothing like that five days' dream ofheaven. Perhaps the fact that I was going to look at war for thefirst time, and had some premonition of its horrors, made the placidloveliness of the Mediterranean more charming and exquisite by a kindof foreseen contrast. But I do not remember to have beheld (and I do notthink I shall fail to remember it all till the day I die) anything sobeautiful as the far-off islands that lifted their purple heads as westeamed through the Piraeus, and the long-drawn wonderful panoramicsplendours of the Mediterranean sunsets. I have travelled in many shipssince then, and have never missed the inevitable fool. There is alwaysa fool aboard ship; and I remember one day when we were within sight ofCorfu that the fool who was our local property for the moment touched meon the shoulder as I hung over the bows, and pointed to the island. 

'They say that's land, ' said he, 'but you d think it was a sweetmeat. Looks good to eat, doesn't it? It's like them biled violet things insugar that they sell in Paris. '

I was all on fire to see the interior of my first Eastern city, and whenI saw the domes and minarets of Constantinople actually before me, thetraveller's instinct was quickened to a passion. We got in at sundown, and behind the picturesque roofs of the town lay an amber and crimsonmystery of light, which was half-obscured by the smoke and steam of ascore or two of vessels. The whole scene looked like a smeared landscapefrom the hand of Turner. He, at least, would have seen to it that thecolour was clear; but Nature is very often behind the artist, and theeffect was grossly muddy and untransparent. 

In common with the rest of the world I had heard of baksheesh, but untilthen I never understood its magic power. A huge functionary took chargeof my trunk and portmanteau, and impounded them so decisively in thename of the law that I had made up my mind to see neither of them anymore. The captain of the boat whispered in my ear that a mejidiehwould do it, I tried a French five-franc piece! which proved instantlyefficacious; and a minute or two later I was on shore at Galata, astridea donkey whose tail was industriously twisted round by his driver, and who was followed by an unequally laden brother ass, who bore myportmanteau on one flank and my trunk upon another. 

We scrambled up the stony road towards the main street of Pera. The cityhad looked like a Turneresque dream from the outside, but known fromwithin it was the home of ugliness, and of stinks innumerable. Theyellow dogs tripped the feet as often as the abominable pavement, andseemed as immovable and as much a part of the road itself. Now and againin the side streets a whole horde howled like a phalanx of advancingwolves; but they were outside the parish of the brutes who encumberedthe roadway I had to travel, and though the noise of war was near, the canine regiment not actually called to fight rested immobile, itsmembers suffering themselves to be kicked by foot passengers, trodden onby cattle, and rolled over by wheels with an astonishing stolidity. 

We reached the hotel in time for an admirable dinner--the precursor ofmany admirable meals, whose only fault was that they were built too muchon one pattern. We were served, as I recall too well, with tomato soup, red mullet, quail, tomato farcie, and cutlet. Next morning at breakfastcame red mullet, quail, and tomato farcie. At luncheon came red mullet, quail, tomato farcie, and cutlet At dinner came tomato soup, red mullet, tomato farcie, quail, and cutlet. It was a charming menu--for once:but when we had gone on with it for a week my travelling companions andmyself grew a little weary of it, and would fain have found a change. Poor Campbell--Schipka Campbell we called him afterwards--had arrivedwith an earlier boatload of adventurers and was staying at the Hôtel deMisserie. Captain Tiburce Morrisot, of the Troisième Chasseurs, stayedat the Byzance; and we three made a party together to dine at Valori'sand to escape the eternal red mullet, tomato farcie, and quail. 

We found there an astonishing German waiter who seemed, more or less, to speak every language under heaven. There were in the café Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Turks, Bulgars, Germans, Frenchmen, and Englishmen, and people, for aught I know, of half a dozen other nationalities; andthe head waiter addressed each and all of these in turn in any languagewhich might be addressed to him. One of us asked him with how manytongues he was familiar, and he answered, with an apologetic aspect, 'Onily twelf. ' What could we have for dinner? 'Fery good dinner, gentlemen. There is red mullet, there is tomato farcie, there is qvail, 'We elected finally to dine on something which was announced as roastbeef and looked suspiciously like horse. Anything was better than thateternal round of delicacies which had grown to be so tiresome. Thecity was in a state of siege, and every ramble along the street wasproductive of interest and amusement--sometimes of a rather strikingsort. I had only been there some three or four days when, in the courseof a morning stroll, I found myself in front of the Wallach Serai. Thefootpaths were lined pretty thickly with loungers who had stood to watchthe march-past of a regiment of Zeibecks. The bare-legged ruffians, withtheir amazing beehive hats and their swagging belly-bands crammedwith the antique weapons with which their ancestors had stormed Genoa, straggled past in any kind of order they chose to adopt and made theirway towards the Sweet Waters of Europe, by whose shores they weredestined to encamp. When they were all gone and the stagnant tide ofpassage was revived there came by an old Hoja, a holy man, dressed ingreen robe and caftan and wearing yellow slippers--self-proclaimed asone who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca. He was followed by a verysmall donkey laden with panniers. By my side on the footwalk stood aCircassian who had been flourishing in the air, whilst the troopswent by, a formidable-looking yataghan, and had been cheering in somelanguage of which I did not understand a syllable. 

This man was now standing, with an admiring crowd about him, lickingthe back of his wrist and shaving off the hair that grew there by wayof showing the edge and temper of his weapon. It must have been set asfinely as a razor, and, like a razor, it was broad-backed and finelybevelled. Just as the old Hoja went by, and the placid little donkeyfollowed at his heels, the Circassian stepped into the horse-road, gavethe weapon a braggadocio swing, and at a single blow divided the head ofthe poor little ass from the body as cleanly as any dandy swordsman ofthe Guards will sever a hanging sheep. The head fell plump; but for asecond or two the body stood, spouting a vivid streak of scarlet fromthe neck, and then toppled over. The old green-clad Hoja turned at thenoise made by the crowd, saw the blood-stained sword waving behind him, understood at a glance what had happened, and shuffled on as fast as hisyellow pantoufles would carry him. 

VIII

It is probable that there never was in the history of the world acity so crammed with every sample of the tribes of rascaldom asConstantinople at this epoch. I saw, from the carriage gateway at theHôtel de Byzance, three coffee-coloured scoundrels pause at the placeof custom held by an itinerant moneychanger. The man sat with his littleglazed box of Turkish and foreign coins before him on the pavement, hiswhole financial stock-in-trade amounting to perhaps twenty or thirtypounds. One of the passing rascals offered for his inspectiona diminutive gold coin, and the grey-bearded, venerable-lookingmoney-merchant, having examined it, opened his case and took out ahandful of coins to give change for it. The glass lid was no soonerlifted, than each one of the trio dipped in a coffee-coloured paw andtook out a handful of money. The man who had shown the small gold coinpouched it again and walked on. The poor old money-changer rose to hisfeet and made a motion as if he would follow; but one of the ruffianshalf drew the sword which hung at his side, and turned upon him witha sudden snarl. The old man sat down to his loss, and made no furtherattempt to recover his stolen belongings. 

Wandering up and down the city I was witness to a score of acts ofequal lawlessness, and in point of fact the whole place was a prey to arestless terror. Between the city and the Sweet Waters of Europe therewas an encampment of perhaps the most remarkable and varied assortmentof blackguards that ever got together in the history of civilisedwarfare. Until they were known, the curious citizens used to ride out tolook at them and wander about the camp; but one or two days' experiencecured the people of Constantinople of this habit A Greek lady and herdaughter were hideously done to death by the encamped ruffians, andthe coachman who strove to rescue them had his throat cut Two or threeevents of this kind set the Christian part of Constantinople in a panic, and no white man ventured abroad after nightfall without carrying arms. 

