Class __^_K_^iO. Book H "Vb^ Copyright N"- COPYRIGHT DEPOSm ^ TEN DAYS ABROAD BY H. S. FULLER -^> j ''j, 'j NEW YORK : THE SCHOOL NEWS COMPANY 156 Fifth avenue 1901 THE LIBRARY OF CONQRCSS, Two Copies Received APR. 18 1901 COPYRKJMT ENTRY CLVkSS^XXo. Hm. COPY B. Copyright, 1901, BY H. S. Fuller • • • • • • ,» ••• •• »-• •.• Press, 122 W. 14th Street, New York IN REMEMBRANCE OF MANY PLEASANT JOURNEYS, THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED TO MY WIFE This narrative grew out of a few letters relat- ing the writer's pleasant experiences last August, on a short trip abroad for recreation and rest. Several months are not now required for such a journey. One may see in a week more than was possible in a month's time, half a century ago, and enjoy it fully if the mind is passive, and the purpose not simply to attempt how much may be accomplished in a short space. These sketches the writer hopes may help others whose recreation intervals are short to as thorough enjoyment as he obtained from this trip. New people and customs when mingled with the asso- ciations of a vivid past from which all our present life has come, give an agreeable and healthful stimulus to the fancies which carry us out of, and away from the daily routine of habit and cares. New York, March 21, 1901. CONTENTS Chapter P^'^g^ I. — Sailing of the Minnehaha, - - - 11 II.— In Mid Ocean, _ _ - . _ 21 III. — In London Town, ----- 35 IV. — Old London Memories, - - - - 49 V. — Over the Channel, ----- 61 VI. — Shakespeare's Home, - _ - - 72 VII.— Kenilworth Traditions, - - - - 84 VIII.— The Ride from Birming-ham, - - - 95 IX.— Edinboro' Town, - - - - - 105 X. — Throug-h the Trossachs, - - - - 114 XI.— In Glasgow Streets, . - .. 124 XII.— The North Irish Coast, - - - - 133 XIII.— On the North Atlantic, - - - - 145 XIV.— Sandy Hook, - 157 ILLUSTRATIONS One of the Lions — Frontispiece^ - _ . From a Photograph of one of the Landseer Lions at the foot of Nelson's Statue, Trafalgar Square. Down the Hudson, ------ From Photograph taken by Dr. F. M. Banta on the Minnehaha's Maiden Trip. Sunday on Deck, ---___ The Ocean Pathways, _ _ - - _ Southern Route of the Minnehaha, Westward. Northern Route of the Furnessia from Glasgow returning. From the Strand to St. Paul's, A leaf from FYy's London Guide. Parliament Houses from Westminster Bridg-e, Oliver Cromwell, -_-_-. From Photograph of Thornycroft's Statue, Parlia- ment Buildings facing Westminster Abbey. Old Paris — Vignette, _____ Griffin — Vignette, _--_-_ From Notre Dame T>nver. "Tanks!"— Vignette, ----- Kenilworth Castle, The Banquet Hall and Mortimer Tower. Page 36 13- 19 23 40 55 " 58 I. 63 65 71 92 ^ A Birming-ham Passeng-er — Vig-nette, - - 96 John Ball Preaching- — Vignette, _ . .. loO Engraved from an Old Print. Edinburgh Castle, ----- 104 ^ A Highlander — Vignette, - - 107 The Bailie Nicol Jarvie — Vignette, - 118 Loch Katrine, - - - - - - 123 *^ From Roderick Dhu's "Watch Tower. The University of Glasgow, - - - ■ 127 fi- TEN DAYS ABROAD SAILING OF THE MINNEHAHA I AST ''ashore" had been called — the siren had torn from the air its final, uncanny shriek. Then the gang-plank, which is not a gang-plank in modern steamers, but a huge suspension foot-bridge, was raised aloft. The last cable dropped, and our steamer, the Minnehaha, was an island, a leviathan in the water, parted from all human touch ; but still incompetent and helpless, though her twin screws churned the black waters of the 12 TEN DAYS ABROAD slip into white foam, until two stout tugs had grappled with her — as ants will seize upon a mammoth lizard — puffing and churning foam all the while, as the great bulk, gathering impulse, widened the breach between herself and the pier — the world. Cameras on ship and wharf sprung their parting snap shots, and familiar faces were fading — as all faces that we care for will some day fade, w^hen Charon's dark skiff floats them out on the tide. A bugler with pink cheeks, and in white duck jacket, blew a farewell strain from the Captain's deck. And the melody, "Because I Loved You," touched a chord that brought spasmodic responses into more than one face among the cluster of waving handkerchiefs, grouped at the end of the pier, — though an irreverent, dark-featured youth of Germanic extraction beside me on the deck, hummed regardlessly : 'Td leave my happy home for thee," and straightway engaged me with the inquiry whether I spoke good French, or if I happened to know some pretty young woman LEAVING THE CITY 13 on board who did, as he was modestly anxious to perfect his own accent during the voyage. When I had freed myself from his atten- tions the Minnehaha, girding up her sinews, had turned about in mid-stream, pointing down the Hudson. The tugs cutting loose moved in advance on either flank, puffy and consequential escorts to their big sister steamer starting forth on her maiden trip. She was more a sturdy Eng- lish lass than the lithe and laughing Indian maiden her namesake. Her buxom sides like a country beauty's towxred above city ferry boat and excur- sion steamer, displaying her dimensions proudly and to advantage beside the leaner flanks of the "fast liners." It was a bright, crisp summer morning. The hum and whistle of the great city had scarce begun as the cliff dwellings of Man- hattan went down on the sky line. The Bridge became a distant cobweb in the clouds. The pilot was taken up, and when the green banks of the Narrows and the sandy spit of the Hook had been passed, he was dropped with the last messages for home, and we sailed on still watching with a more 14 TEN DAYS ABROAD tender interest the receding lines of shore. Our steamer, EngHsh built, flies the British colors, but with her name she should be an Amer- ican vessel. Her captain, officers and crew are stalwart young English sailors selected for their skill and service, thoiigh the stockholders are mostly Americans, with an American president, Bernard M. Baker of Baltimore. Plain John Rob- inson, the captain, large, hearty and robust in build and with a flush of good American beef in his wholesome and genial features, grew in authority as he paced the Captain's Bridge. The engineer, one of those cautious, careful Scotchmen whom Kipling has limned, had a sug- gestion of Admiral Sampson in his paler features. There were less than a hundred cabin passengers, a great family party, quartered with all modern comforts — and no steerage ; in the place of the steerage at the stern, where all odors were swept behind to sea, were stalls for the horses and cattle. The Minnehaha was laden, we were told, with one of the largest cargoes that ever left American shores. Stored away within her capa- OFF SANDY HOOK 15 cious iron caverns were grain and corn by the hundred thousand bushels, and tons of cotton ; troops of horses, many of them groomed and fed as more priceless than the human freight, and a drove of a thousand cattle from the western plains occupied the stalls. A vast floating warehouse is the modern steam- er, and this one of the greatest of them, whose stores would provision an army or ransom a city. These huge steel trusses and broad iron plates must be touched with Arabian magic to float as feathers over the water, when, of themselves, they would plunge like cannon-shot to the bot- tomless depths of the ocean. The Minnehaha carries her burden on this, her maiden trip, as buoyantly as a birch canoe would carry an Indian maid. From her bows the salt, green waves curl with low murmurs, lapping and caressing her dark sides. Smoothly she cleaves the billows with no conscious strain or vibration, as a river steamer glides through the passes of the Hudson Highlands. In the quiet of the evening when the low of the "moo cow," the soft breath of kine, and i6 TEN DAYS ABROAD the fresh odor of hay, came from the stalls on the rear deck^ it was not difficult to believe these rol- ling, sapphire waters an illusion — that they were fields of rustling grain or purple alfalfa. Then the first sunset stretched a band of shell pink half way around the horizon encompassing this wav- ing plain, and the thin, gold crescent of the new moon over the spot where the sun had sunk, pointed the direction of the distant city and the port we had left. The passengers do not enter at once upon a familiar footing. Your Anglo-Saxon whether English or American is ever slow in warming up the cockles of his heart. But my German acquaintance in lieu of his choice for a French companion, secured others of his own sex with whom he walked the deck cheerfully in sun- shine and shade, their faces presently glowing with a rich vermilion, to peal in flakes ' a little later like the bursting jackets of well boiled po- tatoes. The dining table established more cordial relations. Its varied and enticing menu of fish and fowl, ''Hazel Hen," "Red Deer," and other THE CAPTAIN'S TABLE 17 delicacies, was calculated to arouse epicurean curiosity, though somewhat gamey for ocean diet. Mark Twain and David Harum were favorite topics with the Captain. His table was a social center; and when he told his stories, his sides shook, the dishes rattled, and we all joined the laughter in sheer sympathy. On Sunday morning he read the Episcopal service, his voice taking a deeper-toned gravity, while the gold lace and uniform gave dignity to his figure, and a sense of greater security and confidence. His desk was draped for the occasion with the British flag, and the desk of the Purser who read part of the service, and who was an American from Bal- timore, was hung with the American colors. Sunday on shipboard at sea has an interest of its own. And an Episcopal service always seems to find an English audience in sympathy, and familiar with it. The ranchman from the plains, with long, black mustaches, the grizzly-browed Irish-American from the Klondike returning to visit his early home, and the elderly nurse from Central America, an infant in her arms, standing i8 TEN DAYS ABROAD at the doorway in the background — all without books — chanted the responses fervently in chorus with the passengers. The plea for Queen Victoria's health and welfare, and the Royal family's, was accompanied with that for the President of the United States, to which good Americans could subscribe. This day and hour the liturgy is chanted around the globe on every land and sea where the British colors fly. Not always, observed a traveler on deck afterward, under American or other national ensigns, but on British steamers it has become a custom, if it is not a requirement. The old English liturgists in the Prayer Book appear to have re-echoed the tone and the rhythm of the Psalms. And in the "Recessional," it seemed at this moment, Kipling has caught his refrain from the strong and serious old Puritan side, if it is the Psalm-singing side, of English or Anglo- Saxon nature, which finds response and its self-restraining influence here. All around the saloon of the steamer, set in its paneled walls of dark oak, were pictures of o W Q O SUNDAY ON SHIPBOARD 19 American scenery, outlined in colors on the thick window crystal of the port casements — Brooklyn Bridge, Bartholdi Statue, views from Central Park, Minneapolis, Baltimore and Chicago. That Sunday morning was clear, the skies blue, the sun bright, the ocean mild and peaceful — no whisper in the waves of the fierce strifes on its distant African or Chinese coasts ; no newspapers or other human contrivance to disturb the calm, eternal sway of Nature. A whale plunged across our course spouting its spray, as if to vie with the Minnehaha's bow, or exchange salute with a bigger sister denizen of the deep, while the porpoises gamboled about the ship's sides in company, rubbing their backs fearlessly, the mariner told the landsmen, against her prow, as if her construction were for the sole mission of their fraternal gratification. A sense of unlimited sunshine, restfulness and relaxation filled the atmosphere. The wash of the sea and the throbbing pulsations of the steamer were the purring osculations of some mighty, domesticated feline. To the rhythm of 20 TEN DAYS ABROAD the organ music, to the song and chanted re- sponses of this morning service, one could easily- fancy our great, laden argosy swinging gently; and the eye passing outward and far through the open, swaying ports, framed in the dark oak paneling, caught glimpses of sky and sea, sun-lit cloud and changing water — marine masterpieces more wonderful than those which hang in the famous galleries of earth. II IN MID OCEAN JT^ OR two days the Minnehaha followed ^ , ^ a course due east from New York. ^^81 Then she turned northeast on the great sea, a direction which the daily chart indicated would bring us at the expiration of a week, near to the entrance of the English Channel. Our bugler in his white-duck jacket which he always donned at such times, roused us early in the mornings, winding the reveille, through the long aisles of the cabin, repeating the strain with variations half an hour later. On German lines it was said, the custom is to vary 22 TEN DAYS ABROAD those calls with simple, folk-lore airs — all of which are pleasanter sounds than a jangling bell, or the barbarous din of the copper tom-tom. Many of the passengers are out on deck before breakfast for exercise. One who is a member of a camera club is up at sunrise, always with his camera, hoping to catch a near broadside at a whale or take the porpoises in the act of scratching their backs on the Minnehaha's bows — like hogs on a rail fence in the country. His failures do not shake his confident hopes of success on the return voyage, and recording the triumph of the year in his club. The first days at sea are full of speculation and day dreams to which the gentle rocking of the steamer is conducive. They are curious composites of home fancies, toil and care, out from which you start of a sudden in surprise at the far-stretching waves, only to sink back with fresh comfort and the relaxation of a warm sun bath. Amid this novelty of nothing to do landsmen whoi have escaped the routine and burden of life ashore, pay little heed to the throng NOTHING TO DO 25 of passengers. The Captain's chart is the official guide, and one acquires an impHcit trust in the officer who can pick his way under the stars and sun with no other direction. No letters or tele- grams can reach the voyager. Dates fail to inter- est and are disregarded. Even days of the week become confused amid the never ceasing wash of these waves whose rich, cobalt hues, deeper than the blue of skies above, have a restful fascination. Athwart our pathway the billows swell up suddenly from the deep as if another Aphrodite would issue forth upon them. Then they fall away in a cabalistic tracery, to creep and cling an azure gelatine in fantastic shapes — curling from violet ringlets to sprays of delicate greens, such as tint the early lawns in April. The eye wanders over the broad expanse with expectation and mystery in every incident. A fly speck may prove a sail and bring all on deck to speculate and wonder. One remembers long voyages and feels a higher respect for the Norse Sea-kings and the Pilgrim Fathers. Then human 26 TEN DAYS ABROAD interest returns, and fellow-voyagers, flushed with the sun and sea, show kinship and personal characteristics. Strange rumors arise in the cabin on the simplest topics, pure products of unconscious cerebration, says our Southern Pro- fessor. Several bridal couples who are wholly self-centered during most of the trip, afford more material interest. One of the bridegrooms, a young Englishman, is carrying a pretty American bride to his paternal home in London, near Hyde Park. She is a willing prisoner, for it is their wedding trip; the home reception is to be an international family affair in which English and American colors are to blend, and decorate. He is a philological study for the "Professor," who having been born at a distance from the "Bow- bells," cannot satisfactorily account for those peculiar inflections on the "ai," when our English fellow passenger insists that the steamer "syles" beautifully, and that the voyage is a complete "bryne" rest. The bridegroom's mother and a younger sister who attended the wedding, are returning with AN ENGLISH BRIDESMAID ^ 27 him ; the sister, a pleasing young girl with Dolly Varden pink and white cheeks and naive English manners, is a source of constant interest to the ladies. Six weeks of social life in an American city were a revelation to her London ideas. American boys, always burdened with Huyler's candy and other sweets, were an unfailing wonder and admiration to her, as doubtless her pink cheeks were to them, from which they christened her "peaches and cream." She carries back to her London home new, agreeable, and graphic impressions of Yankee life that will, I imagine, incline her to revisit her sister's home, and, perhaps, to take out naturalization papers. Our first encounter in mid-ocean after we had been several days without sight of any craft, was one of the important events of the trip. A bell from the look out on the foremast gave notice of some object ahead, — a little time elapsed be- fore it was visible on deck. The object proved to be a steamer with the black smoke issuing at intervals from a single funnel, and, on nearer view as she approached us, her movements were 28 TEN DAYS ABROAD seen to be so wavering as to excite much wonder and comment. It seemed quite natural to ask if she were in distress or need, but the Captain after a short inspection dropped his glasses and turned away. "Will you not speak to her?" appealed one sympathetic young woman. ''You would not speak unnecessarily to a beggar whom you pass on the street," he replied pleasantly. "Is she a beggar, Captain? Can you tell?" exclaimed the passenger eagerly as a group gathered about them. "She is only an Ocean Tramp," he replied; which seemed to settle the issue, as ocean caste is strong, and the Tramp passed on behind us, and presently out of vision. On the seventh day out sea gulls reappeared in the steamer's wake, though the Captain said that land was still a thousand miles away ; but the cattle became uneasy in their stalls next morning, lowing like distant fog horns, and the copper-faced mariner who was ever trotting side- THE CATTLE SCENT LAND 29 ways — a kind of marine or crab-like fashion — to and from the Captain's Bridge, observed that it was the custom of cattle to bellow when they scented land, "which they