Tracks of a Rolling Stone Part 25

His later years were pa.s.sed at Sevenoaks, where he kept an establishment for imbeciles, or weak-minded youths. I often stayed with him (not as a patient), and a very comfortable and pretty place it was. Now and then he would call on me in London; and, with a face full of theatrical woe, tell me, with elaborate circ.u.mlocution, how the Earl of This, or the Marquis of That, had implored him to take charge of young Lord So-and-So, his son; who, as all the world knew, had-well, had 'no guts in his brains.' Was there ever such a chance? Just consider what it must lead to! Everybody knew-no, n.o.body knew-the enormous number of idiots there were in n.o.ble families. And, such a case as that of young Lord Dash-though of course his residence at Sevenoaks would be a profound secret, would be patent to the whole peerage; and, my dear sir, a fortune to your humble servant, if-ah! if he could only secure it!'

'But I thought you said you had been implored to take him?'

'I did say so. I repeat it. His Lords.h.i.+p's father came to me with tears in his eyes. "My dear Wigan," were that n.o.bleman's words, "do me this one favour and trust me, you will never regret it!" But-' he paused to remove the dramatic tear, 'but, I hardly dare go on. Yes-yes, I know your kindness' (seizing my hand) 'I know how ready you are to help me'-(I hadn't said a word)-'but-'

'How much is it this time? and what is it for?'

'For? I have told you what it is for. The merest trifle will suffice.

I have the room-a beautiful room, the best aspect in the house. It is now occupied by young Rumagee b.u.magee the great Bombay millionaire's son.

Of course he can be moved. But a bed-there positively is not a spare bed in the house. This is all I want-a bed, and perhaps a tuppenny ha'penny strip of carpet, a couple of chairs, a-let me see; if you give me a slip of paper I can make out in a minute what it will come to.'

'Never mind that. Will a ten-pound note serve your purposes?'

'Dear boy! Dear boy! But on one condition, on one condition only, can I accept it-this is a loan, a loan mind! and not a gift. No, no-it is useless to protest; my pride, my sense of honour, forbids my acceptance upon any other terms.'

A day or two afterwards I would learn from George Bird that he and Miss Alice had accepted an invitation to meet me at Sevenoaks. Mr. Donovan, the famous phrenologist, was to be of the party; the Rector of Sevenoaks, and one or two local magnates, had also been invited to dine. We Londoners were to occupy the spare rooms, for this was in the coaching days.

We all knew what we had to expect-a most enjoyable banquet of conviviality. Young Mrs. Wigan, his second wife, was an admirable housekeeper, and nothing could have been better done. The turbot and the haunch of venison were the pick of Grove's shop, the champagne was iced to perfection, and there was enough of it, as Mr. Donovan whispered to me, casting his eyes to the ceiling, 'to wash an omnibus, bedad.' Mr.

Donovan, though he never refused Mr. Wigan's hospitality, balanced the account by vilipending his friend's extravagant habits. While Mr. Wigan, probably giving him full credit for his grat.i.tude, always spoke of him as 'Poor old Paddy Donovan.'

With Alfred Wigan, the eldest son, I was on very friendly terms. Nothing could be more unlike his father. His manner in his own house was exactly what it was on the stage. Albany Fonblanque, whose experiences began nearly forty years before mine, and who was not given to waste his praise, told me he considered Alfred Wigan the best 'gentleman' he had ever seen on the stage. I think this impression was due in a great measure to Wigan's entire absence of affectation, and to his persistent appeal to the 'judicious' but never to the 'groundlings.' Mrs. Alfred Wigan was also a consummate artiste.

CHAPTER XLII

THROUGH George Bird I made the acquaintance of the leading surgeons and physicians of the North London Hospital, where I frequently attended the operations of Erichsen, John Marshall, and Sir Henry Thompson, following them afterwards in their clinical rounds. Amongst the physicians, Professor Sydney Ringer remains one of my oldest friends. Both surgery and therapeutics interested me deeply. With regard to the first, curiosity was supplemented by the incidental desire to overcome the natural repugnance we all feel to the mere sight of blood.

Chemistry I studied in the laboratory of a professional friend of Dr.

Bird's. After a while my teacher would leave me to carry out small commissions of a simple character which had been put into his hands, such as the a.n.a.lysis of water, bread, or other food-stuffs. He himself often had engagements elsewhere, and would leave me in possession of the laboratory, with a small urchin whom he had taught to be useful. This boy was of the meekest and mildest disposition. Whether his master had frightened him or not I do not know. He always spoke in a whisper, and with downcast eyes. He handled everything as if it was about to annihilate him, or he it, and looked as if he wouldn't bite-even a tartlet.

