The summer of 1878 witnessed the meeting of the Congress at Berlin which followed the Russo-Turkish War. Despite all the scares through which we had pa.s.sed during the winter and spring, we had escaped the war between ourselves and Russia with which we had been so often threatened, and the purpose of the Congress was to render such a war impossible in the immediate future. It was this summer of 1878 that also witnessed Disraeli"s complete triumph over his enemies and his rivals.
He had secured his own way in the Cabinet, though in doing so he had to lose the services of Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon, and to convert Lord Salisbury to views which, up to that time, he had professed to abhor. He had brought the Indian troops to Malta, and had thereby given a significant hint to Europe as to the extent of our resources. He had got a vote of five millions from the House of Commons, and had spent a great part of it in the purchase of ships of war, some of which turned out to be wholly unfitted for the requirements of the English Naval Service. His picturesque and audacious policy had won the favour of the mult.i.tude, and, despite the criticisms of Mr. Gladstone, the Prime Minister was the undisputed master of the nation.
Looking back, I do not think I am unfair when I say that Disraeli"s triumph seemed to be largely due to his power of playing to the gallery.
He gave the crowd in the streets the scenic effects which they loved. He flattered their vanity, and he played upon their weaknesses, and thus he was able in a great measure to realise the florid dreams of his youth, and to strengthen English influence in that Eastern world which had always exercised so great a fascination over him. When he went to Berlin with Lord Salisbury as his companion, there was a great crowd at Charing Cross Station to see him depart. I was one of the spectators, and was struck by the deference which was paid to him by the many distinguished persons who had come to speed him on his journey. Lord Salisbury pa.s.sed unnoticed by his side. At Berlin the same thing happened. In the great Congress in which all the European Powers were represented, Disraeli"s figure outshone all others. Even Bismarck seemed to take a secondary place to that of the Jew adventurer, who had made so splendid a fight for his own hand, and had achieved so magnificent a success. The story of his life, the romance of his career, and his personal peculiarities seemed to have produced a deep impression upon people of all cla.s.ses and of all nationalities, and it is no exaggeration to say that during his residence in Berlin the eyes of the whole world were fixed upon him.
When Disraeli came back from Berlin, having by an astute and not very creditable transaction secured the Island of Cyprus for the British Crown, besides compelling Russia to forego some of the fruits of her victory over Turkey, he met with a reception of extraordinary enthusiasm.
A conqueror returning from the wars could hardly, indeed, have been acclaimed more loudly than was Lord Beaconsfield as he drove from Charing Cross Railway Station to Downing Street. If he had seen fit to dissolve Parliament then he would have swept the country, and would have been confirmed in the possession of power. But he had his own standard of honour, and it did not permit him to attempt to s.n.a.t.c.h a victory of this kind. His political opponents are bound to acknowledge their indebtedness to him in this matter.
Shortly after the close of the Berlin Congress I took a long holiday from my duties at Leeds, and made a most interesting tour through Europe in the company of a friend, Mr. Greig, the manager of the Leeds Steam Plough Works. Greig was engaged on a business tour, his purpose being to see the different estates on which the system of steam culture--of which his partner, Mr. Fowler, was the author--was employed. Our trip took us in the first place to Germany, where we visited Magdeburg, Halberstadt, Berlin, and Saxon Switzerland. Thence we went into Bohemia, staying at Prague some days, and visiting some remote parts of that picturesque but most unromantic country--for there is, alas! no kinship between the Bohemia of reality and that of romance. After Bohemia came Vienna, Budapest, and the Danube. Then at Orsova we turned north, and went by way of Bucharest, Roman, and Lemberg into Galicia, finally making our way back again to Vienna, and thence to Paris and home. In those days much of the ground I have mentioned was practically unknown to English tourists.
The lower Danube, for example, and the great plains of Roumania, though they were within four days" rail of London, were not so well known to English people as the Nile, the Ganges, or the Mississippi. It seems strange, indeed, now to recall the fact that both in Hungary and in Roumania we visited places where Englishmen were regarded as rare and curious animals, people to be run after and stared at as they pa.s.sed along the village street. All this, I presume, is changed now through the influence of the wonder-working Cook. Yet one cannot believe that even now there are not some nooks and corners of the Bukovina where my fellow countrymen have hardly penetrated, and where they are still regarded with eyes of curiosity, if not of fear.