With all this the streets had never been bare. Every night the GrandeRue de Péra swarmed with passengers; the restaurants and hotels werefull; and you could hear the raucous voices of the vocal failures of adozen countries shrieking and bellowing through the open windows of the_cafés-chantants_ along the street The one place that we frequented wasthe Concert Flamm. It was kept by one Napoléon Flamm, who in those dayswas known to almost every Englishman in Constantinople. He had a littlesilver hell beside the concert-room, and the swindling roulette-tablethere was presided over by a fat oily Greek, who might from his aspect, had some friend taken the trouble to wash him, have been supposed tobe a diplomat of high rank. The table, as I very well remember, had buttwenty-four numbers and at either end a zero. Had the game been fair, and had all the players been skilled, the proprietor of this contrivancemust have taken by mathematical law a penny out of every shillingwhich was laid against the bank. I make no pretence to an extraordinarycredulity; but I still believe that the fat Greek had a dodge by meansof which it was possible to arrest the action of the wheel at the mostprofitable moment. 

There was a Dutchman in the silver hell one night--a gentleman who toldus that he was known in South Africa as the King of Diamonds. We learnedlater on, from independent sources, that though he had kept the suit hehad changed the card. From Kim-berley to Table Bay the fame of the Knaveof Diamonds had travelled, and if only one-half we heard of the man wastrue he had earned his title. For something like an hour and a halfthis gentleman and myself stood side by side at the roulette-table, andnoticed unfailingly that whenever black was most heavily backed red won, and whenever the major part of the money was on red black turned up. Weformed our own conclusions, and in our sober hours at least declined toplay at that particular table. 

There was a tremendous fight in these rooms one evening, which was begunin a comic way enough by Captain Georg von A------, of the 4th Kônig'sDragoons--a handsome, dashing young giant of a cavalry officer, who haddone excellent service against the French at Gravelotte, and who was nowbent on joining that ill-fated Polish Legion which was for a whilethe receptacle into which was swept half the scoundreldom and half thehonest adventurous spirit of young Europe. 

Poor dear old Campbell, dead these many years now (he fell underWolseley leading the black contingent on Secocoeni's Height), the youngGerman captain, and myself, had dined together, and Von A------ haddined not wisely, but too well. He had learned a word or two ofTurkish, and, supposing that the inhabitants of the Grande Rue andthe frequenters of the Concert Flamm were Turks, he rose and uttereda patriotic phrase, 'Chokularishah Padishah!' which means, as I aminformed on credible authority, 'May the Sultan live for ever!' Allthe befezzed and bearded gentry, hook-nosed, sloe-eyed and greasy ofcomplexion, who frequented the café of Monsieur Napoléon Flamm wereGreeks and Armenians, and whether the Sultan lived for ever or died nextday they did not care one jot They stared somewhat impolitely at thehandsome fair-haired young German, but said nothing. He carried on hisparable in Turkish: 'Muscov dormous, ' and illustrated his meaning bydrawing his thumb with Masonic vigour across his windpipe. 

The words and the action together were meant to signify that the Russianwas a hog and ought to have his throat cut Straightway up stood alittle Greek with a 'Je suis Muscov, monsieur, ' and the captain promptlyknocked him down. He had not meant to do anything of the sort, but themere windy buffet of his big hand toppled the little Levantine on to thefloor. There was an immediate shindy. A coffee-cup was hurled bysome indignant compatriot of the man assaulted and sent a splendidlooking-glass, seven or eight feet high, to irremediable ruin< Acoffee-cup in a Constantinople café is made of porcelain as thick as alady's little finger, and weighs something like a quarter of a pound. In less time than it takes to tell it the nationalities were mixed andsorted again. Gaul, Briton, and Teuton--there were seven of us from thenorth-western end of Europe--got shoulder to shoulder, and every man ofus had half a score to tackle. I never saw so funny a fight in all mylife, and certainly never enjoyed myself at less personal risk. Theroom was clear in something under five minutes, and England, France, andGermany stood triumphant. The little Levantine crowd streamed down thewinding stair, and Campbell added insult to injury and injury to insultby picking up the hindmost small man and dropping him on to the headsof those who had gone before him. We all laughed heroically; but whenwe got downstairs, after the outgoing crowd, the aspect of affairs waschanged considerably. 

I am talking of many years ago, and I am not quite certain of localnames at any moment People who know Constantinople can correct me if Imistake the name of the place; but I think it is the Rue Yildijé whichstands nearly opposite the entrance to the old Café Flamm and leads, orled, to the low Greek quarter. Anyhow, there is a sloping street therewhich runs down by a flight of rough stone steps towards the Galatadistrict, and from this a fierce crowd came swarming, armed withbroom-handles, knives, pokers, tongs--any weapon snatched up in thevengeful tide of the moment. Poor Campbell took command of our party, formed us in line, and made us draw our revolvers. The entrance to thecafé was wide enough to allow us to issue shoulder to shoulder in a sortof bow. We ranged ourselves along the wall, flanked the crowd, and tookup a position across the pavement. Amongst our enemies those behindcried 'Forward!' and those in front cried 'Back!' We paced backwarduntil we reached the Byzance Hotel, some fifty or sixty yards away, and there, once within the gateway, we put up our weapons, entered thehotel, and called for drinks. In a better-regulated city we might haveheard something more about it; but, as it was, nothing happened, and theChief Constable of the Consulate--from whom, by the way, I had boughtthe Irish Constabulary revolver which enabled me to make my show againstthe crowd--joined us in the course of the evening and laughed heartilyat the tale. 

IX

I have told how I went out as 'special correspondent' to an Americanpaper in the Russo-Turkish war. From the hour at which we said good-byeto each other on the platform of Charing Cross railway station, someseventeen years ago, until now, I have never seen the military gentlemanfrom Chicago at whose instance I went out to watch the events of theRusso-Turkish war. When I got home again, a month after the fall ofPlevna, I made inquiries about him, and learned that he had exceeded hisinstructions, and that if he had followed the directions laid upon himby his proprietors he himself would have gone out to the seat of war. What object he proposed to himself in shirking that duty, and in sendingout a man whose salary he could not pay, I never definitely learned. 

For quite a considerable time I used to call day by day at the OttomanBank to ask if remittances had arrived, and so long as my funds lastedI used to bombard that recalcitrant Yankee colonel with telegramsinsisting on the fulfilment of his contract. He took no notice of mymessages, and in a very little while things began to look desperate. Itwas a great thing to be on the spot, however, and after some three weeksof fruitless anger and bitter anxiety I found casual work to do undera gentleman who had constituted himself the agent of an old-fashionedLondon weekly. I wrote an article for this journal, entitled 'In a Stateof Siege, ' got money down for it, and lived carefully on it for someten days. At the end of that time, I was strolling rather disconsolatelyround the Concordia Gardens at night-time, when I came upon a group ofmen with whom I had a nodding acquaintance. They were seated rounda little table, drinking vishnap and lemonade, and chattering gailyamongst themselves. One of them called me to join the party, andanother, whom I knew to be acting as agent for the _Scotsman_, wasreading a newspaper. We talked indifferently for a while; and thereader, laying down his journal on the table, set his hand upon itwith a solid emphasis and said, 'If I could find the man who wrote thatarticle, I should ask him to go to the front at once. '

I glanced at the open sheet, and, lo! the article was mine. I said so, and in ten minutes I had made a bargain. I was to go up country at theearliest possible moment; and received instructions as to how to proceedin application for the necessary _teskerai_, a form of passport orsafeguard without which no stranger was allowed to enter the interior. The search after that abominable _testerai_ delayed me for many days, and I danced attendance on Said Pasha (English Said as he was called)until I was weary and heartsick. 