knew afor' the Captain or anyone else." One bright, clear morning the bugler announced land with a flourish of trumpet that brought everyone to his feet — the first land, the Scilly Islands. Then he played the "Star-Spangled Banner," whose famil- iar strains, floating out upon the British waters, prompted hearty cheers; and all who could sing shouted "God save the Queen" or "America," without regard for words, as we entered the English Channel. Looming up presently, dark and formidable in the distance, appeared a steamer, growing in bulk each moment as she bore down upon us belching turgid thunder cloud in tumbling masses, white where the sun struck them, but black and trailing far astern, a besom of destruc- tion — a great English cruiser or battleship — the "Terrible" or some other name equally appro- priate. At close quarters she turned away after 30 . TEN DAYS ABROAD a glance, satisfied with our inoffensive appearance, to continue her silent patrol like some lone and giant Titan guarding this open water-gate of British commerce even in time of peace. On our left directly, within easy gunshot lay the coast of England — Devon, where Drake and Raleigh manned their fleets; back of it the hills were green about the home of Lorna Doone and John Ridd. We rounded the Isle of Wight, and beyond a distant glimpse of France appeared, low on the horizon. Every new prospect had its story — stories which have marked the course of the world's modern history; and these same fitful, chopping seas, that may have paled the cheek of the "mighty" Julius, or turned the stomach of William the Norman, still exact liberal tribute of the traveler. Those of our English fellow travelers who had been hitherto undemonstrative, now gathered in a group on deck, shouting and reciting the ballad of "The White Ship" with boyish glee at sight of the white chalk cliffs tipped with the laurel green of centuries. Their Yankee cousins looked UP THE THAMES 31 on quietly, not oblivious of kinship, and not unconscious of a fellow pride in this patriotic fervor. Off Goodwin Sands, which a thou- sand years ago was an island in the Channel, and where the skeletons of many ships are gathered each year, we passed the light ship styled significantly "The Black Death." Then we entered between the low-lying shores of the Thames. The shipping increased, and houses were more numerous as we advanced up the stream toward London, and the marshy banks became more slimy where Daniel Quilp's ugly figure left by the tide, found a resting place. Two hours' sail up the Thames brought us to Tilbury, where the ship's docks are located, still a score of miles below London. It was at Tilbury that Queen Elizabeth appeared in helmet and corselet at the head of the English army which gathered to meet the Armada; when she declared in blunt fashion that she had *'the stomach as well as the heart of a king, and would fight like one too — " Tilbury heard the boom of the last hostile cannon, discharged 32 TEN DAYS ABROAD on Britain's shores, two centuries ago, when the Dutchman Van Tromp, with a broom at his masthead, sailed up the Thames, and swept the British seas. Perhaps there is still a something in the atmosphere of Good Queen Bess, that infected the stomach, or the nature of our steamer. Special preparation had been made for the reception of the Minnehaha in honor of her dimensions, the great cargo she brought and her maiden trip. Up to this she had conducted herself in a most becoming and shiplike manner. Now for the first time she displayed that feminine caprice and perversity to which it appears the sex with all its admirable qualities, irrespective of race or station, is liable on occasions. For an interval she resisted every persuasion to draw her into dock; setting back doggedly and turning up the black Thames mud with her bottom like an enormous ploughshare; snapping cables and baffling the combined efforts of a flotilla of tugs and a swarm of longshoremen. Then of her own accord she came forward, broke all IN A TANTRUM Z2> restraint, and picked up from the rails as though she mistook them for hairpins, the great, striding steel cranes, which she bent and crumpled willfully, dropping them with crash and havoc into the warehouse sheds to spread panic among the longshoremen. At last, her tantrum over, we were safely docked, and once more on solid earth. The father of our English bridegroom, a sturdy Englishman, was waiting to greet his wedding party with a delegation of London friends, our first glimpse of Londoners on their native heath. They were in holiday attire ; some of them carried thick sticks, large bouquets on their breasts, with other larger bouquets in their hands for the English bridesmaid and the American bride. Our luggage was soon lifted ashore. Last farewells were exchanged between fellow trav- elers. We were packed into compartment cars, and as the train drew out many regretful adieus were still waving toward the dock where the Minnehaha would lie until her cargo had been disgorged — her maiden voyage done, and her 34 TEN DAYS ABROAD swelling outlines rested peacefully now, on the murky bosom of the Thames, like the form of some sea-cow giantess, enthralled by the genii of commerce to delve and carry. Over trim country roads our train scurried away, through suburban blocks and rows of precise, two-story brick dwellings decorated with jaunty chimney pots, into the heart of London town at Fenchurch Street Station. Ill IN LONDON TOWN JLM 1 Y window in Morley's Hotel looked out *^^J on Trafalg'ar Square, where the statue of Nelson towers high over London house-tops. The tall granite shaft and the statue on its summit are grim with smoke and fog stains, but London has no twenty- story sky-scrapers to dwarf its monuments and throw them into shadow. There is not a patch of green or a tree in the Square which is dedicated wholly to war and triumphs. Two fountains play amid the group of heroic figures the latest of which is that of General Gordon, and space yet 36 TEN DAYS ABROAD remains for another, perhaps of "Little Bobs" or of Kitchener, when he has completed the duty expected of him, restored peace to the empire, and won dukedoms and monuments. Most impressive of all to me with new significance and art at every view, were those four mighty Landseer's lions in bronze at the base of the Nelson shaft, reposing as in life, with force and majesty, symbolic of British power. A reminder of green pastures that once were here comes with the bells from St. Martin's-in- the-Fields a block away, rousing me early. Pretty Nell Gwynne is buried there — and Jack Sheppard, too, I was told — though St. Martin's has not been in the fields since the days of Ad- dison and Dean Swift; but once every week for two hundred years, as the city grew up around it, through some lingering legacy or devotion, St. Martin's bells were tolled and still are tolled for Nell Gwynne. A clatter of feet and the "baa" of sheep further suggest the fields as a flock of Southdown mut- ton is crowded past to the shambles. Later come LONDON STREET TRAFFIC 37 the creaking of trucks and the tramp of the mas- sive Normandy horses. Then the rattle of stages and cabs, the cries of the drivers, and one of the great streams of London traffic pours forth into the Strand. That continuous roll of vehicles on the principal streets from morning until midnight is one of the London sights. All color combina- tions are exhausted to distinguish the different stage lines. I wonder if the man lives who knows all these lines. The head of old Shillaber who introduced stages, would be dazed if he could see his progeny to-day; such deliberate streams with up and down currents, hansoms and every kind of go-cart — rarely getting into a tangle or running over the bewildered pedestrian, but keep- ing up, hour after hour, the same stead}^ jog-trot. One wonders what New York Avould do with its enormous elevated and surface traffic turned into 'busses and cabs to jam the streets from the Battery to Harlem, and bring business to a stand- still. They have underground steam and electric roads, and the last with American cars and en- gines is making London talk of rapid transit and 38 TEN DAYS ABROAD open its eyes. I should think it must come soon. Perhaps these are the beginning, and a pity, too, that is to sweep away the picturesque procession of stages into the Umbo of old stage coaches. But all the rattle of London traffic does not strain the nerves like the screech of Elevated car wheels or the clang of a trolley gong. Trafalgar Square shares with Charing Cross of which it has come to be a part, distinction as one of London's great centers. Somewhere Kipling has named Charing Cross with Suez Canal as one of the great gateways of the modern world, — if you wait long enough, he whom you are waiting for is sure to come in the passing human throng from all corners of the earth. The volume is not greater, if so large, as that at Brooklyn Bridge night and day; and the Nar- rows at the New York Bay is another even greater world's gateway; but its memories in which all the others are young, have made the modern world, and Charing Cross. These spring up before you as if in life, at every turn on Lon- don street corners, to picture the past. The Cross IN MEMORY OF A QUEEN 43 keeps alive the memory of that Queen Eleanor, the mother of Plantagenets and the wife of the first Edward of England whose death was the first great national sorrow for an English queen. Eleanor's crosses where her body rested in the funeral march are still maintained after 600 years ; that in front of the Charing Cross Rail- way Station being the most elaborate of them all. No panorama, I know, is like that scene on a 'bus from Charing Cross or Westminster Abbey to St. Paul's. The whole world of English fact and story has mingled with the crowds upon these streets, since mad Piers Ploughman stalked in russet Lollard garb, and wailed his sounds of mournful antiphon along the unfriendly Strand. Chaucer was clerk for the crown near Charing Cross from which pilgrims still start for Canterbury. Ben Jonson was born there, and lived near at hand as secretary of Lord Bacon. All London, old and new, must have lived about it sometime. Just around on the Strand Mr. Pick- wick and the Club started forth a-stage top on 44 TEN DAYS ABROAD a memorable journey, and encountered Mr. Alfred Jingle with his lively anecdote of the de- capitated head of the family, and the sandwich. It needs no vivid fancy to get glimpses of old Pepys yet; to see Dr. Johnson's burly figure pushing through the throng, or Colonel New- come erect and martial, coming from the Gray Friars. London clings to all fashions of dress — old and new — it does not put on straw hats as one man in June to strike them off in Sep- tember. But even London has its changes, and so many since Mr. Pickwick's time that Dickens himself, Walter Besant says, would scarcely know it now. The 'busman, if anyone, knows it to-day. "Osk me wot ye likes," he responded, taking my sixpence, while he deftly held the reins with two fingers of one hand, and so dexterously extracted a cigarette from his pockets with the other, and lighted it, his hat tipped back, and his eye twinkling beside the large ruddy nose, that I was tempted to ''osk" if he were of any kin to the famous Weller family, spelled with a V. DIRTY DICK'S 45 '"Ave'e been to Dirty Dick's, Uncle John?" he continued. I did not know of that celebrity who, he ex- plained, had "kep" a London public 'ouse a hundred years or so ago, and who had a romance of his own. On his wedding day his bride died, after which Dirty Dick never washed or shaved " 'isself," but locked up the room where the wedding feast was prepared, and it was eaten by the rats. Then, in a fit of remorse, he captured all the rats and cats and dogs he could lay hold of ever afterward, nailing them up on the walls of his "public 'ouse," where they still remain, though Dirty Dick is long dead and was himself put away in a coffin. At the end of his route, near Whitechapel, my 'busman turned out and guided me to Dirty Dick's, which stands on a corner near Bishops- gate, one of those "gin palaces" whose proprietor with an eye to business, has made the most of his gruesome and posthumous advertisement. ■ The walls within were high, like a chapel, and dark; there were flaring lights, and in the reces- 46 TEN DAYS ABROAD ses among the liquor casks, hung the dried mum- mies of dogs and cats by the score, nailed up like smoked herring and decorated with long festoons of cobweb. The crowd in the place was no less remarkable, filling it to the doorway, as in most London "gin palaces," with men, women, babies, children in arms — all drinking. Whitechapel itself was a fairly respectable thoroughfare. The narrow street and low stone dwellings were clean — there were no tall tene- ments or ''double deckers," but one felt the absence of those broad and sightly public school structures which in New York and other American cities vary and brighten the street outlines, and help to leaven the multitudes from foreign lands. The population seemed thrifty and tidy; little shop windows gave a glimpse of its needs, and the illustrated Police Budget and popular ballads some idea of its mental aspir- ations, which have a love of the horrible that comes down from the Tower and Richard III. The Boer war divides the interest now. On this topic there was some remarkable literature, and THE WHITECHAPEL DISTRICT 47 in every window the "Absent Minded Beggar" seemed the favorite poem here if it is not so in higher London circles. There were no idlers lolling over the sidewalks in Whitechapel, such as may be seen any day in Mott Street, or in any of the several foreign quarters of New York. The London poor live on much less than the poor in American cities, and that less seems to be much harder to get in any occupation. So it is carefully watched by workingmen's unions, and a man who is laid off for sickness takes his turn in getting back where he can earn his few shillings again. One can plainly see that there would be no chance here for an Emigration Bureau. Even the Italian, who adapts himself to every vocation, and thrives in competition with the Jew, would starve before a foothold was secured. Only among the women in the last stages of Nancy Sykes, but still young, did I see on the streets in this district many evidences of bruises and dissipation, the last sad evidence before the work'us or the river. "Them's the 'Arriets," says my 'busman to an 48 TEN DAYS ABROAD inquiry. "Hever see the 'Arriets on a bloomin' bum full o' ginger gin, Uncle Jimmy? Ven they twists up their back 'air, an' stretches their 'ands luvin' like across the street, an' marches down a-shoutin' an' singin' like a hull Salwation band — 'Karry the news to Lun'on town ! Hoi, karry the news to MoU-ee !' The Bobby, 'e shuts 'is hye, 'e do, ven 'e sees 'em comin', an' 'e 'as bissness suddint, wot tykes him raound the corner." IV OLD LONDON MEMORIES JEVERAL public school buildings were pointed out to me in London, but their exteriors were like brick warehouses, hard, plain and uninviting. Much of the early public school methods adopted in New York and other American cities was on the English plan, and many of its simpler features still remain with us, but we have de- veloped the first suggestions. London has its Central School Board, and its local school trustees, who are tenacious of their rights. It annually expends nearly three millions sterling D 50 TEN DAYS ABROAD on its public school system, but the general public does not take the same active part or interest in school management, as with us. There are schools like those of Eton and Westminster which have existed for centuries, but for the few, and which have been the fore- runners of the modern public school. That of the Blue Coat Boys, with its curious customs and traditions, goes back almost to Thomas a Becket. It is a great pile of gray stone with an inner open court quadrangle, surrounded by long corridors whose pavements are worn in ruts by the school boys of more than four centuries ; and, whose ancient vaulted arches, lead to the quaint, old buildings. About 800 boys wear the Blue Coat colors — Richardson, the author of Clarissa, was one of them, so also were Coleridge, Charles Lamb and Leigh Hunt. Once a year, during Lent, the boys have a public dinner in the great hall, with the Lord Mayor, the Prince of Wales, sometimes, and other distinguished visitors looking on. The meal over, the boys take up their plates, napkins THE BLUE COAT BOYS 51 and candlesticks, filing out in procession, two abreast, with profound bows, as they pass before the Lord Mayor. I do not know if this is really so solemn an affair as it appears, and the re- straints and respect for years and authority has its better side, certainly, and a lasting influence; but I can hardly think of it so ceremonious or impressive at home where even the public school has its college cries. Only a few steps from the Blue Coats is another great pile of gray stone. Its little doors and barred windows issue on the street through the thick walls of Newgate, where the Jack Sheppards and Dick Turpins met their fate. Within them Barnaby Rudge and Maypole Hugh were confined, when the Gordon mobs raged outside. I was glad of the chance to see both these old institutions, for Newgate and the Blue Coats too, are soon to go — to be moved to the suburbs, making way for modern innovations. In New York changes come so soon that the moss of centuries green with human memories has little chance to form; but, big as it is, 52 TEN DAYS ABROAD every thing important enough to attract notice seems to leave a long impress in London. Crystal Palace still lingers and there is yet a Christy Hall where George Christy's negro minstrels, one of the earliest entertainments of this kind, was a prolonged success back in the sixties. In New York where they were scarcely less popular, all trace and even memory of them are gone. Belgravia, Holland Park, each London district has its own associations, but it is in the City that they cluster at every corner, with the accumulated layers of many centuries. Cheapside and the Strand are the early ''Boweries" going far back to the first trades and guilds. The Monument of the Great Fire and the Plague shoots up from a narrow, antiquated side street. St. Paul's great dome swelling into view at every street crossing is a pantheon recording the