At all events, in my own case, in this year 1878, I no sooner diverged from the beaten track than I had experience of the fact that there was still an unexplored world within the confines of Europe. The long journey down the Danube in a steamboat, now superseded by the railway, formed in itself an expedition of no common interest. It happened that my friend and I had to leave the steamer at Mohacs, famous in history, and in the pages of Thackeray, in order to visit the vast estates of the Archduke Albrecht, at that time the richest member of the Imperial family. It was then that I had the first experience of a genuine Hungarian town, with its streets knee-deep in mud, and swarming with huge dogs of ferocious temper. On quitting the steamboat for the inn, I seemed at one step to have pa.s.sed from civilisation into savagery. Anything more atrociously filthy and repulsive than this establishment I never saw, and yet it was the best inn of a town of thirty thousand inhabitants.
When we reached our destination--a castle of the Archduke"s--the next day, we found ourselves once more surrounded with the comforts and decencies of civilised life, but there were many evidences of the fact that we were here far from the world. The game of croquet, for example, had been for some ten years before this time practically extinct in England. At the Archduke"s castle they seemed just to have heard of it, and were eagerly learning it when we arrived. At one of the outlying farms on the splendid estate, the manager, like all his colleagues, was of n.o.ble birth. When he found that we were Englishmen he suddenly disappeared from the room. In a few minutes he returned with a smiling and handsome young lady on his arm. "My wife speaks English," he declared, in accents of pride. It turned out that the lady, who had been educated at Budapest, had never spoken to any Englishman before. We seemed to be almost the first who had ever penetrated into that unknown land. When the husband found that his wife was able to converse with us he literally danced for joy, and invited all the rest of the company to witness the wonderful spectacle. The hospitality and friendliness of the Hungarians were delightful. However unpopular Englishmen might be elsewhere in Europe, at that time they were certainly loved in Hungary, and the mere fact of his nationality was sufficient to secure for the English traveller an unstinted hospitality.
Bucharest, when we reached it, was still in the occupation of the Russian army. The war with Turkey had ended many months before, but the Russian troops had not yet been withdrawn from the Danube, while thousands of Turkish prisoners of war were still under detention in Roumania. It was interesting to observe the unveiled hostility of the Russian and Roumanian officers when they met in the streets and cafes. The only salutation that pa.s.sed between them was a scowl. I heard many stories as to the jealousies and dissensions which had broken out during the war between the Russians and their allies. The siege of Plevna, in particular, had left bitter memories behind it. The Roumanians openly accused the Russian officers of having selfishly sacrificed the soldiers of the little princ.i.p.ality in order to save the lives of Russians. Great fear was felt in Bucharest that the Russians meant to stay there, and their swaggering and domineering att.i.tude certainly seemed to justify the dread felt by those who were entertaining them so unwillingly. The only happy and smiling people I encountered during my stay in Bucharest were the Turkish prisoners of war and the gipsies. The prisoners were cheerful and good-natured fellows. Most of them were eager to eke out their scanty allowance for food by doing work of any kind, and I was told that when Prince Charles returned in triumph at the head of his army after the close of the war, these Turkish prisoners had begged for and obtained the work of erecting a triumphal arch in his honour. As for the gipsies, they abounded in Bucharest now that winter had begun to close in upon the country, and the stirring strains of their quaint melodies were to be heard in every cafe and at almost every street corner.
Brofft"s Hotel was at that time the chief place of entertainment in Bucharest. The princ.i.p.al bedrooms were occupied by ladies who purported to be the wives of the leading Russian officers, but about whom there was a strong smack of the boulevards. In the restaurant the officers themselves dined and drank freely at numberless small tables, Roumanians and Russians taking care to keep apart from each other. You could dine very well at Brofft"s, but you had to pay for your dinner at a rate which cast into the shade the highest charges of Paris or Vienna. It was here that I had experience of an amusing piece of effrontery on the part of the proprietor. On our first evening in Bucharest my two friends and I--for Mr. Greig had been joined by another member of his firm--dined very well, but we were somewhat startled when we had to pay the bill, which amounted to more than a pound a head. The next evening, determined to be economical, we ordered a very moderate repast. Whilst we were eating it, Brofft himself appeared at our table. "I am sorry you are having so poor a dinner to-night, gentlemen," he said. "I do hope you will let me add something to it, for, you know, the price will be the same, whatever you have." And, sure enough, we again had to pay more than a pound apiece for this very unsatisfactory dinner. After that experience, we always took care to order the rarest and most costly viands on the _carte du jour._
I made one interesting acquaintance at Bucharest. This was Mr. White, the English Consul. Few at that time antic.i.p.ated that he was destined to rise to a height never before attained by a member of the Consular Service, and to end his career as Sir William White, her Majesty"s Amba.s.sador at Constantinople. Yet all who are acquainted with the facts are aware that Sir William was better qualified than almost any other man for this high position, and that his death was nothing less than a national misfortune.