One day when I had finished my task, and we were alone, I bethought me of making some laughing gas, and trying the effect of it on the gentle youth. I offered him a s.h.i.+lling for the experiment, which, however, proved more expensive than I had bargained for. I filled a bladder with the gas, and putting a bit of broken pipe-stem in its neck for a mouthpiece, gave it to the boy to suck-and suck he did. In a few seconds his eyes dilated, his face became lividly white, and I had some trouble to tear the intoxicating bladder from his clutches. The moment I had done so, the true nature of the gutter-snipe exhibited itself. He began by cutting flip-flaps and turning windmills all round the room; then, before I could stop him, swept an armful of valuable apparatus from the tables, till the whole floor was strewn with wreck and poisonous solutions. The dismay of the chemist when he returned may be more easily imagined than described.

Some years ago, there was a well-known band of amateur musicians called the 'Wandering Minstrels.' This band originated in my rooms in Dean's Yard. Its nucleus was composed of the following members: Seymour Egerton, afterwards Lord Wilton, Sir Archibald Macdonald my brother-in-law, Fred Clay, Bertie Mitford (the present Lord Redesdale-perhaps the finest amateur cornet and trumpet player of the day), and Lord Gerald Fitzgerald. Our concerts were given in the Hanover Square Rooms, and we played for charities all over the country.

To turn from the musical art to the art-or science is it called?-of self-defence, once so patronised by the highest fas.h.i.+on, there was at this time a famous pugilistic battle-the last of the old kind-fought between the English champion, Tom Sayers, and the American champion, Heenan. Bertie Mitford and I agreed to go and see it.

The Wandering Minstrels had given a concert in the Hanover Square Rooms.

The fight was to take place on the following morning. When the concert was over, Mitford and I went to some public-house where the 'Ring' had a.s.sembled, and where tickets were to be bought, and instructions received. Fights when gloves were not used, and which, especially in this case, might end fatally, were of course illegal; and every precaution had been taken by the police to prevent it. A special train was to leave London Bridge Station about 6 A.M. We sat up all night in my room, and had to wait an hour in the train before the men with their backers arrived. As soon as it was daylight, we saw mounted police galloping on the roads adjacent to the line. No one knew where the train would pull up. Ten minutes after it did so, a ring was formed in a meadow close at hand. The men stripped, and tossed for places. Heenan won the toss, and with it a considerable advantage. He was nearly a head taller than Sayers, and the ground not being quite level, he chose the higher side of the ring. But this was by no means his only 'pull.' Just as the men took their places the sun began to rise. It was in Heenan's back, and right in the other's face.

Heenan began the attack at once with scornful confidence; and in a few minutes Sayers received a blow on the forehead above his guard which sent him slithering under the ropes; his head and neck, in fact, were outside the ring. He lay perfectly still, and in my ignorance, I thought he was done for. Not a bit of it. He was merely reposing quietly till his seconds put him on his legs. He came up smiling, but not a jot the worse. But in the course of another round or two, down he went again.

The fight was going all one way. The Englishman seemed to be completely at the mercy of the giant. I was so disgusted that I said to my companion: 'Come along, Bertie, the game's up. Sayers is good for nothing.'

But now the luck changed. The bull-dog tenacity and splendid condition of Sayers were proof against these violent shocks. The sun was out of his eyes, and there was not a mark of a blow either on his face or his body. His temper, his presence of mind, his defence, and the rapidity of his movements, were perfect. The opening he had watched for came at last. He sprang off his legs, and with his whole weight at close quarters, struck Heenan's cheek just under the eye. It was like the kick of a cart-horse. The shouts might have been heard half-a-mile off. Up till now, the betting called after each round had come to 'ten to one on Heenan'; it fell at once to evens.

Heenan was completely staggered. He stood for a minute as if he did not know where he was or what had happened. And then, an unprecedented thing occurred. While he thus stood, Sayers put both hands behind his back, and coolly walked up to his foe to inspect the damage he had inflicted.

I had hold of the ropes in Heenan's corner, consequently could not see his face without leaning over them. When I did so, and before time was called, one eye was completely closed. What kind of generosity prevented Sayers from closing the other during the pause, is difficult to conjecture. But his forbearance did not make much difference. Heenan became more fierce, Sayers more daring. The same tactics were repeated; and now, no longer to the astonishment of the crowd, the same success rewarded them. Another sledge-hammer blow from the Englishman closed the remaining eye. The difference in the condition of the two men must have been enormous, for in five minutes Heenan was completely sightless.