eminent crowd of names and deeds upon its walls, and a landmark against the sky like a vast air ship, 'for all within sound of its bells — ^though from London Bridge, through the fog and smoke, it is still difficult to fix a site for the New ST. CLEMENT'S IN MOURNING 53 Zealander, when he comes, to take his stand. St. Bridges, St. Giles', St. Swithin's, and St. Clement Danes are all within this ancient circle. Dr. Johnson attended St. Clement's when he resolved sturdily to go to church each Sunday, and "purify his soul, by communion with the Highest," and his voice was heard in the responses above all others within its walls. St. Clement's gets its name from the Danes, who remained here in King Alfred's time. Its bell still rings at midnight as when Justice Shallow and Sir John Falstaff heard it, though rusty and throaty now as Sir John's voice became, when he began to babble of green fields, as his legs grew cold. St. Clement's was in part mourning the after- noon when I saw it first, for the loss of a favorite Tom cat. Placards written in a trembling hand on note paper with a black border, and fastened to the iron pickets, announced the "Tom cat" as strayed or stolen, and proffered a reward of five shillings "without questions" for his return! Here in these old walls amid the cloistered past, 54 TEN DAYS ABROAD where the traffic of the Strand rolls around with its dull roar was a great grief — a fear, perhaps, that its favorite Tom cat had been taken and im- paled in that pantheon of ''Dirty Dick's," not far away. A clerical with cap and gown, and blonde whiskers, looking anxiously out from a little doorway beside a buttress, seemed chief mourner. I wondered if he were a dean, a vicar, or a canon. The Tower of London with all its tragedies, with its crown jewels, and sombre relics, and its massive and time-eaten walls as old as Christen- dom, had to me a modest, retiring aspect, in the midst of the modern Babel; — like some rugged old house dog which, having served its time, John Bull has placed in the background. There are pretty green spots within these spacious walls. The volunteers in full uniform assemble on them for inspection before going to or returning from camp at Aldershot. Half-a-dozen big ravens, wise enough in looks to pull out corks with Barnaby's, stalk about these grounds as sentries, and on the broad plaza outside the gates, the crowd of men, women and vehicles that wait for TOMMY ATKINS AT THE TOWER 55 Tommy Atkins to appear in regimentals, makes one think of Bastile mobs, only this is a friendly crowd, if motley. Tommy Atkins is the bright bit of color on every street in these patriotic days pending the the South African war. But he is in dead earnest. See him in his red coat, chest inflated, shoulders squared — his two-foot stick in hand, his little red cap balanced on one ear, and he is the prettiest piece of comedy off the stage. You make way for him as *'one of the finest," whether he stands six feet in his stockings or barely five. The telegraph boy fits his dress, and steps like Tommy Atkins ; and when he appears in full parade, in regimentals, with fife and drum, not only the small boy, but men and women march on ahead, in the mid-street, as an escort. This is the same war- fever that we had a year or two ago, after Dewey's guns were heard at Manila. But the great English pantheon, Westminster, one cannot grasp in a passing glance, with the broad sweep of Westminster Bridge leading to it, the storied walls of Parliament to guard it, and 56 TEN DAYS ABROAD "Big Ben" from his tower to sound the hour, and "all's well," night and day. Longfellow's countrymen had laid a fresh wreath of flowers on his bust one morning when I was there. The American poet looks out upon the company of Shakespeare, Milton, Thackeray, and Macaulay; and beyond into the dim crypts where flooded in the mellow glow of pictured windows, lie the marble efligies of kings, queens and Warwicks. Just within the main entrance of the Abbey is a marble slab over Gladstone's last resting place, and a few feet away are the figures of Robert Peel and Disraeli, whose names are more in men's mouths now than that of the "grand old man," of ten short years ago. Close by is a fine memorial to Admiral Sir Peter Warren, who died before our Revolution, but whose memory has a home inter- est, as his estate was the Van Nest place in the Ninth Ward of New York. One cannot avoid recognition that American cities are built on more modern lines and with larger grasp than the greatest of these old world towns. The newer cities have a freer hand, and THE FAME OF LONDON BRIDGE 57 build as large as Nature. New York among the oldest of these New World centers, with old London names and street lines in its older sections, is a modern city. Its buildings, its bridges, are on the vaster scale of the rivers around it; beside them the Thames and London Bridge are of Lilliputian proportions. But I wonder if the many millions whom these greater bridges shall serve, will carry down their repute for centuries, as the fame of London Bridge has been for good and ill, until it has a place in the folk-lore of the English home and nation, which the children sing upon the street, with a note of apprehension and perhaps of deeper significance : "Loridon Bridge is falling down ; falling down ! And so falls my lady!" On the last night in London I sailed up the Thames from London Bridge to Westminster — not the murky, misty Thames of Rogue Rider- hood, but a clear, bright and beautiful river in the moonlight which edged with silver the fine outlines of the Parliament buildings. Gently 58 TEN DAYS ABROAD through the air in mellow strains, as from golden memories flashed upon the night, flowed the "Normandy Chimes" from an Embankment con- cert. These banks have rung with mirth and gaiety from Marlowe, Greene and Shakespeare, that merrymaking company, down the gamut of English song. Queen Bess' barge sailed here with music, and her courtiers — and over in St. Margaret's near the Abbey lies the headless corse of one of them, that Sir Walter who soiled his cloak for Elizabeth ; above him a memorial is inscribed by an American Minister and poet, from the Virginia which he founded. England has learned many lessons since then from her triumphs and defeats, and has more than once reversed her verdicts. Marochetti's equestrian statue of Richard Coeur de Lion, in front of the House of Lords, is not in favor with art critics now. Richard himself has fallen from grace ; but to me, by light of the moon, the heroic horseman is a goodly sight, full of action, a personification of the Richard of Ivan- hoe, the Sluggard Knight whose teeth made grist OLIVER CROMWELL W. Hamo Thorny ci' oft, R.A. OLIVER CROMWELL'S PLACE 59 of Friar Tuck's dried peas ; and something more — a strain of that insane, medieval heroism of the Plantagenets, the Angevin Fulkes. He was among the first of England's great soldiers, the savage in him little tamed to harness. The fervid English mood has subsided in that other stern figure of three hundred years later, though a fanatic glow still burns beneath the surface. England's great soldier in plain fact and accomplishment, whose body was exhumed and reviled, its grinning skull impaled on this same spot beside the ancient hall of William Rufus, now, once again has been remembered and honored. Thornycroft's Oliver Cromwell stands facing Westminster, his back turned upon Parliament, firm, strong and confi- dent, but not an unkindly figure ; bareheaded — his sword drawn, with the point resting on the ground beside the large, broad feet — every inch a commoner, and the Protector, as he looks up towards Whitehall. And at Trafalgar Square, when the moon had climbed higher, the figure of Nelson on its high 6o TEN DAYS ABROAD pedestal was bathed in softer light, though the unfortunate King Charles, beyond, caught a spectral glare. His monument is crumbling to decay. With a sad vacillation he gazes on this once familiar theatre, as much out of joint in time and place as his name was in the crazy memorials of ''Mr. Dick." Falling lower, the moon rays tip the shaggy manes of the great Landseer lions, and rouse them — as if they were about to lift their massive heads and roar in a placid humor. V OVER THE CHANNEL N my compartment as the train left Char- ing Cross a young French drummer with curhng dark mustaches, took leave from the open door of a tall and blue-eyed, sweet-voiced English girl, who clung to him repeating : "Good-bye, Jean !" and making him repeat that he would write that night in Paris, and every day thereafter. She stood tearfully, waving her hand as the train pulled out, as if he were starting on a voyage around the world. Jean was deeply affected for at least several minutes. Then he drew a long breath from his 62 TEN DAYS ABROAD boots upward, smiled as he selected a cigar from a pretty souvenir case, twisted his mustaches, and presently sought solace in the smoking com- partment. I doubt much if many of us live to see a Channel tunnel, however practicable it may be. To the average Londoner the discomforts of the ferry like the old lady's rheumatism, have become by inheritance a kind of faith without which he would be imhappy. Most of the large com- mercial houses in France and England have branch offices and mutual interests on both sides of the Channel, but a trip from London to Paris is to the Londoner a great journey, though the distance is about the same as from New York to Boston, and its perturbations not more serious than are often met in rounding Point Judith on a Sound steamer. To enter Paris at midnight is to fancy oneself arriving at the Grand Central Station in New York, driving down Fifth avenue and into Broad- way when the electric lights are all aglare — with the rush of cabs and carriages, the lustre of rich THE PARIS BOULEVARDS 63 costumes, of fair faces and graceful forms, as the crowds surge from the theatres amid the blaze of restaurants, odors of banquets and the sparkle of jewels and wine. Those beautiful wide boule- vards teem all day with life ; after midnight they are aflame with a fever-glow and excitement. New York has boulevards as light and as beautiful, but they are beyond the midnight zone, and they are retired with the sun. They have yet to become famous or otherwise, with the men and deeds of centuries. Amidst this rush and brilliant life one wonders if there is no other side, until he sees now and then a quiet Parisian family party on the boulevard, or catches a glimpse of the home group within its own little world — those inner courts which are a part of every French household. In Paris, especially Old Paris, where memories cluster on every side, the present seems to crowd 64 TEN DAYS ABROAD the past more closely than in London. The glory of the Grand Monarch pales before the greater Napoleon, and the monuments and arches of triumph both of Louis and Napoleon, are over- shadowed to-day by the German conquerors. Paris rooted up and destroyed the Bastile, while London drew the fangs and let the Tower stand. Both cities beheaded a king, but except in Mira- beau, Paris has no Cromwell to honor. The Conciergerie remains as when Marie Antoinette looked through its bars and over the Seine to the dismal spire of the ''Butcher" St. Jacques, and other sombre reminiscences extend to the present generation. Along the wall of the cemetery of Pere la Chaise the guide pointed to spots where the bullets had struck after passing through the bodies of the victims, the thousand survivors of the last Commune. They had been hunted down like rabbits from behind the tombstones of the cemetery — those of Abelard and Helois and the illustrious multitude ; neither church nor tomb is sanctuary now as in mediaeval days — ^to be dragged out, ranged in line, and shot. Then the THE LAST COMMUNE 65 bodies were laid in one great trench at the entrance to the cemetery, to fertihze the long mound and cover it every year with a rich growth of verdure. After this it is pleasanter to catch the names of the Rue de Richelieu, Victor Hugo at the squares and street corners, and to see memorials and monuments to Moliere and Gambetta, Corneille, Fontaine, Le Sage, and the tomb of Napoleon. Notre Dame is not St. Paul ; its archbishops, like the Roman emperors, seem all to have come to some violent end. At street corners you can see w^here Jean Valjean may have climbed with little Cos- sette in his arms over the con- vent walls ; and a silhouette of a griffin from the square sum- mit of the tower, looks down with the features of the Hunchback of the Notre Dame. In the Place Malesherbes out beyond the Madeleine, is the fine memorial by Dore of the elder Dumas. THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME 66 TEN DAYS ABROAD The big strong head of the great romancer is real, and there is a spirited Hfe-figure of D'Artag- nan of the Musketeers. The father of the great Alexander, General Dumas, of Napoleon's army, and the son, Dumas Ms, the author of Camille, are to be united here, it is said, in a group. A block away in the Pare Monceau is a snow- white marble bust of Guy de Maupassant ; below it one of his own creations — the reclining figure of a woman in modern costume, a strong, intel- ligent face far-away in meditation over an open volume that she holds. It is artistic and impress- ive, as everything is in Paris, though one wishes that her large, pointed shoe did not show so conspicuously beneath the dress. All Paris parks have beauty and character, but the Pare Monceau was especially attractive to me. It is no larger, I think, than Washington Square Park, in New York. Amid its rolling lawns and pretty groves, where marble nymphs and fauns seem waiting, like Hawthorne's, to spring into being, I saw several stained and broken Corinthian columns standing alone, silent records PARIS OF THE MUSKETEERS 67 of some more ancient and distinguished service. On the banks of a Httle pond, where the bonnes in white caps, and the children were feeding the goldfish from their fingers, were other columns and the ruined walls and faqade from which they came. I learned on inquiry that this had been the country home in Paris suburbs 300 years ago of the beautiful Gabrielle, where Henry IV., the plumed knight of Navarre, and his minister Sully, often found seclusion from the state. From Paris I should like to have returned by way of Rouen and Normandy — and to have had a passing sight of Chateau Gaillard, the Lion Hearted Richard's gay and rugged Norman castle, of which the rock dungeons still remain; but one cannot see all, even with abundant time at disposal, which I had not. The railroad to Calais follows closely the route from the Barrier St. Denis taken by the Musketeers when they started for London to obtain of Buckingham the Queen's diamond studs. ''Three days to London," said the Cardinal; ''three days' delay, and three to return." Now this journey is done 68. TEN DAYS ABROAD in eight hours. At Chantilly Porthos went down. Aramis withdrew wounded at Crevecoeur, and D'Artagnan left Athos besieged in a cellar at Amiens. The train whirls through this rolling country, dotted with its quaint old chateaux, and cut up in little farms, where the French farmer and his wife, with their white horses and oxen, toil patiently on Sundays ; or fish and push their skiffs in streams that wind through famous fields in which the early strifes of French and English were fought to a finish. Battles were then so different; bigger spec- tacles than they are to-day with our long range guns and smokeless powder — football games on grander scale, with grander savagery, and the Wagnerian accompaniment of a modern foundry ; dust, clatter and turmoil, when in the crash of conflict, as Lord Derby's "Homer" has it : "Thundering he fell, And loud the burnished armor rung." The country seems too modest and unpretentious to record such epics as Crecy, Poitiers and the THE DOVER CLIFFS 69 Black Prince; Agincourt and Henry V., or the Field of the Cloth of Gold with Henry VHL and Francis. There are still old fortifications at St. Valery, where William the Conqueror crossed the water. Boulogne, where Napoleon massed his army to repeat the experiment and failed, is now a chief port of the Channel — and some Frenchmen still anticipate another Hastings, or a battle of Dorking. Over the Channel that bright and peaceful Sunday afternoon, when we crossed to Dover, every little green about the English towns was thronged with church and picnic parties — and many of them had Punch and Judy or waxwork shows. The white Dover cliffs are equipped with the latest English fortifications, and the guns are trained upon the distant line of France, low on the horizon. Among them is "Queen Elizabeth's Pocket Pistol," on which the lines are written : ''Train me well and keep me clean, And I'll carry a ball to Calais green." This is a long range for a gun even to-day. The 70 TEN DAYS ABROAD ancient cannon, a brass piece 20 feet in length, was given to Henry VIII., Elizabeth's father; why named for Elizabeth is not stated, perhaps in recognition of certain explosive qualities that she had, like Aunt Betsy Trotwood who once warred with the donkeys on the green of these same Dover cliffs. One of these cliffs is still called Shakespeare's Cliff in recognition, I believe, of those vivid pictures from King Lear, many of which are placed about Dover. In fancy one can see the old demented King, gray hair and beard flying in the night, standing here above the raging sea, and shouting to the howling winds. Here, too, are the confines of Kent, where that other mad- man. Jack Cade, was first to rant in English speech of personal liberty and freedom — and where, perhaps, the fierce north winds carried the contagious sounds across the Channel to France and to Paris. But Paris, it is said, is no longer France, in the old sense. With the Republic a large, strong and independent public opinion has grown up in ''AU RESERVOIR, MONSHEERr 71 the country, and I suspect that if mutual interests can prevail much of the bad blood between the countries will be spent at long range. There is proof of this in a somewhat ancient stor}^ that was told me, in a new form, of an Englishman and Frenchman who had at- tended the Exposition to- gether, learned each other's language and estab- lished cordial relations. At final parting the Englishman exclaims : ''Au reservoir, monsheer!" And the Frenchman cordially responds, "Tanks !" " TANKS 1" 