At Bucharest in 1878 he was living in the simplest fashion in the rambling Consulate. When I first went to call upon him he himself opened the door in response to my knock. We had a long conversation upon Eastern politics, in the course of which he explained his own perfect knowledge of affairs in the Balkan Peninsula by telling me that he knew all the languages spoken in that part of the world, and was consequently able to study the local newspapers for himself. White was a big, powerful man, with an air of unpolished frankness and good-nature that seemed to belie his character as a diplomatist. His was one of the most interesting careers in the public service of this country. In diplomacy he climbed from the very bottom of the tree to the very top, and he did so without having any special personal influence. The Russians both hated him and feared him, and there was nothing he enjoyed so much as a game of diplomatic bowls with Prince Gortschakoff or his successor. Some years before he went to Constantinople Lord Salisbury offered to make him our Minister at Pekin, and rumour has it that he recommended the new position to White on the ground that it was at Pekin that the battle between England and Russia would have to be fought out. But White"s great ambition was to be her Majesty"s Amba.s.sador to the Sublime Porte, and he declined the post at Pekin, where he might have been of even greater service to us than he was at Constantinople.
On my return to England I wrote some account of my trip in the _Fortnightly Review,_ then under the editorship of Mr. John Morley.
My journey had undoubtedly opened my eyes to the economic possibilities of Eastern Europe, and it had also proved to me that, at that time, at all events, England was well able to hold her own in the race for commercial supremacy even against Germany. Again and again, in visiting German workshops, I found that the practical direction of the establishment was in the hands of some Englishman or Scotsman, and the intensely practical character of the English workman, his readiness of resource, and his reliance upon himself in difficulties, were themes upon which my German friends were never tired of dilating. I am afraid that the case is somewhat different now, and that we are not so well able to compete, even on their own ground, with the artisans and business men of Germany as we were in 1878.
CHAPTER XII.
A CHAPTER OF MISFORTUNES.
Death of my Sister"s Husband and of my Brother James--An Accident on Marston Moor--Sir George Wombwell"s Story of the Charge of the Light Brigade--His Adventure on the Ouse--Editing a Daily Newspaper from a Sick Bed--Reflections on Death--Death of my Mother--Serious Illness of my Only Daughter.
There is a great deal of truth in the lines which declare that sorrows and troubles do not come alone--"they come not single spies, but in battalions." I have had experience of the fact more than once in my own life; but never was it presented to me in such overwhelming force as in the year 1880. On January 1st in that year I attended the funeral of my only sister"s husband at Kilmarnock. He, the Rev. William Bathgate, D.D., was a Scottish minister, a man of culture and refinement, and the author of some theological works which had attained considerable popularity. His death is a.s.sociated in my mind with a great public calamity, the fall of the Tay Bridge, when a train with all its pa.s.sengers was destroyed. The wind that toppled over the Tay Bridge proved fatal to my brother-in-law.
It was on a Sunday night--the last Sunday of 1879--and he had gone to visit one of the Sunday schools attached to his church. The furious gale, which about the same time destroyed the Tay Bridge, burst in its full fury upon him soon after he had left his house, and after battling against it for some time he found himself so much exhausted that he was unable to move. It was only with the a.s.sistance of a kindly pa.s.ser-by that he was enabled to return home. Half an hour later he died in my sister"s presence, without a sound or a movement. I began the year, consequently, in melancholy circ.u.mstances, in attendance at his funeral.
