The Days Before Yesterday

CHAPTER I

Early days--The passage of many terrors--Crocodiles, grizzlies and hunchbacks--An adventurous journey and its reward--The famous spring in South Audley Street--Climbing chimney-sweeps--The story of Mrs. Montagu's son--The sweeps' carnival--Disraeli--Lord John Russell--A child's ideas about the Whigs--The Earl of Aberdeen--"Old Brown Bread"--Sir Edwin Landseer, a great family friend--A live lion at a tea-party--Landseer as an artist--Some of his vagaries--His frescoes at Ardverikie--His latter days--A devoted friend--His last Academy picture

CHAPTER II. The "swells" of the "sixties"--Old Lord Claud Hamilton--My First

The "swells" of the "sixties"--Old Lord Claud Hamilton--My first presentation to Queen Victoria--Scandalous behaviour of a brother--Queen Victoria's letters--Her character and strong common sense--My mother's recollections of George III. and George IV.--Carlton House, and the Brighton Pavilion--Queen Alexandra--The Fairchild Family--Dr. Cumming and his church--A clerical Jazz--First visit to Paris--General de Flahault's account of Napoleon's campaign of 1812--Another curious link with the past--"Something French"--Attraction of Paris--Cinderella's glass slipper--A glimpse of Napoleon III.--The Rue de Rivoli--The Riviera in 1865--A novel Tricolour flag--Jenny Lind--The championship of the Mediterranean--My father's boat and crew--The race--The Abercorn wins the championship

CHAPTER III. A New Departure--a Dublin Hotel in the "sixties"--the Irish Mail

A new departure--A Dublin hotel in the "sixties"--The Irish mail service--The wonderful old paddle mail-boats--The convivial waiters of the Munster--The Viceregal Lodge--Indians and pirates--The imagination of youth--A modest personal ambition--Death-warrants; imaginary and real--The Fenian outbreak of 1866-7--The Abergele railway accident--A Dublin Drawing-Room--Strictly private ceremonials--Some of the amenities of the Chapel Royal--An unbidden spectator of the State dinners--Irish wit--Judge Keogh--Father Healy--Happy Dublin knack of nomenclature--An unexpected honour and its cause--Incidents of the Fenian rising--Dr. Hatchell--A novel prescription--Visit of King Edward--Gorgeous ceremonial, but a chilly drive--An anecdote of Queen Alexandra

CHAPTER IV. Chittenden's--a Wonderful Teacher--My Personal Experiences As a

Chittenden's--A wonderful teacher--My personal experiences as a schoolmaster--My "boys in blue"--My unfortunate garments--A "brave Belge"--The model boy, and his name--A Spartan regime--"The Three Sundays"--Novel religious observances--Harrow--"John Smith of Harrow"--"Tommy"--Steele--"Tosher"--An ingenious punishment--John Farmer--His methods--The birth of a famous song--Harrow school songs--"Ducker"--The "Curse of Versatility"--Advancing old age--The race between three brothers--A family failing--My father's race at sixty-four--My own--A most acrimonious dispute at Rome--Harrow after fifty years

CHAPTER V. Mme. Ducros--a Southern French Country Town--"tartarin De

Mme. Ducros--A Southern French country town--"Tartarin de Tarascon"--His prototypes at Nyons--M. Sisteron the roysterer--The Southern French--An octogenarian pasteur--French industry--"Bone-shakers"--A wonderful "Cordon-bleu"--"Slop-basin"--French legal procedure--The bons-vivants--The merry French judges--La gaiete francaise--Delightful excursions--Some sleepy old towns--Oronge and Avignon--M. Thiers' ingenious cousin--Possibilities--French political situation in 1874--The Comte de Chambord--Some French characteristics--High intellectual level--Three days in a Trappist Monastery--Details of life there--The Arian heresy--Silkworm culture--Tendencies of French to complicate details--Some examples--Cicadas in London.