4J VI SHAKESPEARE'S HOME |OME of the most charming EngHsh country Hes in Kent, south-east of London, between it and Dover. The hill-side pastures are dotted with sheep, whose fleeces look like snow-spots on the green, and the rooks stalking over the harvest fields alight often on the backs of the sheep — an ink-blot on a stack of parchment — with the fam- iliarity of landed proprietors. When Chaucer's pilgrims thronged the roads to Canterbury shrine this South country was the thriving center of English industry. It is even said that WHERE MICAWBER FLOURISHED yz as the cliffs subside on the Channel coast, Canter- bury may at some distant day become a seaport, and resume its former prestige — Canterbury, where the dust of the Black Prince rests, and where Micawber once flourished. There are Saxon names on all sides through Kent, and the isolated Hop-towers among every group of buildings seem the vestiges of Norman castles ; but the towns slumber as soundly as Rip Van Winkle, and where once was open country large forests have grown up. From the train you see smooth and pretty country lanes running between hedges and ditches, and catch occasional glimpses of a coach and four, tourists crowded on the top, winding the horn and waving hats and handkerchiefs — a delightful way of touring the country. Fair Rosamond's Bower, and the manor-house of Anne Boleyn were here, but king's favors have now become plain farm houses. Sackville-West, the English Minister to Washington, remembered by Americans, has the handsomest country seat in this neighborhood. Nearer London, Chelsfield 74 TEN DAYS ABROAD was for years the home where Darwin worked out the evolution of the human race ; and nearer yet, where a prett}^, wooded hill site recalls West- chester hill and dales, is Chiselhurst, the retreat of Napoleon III. and Eugenie, after Sedan. Beyond and to the north of London in the heart of England, the landscape softened with green fields, has all the charm and beauty of repose. One cannot breathe too deep the calm restfulness of the air ; and the passing glimpse is all too brief of the smooth country roads, and gentle running rivers like the Avon, on whose low banks Izaak Walton loved to angle when it rained "May butter." Here are pleasant abodes, more quiet even than the Bronx, without the picturesque, scenic wonderlands that in our valleys of the Connecticut or Delaware, delight, while they in- toxicate the eye, and strain the sinews. And the country life seems to partake of this easy-flowing nature. At Leamington station, where I changed for Warwick, the car we were to take was leisurely drawn into the station by a stout Norman horse instead of a switch engine. The most con- A PASTORAL COUNTRY 75 spicuous object on the platform was a broad and fat Southdown sheep patiently waiting to be con- verted into roasts and mutton chops, and receiving meanwhile with quiet content the attentions of passing tourists. A strain of this pastoral repose from his native heath, enters I fancy, the varied temperament of Shakespeare, most apparent in his last years. I could not reconcile with these surroundings the theories of landscape environment which attribute to this influence in the early homes of great poets and artists, the storm and stress and grandeur which mark their creations. Doubtless Shakes- peare caught the idyllic beauty of the country on the Avon, but the turmoil and tragedy of his plays must have come from human associations, assim- ilated and embodied by his fruitful imagination from the traditions which ladened the atmosphere and the pageants and folk-lore of Warwick and Kenilworth. Stratford is a pretty, Elizabethan country- village, renovated and restored on modern lines with sanitary purpose, and v/ith stage effect, I 76 TEN DAYS ABROAD suspect, for it was hardly so clean a town three hundred years ago. None the less, these quaint, old houses, with plaster sides and ends of timber beams protruding, and straw-thatched roofs — many of them looking very tired and leaning over with the weight of centuries — transport one to the days and scenes which made them famous. It was not many years ago that Stratford streets were less inviting; when the Shakespeare house had Court, the butcher, for a tenant. Being too modest to use his own name, he put out a sign for his butcher shop that read : **This is the house where the Immortal Shakespeare was born," at which the "immortal" creator of Nym and Bardolph, whose father was also a butcher, may have turned in the church near by and smiled. It was a comfortable, well-to-do-house in its day, with a dozen good-sized rooms, paved with stone on the ground floor, and carpeted then with rugs or rushes. In the kitchen and living room there is a large fire-place where one could keep warm of a cold day, if he were out of the drafts and had his back to the settle. The house was THE SHAKESPEARE COTTAGE 77 then detached and had ample garden space. Now it is a museum of Shakespeare reHcs, maintained by the town. So also is the Ann Hathaway cottage at Shottery, a few minutes' walk, which is under the care of Hathaway descendants, pleasant, bright-faced Stratford women; but Shakespeare's kin are scattered and lost. The walls and low ceilings of the Shakespeare cottage are covered with the autographs of visit- ors to his shrine. Among them are the names of Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Dickens, and Carlyle — there is no more room, and no name can be written there now. A small fee is charged, which, from the 30,000 annual visitors sustains the cost of attendants and keeps the house in repair. These visitors, each of whom leaves a few shillings in the country round, have made a new place of Stratford in the last half century, just as the summer travel has built up the Catskills and the country about New York. There are modern houses in the village as well, rows and streets of them in pretty contrast with the old town, the ancient church where the poet is buried, and the 78 TEN DAYS ABROAD Grammar school he attended. In our strenuous Hfe to-day with its self-con- sciousness, it is difficult to understand how the creator of Hamlet could renounce a career at the full period of prime and strength, for the seclusion of a country town. Perhaps he was no longer in the prime. His physical and mental life for twenty-five years had been at high tension. Mar- lowe, Greene and many of his contemporaries gave way under the strain. He had succeeded because of restraining qualities, and Sidney Lee has shown that William Shakespeare, gentleman, retired with as handsome a competence as many successful actors and writers have to-day. That repose after the prolonged struggle to success, must have been welcome to one who united in himself the natures of Jacques and the Duke of Bohemia. And is Shakespeare's career and ad- vancement from a country lad, school teacher, a lackey at the theatre door holding horses, more wonderful or improbable than that of Franklin, — or that of Lincoln, from a bare-foot flat- boatman on the Mississippi? In his last years THE POETS RESTING PLACE 79 the visits to London and the purchase of property, there are suggestions of a return to the city life. One wonders if his health and faculties had been spared for a dozen years or more after this rest, whether even he would not have been drawn by the fascination of crowds to participate again in some measure, with the world's life and activities. Yet even Shakespeare is human, and may live his time and complete his usefulness. In peaceful quiet and simplicity, and amid the scenes of his childhood, there is a home-like fitness that Shakespeare should rest in the last long sleep. He still contributes to the welfare of his birthplace. The fine memorial theatre, and an admirable monument attest the tenderness with which the master spirit of the world's Hterature is cherished. And he lies just away from sight and hearing of the turmoil and strife in the greatest city of the world he has portrayed — still adding, after three centuries, to the world's renown. Did he not in some measure realize the future? Did not Spenser, Marlowe, Ben Jonson anticipate it? How much larger is he in the life 8o TEN DAYS ABROAD of to-day — by far a greater figure than rulers, statesmen or philosophers who have played their brief parts upon the stage. Our coach driver to Stratford, a sturdy, honest Warwick man — "lad" in the country parlance — of more than twenty years, was born and bred in sight of the Avon, though never more than twenty miles away from it. He had been to school and could write and read. His training in these rural districts smacked of that "School of Virtue" whose maxims in rhyme were, in Shakespeare's day part of the public schooling. On a shelf at the "Wool Pack" I found some of these maxims — whose homely vein of common sense is not out of place to-day : "If a man demand a question of thee, In thine answer-making be not too hasty; Else he may judge in thee, little wit. To answer to a thing, and not hear it. Weigh well his words, the case understand, Ere an answer to make thou take in hand ; Suffer his whole tale out to be told. Then speak thou mayst, and not be controlled, With countenance sober, the body upright. Thy feet just together, hands in like plight." ''A CLEVER MAN" 8i He had not read the plays, but had caught gUmpses of some of them being "hacted" in the Stratford theatre. Most of the tourists, he told us, were Americans, from which he inferred that Americans think more of Shakespeare than the English people do. " 'E must 'ave been a clever man," the Warwick lad observed, inquiringly, "for so many a- folk for to keep a-thinkin' of 'im for so long?" This same Stratford air that nourished Shakes- peare he had breathed and thrived upon, but the muse of Avon exhausted her magic before his day, and had left him that simple, passive nature of the Southdown mutton at the railway station. But he knew every rod of ground, every fishpool around — every family history, I think, about Stratford, no small accomplishment of itself. From the road, however, he pointed out a modest eminence on the skyline as Edgehill, where a great fight had once been, not seeming to know that it was the first defeat which Cromwell's "Roundheads" gave the Cavaliers. As we returned by the Avon road he showed 4 82 TEN DAYS ABROAD us the Lucy estate, and the red brick hall or manor house of Charlecote in a grove of great oaks or elms, like those of the forest of Arden. There were red deer browsing in the open, descendants, it might be, of those for whose poaching Sir Thomas Lucy arrested Shakespeare. The Lucy estate appears a large and fine property and it continues in the family, though the surviv- ing member, a daughter, was recently married to a Fairfax, of the same family as the Virginia Fairfaxes ; but to preserve the family name the husband has taken hers, reversing the usual order, and is known as Fairfax-Lucy. This name Fair- fax, brought Shakespeare nearer to American ears, especially as only a few miles away, at Sulgrave, is still standing the ancestral house of the Washingtons, with the family coat of arms, built by a Lawrence Washington, in Shakes- peare's time. We started a covey of partridge by the roadside in the Lucy grounds, and, as it went whirring by, a lark leaped up in circling flight with delicate trill accompaniment of song. The sun was NO AMERICAN CORN 83 getting low. A pleasant glow, like Indian summer, poured from the west through the vistas of those great tree trunks whose columns may have been silent witnesses of the poaching episode. Two small boys whirled in handsprings like windmills, keeping up beside our vehicle, and whirled the harder when I threw them "tuppence." Our Warwick lad continued to discourse on partridge shooting — he had a Stratford poaching instinct, I think — as we passed into the ancient gateway of the old city of Warwick, driving to the "Wool Pack," while he changed horses at the "Punch Bowl," and we, with keen appetites, ate a hasty meal before riding on to Kenilworth. "You don't have American corn?" I ventured, as the waiter brought in a steaming dish of fresh string beans whose savory fragrance reminded one of Yankee succotash. "Ho, no !" he sniffed loftily. "We hony 'as hit for the 'oggs and 'osses." VII KENILWORTH TRADITIONS ▼^ ENILWORTH Castle is but five miles •^^ I from Warwick and barely ten from ^ ^^ Stratford. Shakespeare as a boy, it is thought, attended those fetes with which the Earl of Leicester received Queen Elizabeth so graphically told in Walter Scott's story. All this country of Shakespeare's boyhood haunts teems with historic legend blended with fable and romance, that go back, Baedecker affirms, to the year one — to Cymbeline and King Lear, perhaps. Parts of Warwick's old feudal walls are yet standing; the narrow streets with TRADITIONS OF AMY ROBSART 85 over-reaching houses of brick and stone, are hoary with years and story, if stones could talk. Warwick Castle, where the present Earl lives part of the year, has been well preserved, and still shows evidence of its last siege in Cromwell's time. There are some beautiful views of it from the Avon, which Hawthorne admired as delight- ful embodiments of the past. Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick, contains monu- ments of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and his third wife, Lettice, Lady Essex. Local tradi- tion has it that she poisoned him and afterward married Christopher Blunt of the Essex Horse, a kind of poetical retribution for poor Amy Robsart, though Amy and Leicester had been married ten years or more when Elizabeth visited Kenilworth. In "Kenilworth" Scott gives the name Blunt to a rugged old warrior of Sussex, the companion of Raleigh. It is more than poetical justice that the name should finally triumph over Elizabeth's favorite, for Leicester was a showy incapable in his whole career, though effective use is made of him in the novel. A piece 86 TEN DAYS ABROAD of needlework done by Amy Robsart as Leicester's first wife, is among the relics in the Leicester hospital near the Warwick Arms; but most of the local legends of Amy's sad fate survive fifty miles away, where, as the ballad relates : "The dews of summer night did fall ; The moon, sweet regent of the sky, Silvers the walls of Cumnor Hall, And many an oak that grows thereby." Our Warwick *'lad" with fresh horses drove us from the "Punch Bowl," as the sun was setting, over the road to Kenilworth, which unwinds itself through this country of ancient renown as deliberately as if it were keeping slow pace with time. Deep mossy nooks already in twilight, where Oberon and Titania might have held revel by the moon, appeared in the turns of the highway, or a shining glimpse was caught of the Avon in the valley below, burnished with the last rays of the sun. Such antiquated thatched and half-timbered cottages I saw nowhere else; THE ROAD TO KENILWORTH 87 so moss-covered and worn by successive genera- tions of tenants that they had settled down into the soil — become part of the earth like the rocks — while the trees spread their gnarled limbs above the roofs in a perpetual twilight of foliage, and the knotted roots coiled themselves above and out of the mould to surround and protect them. Some new cottages, I observed, built for re- treats or lodges, were also thatched. There is nothing better, I was told, to keep out summer's heat or winter's cold. The straw about a foot thick on the roof, well packed, will permit no dampness to enter, and the low attic will be comfortable at night though the sun has been shining on the roof all day. The thatch lasts for years with a little care, unless the English sparrow burrows into it like a rat, to prevent which many roofs are covered with wire netting. If some of the American country houses where city people go to live in the sumrrler would use this hint they would make their rooms more com- fortable for their guests than shingle roofs are, and their homes more picturesque. 