At last I determined to go without the passport, and did so; but thedelay I experienced brought me into contact with as queer a body ofadventurers as I ever encountered in my life. At the head of thesegentlemen was a Mr. Montague Edie, or Edie Montague (for he wrote thename both ways)--a young fellow of apparently four or five and twenty, who gave himself out, I think, as a lieutenant in the English navy, andwho professed to have authority from the Turkish Government to sail awar-ship under letters of marque and to harry Russian commerce in theBlack Sea. 

Constantinople at this time was full of hare-brained adventurers, and Mr. Montague Edie was not long in gathering about him a band ofofficers. The business of the expedition was supposed to be a profoundsecret; but it was talked about with a childish _naïveté_ in all mannerof public places. The chieftain laid in uniforms of his own designing, and strolled about the Grande Rue de Péra, gaudy in a Turkish militaryfez, white ducks and gloves, and a blue coat beplastered with gold lace. One or two of his lieutenants followed his example; and the unfortunatetailor who had provided these sartorial splendours held the HôtelMisserie and the Hôtel Byzance in siege for days in the vain hope ofextracting payment for his labours. 

A droller set for the management of a ship of war was never seenanywhere. The second lieutenant, I remember, was fresh from St. John'sCollege, Oxford. He had left his native shores for the first time onthis journey, and his whole experience of the sea had been acquiredin the passage of the Channel and the voyage from Marseilles toConstantinople. Poor Schipka Campbell put him under examination oneevening at a _brasserie_ in the Grande Rue, and elicited the fact thathe supposed port and starboard to mean the same thing, and larboardto be the antithesis of the two. I forget the first lieutenant; but asubordinate officer was a fat City clerk who had been a volunteer insome London corps, and who on the strength of his military experienceshad come out with intent to seek a commission in the Polish Legion. 

The peculiarity of that contingent was that, so far as I know, nota solitary Pole ever attempted to join its ranks. The City clerkwas seduced from his original purpose by die splendour of Mr. Edie's uniform. He was himself rigged out at the expense of the sameunfortunate tailor who had supplied his fellow-officers; but he onlywore the uniform once, having been caught and mercilessly chaffed by acontingent of British officers who were waiting for the formation of theTurkish gendarmerie under Colonel Valentine Baker. Associated with thiscrowd of silly and inexperienced boys was an old grey-bearded Americandoctor, who believed in the whole cock-and-bull story as if it hadbeen gospel, and had undertaken to act as surgeon aboard that visionarycraft. He was a delightful old fellow, and, for all his simplicity, had a vein of humour in him. Odd as it may sound, he was a man of somedistinction, and had served with conspicuous honour in the Civil War, Hehad money of his own, and Heaven only knows how many generous things hedid amongst the crowd of stranded foreigners at that time in the city. 

'I don't lay out to know much, ' he said to me one day; 'but I have madeone discovery. Civilisation and the paper collar air ttwrterminous. Turkey is a civilised country. I bought half a gross of paper collars atthe Bon Marché this morning. So long as I can purchase a paper collar Iknow I am in a civilised country, and when I cayn't, I ain't. '

I met the doctor a day or two after the publication of this memorablediscovery, He was talking with one of the officers of the expedition, and suddenly he threw the walking-stick he carried high into the air. 

'That lets me out!' he said, in a very loud and decided tone; and, quitting his companion, he beckoned to me to follow him. The oldgentleman's face and gesture were so urgent that I joined him at once. He told his story in a vernacular racier than I dare to copy; but itcame to this. The Government had got wind of the precious scheme (towhich it had, of course, never given a moment's sanction), and had comedown with an intimation that the originator of it and his subordinateswould do well immediately to leave the country. 

The chieftain was not thus easily to be balked, however. He called acouncil of war, and proposed to his astonished satellites that theyshould steal a gun-boat and turn pirates against the Russians on theirown account. This delectable scheme was instantly rejected by thegentlemen to whom it was submitted, and it was the news of it whichlet the doctor out. He took steamer that afternoon for Syra, and Ihave never since heard of him. The officers of the letter of marquesurrendered their uniforms to the tailor whom they had blessed withtheir patronage, and the chieftain went for a day or two to the lock-upat the British Consulate. 

Sir John Fawcett--Mr. Fawcett he was in those days--chose ratherto laugh at the whole business than to treat it seriously, and theadventurous young gentleman was released on a promise to leave thecountry. I myself was offered a post of honour in this remarkablecontingent. The secret at which all Constantinople had been laughing fora week was confided to me in whispers at the Concert Flamm. I think--butat this distance of time I am not quite sure--that the post offered tome was that of Captain of Marines. I don't mind confessing, in justiceto my own unwisdom at that time of day, that if there had been a boatand a marine I might have thought twice before refusing the offer. As itwas, of course it was simply a matter for laughter. 

I hardly like to leave Constantinople without a memory of the PolishLegion. I took a journey by the Shooting Star Railway with a chancecompanion, to see him sworn in and receive his commission as an officerof that regiment The place of assignation was a loft over an untenantedstable, for the time being the head-quarters of the corps. I never heardof their having any others; and I remember with unusual distinctness aninterview one of the officers had with Said Pasha, who told him, with aperfect absence of reserve, that the Legion 'would be sent to the frontand would be dissipated. ' As a matter of fact, it never got really intoform. I believe that there was never at any moment a solitary privatein its ranks. So long as it lasted it consisted entirely of officers ofvarious grades. Many of these, seeing how hopeless the whole enterprisehad grown to be, abandoned it openly; others quietly slipped awaywithout warning; and a good many willingly allowed themselves to bedrafted into other regiments, where some of them did good service. 

The English journalists in Turkey were divided by faction. We weremainly Philo-Turkish or Philo-Russian, according to the politicalcolours of the journals we represented; and I know now very well thatI was, for my own part, so impressed by the Bulgarian atrocities scarethat I hardly knew how to look for mercy or right feeling in a Turk. The plain truth was very hard to get at, but now, through the farperspective of the years that lie between, it is easier to see with ajudicial eye. If there is to be found anywhere in the world a gentler, a more hospitable, a more sober, a more chaste, truthful, and loyalcreature than the citizen Turk, I confess that I should like to meethim. If there is anywhere to be found a man more devoted to duty, braver, simpler, gentler than the common soldier of the Turkish army, Iwould walk a long way to find him. 

While the war went on, half of the men who sent the news of it out tothe civilised world found the Turk _anathema maranatha_, and the otherhalf were persuaded that the Bulgarian was a beast altogether despicableand cowardly. Since the Bulgarians have had a chance to governthemselves they have amply disproved that unfavourable theory, and 'theunspeakable Turk, ' of whom we heard so much in those days, was in themain as good a sort of fellow as might be found in Europe. 

The atrocities which shocked the world were, without exception, the workof the auxiliaries--the Tchircasse, the Bashi-Bazouk, the Zeibeck, theSmyrniote and Tripolite. I claim to know something of the doings ofthese gentry, for Mr. Francis Francis (then representing the _Times_)and myself were for six weeks the only Englishmen in what was knownas the 'Roumelian atrocity district. ' Day after day we lived among theChristian dead, night after night we saw the incendiary fires. From theheights of the lower Balkans--as at Sopot--we could see the horizon red. The deserted villages stank with the unburied bodies of men and animals. About them in the night-time hordes of vagabond dogs howled lugubriouslyin the dark. 

It was wonderful and terrible to see how the old savage Eastern spiritcould revive itself in these modern days--'Kill, slay! leave not onestone standing upon another. ' In Kalofer, where there had been a busyand thriving population a fortnight before our arrival, there was not acreature left, and scarcely a wall on the summit of which one mightnot have laid one's hand. The town still sent up a melancholy smoke toheaven as we entered it late in the evening, and the last torch of warshone from a thatched roof at the uttermost limit of the place againstthe lowering darkness of the sky. The arabajee who drove the lumberinglittle vehicle in which our few belongings were stored fell upon hisknees in the middle of the stony desert street, and delivered to meanimpassioned address of which I could not make out one syllable. Mydragoman translated for my benefit 'Man with the two sweet eyes, ' saidthe kneeling orator, in possible tribute to my spectacles, 'why didwe enter upon this disastrous journey? Allah has forgotten us. Let usreturn. ' We were in two minds about it already, for the place was weirdto look at and the air was a slow poison; but the horses were tired, andwe ourselves had had almost enough of the day s march. 