CHAPTER VI. Brunswick--Its Beauty--High Level of Culture--the Brunswick

Brunswick--Its beauty--High level of culture--The Brunswick Theatre--Its excellence--Gas vs. Electricity--Primitive theatre toilets--Operatic stars in private life--Some operas unknown in London--Dramatic incidents in them--Levasseur's parody of "Robert"--Some curious details about operas--Two fiery old pan-Germans--Influence of the teaching profession on modern Germany--The "French and English Clubs"--A meeting of the "English Club" Some reflections about English reluctance to learn foreign tongues--Mental attitude of non-Prussians in 1875--Concerning various beers--A German sportsman--The silent, quinine-loving youth--The Harz Mountains--A "Kettle-drive" for hares--Dialects of German--The odious "Kaffee-Klatch"--Universal gossip--Hamburg's overpowering hospitality--Hamburg's attitude towards Britain--The city itself--Trip to British Heligoland--The island--Some peculiarities--Migrating birds--Sir Fitzhardinge Maxse--Lady Maxse--The Heligoland Theatre--Winter in Heligoland

CHAPTER VII

Some London beauties of the "seventies"--Great ladies--The Victorian girl--Votaries of the Gaiety Theatre Two witty ladies--Two clever girls and mock-Shakespeare--The family who talked Johnsonian English--Old-fashioned tricks of pronunciation--Practical jokes--Lord Charles Beresford and the old Club-member--The shoeless legislator--Travellers' palms--The tree that spouted wine--Ceylon's spicy breezes--Some reflections--Decline of public interest in Parliament--Parliamentary giants--Gladstone, John Bright, and Chamberlain--Gladstone's last speech--His resignation--W.H. Smith--The Assistant Whips--Sir William Hart-Dyke--Weary hours at Westminster--A Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay

CHAPTER VIII. The Foreign Office--the New Private Secretary--a Cabinet

The Foreign Office--The new Private Secretary--A Cabinet key--Concerning theatricals--Some surnames which have passed into everyday use--Theatricals at Petrograd--A mock-opera--The family from Runcorn--An embarrassing predicament--Administering the oath--Secret Service--Popular errors--Legitimate employment of information--The Phoenix Park murders--I sanction an arrest--The innocent victim--The execution of the murderers of Alexander II.--The jarring military band--Black Magic--Sir Charles Wyke--Some of his experiences--The seance at the Pantheon--Sir Charles' experiments on myself--The Alchemists--The Elixir of Life, and the Philosopher's Stone--Lucid directions for their manufacture--Glamis Castle and its inhabitants--The tuneful Lyon family--Mr. Gladstone at Glamis--He sings in the glees--The castle and its treasures--Recollections of Glamis

CHAPTER IX

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

CHAPTER X. Calcutta--Hooghly Pilots--Government House--a Durbar--the Sulky

Calcutta--Hooghly pilots--Government House--A Durbar--The sulky Rajah--The customary formalities--An ingenious interpreter--The sailing clippers in the Hooghly--Calcutta Cathedral--A succulent banquet--The mistaken Minister--The "Gordons"--Barrackpore--A Swiss Family Robinson aerial house--The child and the elephants--The merry midshipmen--Some of their escapades--A huge haul of fishes--Queen Victoria and Hindustani--The Hills--The Manipur outbreak--A riding tour--A wise old Anglo-Indian--Incidents--The fidelity of native servants--A novel printing-press--Lucknow--The loss of an illusion

CHAPTER XI. Matters Left Untold--the Results of Improved Communications--My

Matters left untold--The results of improved communications--My father's journey to Naples--Modern stereotyped uniformity--Changes in customs--The faithful family retainer--Some details--Samuel Pepys' stupendous banquets--Persistence of idea--Ceremonial incense--Patriarchal family life--The barn dances--My father's habits--My mother--A son's tribute--Autumn days--Conclusion

THE DAYS BEFORE YESTERDAY

CHAPTER I

Early days--The passage of many terrors--Crocodiles, grizzlies and hunchbacks--An adventurous journey and its reward--The famous spring in South Audley Street--Climbing chimney-sweeps--The story of Mrs. Montagu's son--The sweeps' carnival--Disraeli--Lord John Russell--A child's ideas about the Whigs--The Earl of Aberdeen--"Old Brown Bread"--Sir Edwin Landseer, a great family friend--A live lion at a tea-party--Landseer as an artist--Some of his vagaries--His frescoes at Ardverikie--His latter days--A devoted friend--His last Academy picture.

I was born the thirteenth child of a family of fourteen, on the thirteenth day of the month, and I have for many years resided at No. 13 in a certain street in Westminster. In spite of the popular prejudice attached to this numeral, I am not conscious of having derived any particular ill-fortune from my accidental association with it.

Owing to my sequence in the family procession, I found myself on my entry into the world already equipped with seven sisters and four surviving brothers. I was also in the unusual position of being born an uncle, finding myself furnished with four ready-made nephews--the present Lord Durham, his two brothers, Mr. Frederick Lambton and Admiral-of-the-Fleet Sir Hedworth Meux, and the late Lord Lichfield.