A few weeks later, at the beginning of February, a loss which I felt still more keenly fell upon me. My elder brother, James, who had been my constant companion from boyhood, and who had spent the closing years of his life in intimate a.s.sociation with me at Leeds, died after a lingering illness. The loss of one who had been for so many years my closest companion and my most confidential friend, with whom I consulted over almost every step of my life, was irreparable, and to this hour I continue to feel the lack of his sympathy and advice in moments of personal perplexity. Always more or less of an invalid, he lived much in the life of his brothers, and his cheery fort.i.tude, kindly humour, and unfailing sympathy made his loss keenly felt in our family circle. He died, by a strange coincidence, on the tenth anniversary of the death of my first wife.
Three months later, I myself met with an accident which not only entailed great suffering upon me, but almost cost me my life. It was in the month of May, when, after the severe exertions imposed upon me by the General Election--of which I shall speak fully later on--I had left Leeds for a few days" rest and change. Sir George Wombwell, of Balaclava fame, had invited a small party--of whom I was one--to join him on a driving tour among the abbeys and ruins of the East Riding. The other members of the party were William Black, Bret Harte, who had not long before taken up his residence in England, and C. O. Shepard, the American Consul at Bradford. Our rendezvous was at York, on a certain Sat.u.r.day, and we had agreed to spend that afternoon in visiting the battlefield of Marston Moor. We drove out to the field in the highest spirits. I, in particular, was elated at the thought of my escape from the drudgery of my office, as well as by the prospect of the agreeable companionship of Black and Harte, not to speak of Shepard, who was an admirable teller of American stories, of which he possessed an inexhaustible fund.
We were crossing the battlefield on foot when we found our way stopped by a hedge. It was a long way round to the gate of the field, and the hedge did not seem very formidable. At all events, Black and Shepard cleared it at a bound, and laughingly challenged Harte and me to follow their example. But we were prudent men, and openly congratulated ourselves upon that fact when we discovered a gap, through which it seemed possible to pa.s.s quite easily. Harte pa.s.sed through without difficulty, and I followed his example. I had to jump about eighteen inches from the bank of the hedge into the field. Nothing seemed simpler. Yet when I landed on my feet one of them was caught in some mysterious way in a hole in the ground, and whilst it was held as in a vice, my body was wrenched round on the axis of my knee. To this day I do not understand how it happened.
All I knew at the moment was that something had given way in the knee-joint, and that when I attempted to put my foot to the ground after extricating it from the hole in which it had been caught "the pains of h.e.l.l gat hold upon me." I suppose I must, up to that time, have been fairly free from physical torments of any kind. I had certainly no conception, before that moment, that it was possible for a human being to suffer such torture as I had then to endure.
I turned away my face from my companions so that they might not see that I was suffering, and they went on unconscious of anything having happened. I set off to follow them, supporting myself as best I could with an umbrella which I chanced to be carrying. When they saw that I limped they inquired the cause, but I rea.s.sured them by saying that it was nothing more than a slight sprain. I was determined that I would not spoil sport, or cast a shadow over the good spirits of our party. But, Heavens, how that knee tortured me! I suppose I was a fool. Indeed the doctor told me so the next morning, with some heat and quite unnecessary emphasis. But I went on at the moment as if nothing had happened, crawling with the aid of my umbrella across field after field, and even climbing up some steps in order to see the room where Cromwell slept the night before--or was it the night after?--the battle. Then I walked on to the place where our carriage was waiting for us. It was standing at a little country public-house. "I am going in here to get a drink," said I to Black. "What!" cried he. "Drink anything here? Why, they"ll poison you!"
"So much the better," I retorted, and then my friends began to realise that I was hurt. They consulted together as to the stimulant that was most likely to be innocuous, and finally decided upon gin. I had never drunk gin in my life before. I now tossed off three gla.s.ses in quick succession. It was very nasty, and it did not take away the pain, but it made me feel rather less like dying than I had done before.