88 TEN DAYS ABROAD Through such a road as this I could fancy that Amy Robsart on her sorrowful errand, the quondam blacksmith and Flibertigibbett, made their way to the Kenilworth festivities, though, I believe, as a fact, that they came from an opposite direction. A little back from the high- way is Guy's Cliff, where lived Guy of Warwick, one of the champions of Christendom. He it was who slew the "Dun Cow," a surviving relic I fancy, of the days of Jack the Giant Killer, I in- quired of our Warwick lad what kind of a beast this "Dun Cow" was, but even the memory of it had vanished from country tradition. Return- ing like another Ulysses after one of his crusades, Guy lived in a cave on the Cliff as a hermit, unrecognized — only revealing himself at death, as Enoch Arden did, to his wife who was after- wards buried with him in the cave, where their bones still remain. From this same Cliff the residence of the Percys now looks out upon the road through a beautiful vista of trees. Kenilworth Castle has a history in which Amy Robsart and Leicester are but later incidents. PIERS GAVESTON'S CAREER 89 For a thousand years it is identified with the great events of English life — Roman, Saxon and Norman. It seems to have been the Windsor of the early English sovereigns, who admired its beauty and sought its security and strength up to Elizabeth's time from the days of William the Conqueror. After 800 years the legends of Piers Gaveston are still fresh and vivid. The name and the incident were, at the instant, but a vague memory to me, despite the tragic importance and veneration w^ith which the guide pointed out the shaft on the hill- side that marks the site of the execution. But Piers Gaveston was a greater man, and even a larger and more brilliant figure in history than Robert Dudley, Elizabeth's favorite. Detested as a foreigner by the barons whom he ridiculed and fought with native Gascon ability, Edward II. trusted him as his boyhood friend to the last, showing in this no kingly wavering nor coolness. He was a frank and gallant courtier, skilled in the tourney, brave in the field, and a fine wit, but a bugbear to the "Black Dog" Warwick and the 90 TEN DAYS ABROAD English, who were tiring of French court and rule. When the King went to France for his bride, he made Gaveston regent and acting king during his absence. From Kenilworth Piers Gaveston ruled England, and when overcome and taken by the barons, he was executed on Blacklow Hill in sight of its towers. Then Kenilworth was in its glory, as to-day it is the most interesting ruin in England, telling plainly of the burden of a thousand years' service for the state. Its great walls of the old Norman period are fifteen feet thick, and into them were hollowed out the chambers where Amy Robsart was confined. Leicester spent nearly half a million in its restoration, but his work was in- ferior, and that portion is in worse condition to-day than the original walls. Each century placed its stamp in some new feature on the castle until it came to enclose an area of seven acres, as large or a larger space than Union Square in New York — room enough to assemble and gar- rison it with the population of a town. To the south and east within the outer wall ran a deep KENILWORTH CHRONICLES 91 moat, and a large lake protected the other ap- proaches. Such massive towers and walls could only be taken by treachery, or after a protracted siege, and they withstood these sieges successfully for months in the reigns of the Henrys and Edwards, and the wars of the Barons. Henry II. revived there the memories of King Arthur's Round Table ; and the tilt yard recorded some of the most celebrated tournaments of chivalry. Simon de Montfort did a greater thing than he knew when he called from Kenilworth a con- ference which was one of the beginnings of the English Parliament. Popes, Knights Templars, Robert Bruce of Scotland, kings and titled sub- jects have suffered or died within its dungeons, as one can easily believe from what is still seen of those damp and noisome cells. In the deepest of the keep that Edward II. of whose story Marlowe made his tragedy, was imprisoned, where he could hear the revelry at the banquets of his faithless queen and Roger Mortimer, who extorted from him his resignation of the crown. Now it is difficult to trace the castle moat. The 92 TEN DAYS ABROAD lake has vanished in air, or it exists Hke a geologic tradition, leaving green meadows where the waters were. The outer ramparts from which the country around built its cottages and repaired its roads for years, are leveled. A hundred feet of earth is piled above the dungeons, the secret postern and the pleasure grounds, where knights of old fought and w^ooed. Even the bridge over which Elizabeth entered the Leicester festivities and the grotto where she encountered Amy seem a fairy myth — only the massive towers and the winding, narrow stairways, cut within the walls, and worn deep with centuries of treading, and the Gothic tracery of the banquet-hall windows, remain to tell that the triumphs, the loves and sorrows that were gathered here in many genera- tions of royalty were not a mere fabric of the fancy. Flushed with the sunset glow this rugged old ruin enshrined in ivy, stood forth like a moun- tain shelf, decadent, yet defiant, seeming still, with the assurance of years, to glory in its strength, mystery and fable — a sphinx, or creature so remote as to set at naught the boasts and follies WILL KENILWORTH BE RESTORED? 93 of the present, which it will outlive and bury with the past. It was Oliver Cromwell who struck down with heavy fist the old regime, and with it Kenilworth Castle. From Oliver's blow it never recovered. The walls were leveled and the moat filled by his orders, and there has been no attempt at restora- tion since. I wonder if there ever will be! It would not be strange with the enthusiasm of to-day for archseologic excavation that spades should be turned in these mounds of Kenilworth. Perhaps it may await a later decade of centuries, when the seat of empire has crossed the seas and reached another English civilization in the Pacific; or it may be the lot of an American millionaire to restore the glories of Kenilworth and enroll his name in those annals which register a thousand years of English rule. We were urged to remain longer, as the moon would rise an hour after nightfall, when we could see the ruin by moon light and hear the nightin- gale's song ; but there was a train at Warwick to be met — a fiery, grim and rampant monster, more 94 TEN DAYS ABROAD exacting, more fierce and terrible in breath and aspect than Guy of Warwick's "Dun Cow." So we placed temptation behind, turned our backs on Kenilworth and drove rapidly away to the railway station. VIII THE RIDE FROM BIRMINGHAM T Birmingham a large, elderly woman in black, hale and cheerful-looking, followed behind me into the station. Presently her large hat, a curious composite of bows and ribbons, appeared at the door of the compartment I had chosen, and she entered attended by a porter, who carried an enormous tin hand case, one of those coated with a kind of bronze varnish, glowing like an obfus- cated yellow flame, which appear to be a favored variety in English travel. When it and other luggage had been stowed 96 TEN DAYS ABROAD away in the rack above her head the owner smiled cheerfully, observing that she believed it would be safe. I had doubts of the rack, in case of weakness. We were the only through pas- == sengers to Edinboro' in the ^ compartment — others going and coming where the train stopped at the special stations. At every stop my fellow traveler applied to the guard about a "wheel" which was on the train. I learned later that she was from Birmingham, on a visit to rel- atives in Scotland, a widow and a bicyclist, the "wheel" taking the place in her affections occupied by her late hus- band. Presently the guard showed her the bicycle safely cared for in the luggage compart- ment of a passenger coach directly behind our own, whereat she settled down in the seat with a sigh of relief and contentment. A BIRMINGHAM PASSENGER JOHN BUNYAN'S CIRCUIT 97 The day was mild, the sky clear and blue. We were passing through that old Saxon Mercia near the border of Wales, so long the battle ground of the ancient Britons, the domain of King Arthur and Guinevere, the bards and the Llewellyns. To the south and east were left the pretty country of the Avon which has been so abundant in its gifts to modern letters and public life — Bedford, the circuit of John Bunyan, the traveling tinker, the dream-land of his delightful allegory; Leicester, near which Macaulay was born; the Abbey where Cardinal Wolsey died ; and not far away the birthplace of Benjamin Franklin's father. Around Stoke, Crewe and Wigan, the great cloth manufacturing district of Manchester and Leeds, through the skirts of which the North- western Line passes, the country is at best monotonous. It seemed that a diligent search might even to-day identify in this vicinity some of the sources of the Pilgrim's Progress — the Slough of Despond; or the dread dungeons of Doubt- ing Castle and a Giant Despair by the roadway. 98 TEN DAYS ABROAD There are many smoking factories now on every • side — what Ruskin has called ''bellowing, hoot- ing, soot-scattering creatures in every valley" — though a country curate who joined us presently took a more hopeful view of the land. This curate was a slender, dark man, of a happy. Dr. Primrose temperament. He was returning to his home near Carlisle from a vacation, in high spirits and much gratitude to his parish for their generous consideration of his welfare. He, too, carried a bicycle which established a bond of sympathy with the Birming- ham lady, and his enthusiasm was so contagious over delightful excursions by wheel along beau- tiful country highways and byways, that I quite envied his clerical life, its long vacations and opportunities. Every new prospect from the car window — though he sat in the middle seat — called out expressions of admiration, in which the charming weather and "the glory of living under the beneficent rule of the Queen — God bless her !" were included ; while the anticipation of rejoining his family after a widely separated A COUNTRY CURATE 99 absence, was fully equal to the other pleasures of his trip. This was the first separation from them, and the first ''breather," he observed, shortly, that he had taken in years. His presence was urgent at a parish meeting that afternoon, when, coming four by the clock, he would have been away just five days, and in that interval he had traveled not less than 150 miles. That tender, respectful deference to the Queen was one of the pleasant, prevailing manifestations throughout England and Scotland. I do not think it merely mouth homage either, but an earnest expression of loyalty, respect for the sovereign and regard for the woman, that came from the heart of the people — an expression we often read of in the past, but I doubt if many sovereigns have evoked it as Victoria did. We bade the good vicar regretful farewells at parting, having entered fully and heartily into his hopeful spirit, cheerful labors and enthusiasms. A few minutes later from our train we caught a passing glimpse of him, speeding along over his wheel, beyond the suburbs of the ancient town, in the LofC. 100 TEN DAYS ABROAD direction of his family group and a little church spire in the distance. His vacations are shorter than those of ministers at home. But the English country and city clergy have opportunities, and with stead- fast patience and devotion they have improved them for their country's good and their own honor. From Matthew Paris, Roger Bacon and John Ball, down to John Richard Green, they have been the makers of JOHN BALL PREACHING plain Eugllsh spccch, free and patriotic thought and England's literature: — "When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?" Our train was an express, not "The Flying Scotchman," nor had it the many little comforts, or the speed of a through train to Buffalo on the New York Central; but a kind of home-like atmosphere had developed in our compartment. I did not know the railway regulations for meals, GOOSEBERRY TARTS AND MEAT PIE loi and my stomach had begun to clamor for recog- nition, when the Birmingham lady spread open the contents of one of her packages. It proved to be a bountiful hamper, to which she cordially invited the participation of myself and two others of the compartment — women fellow-travelers. There was a meat pie large and thick enough for a bigger dinner party; some fine gooseberry tarts, made with her own hands, and an unlimited supply of fresh gooseberries, fresh picked from her own garden, and as large and luscious as California cherries. Gooseberries and gooseberry tarts are favorite dainties in England. I have never eaten such berries, which were, indeed, a complete offset and correction to the meat pie — an English dainty that Dickens' people were very fond of; though American kin have first to be acclimated before they can appreciate or digest it. Only the liquid was wanting to complete a feast — "If we only 'ad a sip o' tea, naow !" one of the ladies remarked confidentially. Having been watching, I caught the eye of the guard who 102 TEN DAYS ABROAD quickly delivered us a bowl of tea each, sugar and milk included — large bowls, thick and heavy, warranted to withstand any ordinary railway col- lision, at "tuppence" apiece — and the guard touched his hat at a shilling. It was very good tea the ladies said. I am not a judge myself nor a tea drinker, and as the train was about to start, I was in a quandary how I should dispose of such a bowl of boiling beverage, without serious in- ternal consequences, when my hostess observing the dilemma, explained that we might eat and drink at leisure, turning the cups over to the guard at the next station, a timely custom to which I drank with quiet, internal gratitude. The old Roman wall passes through Carlisle, where many traces of it still remain to show how stoutly walls were built when the ancestors of the English race were yet savages. A little beyond, the Waverley country begins, where Sir Walter Scott lived, and where Young Lochinvar came out from the West. Near by from Ecclefe- chan came a still more hardy prototype of this bleak and rugged environment, Thomas Carlyle, HIGHLAND AND LOWLAND 103 who was born there, and is buried in the church yard. My Birmingham fellow traveler knew the country well. She pointed out the neighborhood of Gretna Green, and many an old pile and forsaken ruin as we entered the Cheviot Hills. The hills are mostly bald and treeless except for plantations of fir, or areas purple with Scotch heather. Along the roadside, on hill and in glen the yellow Ragwort and the Queen-of-the- Meadow swayed and tossed their heads in greeting; and from the hill tops flocks of sheep, not plump Southdowns, but lank and hardy mutton, with black faces, tended only by sheep-dogs, regarded us with a vague, passing curiosity. There were stone pens and enclosures for the sheep in time of storm, and cairns of stone at frequent intervals, but houses and barns were poor and few, and the barren land looked as if it had not yet recovered from the blight and forays of Highland and Lowland. Approaching Edinburgh the buildings im- proved in number and appearance. As we entered the Caledonian station in the environs, we found 104 TEN DAYS ABROAD a friendly escort awaiting my genial Birmingham companion. They shouldered her bronzed, tin trunk, carried away her wheel, and, when we had parted with mutual expressions of regard, took possession of that cheerful and kindly woman. The train carried me on to the Waverley terminus in Princess Street Garden. It is in the center of the old Scotch town, overlooked on the one side by the ominous Castle walls from their rocky prominence, and the eerie tenements of the old city ; and on the other by the great marble monu- ment to Walter Scott whom Scotchmen never tire to honor and exalt — ^and* the new city with its broad, modern streets, substantial buildings and attractive shops. IX EDINBORO' TOWN •^r OUNG NIGEL would find Edinboro' a ^ cleaner city to-day than he knew it l^^^^l in the days of stuttering King Jamie ; or than it was at the later date of Allan Brek and Davie Balfour. How did they keep clean then in the sense that we know ? Queen Mary's palace at Holyrood would be lacking in essential comforts to the average American girl of to-day, and Queen Mary of the Scots was well advanced in all the niceties of life in her time. They had no back yards or flowing water up in those hillside flats of the old city. How they io6 TEN DAYS ABROAD washed their plaids and tartans is a wonder — if they did wash them. Most of the plaids and tartans that I saw in Edinboro' were swinging from those high old stone windows, along that weird and wicked-looking High street to Canon- gate. The tenants hung them out from a stick forked like a crutch to spread and air, and the crutch evoked a sinister reminiscence as the gar- ments waved and flapped overhead, suggestive of the three old crones in Macbeth^ and their doleful chant : "Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn and chaldron bubble !" Damp and dark these hillside apartments must have been at best. The casements that remain of the old hostelries off the street, are crusted with the grime of years. They bend under their own weight, as if ready to fall. Opposite them my guide pointed out as we ascended the hill to the Castle, a dark and malevolent stone balcony, projecting over the sidewalk, from which he repeated, Argyle had looked down in triumph A PIPER AND CABMAN 107 on Montrose being led past to execution; and * 'followed himsel' within a three month under the same balcony." I do not know if he quoted history or his own license — he could do both. Aleck was the only Scotchman wearing a Highland costume whom I met in Edinboro'. That evening he was playing the bagpipe on Market Square when a Scotch policeman touched him on the shoulder with an invitation to move on and scatter the crowd. Aleck moved sullenly away, muttering some objurgation of the law that prevented a poor man from turning >?