Suddenly I sighted a domestic rooster, walking with a certain air ofpensive reflection down the street. I rested my revolver on my leftarm, took careful aim and fired. The bird towered madly, executed a wildwaltz, and went round the corner. The noise of the shot disturbed somemembers of his harem, and a hen fluttered into the branches of a treeclose by. Francis potted her, and she fell at our feet. Here, at least, was supper; but at the first corner we turned, in search of a place inwhich to camp for the night, we found the rest of the feathered broodfeeding on the carcase of a pig which literally heaved in waves ofvermin life. We were very hungry; but there was a good two to one chancethat our bird had enjoyed that uninviting diet, and we threw her overthe nearest wall into the cinders of a smoking cottage. 

We were resigned to remain supperless, when, with a prodigious clatteron the stony street, and a wild calling of voices, came down threeTurkish Cossacks, detached, to call us back, from a party of regulartroops which we had passed that morning. The news they brought was, thatthe country was alive with every species of unconscionable blackguardknown to the time and region; and at their urgent advice we mountedour tired beasts once more, and rode until a journey of some half-dozenmiles brought us to the camp. There we fed royally, and slept in safety. 

X

There is a theory to the effect that every man or woman in the worldcould write at least one readable and instructive novel out of his orher own actual experience. There is a very apparent disposition to putthis idea to the test of practice, though, happily, not more than halfthe world's population has been so far animated by it. An equally sageidea is that anybody, and everybody, can take a part upon the stage. To write a novel or to turn actor--to astonish the world with a newWaverley, Esmond, or Copperfield, or to dazzle the mimic scene with anovel Hamlet, Falstaff, Richelieu, or Othello--would seem the simplestthing in the world to the apprehension of a good many excellent people. 

Charles Dickens observed a great many years ago that to 'come out' ina great part is one of the easiest things in the world; while to avoidgoing in again is one of the most difficult. In my time I have both comeout and gone in again; and though I am not disposed to tax my modestyfor defences, or to offer prophecies for the future, it is notimprobable that I may repeat the experience in its completeness. Isuppose that the pursuit of the successful actor is the most fascinatingin the world. Here and there one learns that it has been distasteful inan individual instance; but these cases are only the exceptions whichprove themselves and nothing else. 

A great many people have been good enough to tell the story of my firstappearance on the stage; and they have told it in ways so diverse, andyet so circumstantially, that I have been sometimes tempted to doubtthe genuineness of my own recollections. Here, however, for what it isworth, is my belief about the matter. 

I was in New Zealand some three years ago, when a travelling managerwhom I ran across in the course of my wanderings asked me if I happenedto have such a thing as a new and original drama about me. I confessedthat I had a scheme for a drama in my mind (the manager confessedhimself to be singularly anxious to produce it), and I undertook tofinish it and to see it through rehearsal. It will be observed that noneof the usual difficulties which lie in the way of the ordinary pretenderto dramatic fame obstructed my progress. There was no question ofsuitability--no thought of excellence or the reverse. The travellingmanager had anything to gain and nothing to lose by the production of apiece from my hand. It meant no more than the trouble of rehearsing; andif the thing failed, it failed and there an end; and if it succeeded, the manager stipulated for half profits wherever the piece might beproduced. He has not, so far, retired from business. In the innocenceof my heart I promised that the piece should be ready for rehearsal inthree weeks' time, and I set to work with the greatest vigour, buryingmyself for the first week at Gisborne, a weird and lonely seaside townwhere there has as yet been no whisper of a railway, and wherethe steamers which ply along the coast may or may not call for thetraveller, according to the weather. 

If I may say so of myself without immodesty, I am a rapid and assuredworkman. 

All my best work has been done at a tremendous pace. I turned out'Joseph's Coat' in thirty-six sittings, a chapter at a sitting. 'ValStrange, ' a work of equal length or nearly, was written in as manyconsecutive days. 'Aunt Rachel, ' the one work of mine which may outliveme by a score of years, was written at such a pace that a copyingclerk would have some ado to transcribe it in the time. Its three lastchapters were written between sunset and sunrise in the midst of astragic interruptions as ever befell the writing of comedy anywhere. 

With this lifelong habit of swift workmanship upon me, I thought thatall I needed was to see my theme before me, and to go at it with mywhole heart as I would have done at a new novel. In writing a novel youwant a live place and live people; and these being provided, your bookis as good as finished when you are half-way through with it. But Ishall never forget in what a quagmire I landed myself when I began towrite 'Chums' upon this principle. I have always, since I can remember, been a student of the acted drama. I acted for some years as dramaticcritic in the provinces and in London. I knew as much about theexigencies of stage construction as the average man, and found thatthat meant a little less than nothing. The very method of work lookedcuriously bare and bald. My study for years has been to me a theatre inwhich I have acted many scores of different parts, often enough beforea mirror to assure myself of nature. Yet I no sooner began to writeconsciously for the stage than this useful faculty abandoned meentirely. I no longer saw my living people; but in their stead themembers of the travelling company obtruded themselves upon me. 

My leading lady was before me in the place of Lucy Draycott. She was andis a most excellent and charming actress; but she was only playing atbeing Lucy Draycott, and she stood in between me and my own conceptionin a way which filled me with a cold embarrassment. Then, again, SquareJack Furlong, a rustic rascal, who, as I boldly hoped, was to make quitea new type of stage villain, was to be impersonated by a heavy man ofquite the conventional sort--a man who (small blame to him) would haveno idea of the accent my scoundrel was to speak in (a vital point to me)and not a conception of the inner workings of his mind. In this wayall the real people who supposed they were to interpret my shadows intoflesh and blood converted my flesh and blood into shadow. Understandthat I am not apologizing for a bad play or a failure. It was notcounted either one or the other, though I must do something differentto touch the mark I am in quest of. I am only trying to show in whatfashion I was embarrassed by new conditions. My travelling managernearly broke his heart because I would not at first consent to allow myvillain to shoot little Harold, and at last in desperation I took hisadvice and killed an idyll with a single grain of melodrama. 

The piece was somehow written in the time prescribed, and was produced'under the direct supervision of the author, ' by which fact it gainedperhaps as much as might have been expected. It was produced atAuckland, and achieved a success which it was not destined to repeat inits fulness. It was admirably, and in one respect originally, staged. The second act was laid in the New Zealand bush: and since at Aucklandfolks know what a New Zealand bush-scene is like, it was needful to bea little truer to nature than we found it easily possible to be when theplay was produced for a single experimental night at the Globe, or whenit ran its twelvemonth course in the English and Scotch provinces lateron. 

Sir George Grey was interested in the production; and in Auckland SirGeorge Grey does pretty much as he likes, as he has a right to do whenone remembers what the city, and indeed the whole colony, owes to hispatriotism, his statesmanship, and his personal generosity. Without hisaid the stage-manager's proposal could not possibly have been carriedout; but, armed with his authority, I presented myself to the curator ofthe park, and from him obtained leafage enough to dress the whole scenewithout the help of the scene-painter's art. We had a backcloth, tobe sure, and an artificial waterfall (which flooded the cellars, by-the-by), but for everything else we were indebted to Sir GeorgeGrey and pure nature. The live bush, the wounds of the woodman's axeconcealed by heaps of vari-coloured mosses, bloomed and rustled underthe limelight as I suppose it never bloomed and rustled elsewhere in thehistory of the theatre, and the stage was ankle-deep in withered leaves;the scent of the forest actually getting beyond the footlights for oncein a way. 