Somehow or other I got back to York, and, with the aid of the hotel porter, undressed and got to bed. By this time my knee was enormously swollen, but I was so ignorant of the actual position of affairs that I honestly thought that all that was necessary to put me right again was a rest of a few hours. Unfortunately, I was not allowed even that h.o.m.oeopathic remedy. We were to dine with Sir George Wombwell at the Yorkshire Club that evening. I proposed to stay in bed at the hotel, but to this Black demurred. He hated to meet strangers, and he declared that if I did not go with him to the club he would not go at all. So once more the porter was requisitioned, and with his help I managed to get into evening clothes. Arrived at the club, the quick, soldierly eye of Sir George Wombwell instantly detected my condition, and diagnosed it more accurately than either I or my companions had done. I remained to dinner, but a leg-rest was provided for me, and everything done to make me feel comfortable, whilst Sir George sent a messenger to Mr. Husband, an eminent surgeon of York, asking him to see me at the hotel as early as possible next morning.
The evening pa.s.sed like a nightmare, but I still have a vivid recollection of the account which Sir George Wombwell gave me of his famous ride with the Light Brigade at Balaclava. His horse was shot under him whilst they were charging for the guns, and, being left behind whilst the brigade thundered onward, he was made prisoner by the Russian cavalry, which closed in behind our English horse. His captivity lasted, however, for but a few minutes. The cry was raised that the English were returning from their mad but heroic enterprise, and instantly the Russians scattered and fled. As Lord Cardigan, who was riding in front of the remnant of the shattered brigade, pa.s.sed Wombwell, he shouted, "Catch a horse, you d--d young fool, and come with us!"--advice which Wombwell promptly took. He found the charger of a Russian officer, and, mounting it, came back in safety with the few survivors of the awful day.
That was not, however Wombwell declared, the occasion on which his life had been in greatest peril. Years afterwards, he and Sir Charles Slingsby and a number of the members of the York and Anisty Hunt were crossing the Ouse in a ferryboat, when some of the horses were seized with panic, and the boat was upset. Sir Charles Slingsby and a number of others--twelve, I believe, in all--were drowned, Wombwell being one of the few who escaped. This he regarded as a much more dangerous adventure than the charge of the Light Brigade. Someone at the dinner-table told a story about this tragedy which Wombwell, I thought, hardly liked. The ferry-boat was upset in the river adjoining Sir Charles Slingsby"s estate. One of his tenants who had heard of the disaster, and had been told that only one of the baronets had escaped, was hurrying to the scene of the catastrophe, when he met Sir George Wombwell riding home. As soon as the man saw Sir George he flung up his hands, and in accents of dismay cried, "Eh! but they"ve drowned t"wrang baronet!"
On the morning after this dinner, Mr. Husband visited me and inspected my knee. I told him that I meant to stay in bed during the day, but hoped he would allow me to keep an engagement I had made to dine at the Cavalry Barracks in the evening. Eyeing me with great severity, the good surgeon said: "You are a man of intelligence, or at least you ought to be, considering the position you hold. You must surely know that you have met with an injury that will keep you in bed for weeks, at least." And he hinted, not obscurely, that still worse things than prolonged confinement to bed would certainly befall me if I did not take the greatest care of my injured leg. So there ended all my hopes of a pleasant holiday. The next day I was taken back to Leeds in a state of absolute helplessness, and, being got to bed in my own house, had to remain there for nine mortal weeks.
Some of the experiences of that time were curious. Phlebitis had set in, and for a time I was in serious danger from the formation of a clot of blood in one of the arteries. As is pretty generally known, whilst this state of things exists death may occur at any moment from the stoppage of the heart through the clot getting free and pa.s.sing into the central organ. It was curious to lie in this condition for several days, never knowing at night whether I should see the sun rise again. But I was very much struck by the fact that I became easily reconciled to my state, and did not feel the slightest apprehension with regard to the course of the disease. I was almost free from pain, and was able to carry on my work as regularly as if I had been in attendance at the _Mercury_ office.
Every evening I dictated my leading article to a shorthand writer. A telephone--at that time a great novelty--was put up by the side of my bed and connected with my room at the _Mercury_ office, and by this means I was kept in constant communication with the members of my staff.