- an honest penny, when I condoled with him as he passed me, and I was surprised to find how quickly and sapiently he discovered that I was a stranger, and had not yet seen the town — how soon his grievances were healed, and with what promptitude he placed his services at my disposal. Before I had finished an early breakfast the next morning he was on hand with a cab, transformed from a Highland piper into a respectable Scotch cabby, with a fluent display ALKCK io8 TEN DAYS ABROAD of information on all topics, that was interesting if not wholly according to Hoyle. ''Mind," I emphasized, "you must have me at the railway station in time for the train, or you'll not get a penny for yourself or your cab." " 'Be it for better, or for waurse, Be ruled by him thot ha'e the purse ;' " quoth he, as he whipped up and we drove off. The old town with its houses of ten or twelve stories clinging to the hillsides, shows that early Scotch propensity to get into high altitudes. If the hill had been a mountain and afforded back- bone I have no doubt the town would have climbed higher, but, it secured a good outlook and spread over the ravine, making the modern city. Then the Castle went into the background giving way for the University, and when the Edinburgh Review began to thunder so loud and far, about a century ago, it quite put out of countenance Mons Meg, the great old cannon on the Castle walls, sending it into antiquity. Edinburgh is, to be sure, a far away northern A LINCOLN MONUMENT 109 site to give so strong an Attic savor to an entire century. The Review thunders more gently now than in former days, but the universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow have yet a strong voice and influence in public policies, and barley broth and oat meal cake are still a potent factor. Edinburgh does not forget her sons either. Along with Walter Scott and Robert Burns, she has enshrined Jeffreys, Brougham, Wilson (Kit North), De Quincey and Chambers, beside Allan Ramsey, Hume and Adam Smith. Even the later names begin to seem remote now with the passage of the century. In the Calton Hill Cemetery there is a monument to the Highlanders who fell in the American Civil War, and one also to Abraham Lincoln. The Castle type of archi- tecture is reproduced in the prison pile on Waterloo Place, and reflected in the High School, although the latter has a Grecian portico, and in appearance is the most American-looking public school that I saw abroad. The University and its venerable walls I had merely a glance of, but I could not refrain from lingering a moment no TEN DAYS ABROAD at Holyrood, that remnant of the hard stone pile where the fair, young, girl widow of Francis, came in contact with her fate and the hard, hard world. Poor Scots Mary ! The world was not made soft and pleasant for princesses ! A rough time she had of it all amid smiles and caresses, and the frowns and rebukes of her Covenanters. How she must have dreaded and detested stern old John Knox and all his creed. She never could understand them or for what earthly use they were intended, any more than they could sympa- thize with her nature. She was a creature all made up of lightness, brightness, gaiety, pangs, and tears, to dissolve at last in contact with another woman. They were much like other women, and adepts at the needle. Mary would have her sewing basket and work at hand during the daily conference with her ministers of state. I fancy them both light-haired, but in Elizabeth the Tudor falcon, a deeper strawberry tint. It was a battle royal of fair-haired women in which victory went as usual to the most powerful, not "QUEEN MARTS BARTH ROOM" iii to the most beautiful. Perhaps a fatal outcome was to be expected either way, for the isle was not "beg eno'/' rny guide observed, ''for the twa of them/' and one head must fall. Time which makes things even, sets Mary ahead. It gave her descendants the throne — even Edward to-day bearing more direct kinship with her than with Elizabeth. Queen Victoria has often occupied the Queen's Palace in Edinburgh, which adjoins the ruins of Holyrood, the broad driveway passing directly through the site of the old palace. ''D'ye see the wee stane wall yander?" Aleck pointed out with his finger, as we passed a fragment of ruin, a kind of rounded bay — " 'Twas Queen Mary's barth room," he continued. "She allers barthed in white wine — and they found the dagger of Rizzio in her barth room." This was a new version to me of the tragic episode. So a breath of calumny goes down through the centuries a smirch upon the fairest copy ; or hovers round its victim like a fell aroma — a subtle spell cast by the malign and haunting 112 TEN DAYS ABROAD spirits of evil. And stern, rigid old John Knox! A tablet in the open space in front of the Parliament build- ings, marks his last resting place, just beyond the base of the equestrian monument of Charles II., which has since been placed there. The presence of the ''Merry Monarch," should, I think, sit heavy on John Knox's chest. If there were such things as "ghaists" in these later days it would press one forth. Charles, with the long, waving hair falling over his shoulders, has a strong, pleasing face and carriage, as he usually had to the last, despite other failings. Aleck, in whose veins doubtless ran a strain of Scotch Presby- terianism, called my attention to the characters on the monarch's coat : "He carries the feast o' the de'ils on his breast," said he; ''and on his back the angels, whilk signifies the deceits o' Satin that he kept up all his life, and to the last." I would have lingered after train time in these narrow old streets, had he not reminded me of the hour. Then we rattled down the paved hill A PARTING TIP 113 to the Waverley Station. Aleck had earned his money, and, in parting, I wished him better luck hereafter with his bagpipe. He tipped me a shrewd Scotch wink, adapting in reply as I turned away to the station, a sign that I had noticed on the street : "The Pickwick, the Owl and the Waverley kin, They come as a boon and a blessing to min." X THROUGH THE TROSSACHS ROM Edinburgh a favorite trip is a pedestrian tour through the Trossachs. The roads are good, the inns comfort- able and the cHmate in August not unHke that of the Adirondacks. Tourists in knickerbockers with knapsack and staff are encountered on every highway, and the example is contagious, for this is the real way to see the country. Many men and women make the tour on the bicycle, as the steep grades are few, and the "wheel" is as popular as it was with us a year or two ago, while the bicyclists appear also A GREAT SCOTCH BRIDGE 115 to have increased the number of pedestrians. My steamer was to sail on Thursday from Glasgow which is but little more than an hour's journey by rail from Edinburgh. This left me a day for the tour by the circular loop to Stirling, thence through the mountains and Lochs Katrine and Lomond around to Glasgow — ample time I was assured for the accommodation of the tourist whose welfare has been developed into a fine art in this country. So I chose the northern route through the country of "mountain and flood," and had no occasion to regret it. The morning was crisp and clear over the lowlands as we left the Scotch capital behind. But a mist still clung above the broad stretches of the Forth where our train crossed the big cantilever bridge which is one of Scotland's great engineering triumphs at home. Spanning the river, nearly a mile wide here, it is by no means a thing of beauty. Like an ugly though mighty Colossus, it looks down on old-time fords and ancient ferries that, from the days of Wallace, were the natural barriers between ii6 TEN DAYS ABROAD Scotland and her foes. An hour's ride brought us to StirHng, the Windsor of the old Scottish kings. There the old castle stands out against the sky upon a high, rocky bluff, grim and rugose, reflecting the very essence of those hardy Scotch Covenanters. For these ancient fortresses perched upon their inaccessible cliffs, had a moral as well as a physical prestige. Seen at a distance they were the glum and silent sentinels of the land. One old building in Stirling still bears the moral senti- ment, inscribed by the Earl of Mar three hundred years ago : "The moir I stan on oppin hitht, My faults moir subjec ar to sitht — " a bit of conscience which in castles as in other human works can hardly be said to have softened the hearts of the builders perceptibly, the self- deprecation notwithstanding. Beyond the castle near the end of the bluff, is that curious, pillow- like mound; upon it a stone block which many a titled head has had for its last pillow in past A GLIMPSE OF STIRLING 117 days, ere it rolled a gory mass to the earth. It was in Stirling" Castle that a Douglas was stabbed to death by his King James. Here at Stirling is the monument to Wallace. His huge sword, that is shown to visitors, is more than five feet in length — a pretty sickle it would make in these industrial days, I thought, as I scanned the broad blade, if curved and fitted to swing in the cradle of some brawny New England harvester. From Stirling James Fitz James went forth to hunt at early morn, and came by night a weary huntsman without horse or hounds to the Lady of the Lake. To Stirling also Ellen and Malcolm Grame are brought at the close of the poem ; and there Roderick Dhu, the wounded chieftain, listens, as he dies, to the Harper's song of the Highland fight. Not far beyond are the Grampian Hills, of whose "father's flocks," we often declaimed in school days. On every side are snatches of Scottish song in legend and story, and still conspicuous in actual life and widely placarded advertisement, is a choice strain of ii8 TEN DAYS ABROAD the spirits of Roderick Dhu — real Scotch courage, that the fierce Highland chieftain would perhaps himself have relished as a national tribute. From Stirling it is but a short run by rail to the Clachan of Aberfoil. The Hotel Bailie Nicol Jarvie is no such desolate place as its namesake found the vicinity in the pages of Rob Roy, but a charming modern caravansary at the threshold of the mountains. Beside it spreads a broad, but stunted, ancient moun- tain oak. To the trunk of the tree is attached by a strong chain a pon- derous cleaver, which two small boys explained in Highland dialect, was the identical poker which the Bailie seized from the fire to defend himself with. Their speech was not wholly intelligible to American tourists, who catching a word or two, concluded that the inci- dent related to a record game of "poker" played by t]ie redoubtable Rob Roy on some auspicious occasion; and the group of Oxford students THK BAILIE NICOL JARVIE OVER THE MOUNTAINS 119 in Tweed knickerbockers, with heavy walking sticks and briarwood pipes, admitted that they were equally ignorant not "being up in Walter Scott," as "3. little out of date, and somewhat too romantic, you know;" later they became more deeply interested in the story of the poem of the Lake, and Rob Roy — every mountain breath inhaled romance, and set the veins a-tingle, contrary to the measure of material things. A horn sounding, our party, numbering a full score, clambered to seats on top the coach with the driver. He cracked his whip and shouted. Four sleek and handsome bays swung out from the Bailie Nichol Jarvie, in rattling, glittering harness, with the pride and carriage of horses on parade. Our road wound smooth and hard six miles over the mountains to Loch Katrine. This mountain air was an intoxicant, tonic with oxygen. In the glowing sun there was the friendly warmth of a genial companion. The sky was a cloudless blue, and groups of wheel- men, and pedestrians, men and women, threw us greeting as they strode — 120 TEN DAYS ABROAD "From the mountain to the champaign, From the glens and hills along, With a rustling and a tramping, And a motion as of song — " The Trossachs here are not unlike the Hudson Highlands — hills dome-shaped, or bulbous in contour like Anthony's Nose, but nearly devoid of trees. Flocks of sheep were scattered among the heather almost invisible amid the craigs, that otherwise were bare and deserted. Here and there on the road offering bunches of wild flowers for a penny were bonny and brawny Scotch lassies — their head a shock of tawny red or yel- low, their skirts scant and tattered, their feet brown and bare, but with cheeks that had the rich flush of the pink heather, and bright een aglow with the soft azure of the mountain blue bell. One little group that we had left, had watched us from the coach yard of the hotel — the eldest of these was not in her teens^ and the small- est was a dainty wee damsel of half a dozen summers, whose waxen cheeks were a pair of WEE SCOTCH LASSIES 121 ruddy apples beneath her flaxen ringlets. They were bashful little brownies; a mischievous Scottish twinkle in their shy glances and dimpled chins — too shy to respond to any approaches ex- cept with sidelong glances, even when I dropped a package of chewing gum at their feet, though the temptation was a mighty one. But as we turned to climb the coach there was a flutter and scurry and the nymphs disappeared like a flock of birds whom the air had swallowed up — and with them the chewing gum. Turning the mountain road we saw them again dividing the spoil, and at this safe distance they fearlessly waved their little hands in return. Loch Katrine, a pretty little scenic poem, is such a strip of lake as the Hudson might frame in the hills above West Pointy and Ellen's Isle but one of many romantic nooks along its shores. Swift and strong our steamer, the "Rob Roy," clove its rippling, crystal waters, the shouts of the tourists echoing back from the hills as the Highland clans of yore. They are gone like "the dew on the mountain." You no longer see 122 TEN DAYS ABROAD "The Moray's silver star ! The dagger crest of Mar !" Loch Katrine has come to serve a practical purpose as the reservoir for Glasgow's water supply. Its crystal springs now flow into the heart of the city, inspired draughts, sparkling with native poetry and romance. The water works upon the banks of the lake are more for- midable than the strongholds of Roderick Dhu, and the clang of the machinery more shrill than the "Pibroch of Donald." At Stronachlacher the head of the loch, another coach and four were in waiting for another cheer- ful rumble through a valley in which gathering peat and stacking it in piles for winter consump- tion appeared the chief occupation. This brought us to Inversnaid, the home of Rob Roy, with appetites whetted. A special providence, no interposition of inn keepers being counted, had set a hearty meal for us here, to which we did full justice before the arrival of the Loch Lomond steamer. Oiit upon the bosom of this charming and larger lake, a bevy of great white gulls like LEAVING THE LAKES 123 garden fowl, followed the steamer, so tame as to rest on the wing almost within hand's reach, and take the bread that was fed them. Ben Lomond raises its back, broad and round, 3,000 feet above the western border of the loch; and the brownish forehead of Ben Venue looks down from a distance like the red head of a bashful school boy, on the isles, the decadent castles and the lowland visitors swarming there from the ends of the earth. The steamer's route ends at Balloch. One more brief spurt and the train, like an Arabian Jinni — the genie who has transformed the medie- val into this modern world — plunges into the earth, to emerge after long toil and puffing, through smoke and dark, in the heart of Glasgow, the London of Scotland and the second city of the United Kingdom. XI IN GLASGOW STREETS S we entered the hotel at Glasgow, the doors swung open wide. A major- domo at the entrance received us with a sweep of the hand, and a grand salaam as if the Great Begum had stepped down from the clouds for his especial benefit, and I glanced behind to see whether, by mistake, I had unwittingly committed a breach of etiquette, by treading in advance of the Royal Family. Flukes or flunkies, Thackeray was it not, v/ho used to style them so? I could never think of so belittling this Glasgow functionary A SCOTCH MAJORDOMO 125 in sandy whiskers, blue uniform, knee breeches, gilt braid and buttons. But it is a human failing to make allowance for unusual manifestations and consideration, when extended to oneself, and to the last I continued to regard this distin- guished personage with deep interest as a sur- vival of past glories — a Drum Major or a Grenadier on house duty. Day dreams of the past week had been left behind in the mountains, or they had gathered up their skirts and vanished at sight of the dust, smoke and hubbub of a modern city. And Glasgow is more modern than any we had seen for many days. In George's Square that evening a great audience assembled to commemorate the birthday of Sir Walter Scott. His monument in the square only second to that in Edinburgh, is nearly one hundred feet high, overtopping those of the Queen and the Prince Consort. It was tastefully decorated on this occasion with flowers and flags, and a vocal and instrumental concert was given by choral societies and public school children. The monuments of Robert Burns, 126 TEN DAYS ABROAD Dr. Livingstone, and the poet Thomas Campbell, are also in the Square, and it is the custom to honor them in the same manner. With a population of a million Glasgow recalled Philadelphia in some things. It is a great industrial and commercial center, a reverent and patriotic community, as well — more like an American city than London, with its street car lines and crowded street traffic, but without the feverish rush of New York or Chicago. In co-operative municipal experiments it has gone farther than any of our cities, and it maintains an economical city administration which is not obtrusive nor extravagant. The streets are clean and well ordered. Not only the water from Loch Katrine, is under municipal control, but so are the gas works and the street car lines. The car traffic is not so heavy as in our cities, but it appears well managed, and turns a profit annually into the city treasury. Glasgow is probably the only city where you can ride on a street car for one-cent — ha'penny — fare, and electric traction is to be introduced shortly on all A NATIVE OF GLASGOW 127 the lines. The town is associated in my mind from pubHc school days as the native city of that venerable William Wood, one of the founders of the Normal College in New York, and a member for more than a quarter of a century of the New York Board of Education. At eighty, he was still the incisive^ courteous and vigor- ous Scotch gentleman such as I met on Glasgow streets, carrying with him early memories, zeal and native training, and the delicious Glasgow burr-r-r upon his speech. The University which he venerated is a stately and historic pile. Near it now approaching completion are the buildings for the Glasgow International Exposition of 1901. This, which opens in May, is to be a supreme effort, and surely no English city is better able to do justice to such an enterprise. The Cathedral and the shopping streets, Argyle and Buchanan and their clan suggestions, Avere of interest, but the distinct municipal feat- ures were more novel to me. Scotch thrift shows itself in careful directions but the super- vision is intelligent and liberal even in small 128 TEN DAYS ABROAD matters. At the windows of the poorer dwell- ings as well as of the better sort, I saw many flowers, to which much attention seemed given. These plants I was told the city parks furnished in little boxes of galvanized iron to fit the windows at an expense of a few pence — a sugges- tion that might be useful in our own parks, w^here such quantities of beautiful flowers are grown. The public Green has a large building for public entertainments, known as the People's Palace, and a museum with many excellent collections. Some of the lawns of the Green are set aside for a practical use — where the Glasgow housewife may spread her linen in the sun to bleach. Old, barefooted women, and young girls employed to watch and turn the washing, are stretched out upon the grass beside the linen, with dingy shawls wrapped about their heads. They lie out under the rays of the bright sun, in quite a pastoral, shepherd fashion, but rolled up in dilapidated rags that are not poetical. A massive stone archway forms the main entrance to the Green, and from the inscription . A REVERENCE OF THE PAST 129 I learned that it had been reconstructed of the facade and pillars of a building of historic municipal interest, which was torn down a number of years ago. The stone had been re- moved and preserved at the cost of an eminent citizen, whose name was duly honored. Even in London such a practice prevails. The facade of the National Academy in Trafalgar Square has been reconstructed from another old historic building, which would have been destroyed. This reverence of the past is not often evident at home. New York will in a year or two demolish its present Custom House, and with it that grove of huge granite monoliths, which for more than half a century has been standing at its portals, huge sentinels, giving silent assurance of the growing mercantile power of the city. In their day, before the railway, when Manhattan was still an infant, these great shafts were objects of veneration, which a mighty herd of oxen had drawn from the mountain quarries to the seaside, but the great columns, each an obelisk, are now likely to be broken for the stone pile. I30 TEN DAYS ABROAD Sometimes Scotch precaution may become excessive. The large ocean steamers sail from Greenock, several miles below Glasgow, and at the last moment I had nearly lost my train for Greenock. In payment of my hotel bill, having disposed of my English money as the time for sailing drew near, I tendered a draft sterling, which was declined. Then I produced a $io bill. This was indifferently examined and like- wise declined. There was no time for other provision, but by good fortune the Scotch major- domo came to my rescue. He had been in America and could vouch for a $io bill. He not only assured the proprietor that the paper was as good as a Bank of England note, but substantiated his state- ment with the information that Americans were excessively fond of griddle cakes, which they consumed at every meal in vast qtiantities. The number of cakes, which he averred, were eaten at a meal, I shall not attempt to repeat, but the information awakened more interest and discussion among the hotel authorities than my A CANNY SCOTCH COOK 131 situation pending the departure of the steamer train. I did not question the accuracy of the majordomo's figures, but thanked him for certi- fying to the credit of Uncle Sam, and extended an extra compensation as he cashed the bill in English money himself. Then I was driven hastily to St. Enoch Station for the Greenock train. A good-sized tug was in waiting at the Greenock dock and from the train there poured out several hundred passengers, the greater number of whom were women, and many of them as I afterwards learned, school teachers. It was approaching dark when we had all been placed w^ith our baggage on the tug, carried out into mid-stream where the steamer lay, and transferred to it. At the last moment just as the tug was pulling away the chief cook of the steamer announced that he too was going back with the tug and sprang aboard of her. He was a canny Scotch cook, for he knew that a great steamer load of living passengers could not put to sea without a cook. The captain. 