Sayers, however, had not escaped scot-free. In countering the last attack, Heenan had broken one of the bones of Sayers' right arm. Still the fight went on. It was now a brutal scene. The blind man could not defend himself from the other's terrible punishment. His whole face was so swollen and distorted, that not a feature was recognisable. But he evidently had his design. Each time Sayers struck him and ducked, Heenan made a swoop with his long arms, and at last he caught his enemy. With gigantic force he got Sayers' head down, and heedless of his captive's pounding, backed step by step to the ring. When there, he forced Sayers'

neck on to the rope, and, with all his weight, leant upon the Englishman's shoulders. In a few moments the face of the strangled man was black, his tongue was forced out of his mouth, and his eyes from their sockets. His arms fell powerless, and in a second or two more he would have been a corpse. With a wild yell the crowd rushed to the rescue. Warning cries of 'The police! The police!' mingled with the shouts. The ropes were cut, and a general scamper for the waiting train ended this last of the greatest prize-fights.

We two took it easily, and as the mob were scuttling away from the police, we saw Sayers with his backers, who were helping him to dress.

His arm seemed to hurt him a little, but otherwise, for all the damage he had received, he might have been playing at football or lawn tennis.

We were quietly getting into a first-cla.s.s carriage, when I was seized by the shoulder and roughly spun out of the way. Turning to resent the rudeness, I found myself face to face with Heenan. One of his seconds had pushed me on one side to let the gladiator get in. So completely blind was he, that the friend had to place his foot upon the step. And yet neither man had won the fight.

We still think-profess to think-the barbarism of the 'Iliad' the highest flight of epic poetry; if Homer had sung this great battle, how glorious we should have thought it! Beyond a doubt, man 'yet partially retains the characteristics that adapted him to an antecedent state.'

CHAPTER XLIII

THROUGH the Cayley family, I became very intimate with their near relatives the Worsleys of Hovingham, near York. Hovingham has now become known to the musical world through its festivals, annually held at the Hall under the patronage of its late owner, Sir William Worsley. It was in his father's time that this fine place, with its delightful family, was for many years a home to me. Here I met the Alisons, and at the kind invitation of Sir Archibald, paid the great historian a visit at Possil, his seat in Scotland. As men who had achieved scientific or literary distinction inspired me with far greater awe than those of the highest rank-of whom from my childhood I had seen abundance-Alison's celebrity, his courteous manner, his oracular speech, his voluminous works, and his voluminous dimensions, filled me with too much diffidence and respect to admit of any freedom of approach. One listened to him, as he held forth of an evening when surrounded by his family, with reverential silence.

He had a strong Scotch accent; and, if a wee bit prosy at times, it was sententious and polished prose that he talked; he talked invariably like a book. His family were devoted to him; and I felt that no one who knew him could help liking him.

When Thackeray was giving readings from 'The Four Georges,' I dined with Lady Grey and Landseer, and we three went to hear him. I had heard d.i.c.kens read 'The Trial of Bardell against Pickwick,' and it was curious to compare the style of the two great novelists. With Thackeray, there was an entire absence of either tone or colour. Of course the historical nature of his subject precluded the dramatic suggestion to be looked for in the Pickwick trial, thus rendering comparison inapposite.

Nevertheless one was bound to contrast them. Thackeray's features were impa.s.sive, and his voice knew no inflection. But his elocution in other respects was perfect, admirably distinct and impressive from its complete obliteration of the reader.

The selection was from the reign of George the Third; and no part of it was more attentively listened to than his pa.s.sing allusion to himself.

'I came,' he says, 'from India as a child, and our s.h.i.+p touched at an island on the way home, where my black servant took me a long walk over rocks and hills until we reached a garden, where we saw a man walking.

"That is he," said the black man, "that is Bonaparte! He eats three sheep every day, and all the little children he can lay hands on!"' One went to hear Thackeray, to see Thackeray; and the child and the black man and the ogre were there on the stage before one. But so well did the lecturer perform his part, that ten minutes later one had forgotten him, and saw only George Selwyn and his friend Horace Walpole, and Horace's friend, Miss Berry-whom by the way I too knew and remember. One saw the 'poor society ghastly in its pleasures, its loves, its revelries,' and the redeeming vision of 'her father's darling, the Princess Amelia, pathetic for her beauty, her sweetness, her early death, and for the extreme pa.s.sionate tenderness with which her father loved her.' The story told, as Thackeray told it, was as delightful to listen to as to read.

Not so with d.i.c.kens. He disappointed me. He made no attempt to represent the different characters by varied utterance; but whenever something unusually comic was said, or about to be said, he had a habit of turning his eyes up to the ceiling; so that, knowing what was coming, one nervously antic.i.p.ated the upcast look, and for the moment lost the illusion. In both entertainments, the reader was naturally the central point of interest. But in the case of d.i.c.kens, when curiosity was satisfied, he alone possessed one; Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell were put out of court.

Was it not Charles Lamb, or was it Hazlitt, that could not bear to see Shakespeare upon the stage? I agree with him. I have never seen a Falstaff that did not make me miserable. He is even more impossible to impersonate than Hamlet. A player will spoil you the character of Hamlet, but he cannot spoil his thoughts. Depend upon it, we are fortunate not to have seen Shakespeare in his ghost of Royal Denmark.