Thus my time pa.s.sed pleasantly enough. When I was not dictating I was reading, and during my confinement I re-read the whole of the Waverley novels. It was when I was once more enjoying the romantic adventures of "Ivanhoe" that I was seized, one afternoon, with the premonitory symptoms which my doctors had told me would indicate the approach of death. At my urgent request they had enlightened me upon this point, and I had learned that death from the accidental stoppage of the heart would be without pain, and would simply be preceded by a feeling of faintness. It was a feeling of this kind which suddenly stole over me as I was reading "Ivanhoe." I felt it deepening, and laid aside my book under the firm conviction that I would never again read printed page. Asking for some stimulant, I was given some brandy and water, but it seemed to have no effect in checking the ever-increasing faintness. So I closed my eyes in the drowsy belief that I should never open them again in this world. I felt no pain, no agitation, no fear. Half an hour later I awoke from a placid sleep, and, to my great surprise, found that I was decidedly better than I had been for some time. This seemed, indeed, to have been the crisis of my illness, and from that point I slowly recovered. My doctors conjectured that a minute clot of blood had really pa.s.sed through my heart, producing the faintness from which I had suffered, but not causing death.
I have dwelt at unconscionable length upon this incident of my accidental injury and subsequent illness, but I have done so for the very reason that, sooner or later, experiences of this kind come to most of us, and it may be of some use to state exactly, not only the wonderful rapidity with which a man by the simplest misadventure may imperil his life, but the sensations with which he greets the apparent approach of death. All who have suffered from severe illness must know how readily the invalid accustoms himself to seclusion from the world, and how quickly the panorama of pa.s.sing life seems to fade into insignificance. The outside world becomes, at such a time, a mere pa.s.sing show which has but a secondary interest for the man who can take no part in it. As for the approach of death, I believe, from my own experience, that there is nothing to which a sick man more easily reconciles himself. Certainly, since those days in 1880 I have lost any fear I may have had before of that inevitable end which awaits us all. It is the recovery from a severe illness of accidental injury that is the really trying thing. For many weeks after I left my bed I was a cripple, compelled to use crutches in moving about, and suffering from extreme weakness. I went to Bridlington, a watering-place on the Yorkshire coast, to recruit, and, hiring a small trawling boat, I spent every day upon the sea, beating up and down the fine bay trawling for fish. In this way I got plenty of fresh air without bodily fatigue, whilst I had the enjoyment of one of my favourite pursuits.
Shortly after my return from Bridlington, and whilst I was still crippled, another great misfortune befell me. This was the death, on the 5th of August, of my mother, a woman of distinct culture and intellectual power, to whom her children had been indebted for many things in addition to the motherly love which she lavished upon them all so freely. It was, I think, the shock of her death, and the exertion of the railway journey to my brother Stuart"s house at Wilmslow, Cheshire, which I took in order that I might see her before she died, that brought about a relapse in my condition. In the hope that I should benefit by it, my doctors ordered me a long sea voyage. It was the first I had ever undertaken. I sailed from Liverpool on the _Sidon_, one of the Cunard Company"s steamers, for a round trip through the Mediterranean to Constantinople and back. The _Sidon_ was a slow old boat, and we took ten days to reach Malta, the first place of stoppage. I never enjoyed ten days so much before or since. The novelty of life at sea charmed me, whilst the freedom from all work and anxiety was delightful. Every day I seemed to have acquired a fresh stock of vigour, and by the time we reached Malta I could no longer pretend to be an invalid. It was fortunate for me that my health had undergone this wonderful improvement, for we had no sooner cast anchor in the busy harbour of Valetta than a telegram was put into my hands, announcing that my only daughter Nellie had been struck down by typhoid on the very day on which I sailed from England.
There was no opportunity at the moment of getting back from Malta to England direct, and I had consequently to continue my voyage to Syra, Smyrna, and Constantinople, getting telegrams, of course, at each place as to the condition of the invalid. At Constantinople I had an urgent summons from my daughter"s medical attendants, and started at an hour"s notice for home by the overland route, such as it then was. Leaving Constantinople on a Tuesday at two o"clock by the Austrian Lloyd steamer for Varna, I reached my own house in Yorkshire shortly after midnight on the following Sunday. I believe I established on that occasion a record in travelling from the Bosphorus to Leeds. I have described this overland journey in "Gladys Fane." It was an experience worth remembering, especially in these days of _trains de luxe_, when the traveller pa.s.ses from Calais to Constantinople without a change of carriage. From Constantinople to Varna I had an exceedingly rough pa.s.sage in the Austrian boat, and at Varna the weather was so bad that it was with difficulty that I persuaded the captain to allow me to land in time to catch the through train. The whole of the following day we were pa.s.sing through the gloomy uplands of Bulgaria. Crossing the Danube at Rustchuk in the evening, we reached Bucharest by nine o"clock at night. Here was the only opportunity I had during my journey of obtaining a night"s rest, and I eagerly availed myself of it. Remembering Brofft"s extortions on the occasion of my previous visit to Bucharest, I went to a new hotel which had just been opened, one of the advertised attractions of which was its moderate charges.