I have never in my life seen any theatrical spectacle one-half aslovely; and this one scene had a great deal to do with the success ofthe piece. It was frantically applauded, and the scene-painter walkedin front and bowed as if he had been responsible for its beauties. Ioverheard from a sun-tanned gentleman in the dress circle near whomI sat one useful trifle in the way of criticism. When Mr. StuartWilloughby entered with his swag on his shoulder my neighbour whisperedto _his_ neighbour that _that_ fellow had never learned to humphis bluey in Otago. 'I'll bet my head, ' he added, 'that chap'san Australian. ' And so he was. The future Stuart Willoughbys wereinstructed in this particular, and the most critical New Zealander couldhave found no fault with the style in which Mr. David James, junior, carried his belongings in the Otago bushland of the Globe Theatre, London. 

'Chums' hit the New Zealand fancy, and the little play was kindlyreceived in many places. I had begun to write another drama of a muchmore serious sort, and was working pretty busily as well at a revisededition of my first effort, when a serious accident befell us. Mymanager and I were travelling together to Dunedin (for we had formed adefinite scheme of partnership, and had arranged to spend a year or twoin the preparation of a _repertoire_ of pieces which might be fit toface the lights of London by the time we got there), when a telegramfound us at a railway station _en route_. It told us that an importantmember of the company had seceded. I know now the story of hissecession; but I have some slight acquaintance with the law of libel, and the history is of no particular interest to anybody. 

We were announced to open in Dunedin in 'Jim the Penman, ' and ourmissing man was to have played the part of Baron Hardfeldt The town wasbilled, seats were booked; there was no going back from the engagementwithout disaster. Then I had a goodly number of friends in Dunedin whowere coming to see my own play, and there was a financial loss to beencountered into the bargain. Personally I experienced a keen sense ofdisappointment; but the manager was in despair. There was no fillingthe place of the recalcitrant for love or money--there was very littlecapital behind the concern; and, in short, it looked as if we had founda finish for our enterprise. Then it was that I bethought me, 'Why thedickens shouldn't I play Baron Hardfeldt?'

I communicated my idea to my companion, who grasped at it as a drowningman grips a straw. We consulted together. We found it possible to beginto study at midnight, and we arranged for a rehearsal on the morrow. Ihad seen the piece once, and recalled its general tenor, and began toconstruct a Hardfeldt. One of my dearest friends is a Zliricher, and Ifelt certain of his accent. That was a point gained, for the rascallyBaron might as well have come from Zurich as from anywhere else in theworld. I recalled, with no twinge of inward apology, every tone of myold friend's voice, every trick of facial expression, and every littletouch of Swiss gesture which helps his breezy and warm-hearted talk. Idetermined to dower Sir Charles Young's admirable scoundrel with all mydear old J---- G----'s tricks and manners; and I was the lessremorseful in copying his cheerful and childlike _bonhomie_ because ourrecalcitrant had been in the habit of giving the Baron away at his veryentrance, and had stamped him from the first as a ruffian of the deepestdye, whereas I was disposed to think that a really successful adventurerwould be likely to have an honest and engaging manner. 

At midnight I began to study; and at three o'clock in the morning I wentaway to bed, carrying with me the words and business of the part and apretty bad headache. We rehearsed at eleven; and I was 'letter-perfect, 'as actors say, and was always to be found on the very nail of the stageon which I was wanted. I have always boasted a verbal memory like asteel rat-trap. It never lets anything go upon which it once seizes. So far excellent. 'But Linden saw another sight' at night-time. I knewplatform fright as well as anybody. I have thrice been physically sickbefore addressing a strange audience, though I have been hardened bynearly a quarter of a century of practice. John Bright once said inmy hearing that he never arose to speak in public without a feeling ofinsecurity at the knees and 'the sense of a scientific vacuum behindthe waistcoat. ' But this first appearance on the boards took me beyondanything I had hitherto experienced. I recalled the phrase aboutthe 'scientific vacuum' which had fallen from the lips of England'sgreatest orator, and tried to console myself with the hope that I mightnot play so very vilely in spite of the fact that I had forgotten everyline and word. I was bathed in a coward sweat whilst I stood near thecentral doors of the stage-chamber into which I was shortly to walklike a sheep to the slaughter. The cue came, and I entered mechanicallycrushing an opera-hat against my shirt-front. I know that if theaudience could have seen the face below the grease-paint and the powder, they would have seen something very like the face of a corpse. 

Luckily I am very short-sighted, and the space beyond the yellow glareof the footlights was no more than a black and empty gulf to me. ThePenman, my miserable sin-steeped confederate, took me by the hand andintroduced me cordially to Mrs. Ralston. Until he had ceased to speak Ihad no remotest idea of what I had to say; but the words came somehow, and I half fancied that my old friend J---- G---- had spoken them. 

There was a scattered round of applause at the end of the simple words Ihad to speak; for some of my friends in front had recognised me, as theymight easily do, since I wore my own hair and beard. I did not think ofthis, but wondered dimly that I should have begun to make an impressionso very early in the evening. I could see my breath rising like steamagainst the darkness of the auditorium, for it was cold weather andthere was a touch of frost thus early even in the theatre. I sat andtalked in dumb-show with Lady Duns-combe, was fittingly snubbed by LordDre-lincourt, and at length found myself alone with my confederate. Thescene before me I knew to be one of the strongest of its class in thewhole range of modern drama. I knew, impotent as I was, that I _could_play it--I could feel the sense of power tingling through my ownimpuissance. But the first essential was to know the words, and nevera word knew I. Luckily Jim the Penman was an old stager, had played thepart some two or three hundred times, and so knew most of the Baron'slines. 

Whilst we were having our dumb talk with Percival I had told him thatmy head was as empty as a blown egg-shell, and had fairly frightened himinto taking care of me. He gave me my first words in a guarded whisperat the close of every speech of his own, and shepherded me withthe utmost care through the whole scene. I shall never forget thewell-meaning feeble villain, stricken down by remorse and impendingterror, and the dominative Baron bullying him the while, with wordssupplied piecemeal by the sufferer. 

'And vot haf you to do vith shame?' inquired the Baron, and there stuck. 'Wife you cherish, ' whispered the denounced one; and, thus primed, theinexorable Baron resumed, and, having reached 'Wife you cherish, ' stuckagain. 'Children you adore, ' whispered Jim the Penman, gazing upward athis tyrant with filmy eyes of suffering. 

'And the children you adore, ' echoed the Baron in a tone which spoke hisunrelenting nature. At last came one intolerable, awful moment, when thehopeless Jim could prompt no longer. The prompter was at his post, buttook no earthly notice of the scene. He had witnessed the rehearsal andwas taking things easily. There was nothing else for it. I walked acrossto him and asked him for the line, received it, and spoke it witha biting scorn which nipped my confederate to the quick. I wascongratulated on that unwilling walk across the stage afterwards by anold hand who was present at this first appearance of mine. He told methat the pause, the walk, the turn, and the indignant scorn with whichthe words were spoken had impressed him greatly, and had assured himthat I was a born actor. But by that time I had found the courage ofdesperation, and all my fears had melted into thin air. The words of thesubsequent acts came readily, and before the last curtain fell I was asmuch at home as I had ever found myself on the lecture platform. 