In 1861 I married Lady Katharine Egerton, second daughter of Lord Wilton, and we took up our abode in Warwick Square, which, by the way, I had seen a few years before as a turnip field. My wife was an accomplished pianiste, so we had a great deal of music, and saw much of the artist world. I may mention one artistic dinner amongst our early efforts at housekeeping, which nearly ended with a catastrophe.

Millais and d.i.c.ky Doyle were of the party; music was represented by Joachim, Piatti, and Halle. The late Lord and Lady de Ros were also of the number. Lady de Ros, who was a daughter of the Duke of Richmond, had danced at the ball given by her father at Brussels the night before Waterloo. As Lord de Ros was then Governor of the Tower, it will be understood that he was a veteran of some standing. The great musical trio were enchanting all ears with their faultless performance, when the sweet and soul-stirring notes of the Adagio were suddenly interrupted by a loud crash and a shriek. Old Lord de Ros was listening to the music on a sofa at the further end of the room. Over his head was a large picture in a heavy frame. What vibrations, what careless hanging, what mischievous Ate or Discord was at the bottom of it, who knows? Down came the picture on the top of the poor old General's head, and knocked him senseless on the floor. He had to be carried upstairs and laid upon a bed. Happily he recovered without serious injury. There were many exclamations of regret, but the only one I remember was Millais'. All he said was: 'And it is a good picture too.'

Sir Arthur Sullivan was one of our musical favourites. My wife had known him as a chorister boy in the Chapel Royal; and to the end of his days we were on terms of the closest intimacy and friends.h.i.+p. Through him we made the acquaintance of the Scott Russells. Mr. Scott Russell was the builder of the Crystal Palace. He had a delightful residence at Sydenham, the grounds of which adjoined those of the Crystal Palace, and were beautifully laid out by his friend Sir Joseph Paxton. One of the daughters, Miss Rachel Russell, was a pupil of Arthur Sullivan's. She had great musical talent, she was remarkably handsome, exceedingly clever and well-informed, and altogether exceptionally fascinating. Quite apart from Sullivan's genius, he was in every way a charming fellow. The teacher fell in love with the pupil; and, as naturally, his love was returned. Sullivan was but a youth, a poor and struggling music-master.

And, very naturally again, Mrs. Scott Russell, who could not be expected to know what magic baton the young maestro carried in his knapsack, thought her brilliant daughter might do better. The music lessons were put a stop to, and correspondence between the lovers was prohibited.

Once a week or so, either the young lady or the young gentleman would, quite unexpectedly, pay us a visit about tea or luncheon time. And, by the strangest coincidence, the other would be sure to drop in while the one was there. This went on for a year or two. But destiny forbade the banns. In spite of the large fortune acquired by Mr. Scott Russell-he was the builder of the 'Great Eastern' as well as the Crystal Palace-ill-advised or unsuccessful ventures robbed him of his well-earned wealth. His beautiful place at Sydenham had to be sold; and the marriage of Miss Rachel with young Arthur Sullivan was abandoned. She ultimately married an Indian official.

Her story may here be told to the end. Some years later she returned to England to bring her two children home for their education, going back to India without them, as Indian mothers have to do. The day before she sailed, she called to take leave of us in London. She was terribly depressed, but fought bravely with her trial. She never broke down, but shunted the subject, talking and laughing with flashes of her old vivacity, about music, books, friends, and 'dear old dirty London,' as she called it. When she left, I opened the street-door for her, and with both her hands in mine, bade her 'Farewell.' Then the tears fell, and her parting words were: 'I am leaving England never to see it again.'

She was seized with cholera the night she reached Bombay, and died the following day.

To return to her father, the eminent engineer. He was distinctly a man of genius, and what is called 'a character.' He was always in the clouds-not in the vapour of his engine-rooms, nor busy inventing machines for extracting sunbeams from cuc.u.mbers, but musing on metaphysical problems and abstract speculations about the universe generally. In other respects a perfectly simple-minded man.

It was in his palmy days that he invited me to run down to Sheerness with him, and go over the 'Great Eastern' before she left with the Atlantic cable. This was in 1865. The largest s.h.i.+p in the world, and the first Atlantic cable, were both objects of the greatest interest. The builder did not know the captain-Anderson-nor did the captain know the builder.

But clearly, each would be glad to meet the other.

As the leviathan was to leave in a couple of days, everything on board her was in the wildest confusion. Russell could not find anyone who could find the Captain; so he began poking about with me, till we accidentally stumbled on the Commander. He merely said that he was come to take a parting glance at his 'child,' which did not seem of much concern to the over-busy captain. He never mentioned his own name, but introduced me as 'my friend Captain Cole.' Now, in those days, Captain Cole was well known as a distinguished naval officer. To Russell's absent and engineering mind, 'c.o.ke' had suggested 'Cole,' and 'Captain'