The next morning, when I was preparing for my early start by train, the proprietor of the hotel came to have a chat with me, and I explained to him the reason why I had chosen his house in preference to Brofft"s.
"Quite right, sir!" he exclaimed with great heartiness. "Everybody says the same thing. Take my word for it, sir, Brofft is a thief." At that moment my bill was handed to me. It was more extortionate than anything I had known at Brofft"s. "That is as it may be." I said, turning to the landlord, "but I think you will agree with me that if Brofft is a thief, he is not the only one in Bucharest." Things, I hope, have changed since then. If they have not done so I am sorry for the tourist who unwittingly includes Bucharest in the round of the holiday vacation. From Bucharest to London, and thence to Leeds, I came practically without a break, and on reaching my own home once more, in the dead of the night, I had the joy of knowing that the crisis of my daughter"s illness was pa.s.sed, and that she was spared to me. Here ends the chronicle of my misfortunes during the year 1880. It is but a trivial tale, and one that, I fear, will have small interest for the reader, but I have ventured to tell it as an ill.u.s.tration of the adage that troubles never come singly. In the quarter of a century that has elapsed since then I have not had to encounter such a series of misfortunes as came upon me in the first nine months of that ill-omened year.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1880.
Mr. Gladstone"s Position in 1879--His Decision to Contest Midlothian--How he came to be Adopted by the Leeds Liberals--The Conversation Club--A Visit from John Morley--The Dissolution of 1880--Lecture on Mr.
Gladstone--His Triumphant Return for Leeds--His Election for Midlothian--Mr. Herbert Gladstone Adopted as his Successor at Leeds--Mr.
Gladstone"s Visit to Leeds in 1881--A Fiasco Narrowly Avoided--A Wonderful Ma.s.s Meeting--Mr. Gladstone"s Collapse and Recovery--My Introduction to Him--An Excursion to Tunis--"The Land of the Bey"--Mr. A.
M. Broadley"s Prophecies--Howard Payne"s Grave--A Series of Coincidences.
The misfortunes described in the last chapter befell me in 1880; I must now retrace my steps and go back to the year 1879. That year was largely spent in preparations for the General Election. Party spirit ran very high. Lord Beaconsfield retained his great popularity in London and among the cla.s.ses, and the Press and the clubs in consequence believed that the General Election, when it came, would provide him with another victory.
Mr. Gladstone was hated more than ever by the London journalists, and by all who had been attracted by the showy foreign policy of Lord Beaconsfield. I am afraid that he was not at this time over popular in the inner circle of his own party. He had resigned the leadership in 1875, and had ostensibly gone into retirement. He had emerged from that retirement in 1876, in order to be the voice of the nation in its outburst of indignation against the Sultan.
From that time forward he had occupied a curious position. He was neither leader nor follower, but a great force, acting independently of other persons, and disconcerting them visibly by the unexpectedness of his movements.
I had access, years afterwards, to the records of the meetings of the leading members of the Liberal party during the period between 1874 and 1880. It was easy to gather from these secret and confidential memoirs that Mr. Gladstone was found to be an uneasy bedfellow by his old colleagues. When he was moved by any strong impulse he was very apt to forget that Lord Hartington was the nominal leader of the Opposition, and to take some line of action without waiting to consult his ostensible chief. He did, I believe, consult Lord Granville with frequency, if not with regularity. Lord Granville was, in his opinion, the leader of the whole party, whilst the only post held by Lord Hartington was that of leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons. The result of his frequent interventions in public affairs was undoubtedly to throw the Opposition into some confusion. The _Times_, and the other chief organs of the London Press, constantly poured ridicule upon his speeches, and did their best to accentuate the differences between himself and his former colleagues. It followed--not unnaturally, perhaps--that there were those among the leaders of the Liberal party who desired to prevent Mr.
Gladstone"s return to power. But whilst the great chief was thus a.s.sailed and intrigued against in London, his position in the country was every day becoming stronger.