132 TEN DAYS ABROAD the first officer and the agent of the Hne labored for half an hour with persuasive eloquence en- treating him to return. But he was an obstinate cook, and it was only when there had been promise of a specific advance in his wages that he permitted himself to be convinced and led back in a triumphal procession to the ship, where our dinner was under way with no one to supervise it. By the time dinner was over the banks of the Clyde were getting dim. A strong flavor of ocean filled the air, as the last trace of the United Kingdom merged with the darkness, and most of the passengers turned in early, for a long first night's rest on shipboard, as the Fur- nessia was due to stop below Londonderry on the North Irish coast, the next morning for passengers. XII THE NORTH IRISH COAST ^T^ I HOSE of us up betimes caught a view ^ J of the Giant's Causeway before the a^S I Furnessia entered Lough Foyle, at Moville. The Anchor Line boats all make the stop below Londonderry to take aboard passengers from Ireland. When they arrive early as on this occasion the stay is until afternoon and it gives all who wish a chance to set foot on Irish soil. Most of us were glad of that chance, for Moville, and Donegal are in the extreme north of Ireland, a most inter- esting country and the source, it was said, of 134 TEN DAYS ABROAD many rare old Irish customs, and a choice strain of Irish bulls. The jaunting cars, which some call "jarvies," once on a lime would come cavorting out over the water from the Moville dock, a mile away, to the steamer's side, but this practice has been stopped at the protest of the boatmen w^ho now row the passengers ashore for a shilling the round trip. These jaunting cars — a score or more of them. — wait their turn at the dock, and for another shilling they wdll take you on a half day's ride to all places of interest about Moville. Several of these are within half a dozen miles; among them the remains of the Abbey and school which was founded by St. Patrick 590 A. D. and which at one time had 700 students. There is also to be seen the battle site where Hiigh Finnliath, king of Ireland, defeated and drove away the Danes in 864. Near this site is Green Castle said to be one of the finest castle ruins in all Ireland, without prejudice to any others, which is not much, seeing that in Ireland they have not Scotch THE ORIGIN OF BALLYWHACK 135 foresight and preservation wlien it comes to castles. Shrovebrim Brook is close by — its cool waters warranted a cure to any person who may have an evil intent or any unusual weight in mind, and especially helpful in bad cases of delirium. Toward Innishowen Head, at the top of Ballybrack Brae, a large boulder sunk deep in the earth is pointed out to the visitor. One morning early the Giant O'Flynn, being a little out of sorts, strode over from the Giant's Cause- way on his way to Shrovebrim, to drink the waters. In a wayward humor he picked this boulder from the mountain side at Glenagivney, and strove to throw it over the Lough to Ben- evagh. This was only a little distance of ten miles, but O'Flynn being in bad form that morning, not having breakfasted nor tasted his regular poteen, the stone slipped and fell short at Ballybrack, which was so nam.ed after him, bearing the same meaning as Bally whack, an exclamation peculiar to O'Flynn, and since come into general use. 136 TEN DAYS ABROAD We did not attempt nor could we hope to see all these wonderful things in half a day, and for a shilling, but we heard of them, and of much more from these old "jarvies." The jaunting cars are a kind of one horse shay, the drivers shaggy and rugged centenarians. The age of their horses, like a woman's, is never guessed, because none has ever been known to die. Each car will carry four persons, besides the driver, but most of them carried six of the Furnessia's passengers — bright-faced Yankee school ma'ms many of them with note books. One Philadelphia clergyman, on agreement with the driver^ took the reins himself and drove. At the start the horses dashed away pell-mell along the narrow roadway like a park of artil- lery. Then all came to a sudden stand for no apparent cause, except previous habit, as with David Harum's bargain, and thumps, entreaties, and exclamations had no effect until they were ready to move. It was a gray morning, with low clouds and a misty sun which began to shine through as AN AMERICAN BIRD 137 we rode. The sea breeze was bracing, and the jaunting car an anti-dyspeptic and an appetizer. These roads were hard and smooth^ though narrow, but the low, gray stone farm dwell- ings were isolated and lonely, if picturesque — no cows around them, no cackling hens nor roosters crowing. Dark stone walls, well made and ancient, ran along each side of the road- way, all overgrown with wild morning glories and fuchsias. In the field beyond, the Irish heather blossom was of lighter tint than the Scotch. A pretty blue, and a yellow flower brightened the bluffs, and the dainty Irish shamrock twined modestly in little fairy nooks. Our cavalcade gave joyous greeting to every- thing and everybody. Near one farm house a turkey started up on the road with anxious maternal cries for her brood. Every car load waved and hurrahed for the American bird, and the old gobbler over the wall joined the hurrahs with repeated, throaty tremulo, as if he recog- nized his countrymen. Green Castle, the limit of our ride, stands 138 TEN DAYS ABROAD out upon a rocky cliff commanding the sea — a formidable fortress once to the Norse pirates, whom it could watch from the headland. The Red Earl, a ferocious wild man, built it, back in the fourteenth century. He had a beautiful daughter who w^as rescued from the quicksands on the sea shore by young Walter of the O'Donnells, her father's enemies. Afterwards Walter was made prisoner by the Red Earl, who, on detecting his daughter in an effort to release the prisoner, threw her down the cliff to perish, and thrust Walter in the deepest dungeon to starve. Then the O'Donnells and the O'Neills rallied their clans, stormed the castle, and sent the Red Earl to his fate. This is the story of Green Castle. A few more years of fierce north winds will leave little of these crumblmg walls and towers. Even now the castle is but a mound on the cliff, covered with green earth and vines where the shamrock nestles, and the deene mah dances by moonlight. And Moville, a little town with long clean streets, and plain stone dwellings, has an air ST. PATRICK'S GOOD MEASURE 139 of loneliness. The stores are tended by old women and men. There are few children on the streets, and the young men have emigrated. But the Irish girl remains, her cheeks flushed in health, eyes a deep cerulean, and hair like the raven's wing. She is the bright spot of life and color, a healthful presence, with glance and a smile for all who come, and her native wit gives cheer to the town. Moville stores do a flourishing trade in blackthorn sticks ; also in the genuine Irish poteen, of which there are various grades, each with a bog flavor of its own and a potent charm that is better than quinine for malaria, and sovereign for rheu- matics or despondency. The poteen comes in quart flasks, fat and round, and half again the size of a modern quart cup, as measured by St. Patrick for pocket use, and handed down to tourists and posterity. Around Moville there is yet obtainable through favor but by the thimblefr.l only, some of those rare and ancient stills for which it has repute. That which was once traced back to the Garden 140 TEN DAYS ABROAD of Eden, where Adam and Eve kept it in store for family use, has long since been exhausted. As a mark of distinction we were treated to a drop of ''Ninety Nine," which dated from the Flood, and was so dry, our host remarked, not- withstanding its antecedents, that it would not wet the glass. When the Ark in its wanderings became stranded on one of the submerged peaks of Donegal, a cask of Noah's private supply was thrown out and got embedded in the root of a tree, where it remained undiscovered until by accident it was dug up last year — '99. Other sources more modern are said to be in operation among the caves of Malin Head and Innishowen, which go down under the ocean depths to America. But even these have an atmosphere of doubt and many strange tales of mystery. An Irish piper being closely chased by the Cus- toms Police on one occasion entered Hell Pit, one of these caves, throwing away his poteen, which an officer picked up and found to be the pure juice. The officer waited and listened to the piper in the distance, but the piper did not THE EMIGRANTS FAREWELL 141 come back. This was fifty years ago, since which time it has become known that he went down beneath the ocean by the underground route, and came up through the tunnel at Hell Gate, New York. By three o'clock the Furnessia's passengers had all returned, the 'ladies bringing clusters of wild flowers and plumes of heather, the men armed with blackthorn sticks and souvenir flasks of poteen. A thousand emigrants also joined our ship from Londonderry, and with them enough of household goods and gods, to fill a freight train. We sailed with full cabins in the saloon and the second deck ; and a crowded steerage. Forward the emigrants gathered in little groups, waving a last adieu to home and friends as the steamer turned about to sea. Soon we were passing Innishowen Head, where the ocean voyage begins, and where their native land fades from view. Sadly they held it in sight to the last. The women drew the children closer, as if to impress this parting view more strongly upon their tender memories, wrapped 142 TEN DAYS ABROAD their shawls about them and wept. The eyes of sturdy, rugged men grew dim and red, while amid the tears and wailing, there were some who chanted mournfully the ballad of Innish- owen Head : "Round Innishowen, rgund Innishowen — Where many a storm and swirling moan Marks white the shoals — How wild and free ! How wild and free, the great, gray sea. That round me flows — and Innishowen. Thou great Sea-King, like Norsemen old, Have guided true — have guided true The wanderer home. And made him bless — And made him bless, the grand old ness Of Innishowen !" Down along the Irish coast bold cliffs and jutting headlands rise up hundreds of feet above the breakers, braving the winds and tides. The waves have eaten into them deep caves where the storms thunder and reverberate. Over the spray the gulls circle, the sea eagle shrieks and dives upon his prey. Sublime in THE OLD WORLD, ADIEU! 143 its repose the majestic grandeur of this wild, desolate shore, the gray August afternoon, as we sailed by, I have never seen elsewhere. Roofing the cliffs and swelling above them against the sky were the mountains of Donegal, high as the Adirondacks and bare of trees, but thickly clad in heather, their rounded outlines seemed the recumbent forms of those giants of Irish story — "a wearing of the green." There were few houses and no life visible from the steamer's deck, on those great round hills, but narrow roads circle in yellow ribbons to the summits, and an American told me that a trip over them in a jaunting car was one of his most interesting experiences in Europe. This was our last sight of the old world. The setting sun threw soft chromatic tints upon the cliffs and m.ountains. Our steamer passed between the Aran Islands and the shore, turning her course, then, nearly due west over the North Atlantic. Later in the night, when most of the passengers had retired, a dull glow showed above the distant mountain ranges, 144 TEN DAYS ABROAD deepening as we looked, until it appeared a smoldering volcano about to burst forth from a crater on their summits. Around it the clouds were fired with refulgence, and through them glided up the lurid moon. Blue-domed, silent and vast this ocean-amphitheatre was lit with mellow flame, as of an awakening world while yet the lights of dawn burn low, and all is still, though the curtain is lifted for the life drama to begin. A broad swathe of light swept down upon the sea. Presently it overtook the steamer passing on beyond to point a glowing pathway from the skies — from the old world with its chequered past, and all its restrictions, to the broader and freer, distant continent. In the wake of the Furnessia the waves tossed with weird and responsive significance, girdling our vessel in its course with phosphorescent flashes like a mystic circle inscribed by the mighty Magi of the ocean. XIII ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC ^T^ HE Furnessia struck a high northerly ^ „ course across the Atlantic, continuing ^^aa on it until the third day, when she turned south by west, sharp, by which route the Captain hoped to shave the Banks and avoid as much heavy fog as possible. In this manner he expected to accomplish a good average trip, for, if no heavy fogs were en- countered we should not have to slow up, and the chances would be in our favor to sight Sandy Hook within ten days. Half a dozen sea gulls followed us out from 146 TEN DAYS ABROAD the Irish coast for those three days, and it was an unceasing source of interest to watch their vigilant method of patrol in the track of the steamer. All day long they hovered in the wake on tireless wing, usually making wide circuits over the steamer's track, in the fashion of dogs searching for a scent, so that it was rare that their sharp sight missed any article of food. I tried them several times by throwing over when they did not appear to be looking, a package of bread tied in paper, but, if it got some distance behind it was not lost, as they always had at least one patrol far to the rear, who was sure to espy anything that escaped the rest. They never seemed to rest unless it was for a few moments on the waves, or unless they did sleep on the wing at night. At meal time they would all come up at closer quarters to secure their share of the dinner refuse that was thrown over. After following us for nearly a thousand miles, on the third day they disappeared, and we saw them no more. This we were told was their usual custom, whether or not it was the limit of their THE SEA GULL'S INSTINCT 147 endurance and ability to return, but the Captain said they never made the entire voyage across the ocean. I also recollected that about this distance from land we first encountered gulls on our passage over. Perhaps an instinct of the unknown restrains them — except returning ships, they have no objects or fixed localities like the carrier pigeon to guide them home. From the first night we ran upon chill and squally weather, which caused passengers who came on deck to seek the sunny and sheltered sides. Many did not make their appearance at all, and the tables were only half filled at meals. Following the holiday comes a reaction. To the qualms and nausea of the ocean is added a general exhaustion after six weeks' or two months' gallop over the continent, from which so many were returning. The enthusiasm, too, of an outward voyage is wanting in the first days of a return trip, where the end of the journey is yet so distant. There were deep- drawn sighs from figures with pale faces, at the rail, and something of the confidence even f 148 TEN DAYS ABROAD of the American girl disappeared as she looked and longed for the distant home. One southern maid with dreamy eyes and a bright solitaire on the finger of the left hand looked out from under her rugs continually, her thoughts far away and her book neglected, as she gazed wistfully across the waste of waters, the end of which she feared would never come. And a robust passenger from a far western Iowa town, who climbed on deck the third day, weak and pallid, aided by a slender, little invalid wife, vowed that he would never leave their village home to cross the sea again. People might talk until they were dumb about foreign parts, but give him his own town, that was plenty good enough for him. Then