XI

Amongst actors one finds some of the queerest people in the world. Themen of the modern school are very much like other people; but the oldstagers can still find some of their number who are as richly comical asMr. Vincent Crummies himself. They are like the dyer's hand, subduedto what they work in. I was thrown a great deal into the society of oneelderly young gentleman whose speciality had for years been that sortof high-flying rattling comedy of which Charles Mathews was the chiefexponent in my youth. He had the most suasive, genial, and gentlemanlycomedy manner conceivable, and was never for a minute away from thefootlights. At breakfast, at luncheon, at dinner, he played to thepublic of the hotel coffee-room. In the street he played to hisfellow-promenaders. He played, and played hard, in the simplest privateconversation. He had no more sense of moral responsibility than abutterfly. He was as admirable a stage liar, or nearly, as Mr. Hawtreyis; and off the stage he was as free from the trammels of veracity as hewas when on it He could promise, explain, evade, as dexterously inhis own person as in the character of Lord Oldacre or Greythorne orHummingtop. The world to him was literally a stage, and all the men andwomen merely players. Old age will teach him no sadness. He will play atbeing old. Death will have none of its common terrors for him. He willplay at dying. When last I heard of him I was told that he was very, very poor; but I am sure he suffers little. He is playing at making afortune or playing at having lost one: pluming himself on some visionarysplendour, or commiserating some picturesquely broken nobleman in hisown person. 

I enjoyed the most astonishing adventure of my lifetime with thisgentleman's aid, and by his express invention. He had secured the rightto perform a play of mine through the Australasian colonies and throughIndia. Of course there were certain pecuniary obligations attached tothe matter, and, these being disregarded, I ventured into the theatrewith a request for a settlement My comedian was not in a position toeffect a settlement, or perhaps he did not care to do it. He found a wayout of the difficulty which I do not think would have occurred to oneman in a million. He got rid of his creditor by giving him into custodyfor trespass; and I, being marched off by the police, had to find bailuntil the case was heard next morning. The magistrate advised me thatI had a legal remedy; but my gentleman disbanded his company and betookhim to a neighbouring colony. I was incensed at the time, though thebusiness is laughable enough now, and I took out a writ against him, butnever succeeded in serving it When I had found my bail (a local editorwas kind enough to pledge his word to save me from durance), I had toput in an appearance at the police station. There was a big policemanon duty there, and he went through the essential technicalities with sograve a face that the farce for a moment seemed quite real. 

'What's your name?' asked the big policeman. 

I told him, and spelled it for him. 

'Your age?'

I answered that question also. 

'What trade are you?'

'I am a man of letters. '

'What's that?'

'Man of letters. Write it down. Man--of--letters, '

'Are y' educated? Can ye read and write?'

I was flippant enough to say that I could read and write a little, andthe big policeman entered me as being imperfectly educated. That recordstands against me unto this day. 

We played all through the principal towns, and then we took tobush-whacking, setting up one or two night stands in places rarelyvisited by a theatrical company; and I believe that the business done inthese small places was almost always highly satisfactory from a monetarypoint of view. Some of the villages we visited--for they were nothingmore--yielded fuller houses and realised better profits than we foundalways in the capitals. I remember that we played once in a schoolroombuilt of corrugated iron and without a vestige of scenery. We put on'Chums;' and the settler's parlour, the forest scene, and the outer viewof the Otago homestead were each and all represented with the help ofa green baize cloth, which hung at the rear and on either side of thestage, three upturned petroleum tins, three chairs, a tub, and a littleoblong deal table with red legs. We had a stage space of about fouryards by three. I played Square Jack Furlong; and in the last act myrevolver hung fire and exploded a second or two too late, when it wasunfortunately and accidentally levelled at the back of the leading man'shead. The waxen pellet which packed the powder hit him smartly on thephiloprogenitive bump, and he swore audibly. 

A revolver is always a nuisance on the stage and a terror to the actorwho has to use it. You may buy the best weapon in the trade, you mayhave your cartridges made with the utmost care; but there will alwaysbe a chance of its missing fire. You may have a double in the wings, ofcourse, but even that provides no surety. I have known my own revolverand the double refuse duty at the same instant, and have faced themoaned inquiry of the leading man, who ought to have been stretched outin apparent death throes, 'What the devil's going to happen now?' Tomake matters better, when I had thrown away the useless weapon with animprovised execration and was about to hurl myself upon the virtuousvictim, the pistol in the wings obeyed the pressure of the prompter'sfinger, and the leading man dropped to a shot from nowhere, to the greatmystification of the audience. 

I am really disposed to believe that the illusion of the scene isvery little helped by the most elaborate and realistic works ofscene-painter, carpenter, and upholsterer. I have seen the house drownedin tears over that lugubrious and hollow 'East Lynne' when the stagehas been enclosed in green baize and there has not been a stick ofrespectable furniture on the boards. 'East Lynne, ' by the way, is one ofmy puzzles. Except that it has once or twice wearied me to the point ofexasperation, it has never moved me in any way; and countless thousandshave cried over it. In the New Zealand back blocks people used to weeplike watering-carts over its tawdry pathos; and when that awful, awfulchild, whose business it was to die and who would _not_ do hisbusiness, talked to his mother about his mamma, the handkerchiefs wavedeverywhere, and a chorus of sympathetic sniffings and throat clearingsalmost drowned the fustian rubbish of the dialogue. I played LordSomebody in the piece one night. I forget the unreal wretch's name; buthe will be remembered as taking money to Isabel. He appears in one sceneonly and has some twenty or thirty lines to speak; but he contrivesto go further and oftener away from nature than any stage person whoseacquaintance I have practically made. Nothing but the good old-fashioned'moo-cow' style could possibly have suited him. I believe I can boasta tolerable imitation of that antiquated elocutionary method, and Icertainly spared no effort. 

'And you, Isabel, the daughter of an earl! how have you fallen!'

That is one of the gems of the old humbug's speech, and I mouthed itas it was made to be mouthed. The house took the burlesque withperfect seriousness and good faith--chiefly, I suppose, because it wasimpossible to make the vulgar rant too clap-trappy and stagy. But as Iwas leaving, and as the house was already in a roar of applause, I cameto grief. There was a dreadful draught at the back of the stage, and oneof the ladies had been so careful against it as to pin the green-baizelinings of the stage together so as to leave no place for an exit; andI was compelled to grope about for a minute or two in search of a way ofescape whilst the applause changed to boisterous laughter. 

And the memory of that little incident helps me to a reflection on onedetail of the actor's art which is more effective when fitly used, andmore disastrous when neglected, than any other of the multitudinousthings he has to know and to bear in mind. An exit is half the businessof the most important scene ever written. You may play like an angel, you may hold the stage for half an hour and thrill your audience; but, after all, you may kill your supremest efforts by getting off clumsily. I write, of course, for the ignorant. The actor knows these things, and more than I can teach him into the bargain. But I had a singularinstance of the fact in my own experience. It came early and gave mea lesson to be laid to heart. I never played before a more friendlyaudience. Good reports had gone ahead, and the house was willing, andI think was even eager, to be pleased. I had settled to that brightand happy confidence which is the actor's most blissful experience incomedy. 

I think I never played so well in my life as in that first act of 'Jimthe Penman;' but the stage was vast in comparison with any on whichI had until then appeared, and my customary business brought me onlywithin half a dozen paces of the door-way by which I should havevanished. A sudden sense of strangeness and constraint came down uponme like a cloud. The happy feeling of confidence vanished in a whiffof chill spiritual wind. The last line was spoken before that unhappyhalf-dozen of paces was achieved; and I left the stage in a deadsilence, which was as eloquent of failure as it had been one briefminute earlier of success. I played half as well next night, butdisappeared with _aplomb_, with an effect as encouraging as the mostexigent artist could demand. So painful a thing is it to learn a newtrade! 'So much to learn, so much to do!'