It was known that he meant to retire from the representation of Greenwich when the Parliament elected in 1874 came to an end. A score of different towns contended for the honour of securing him as the Liberal representative. Leeds, amongst other great const.i.tuencies, sent a deputation to Harley Street, where Mr. Gladstone was living. To all these offers he turned a deaf ear, and to the amazement of everybody it was announced that he had decided to contest Midlothian, at that time represented by Lord Dalkeith, whose father, the Duke of Buccleuch, was the recognised leader of Conservatism in Scotland. Many years afterwards I learned from Mr. Gladstone himself that before accepting the candidature for Midlothian he consulted Lord Granville and Lord Hartington, pointing out to them that if he were to enter into a colossal struggle like that involved in the fight for the great Tory stronghold of Midlothian, instead of accepting one of the safe seats offered to him elsewhere, his position in the party would of necessity be altered. In short, he could only fight Midlothian as a leader. Lord Granville and Lord Hartington, undeterred by this consideration, still pressed him to stand for Midlothian. From the moment he consented to do so Mr. Gladstone undoubtedly regarded himself as the leader in the great campaign upon which the country was about to embark.
In Leeds great efforts were made by the Liberals in preparation for the conflict. My own position in the party was now very different from what it had been in 1874. I had been taken into the innermost circle of the caucus, and now exercised a considerable amount of direct influence over its proceedings. Having formed an intimate friendship with the honorary secretary of the Liberal a.s.sociation, Mr. Mathers, I was consulted upon every step that was taken. It was at my suggestion that Mr.--now Sir James--Kitson was invited to become our president, and I believe I am correct in saying that it was by my arguments that he was induced to accept the office. From the moment when he did so, the organisation of the party in Leeds--where in 1874 we had met with so cruel a disaster--began to advance by leaps and bounds. Kitson was a man of great sagacity and shrewdness, and of much strength of character. Mathers was simply the best organiser and wire-puller I ever met in the course of my life. He was a master of detail, one of those rare men who can retain within their grasp the full knowledge of every fact in the most complicated of problems. He was also, like myself, an enthusiastic Gladstonian. Unkind people in Leeds said in those days that the Liberal party consisted of three persons, Kitson, Mathers, and Reid. This may not have been absolutely correct, but it was certainly not very far from the truth.
On every side we witnessed, during this year 1879, the revival of Liberal feeling, and the rapid growth of a strong hostility to Lord Beaconsfield"s adventures in the domain of foreign affairs. The current had turned with a vengeance, and the flowing tide was indeed with us. We three organisers of Leeds Liberalism were determined that at the coming General Election we would win a victory that should fully redeem the character of our town and give it a leading place in the political world.
We were, however, somewhat hampered for want of a good candidate to stand along with Mr. Barran, the sitting member. I had found a thoroughly suitable man who would have been a credit to the const.i.tuency, but there were other candidates in the field, and it seemed as though one of these would be chosen by the Liberal Four Hundred. For the adoption of a candidate was a matter which rested solely with the Four Hundred, and they clung to this prerogative of theirs with great tenacity.
On the eve of the meeting at which they were to make their final selection of a colleague for Mr. Barran, I learned that my fears were well founded, and that the choice was likely to fall upon a gentleman whom I did not regard as suitable. In order to prevent this, I proposed in the _Leeds Mercury_ of the next morning that, in spite of Mr.
Gladstone"s acceptance of the candidature for Midlothian, we should make him our candidate at Leeds also. It was true that he had already refused the invitation of the Leeds Liberals, but I pointed out that the fight for Midlothian would notoriously be a severe one, and that it was quite possible that Mr. Gladstone might be defeated. In such a case, if the Liberal a.s.sociation adopted my suggestion, Leeds would secure the high honour of being represented by Mr. Gladstone, whilst, in any event, our adoption of him as a candidate would enable him to conduct the contest in Midlothian without feeling any anxiety as to a possible interruption in his Parliamentary career. To my great delight, the Liberal a.s.sociation not only adopted my suggestion, but did so with enthusiasm. I had consulted n.o.body before making it, but I had the satisfaction of finding that everybody approved of it--everybody, that is to say, except the gentleman who had won over to his own candidature a considerable proportion of the Four Hundred.