there was an enterprising business man who had "rushed" the continent, "doing Rome at midnight by train," who proposed to organize a syndicate for building castles in New England of old stone fence walls. He guranteed to dupli- cate the finest ruin on the continent in six months, - and, for the accommodation of his fellow A STORM TRACK 149 voyagers he offered to open up his syndicate right there on ship and take any of them in on the ground floor. I noticed that while many Hstened and agreed with him, no one appeared to have a desire to build castles on shipboard, and those who wanted chances and excitement found enough speculation in the steamer's daily run. Before reaching the Banks we entered a storm track — one of those currents in which storms circle and lose themselves in mid-ocean, and go wandering and whirling about as if in outer space, until they die from sheer want of breath. The air was often filled with a flying scud that at times came down in torrents of rain, or brightened suddenly and fled as the mist of a June shower. And with the bright sun and the blue sky for half an hour, everyone brightened and grew cheerful, and the cabin turned out upon deck. But this North Atlantic is cold. Even of an August morning you suspect a rim of ice in your salt water bath. Early in the season this is a neighborhood for I50 TEN DAYS ABROAD icebergs. A great French liner went down near here a year or so ago, leaving only a boat load of exhausted, frosted human beings to tell the story. It is not a sea to experiment in. Not even that fair maid from Perth, Canada, who longed for something rare and unexpected, cared for an experience of shipwreck in this locality. She had finished her college studies, and had been graduated with cap and gown in New York last spring, an athlete and a Bachelor of Arts. Returning from the European trip filled with the glory of the past, the majesty, the beauty and the poetry of the sea she longed to sail on and on for ever. Our ship, a great iron kettle somewhat old and time-worn as judged by the standard which modern service implies, but warranted stout, safe and whole, plowed onward its course alive with human freight. It recalled those maritime experiments of boyhood when I have seen a tin dish floated in a wash tub with a cargo of ants, or Blatta Germanic a (plain Croton insects), rushing to and fro to the water's edge, OUT OF THE WORLD 151 which was made blue and sea-Hke with indigo, and was sometimes churned into storm and foam. Our greater number still longed for home. But as we drew south and turned the first half of the voyage the skies became warmer, the sun shone out, the tables filled and the decks swarmed again, or were piled with chairs and figures wrapped in rugs, and breathing new life and hope. Few talked of another trip abroad, and strange sights and foreign incidents and people were forgotten in the thought of homes and friends that were drawing near. For three days since leaving sight of land we had seen no trace of ship or sail upon the ocean. Where were they all ? Could aught have happened to the world in that interval ! At noon of the fourth day the Furnessia was pushing ahead through a thick mist, sounding at intervals of every few minutes her dismal foghorn, like some cow-maiden of the sea in distress, when there came an answering signal. Our ship slowed up. Her whistle sounded loud and strong — and directly another in reply came 152 TEN DAYS ABROAD back through the fog, but with no appearance of another vessel. • Passengers poured out upon deck to see so strange a sight as another passing vessel, which none could see, but whose answering signal might have been taken for an echo, had it not distinctly differed in its tone from the whistle of our own steamer. So close at hand, it sounded coming from every quarter, or no distinct quarter, and yet remained unseen, that there was something weird and uncanny in it all — suggestive of the Phantom Ship or the Flying Dutchman himself — one realizes how the sea gives birth to strange and weird fancies. Then the white fog to the southwest, just off our bows, began to darken in midday, as from a pall, and the shadow broadened into enormous proportions — the colossal hull of a ship reaching upward to the skies, more like the outline of a mountain headland. The passengers from cabin and steerage, high and lower decks, looked on in common wonder at the great bulk of this approaching monster, when she broke through A PRAIRIE PREACHER 153 the fog within a good pistol shot of our own vessel. At first it seemed treble, double — a fleet of steamers. Out in the open in clear sight it appeared only one, — a kind of *'tramp" or cattle steamer all boarded up on the sides. About her decks a handful of the crew moved scanning us as we passed, while she glided on behind us into the fog again and disappeared. Among the clergymen on the Furnessia many denominations were represented — one who seemed to represent them all, was in minor orders, an erratic product of prairie schools, with a smattering of Greek and theology. In him were curiously blended with turbulent fervor, the energies of a Langland or a crusading Peter — "a call" to preach on all occasions, and to recite illustrious sentiments and eloquence at other times. On deck one early morning I encountered him shouting to the sea in Shakespeare, and Byron's apostrophy. The flying cloud-wrack swept in mists across the steamer, dampening his long, black hair. His eyes rolled in fine frenzy as with one hand 154 TEN DAYS ABROAD on the capstan for balance, the other waving, he strove to outvie the Furnessia's fog whistle and the ocean turmoil: — "What's Hecuba to him, Or he to Hecuba!" In that species of divine afflatus which had seized him, he vaunted his right as a free-born, American to revel. He had made his way through Europe on vacation without church or congregation at home, to defray his expenses, and now he was returning by steerage; but, with Yankee prerogative, the freedom of the ship was his. "Do you think," asked another passenger, also an American, a clear, serene-eyed, pretty little maiden of twelve summers, daughter of a missionary and born in China, but returning now to an American home : "Do you think the European nations are in decadence?" A question to stagger a great philosopher — such as often comes from children and novices, and often to the American traveler. Who shall THE VIRGIN ROCK 155 say? Even if behind American ideas of progress, we have yet to learn all there is to know from the staid customs of France and England. He would be bold to say that Europe has reached the limit when more than once France has been behind in the race, and has won again the front place, while rivals went down in overcon- fidence. This struggle for place between two worlds, the old and the new, is it other than the old, old struggle of the animal, and of tribal man for dominion — of youth and vigor emerging from longanimous puppydom with swinging stride, lust of strength, assurance and impatience to relieve the elders at the helm ? Fair weather and mild returned now we had completed the first half of our trip and entered on the home stretch. The coast of Labrador or Newfoundland lay away to the west a thousand miles more or less — it did not matter. We were passing the Banks where the smacks of the fishermen appeared — the haunts of the Virgin of Kipling's Captain Courageous. Big schools of porpoise circled about and dove beneath our 156 TEN DAYS ABROAD ship. Whales spouted every day at a httle distance alongside. By night the sun went down in colors as rich and flowing as Turner's sunsets — in floating sheen of silver and gold, with bars of effulgent carmine, that dissolved in agate and ivory, paving a glorious pathway to gates of pearl — ^the gateways to our homes. XIV SANDY HOOK HOSE last few days of our home voyage, were pleasant days, even when the weather was not all it might have been, for one got to know everyone else, by sight at least, on board the Furnessia. The ocean steamer — especially on a home voyage — is surely a potential factor in modern society. I fancy that Herbert Spencer will presently have to assign it a recognized place and influence in his system. So many lives are daily brought in contact on its decks, that would otherwise continue as remote as the Anti- 158 TEN DAYS ABROAD podes, and the friendships and relations which are formed there often last through life, or serve to shape events thereafter. Frequently in England among English tourists on vacation tours, I heard the query: How do Americans — clergymen, teachers, and employes travel so far from home? The Englishman himself a great traveler at home and on the continent, does not so often stretch his horizon to the westward, unless he becomes an emigrant. Americans — from every State and clime — were in the majority in the cabin, accompanied often by Scotch or English kin, mild and passive in demeanor, who become in a single generation on American soil, the alert, pushing and vigorous Anglo-Saxon Yankee. On those last days at sunset and by twilight we had impromptu concerts either on deck, or, after dark in the saloon with piano music. Almost forgotten old ballads with their catching melodies and quaint words, sung in solo, in duet and chorus, touched many half-remem- SOCIAL LIFE ON SHIP 159 bered chords with their simple cadences, in an audience so widely drawn from town and country of a broad land. Under the saloon balcony at concert hour, and in the home-like glow of the lamp at the dining table, a white-haired old Scotch lady, pHed her knitting needles steadily, while she followed through her spectacles the large type of her family Bible. Pulsing through the ship as she sways and forges on, the engines' throbs telling out the moments and circulating life, are the mighty heart-beats of this vast horologe, as it swings like a planet from continent to continent through its sphere ; — in intervals of song comes the long toot of the foghorn without, and perhaps a gleam of lights and an answering signal over the water from another steamer in the night. Each day the air became more mild and balmy. And of a morning when the charming Sandusky widow with the white, felt chapeau and gipsy locks, comes on deck, casting about her as an experienced mariner, the roving glances of her dark and winsome eye, she gathers up a ready i6o TEN DAYS ABROAD train. What age and clime, oh gentle woman, since social rites begun, have not bowed unto your soft and subtle charms ! The favored few only are permitted to inscribe their names on the rim of that rakish beaver. It was occupied by an array of conquests when the steamer sailed, and available space filled rapidly, once we were afloat. Before we reach the Narrows it should be at a premium. Several days before, its ap- pearance recalled the walls and ceilings of the Shakespeare house at Avon, where further handwriting is forbidden. Many others, too, there are on shipboard — a graceful California maid, whose sweet soprano is in demand for every duet, — ^the Boston girl with crimson hat, a Scotch-plaid gown, and laughing, half-shut eyes from which her glances stream, like rifts of summer sky through a passing cloud. There are eligible single gentle- men, with no other occupation than to please and to be pleased. Something of wonder, and mystery envelopes one of them at the first — a slight and prepossessing blonde, of genteel A PROFESSOR OR A MILLIONAIRE i6i manners and drooping moustache — an author, it was hinted, a university professor, or a milHon- aire incognito. Then an acquaintance addresses him as "doctor," and presently it becomes known that he is a dentist with large practice in a western city. He has spent the summer abroad in an extended vacation, from which he is now returning home. The "Doctor" is nice and fastidious in his fancies — especially as to ladies, always looking them fairly in the face, perhaps because that gives a better glimpse of the mouth, which from his extended experience, and the amount of treasure he has placed in many mouths, affords a kind of index to the age, fortune and character of the aile under consideration. It is also inti- mated that he is personally interested in an inspection of the market, and that he never yet had found the mouth and teeth that answered his expectations. In that bright New England girl, with the crimson hat and the laughing, half- shut eyes, he certainly displayed a marked and growing interest. I fancied that in this instance i62 TEN DAYS ABROAD his attention was not wholly concentrated on the mouth which was bow-shaped and small, and the teeth, which were pearls and genuine — themselves a treasure. The eyes, the expression, and doubtless the New England wit, had their influence. At times he lost that confident, dental equipoise — and there was an unexpected timidity, when he aided her on the swaying deck through the maze of steamer chairs, which was not consistent with the professional dignity of the dental minuet as it is practised in luxurious "parlors" when assisting the fair patient from an operating chair. Out of the evening concerts came the regular entertainments of the last nights on board ship, which levied on all talent. The first cabin made a respectable showing, and the second cabin did quite as well the night following ; but the steerage deserved the award for accomplishing even more under great difficulties. Their numbers were double those of the cabins, and their auditorium was deep in the bowels of the ship below the water belt. From the upper deck we could look VAUDEVILLE TALENT 163 down the air shaft, thirty feet, upon their stage, though the air at this height became a trifle close and oppressive as it ascended. But neither audience nor players appeared to mind that. They had an elaborate bill lasting until after midnight, with repeated encores, song and dance, coster-singing, and a variety that would have made the reputation of a vaudeville house. Our steward, a bland, smiling and self-confident Scotchman, who plumed himself on his elocu- tionary talent, being "not an educated man," but one who had "obtained his experience by degrees" — and much practice, on patient ocean audiences — did no disdain to present his talent to the steerage having already given it in the cabins with encores; but in the lower deck on this occasion there was a larger array of competitive talent, and his reception was not so cordial. At last on the morning of the tenth day which was Sunday, we turned Montauk Point and stood off Long Island. Now as we neared the journey's end the fog lifted. It had gone entirely when we sighted the light-ship off Fire i64 TEN DAYS ABROAD Island. Services were in progress in the cabin conducted by an orthodox Presbyterian clergy- man from the West, who while suffering the tortures of sickness throughout the voyage, had framed his discourse — it was a fervid thesis upon another Fire Island, whose portrayal this warm morning, in the close cabin, was strikingly real, bringing forth a copious perspir- ation on both speaker and congregation — but an intimation that we should enter the harbor within a few hours, spread quickly, and it cleared the cabin forthwith. Then came the long line of Great South Bay on our northern horizon — sail boats and lighters in the distance — the Pilot Boat, the papers and the news of the world ; best of all, the Highland Light at Navesink, Sandy Hook and the white stretch of beach to Asbury reaching out as if to welcome and encompass our steamer^ and ensure the end of the voyage that afternoon. Trunks were quickly packed and strapped, and a cheerful throng swarmed the decks. "Hurrah! for the Light Ship!" shouted the HURRAH FOR EVERYTHING! 165 hilarious downeaster, and every one hurrahed. ''Hurrah for the Buoys!" and all hurrahed. "Hurrah for Rockaway! for Coney Island! The Elephant ! The distant bathers in the surf !" Back of the Jersey hills great, purple swelling, thunder-clouds loomed up, but rolled over to the north and east, muttering heavy rumbles, scattering flashes of forked light, pouring rain, and throwing a span of imperial dyes upon the retreating cohorts of storm as they vanished in the sunlight, leaving the blue empyrean — a New York summer sky. Within the Narrows the terraced lawns, on the high escarpments of Hamilton and Wads- worth, after the shower were lush, redolent and emerald as on a May morning, their "reeking tubes and iron shards" stretched at rest, with brown sides glistening, like strange, uncouth domesticated animals, blinking i' the sun. Brightly flashed the waters of the Upper Bay — above them the charming homes and cottages on Brooklyn shores ; the graceful outlines of the Bridge arch, and, center of all, the great city on i66 TEN DAYS ABROAD its own isle, beneath its glorious canopy — the realization of a radiant vision in the peaceful quiet of this Sunday afternoon. Crowded excursion steamers whistled. Their crowds shouted and waved welcomes to the incoming Furnessia, whose passengers waved again, while Liberty's giantess smiled down benignly. Steerage looked on in quiet wonder. Citizens of Manhatta and of the mighty Yankee nation sang "Home Again!" without regard to words until their throats were hoarse. Their hearts swelling with pride of their own land, the harbor in its beauty; the city in its power, big with events for the dawning century — full of promise for glorious and ringing deeds to be storied and sung ; and more potent for the future than all that has been, or that is in the world's foreign ports and shores. Up the broad Hudson with its banks rising in tier on tier of marvelous buildings to the skies, we moved, and glided presently into the harbor of the slip. An interval of greeting friends, the turmoil of trunks, and the scramble of AUF WIEDERSEHEN! 167 customs on the long pier, the crowd thinning as night came on, until steamer and pier were well nigh deserted. Those who had haunted her decks and cabins for ten days past were scattered far and wide, when the moon rode forth upon the clouds over the tall buildings of Manhattan. Many had bidden their last farewells, and were already speeding away by train to the North, South, East and West — beyond all earthly power to reunite until Gabriel's trump. Others at home recounted their holiday as a pleasant dream, and retired to rest before entering anew upon the work-a-day world. APR. 18 1901 !:'I"ARY OF CONGRESS 019 904 530 1 TnnillTTITIirnTITTTTlTni^iTiTr;