I am ready to propound a novel theory, and I am insolent enoughto believe that I illustrate it in my own person. The time of fullmiddle-age is that at which a man most readily adapts himself to anew art. It is at that time most assuredly necessary to accept certainphysical limitations. I advise no hitherto unpractised person to seekexcellence as a ground and lofty tumbler after five-and-forty. Nosensible person who has attained that respectable altitude of years willtry to make a _début_ as Romeo. But supposing that a lad of fifteenand a man of five-and-forty begin on the same day to studylandscape-painting, which of the two do you think will get nearerNature's secret in five years' time? Personally I shall back--_coterisparibus_--the man of middle age. Or if it come to acting, who is likely(physical limitations on both sides duly considered, of course) to offeryou the better study of a bit of human nature--the matured observeror the unpractised un-regarding youth? I back the middle-aged man oncemore. 

My friendly critics of the London press told me that a middle-aged manhad taken to the stage as a duck takes to water. It was a bit of kindlynonsense. I had worked like a galley-slave for nine months, and the ninemonths of a man of the world is worth the nine years of a boy. And do Iprofess to be an actor now? Not a bit of it, my friendly critic--nota bit of it, in all honesty. But I mean to be. There is no art sodifficult--granted; but there is none so enchanting, so inspiring. Nightafter night for a whole week, bar Saturday, when Nature took a laterevenge, I left a sick-room at Newcastle-on-Tyne; and every ache andpain fell away, and the sick treble changed to a healthy baritone, andmanly strength came to pluck the halting pace of the invalid to marchingtime, and a feebly intermittent pulse grew full and calm at the splendidall-compelling influence of the stage. Had it been a cold lecture, now, or a speech on politics--and no man loves that kind of exercise morethan I--the armchair and the warm fireside had not reached to me andbeamed on me in vain. But the stage? That was another matter altogether. It is a better stimulant than the society of old friends. It is a fineranodyne than tobacco. It is a quicker and more constant pick-me-up thanchampagne. Sternest duty and purest pleasure wear one smiling face. Andto think that I was well into the forties before I guessed this splendidtruth!

But Nature is compensatory in everything, and her balance works in thisaccessible fairyland as elsewhere. The stage is the natural home ofpetty _contretemps_. When a man has dared to play in a piece of his ownwriting in a city like London it would be absurd to affect modesty ora want of belief in his own power to please. If under such conditionsa man had no such faith, he would be an ass beyond the reach of satire. What else but faith in himself should bring him there? 'Que diablefaisait-il dans _cette_ galère?' Yet the bold amateur intruding isconscious of a resemblance in himself to the demons mentioned in HolyWrit He believes (in himself), but he trembles. 

The night of the tentative production of 'Ned's Chum' at the GlobeTheatre was the brightest in my earthly calendar. Yet as I waited formy first cue an irresistible, horrible cold nausea got hold of me, andI had to fly back to my dressing-room and to endure on dry land allthe agonies of _mal de mer_. The call-boy's warning cry slew one keenanguish with another, and the wretch who had been physically sick withfear a minute before was, under fire, as cool as a cucumber. But therecame one moment more of heroic trial before the play was over. I keepreligiously the notices of that first night, and I have laughed morethan once at the gentle trouncing I got at the hands of Mr. WilliamArcher in the columns of the _World_. My critic complained, tenderlyenough, that at one point I took the stage with an obvious effort, as ifdetermined to show that thus and thus should a man behave under suddennews of irreparable ruin. I cannot quite tell, said Mr. Archer ineffect, why it was not admirable acting, and yet it was not If he couldhave told, he went on to say, he might himself have been an excellentactor, and not a critic. But he wanted something--something was missing. 

The miserable fact was this. I had never worn a wig in the part untilthat night, and I had forgotten for a mere instant that I wore one then. It was a part of the stage business to dash my wideawake hat to theground, and--the wig came with it. For two or three dreadful seconds Istood frozen, expectant of the howl of laughter which generallyfollows such an accident. But the fates were kind, and the thing passedunnoticed save by two or three. My natural hair was much of the lengthand colour of the wig, and no derisive roar sounded in my ears. But Ishall never forget the horror of those few waiting seconds; and I shouldlike to ask Mr. Archer how far in his judgment such an occurrence mightexcuse an actor's momentary absence from pure nature. 

I was once hit in the eye by a fragment of half-sodden turf thrown up bythe explosion of a shell, and had time to think myself a dead man beforeI realised what had happened. On one occasion, his Excellency IbrahimPasha threatened to hang me out of hand; and I believed he meant to doit. I have been in many awkward corners in my time; but my inward forceswere never more thoroughly routed than by that episode of the lost wigon the stage of the Globe Theatre. 

XII

I suppose the confession I am about to make will stamp me in the mindsof a great many people as an irredeemable barbarian. I care little forthat, however, and I am staunch in the opinions which I have held all mylifetime. Perhaps my voice may find an echo here and there. 

I am a lover of the noble art of self-defence, and to my way of thinkingfew greater blunders have been made by those who legislate for ourwell-being than was fallen into by the moral people who abolished thePrize-Ring. It should be admitted at once that the Ring was full ofabuses at the time at which an end was made of it; but it was not beyondmending, and a marked deterioration has been noticeable in the characterof our people since the sport of the Ring ceased to be a source ofpopular amusement. British fair play was a proverb amongst the roughest. The rules of the game were recognised even in a street fight, and theman who broke them was likely to be roughly handled. 

It matters little that the sense of honour was crude and rough. It wasthere, and all bullies and blackguards were compelled to abide by it Solong as it was the fashion to fight with fists, the use of the knife, the bludgeon, and the brickbat was far rarer than it is now. The mostignorant crowd could be trusted to police a brace of combatants. Thereis no harm in a stand-up fight with the weapons of nature. Men _will_fight, and we English people had the least harmful way of fighting ofall the peoples of the world. No man was ever good for much with hishands who was not chaste and temperate in life. Excellence in thispursuit was the growth of all the more masculine virtues. 

I have the kindliest memories of some of the old heroes. The veryfirst man who helped me on with a pair of boxing-gloves was the mighty'Slasher'--the Tipton Slasher, William Perry, who in the days of mynonage kept the Champion of England public-house in my native parish ofWest Bromwich, in South Staffordshire. He it was who trained my youthfulhands to guard my youthful head; and I have a foolish stupid pride andpleasure in the memory of that fact The Worcester and Birmingham Canaldivides the parishes of Smethwick and West Bromwich, and the Slasher'shouse was the last on the right-hand side--a shabby, seedy placeenough, smoke-encrusted on the outside and mean within, but a temple ofsplendour all the same to the young imagination. The Champion of Englanddwelt there--the unconquered, the undisputed chieftain of the fightingclan. He reigned there for years, none daring to make him afraid. 

I have been soundly flogged time and time again for visiting him. I havebeen put on bread and water and held in solitary confinement for thesame misdemeanour, but the man had a glamour for me and drew me with theattraction of a magnet. I can see him now, almost as plainly as if hestood before me. He was a Hercules of a man, with enormous shoulders, and his rough honest mid-England features had a sort of surly welcome intheir look. But for an odd deformity he would have had the stature of agiant; but he was hideously knock-kneed, and his shamble when he walkedwas awkward to the limits of the grotesque. You have only to invert theletter V to have an image of the Slasher's legs from foot to knee. His feet were strangers to each other; but his knees were inseparablefriends, and hugged each other in a perpetual intimacy. In fightinghe used to await his man, propped up in this inverted V fashion, andsomehow he gained so solid a footing in that strange and clumsy attitudethat he never, in all his experience of the Ring, received a knock-downblow until he encountered Tom Sayers in that last melancholy fight whichcost him the championship, and the snug little property in the Championof England public-house, and his friends and his reputation, and all hehad in the world. 