Looking down the long vista of sixty years with eyes that have already lost their keen vision, the most vivid impression that remains of my early childhood is the nightly ordeal of the journey down "The Passage of Many Terrors" in our Irish home. It had been decreed that, as I had reached the mature age of six, I was quite old enough to come downstairs in the evening by myself without the escort of a maid, but no one seemed to realise what this entailed on the small boy immediately concerned. The house had evidently been built by some malevolent architect with the sole object of terrifying little boys. Never, surely, had such a prodigious length of twisting, winding passages and such a superfluity of staircases been crammed into one building, and as in the early "sixties" electric light had not been thought of, and there was no gas in the house, these endless passages were only sparingly lit with dim colza-oil lamps. From his nursery the little boy had to make his way alone through a passage and up some steps. These were brightly lit, and concealed no terrors. The staircase that had to be negotiated was also reassuringly bright, but at its base came the "Terrible Passage." It was interminably long, and only lit by an oil lamp at its far end. Almost at once a long corridor running at right angles to the main one, and plunged in total darkness, had to be crossed. This was an awful place, for under a marble slab in its dim recesses a stuffed crocodile reposed. Of course in the daytime the crocodile PRETENDED to be very dead, but every one knew that as soon as it grew dark, the crocodile came to life again, and padded noiselessly about the passage on its scaly paws seeking for its prey, with its great cruel jaws snapping, its fierce teeth gleaming, and its horny tail lashing savagely from side to side. It was also a matter of common knowledge that the favourite article of diet of crocodiles was a little boy with bare legs in a white suit. Even should one be fortunate enough to escape the crocodile's jaws, there were countless other terrors awaiting the traveller down this awe-inspiring passage. A little farther on there was a dark lobby, with cupboards surrounding it. Any one examining these cupboards by daylight would have found that they contained innocuous cricket-bats and stumps, croquet-mallets and balls, and sets of bowls. But as soon as the shades of night fell, these harmless sporting accessories were changed by some mysterious and malign agency into grizzly bears, and grizzly bears are notoriously the fiercest of their species. It was advisable to walk very quickly, but quietly, past the lair of the grizzlies, for they would have gobbled up a little boy in one second. Immediately after the bears' den came the culminating terror of all--the haunt of the wicked little hunchbacks. These malignant little beings inhabited an arched and recessed cross-passage. It was their horrible habit to creep noiselessly behind their victims, tip...tip...tip-toeing silently but swiftly behind their prey, and then ... with a sudden spring they threw themselves on to little boys' backs, and getting their arms round their necks, they remorselessly throttled the life out of them. In the early "sixties" there was a perfect epidemic of so-called "garrotting" in London. Harmless citizens proceeding peaceably homeward through unfrequented streets or down suburban roads at night were suddenly seized from behind by nefarious hands, and found arms pressed under their chins against their windpipe, with a second hand drawing their heads back until they collapsed insensible, and could be despoiled leisurely of any valuables they might happen to have about them. Those familiar with John Leech's Punch Albums will recollect how many of his drawings turned on this outbreak of garrotting. The little boy had heard his elders talking about this garrotting, and had somehow mixed it up with a story about hunchbacks and the fascinating local tales about "the wee people," but the terror was a very real one for all that. The hunchbacks baffled, there only remained a dark archway to pass, but this archway led to the "Robbers' Passage." A peculiarly bloodthirsty gang of malefactors had their fastnesses along this passage, but the dread of being in the immediate neighbourhood of such a band of desperadoes was considerably modified by the increasing light, as the solitary oil-lamp of the passage was approached. Under the comforting beams of this lamp the little boy would pause until his heart began to thump less wildly after his deadly perils, and he would turn the handle of the door and walk into the great hall as demurely as though he had merely traversed an ordinary everyday passage in broad daylight. It was very reassuring to see the big hall blazing with light, with the logs roaring on the open hearth, and grown-ups writing, reading, and talking unconcernedly, as though unconscious of the awful dangers lurking within a few yards of them. In that friendly atmosphere, what with toys and picture-books, the fearful experiences of the "Passage of Many Terrors" soon faded away, and the return journey upstairs would be free from alarms, for Catherine, the nursery-maid, would come to fetch the little boy when his bedtime arrived.

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