I earned one of the soundest thrashings I ever got in my life by playingtruant from school in order to follow the Slasher to a wretched littlerace meeting, held at a place called The Roughs, on the side of theBirmingham Road, in the parish of Hands-worth. My hero was there inglory, followed about by an innumerable tag-rag and bobtail, and I amafraid that on two occasions at least he was tempted to swagger and'show off, ' as children say. He shambled up to one of the 'try yourstrength' machines: the figure of a circus clown, with a buffer topunch at in the neighbourhood of his midriff, and a dial on his chest toindicate the weight of the blow administered. The Slasher tossed a pennyto the proprietor of the machine and waved him on one side; but the manstood in front of the contrivance and besought him pathetically not tostrike. 

'Not you, Mr. Perry, 'he said humbly; 'oh, not you, Mr. Perry. '

The Slasher, with an 'Away, slight man' motion of the hand, said'Gerrout!' and the fellow obeyed, seeing that there was nothing elsefor it. Hercules spat upon his hand, clenched his fist, and smote. Crashwent the whole machine into ruin, the wooden upright splintered, andthe iron supports doubled into uselessness. The destroyer rolled onrejoicing; but the crowd made a subscription, and the owner of themachine stowed away his damaged property well pleased. 

Mr. Morris Roberts was a gentleman known to local fame in those days--Iam writing of five-and-thirty years ago--and Mr. Morris Roberts hada boxing-booth on the ground. In front of the booth he had a littleplatform, and from it he addressed the congregation gathered together atthe beating of a gong. 

'Walk up, gentlemen; walk up, and see the noble art of self-defencepractised by Englishmen, not like the cowardly Frenchman or Italian, as uses sticks, knives, pistils, and other firearms, but the weponspervided by nature. I've got a nigger inside as won't say No to no man. Also George Gough, as has fought fifteen knuckle fights within thelast two years, and won 'em all, one man down and the next come on. If there's any sportsman here as cares to 'ave a turn at him, there'shalf-a-crown and a glass of sperrits for the man as stands before GeorgeGough five minutes, no matter wheer he comes from. '

The Slasher, in the full tide of his wicked humour, stood below, andwhen the oration was ended he threw his old silk hat upon the stage. Mr. Morris Roberts was bawling that twopence did it--a first-rate sample ofthe noble art was to be seen for twopence--when this unexpected actionfroze him in mid-torrent. 

'Come, come, Mr. Perry, ' he said, when he had recovered himself alittle, 'you can't expect George to stand up again the Champion of allEngland. That doesn't stand to reason, that doesn't. Now, does it, Mr. Perry?'

The Slasher smiled. 'All right Hand down half a crown and that thereglass o' sperrits. '

'You don't mean it, Mr. Perry, ' said Mr. Morris Roberts. 

'Don't I?' cried the Slasher. 

A sudden inspiration illumined Mr. Morris's mind. 'All right Come up, Mr. Perry. Sixpence--sixpence--sixpence does it!'

It was no sooner known that the Champion was really resolved on businessthan the entrance to the booth was besieged. I was borne in breathless, all the wind being squeezed out of my small body by the pressure of thecrowd, and bang went sixpence, the one coin which was to see methrough the expenses of the day. It turned out that Mr. Gough had beenimpertinent to the Slasher, and the offended dignitary punched him, as Ithought, a little unmercifully. At the close of the first round the manof the booth said--truthfully enough, no doubt--that he had had enoughof it, and the entertainment came to a premature end. 

That was the last I saw of the Slasher for years. He was the cynosureof all eyes then, and observed of all observers. But there is no wolfso strong but he may find another to make wolves' meat of him; and TomSayers, who had fought his first fight--so tradition tells--on the canalbank within a mile of the Slasher's public-house, sent in his challenge, and poor old Tipton's colours were lowered for once and for ever. Hemortgaged the stock and goodwill of the house and backed himself forevery penny he was worth, and he was beaten. He was grey and over-fat, and his fighting days were over. I forget now for how many years he hadheld the Championship Belt, but he ought to have been left to rest uponhis laurels, surely. 

He was dying when I saw him again, and his vast chest and shoulders wereshrunken and bowed, so that one wondered where the very framework of thegiant man had fallen to. He was despised and forgotten and left alone, and he sat on the side of his bed with an aspect altogether dejectedand heartless. In his better days he had liked what he used to call 'astripe of white satin, ' which was the poetic for a glass of Old Tom gin. I carried a bottle of that liquor with me as a peace-offering, and aquarter of a pound of bird's-eye. He did not know me, and there was nospeculation in his look; but after a drink he brightened. When I enteredthe room he sat in he was twirling an empty clay with a weary listlessthumb and finger, and the tobacco was welcome. 

'They mought ha' let me aloon, ' he told me, when his wits grew clear, 'I'd held the belt for seventeen 'ear, ' (I think he said seventeen, but'Fistiana' is not at hand, and I can but make a guess at memory. ) 'Theymought ha' let me aloon. Turn's a good un. I've sin 'em all, an' I'veniver sin a better. But he owed to ha' let me be. Theer was no credit tobe got in hommerin' a man at my time o' life. All the same, mind ye, Ithowt I should ha' trounced him. So I should if I could ha' got athim; but he fled hither an' he fled thither, and he was about me like acooper a-walkin' round a cask. An' I was fule enough to lose temper, an' the crowd begun to laugh an' gibe at me, an' I took to räacin'round after him, an' my wind went, an' wheer was I then? He knocked medown--fair an' square he did it. Th' on'y time it iver chanced to me. Iput everythin' I had o' that fight, an' here I bin. '

It will be within the memory of such as care for these things that, after the last great battle which brought the fistic history of Englandto a glorious close, Tom Sayers and the Benicia Boy, his late opponent, enlisted with Messrs. Howes and Cushing, proprietors of a circusin those days, and travelled the country, sparring nightly in amitytogether. My father, who had naturally about as much sympathy withthe Prize-Ring as with the atrocities of the King of Dahomey, wasnevertheless fired with admiration for the hero of Farnborough, and mustneeds go to see him. He astonished everybody who knew him by showing hissilver head and whiskers in the bar parlour of the hotel at which Mr. Sayers was quartered for the night I suppose that the worshippers atTom's shrine were of another sort as a rule; but he was evidently andmightily impressed by the old gentleman's interest in his career. Hetold a story which, in its main lines, I remember as well as if I hadheard it yesterday, though I rack my brains in vain for the names ofthe two people concerned in it. 

'I suppose, sir, ' said Tom, 'as you never heard how I come tofight'--let me call him Jones. 

No, my father never had heard. 

'Well, it was like this. Lord ---- comes to me a week or two before theDerby, and "Tom, " he says, "I've got a notion. You and me, " he says, "is goin' down to the Derby together, " he says. "I've got a pair ofsnow-white mokes, " he says, "and I've bought a coster's shallow. I'mhaving it painted white and picked out in gold, " he says, "and it'sgoing to be upholstered in white satin. Now, you and me, Tom, " says hislordship--"you and me's going to get up in white shoes, white kickseys, white westcuts, white hats, white coats, white ties, and white gloves, "he says. "We'll go down a reg'lar pair of bloomin' lilies!" Well, we did, and it was agreed to be the best turn-out of the day. We waswalkin' in the ring when up comes Jones, and, without with your leave orby your leave, he hits me on the nose. Well, I was that soft and out ofcondition the clarrit was all over me in no time. I was goin' for Joneslike a shot; but his lordship he stops me and he says, "Tom, " he says, "you shall fight him, " he says, "for two hundred pound. " I did, and youmay believe as I paid him out for that. '

We were greatly impressed with this narrative, and I have always thoughtthe regular pair of blooming lilies delicious. I told Tom that Ihad known the poor old Slasher, and he spoke of him with respectfulsympathy. 

'He was the right sort, the Tipton was, and I was sorry to take himdown. Perhaps somebody 'll come one of these days and lower my colours. It's my turn to-day and somebody else's to-morrow. '

I vex the shades no more. Their form of valour is no longer knownamongst us; but there are some who regret. I find pathetics among them, and quaint humours, in my memory. 

The End

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