The first excursion undertaken by our party from Oban was the famous one to Staffa and Iona, and in this we were so fortunate that we almost forgot our disappointment at the Kyles of Bute. Frequently the sea is so rough in this windy region that passengers cannot be landed on the islands. It was so on the day before our trip, and also on the day after it. It seemed to us rough enough on the day we made the trip, and the captain was doubtful about landing us until the very last. But the boats from shore put out and came alongside, swinging on the waves five or six feet up, and then quickly down again, so that it was necessary for us to step in promptly, one by one, just at the moment when they rose to the highest point. It looked dangerous, but nobody backed out. It looked still more dangerous after we were in the tossing boats, with the great green waves running high all around us. I think several of the party had doubts whether they would ever again set foot on land, and there were thankful hearts and deep sighs of relief when, after the visit to Staffa, we all got safe back on the steamer. The danger, however, was more apparent than real. The boats were staunch, strongly manned, and handled with consummate skill.
We visited Iona first, a small island and homely, but sacred and memorable forever as the place where the presbyter abbot, Columba, the Apostle of Caledonia, and his twelve companions from Ireland, landed in A. D. 563, to begin that series of toilsome, but marvellously successful campaigns, which resulted in the evangelization of a large part of Scotland. The tomb of Columba is still shown in the ancient cathedral. For centuries Iona was a part of the domain of the Duke of Argyll, but three or four years ago the late Duke, the author of The Reign of Law, presented the property to the Church of Scotland. Since that time the cathedral has been re-roofed and otherwise restored, so that now it presents a less desolate appearance than it did on my first visit a few years ago. Iona was the burial place of the ancient Scottish kings. More than fifty of them lie in the cemetery, hard by the cathedral, in graves marked, for the most part, by ancient tombstones, with interesting inscriptions. The last of these kings to be laid here was Duncan I., who was murdered by Macbeth about the middle of the eleventh century. Not far away stands Maclean's Cross, supposed to be the oldest in Scotland. It is one of three hundred and sixty Iona crosses which are said to have once stood on the island.
Half an hour from Iona by the steamer is Staffa. Staffa means the "isle of columns." It is of the same columnar basaltic formation as the Giant's Causeway in the north of Ireland, and was produced by the same outpouring of lava that formed the Irish Causeway. We climbed along the irregular floor of perfectly formed polygonal columns, which fit each other with absolute exactness, though no two are alike. We stopped for a moment to sit down in Fingal's Wishing Chair, and then pushed on to see the most impressive of all these natural wonders—Fingal's Cave—which penetrates the volcanic columns for a distance of two hundred and twenty-seven feet.
This stupendous basaltic grotto in the lonely Isle of Staffa remained, singularly enough, unknown to the outer world until visited by Sir Joseph Banks in 1772. As the visitors' boat glides under its vast portal, the mighty octagonal columns of lava, which form the sides of the cavern—the depth and strength of the tide which rolls its deep and heavy swell into the extremity of the vault unseen amid its vague uncertainty—the variety of tints formed by the white, crimson, and yellow stalactites which occupy the base of the broken pillars that form the roof, and intersect them with a rich and variegated chasing—the corresponding variety of tint below water, where the ocean rolls over a dark red or violet-colored rock, from which the basaltic columns rise—the tremendous noise of the swelling tide mingling with the deep-toned echoes of the vault that stretches far into the bowels of the isle—form a combination of effects without a parallel in the world!
Sir Walter Scott's lines express the sentiment most proper to the place:
The trip from Oban to Inverness, through the Caledonian Canal, with its alternating locks and lochs, and its mountain walls on either side, is one of the finest in the world in point of scenery. It was something of a surprise to us to find at Fort Augustus, half way up the canal, the Benedictine Order established in a magnificent group of buildings, which had been erected at a cost of four hundred thousand dollars, but we presently remembered that there had always been a Roman Catholic element in the Highlands, that this element had ardently supported the pretensions of Charles Edward Stuart to the British crown, and that Lord Lovat, the leading Roman Catholic nobleman of the region, had been executed for the treasonable part he took in that affair. In the Tower of London we had seen the block on which he was beheaded, with the print of the axe showing plainly in the wood. In 1876 the Lord Lovat of that time presented this splendid property to the Benedictines. Of Prince Charlie's career in this part of Scotland we shall have more to say in our next letter.
CHAPTER XVI.
Inverness and Memories of Flora Macdonald.
Perth, September 6, 1902.
Our farthest north on our European tour was Inverness, the capital of the Highlands, which we reached from Oban by way of the magnificent route through the Caledonian Canal, and which we left by way of the railroad that runs southwards through the battlefield of Culloden, where the Young Pretender was defeated, and the cause of the Stuarts finally overthrown in 1746. The town has twenty thousand people, is well built of substantial materials, a fresh-looking pink stone predominating, and is the cleanest city we have seen in Great Britain. It has a fine situation, its business portion occupying the more level ground on both sides of its broad, clear river, while handsome villas stretch along the terrace which rises above the valley. At a short distance from the town there rises, from the level plain on the riverside, a strikingly beautiful wooded hill, on the summit and sides of which the people of Inverness have made their cemetery, one of the loveliest of all the lovely cities of the dead.
From elevated points, and especially from the Castle Hill in the midst of the town, one gets a very fine view of richly diversified scenery, comprising, besides river and firth and valley, a wealth of hills, some wooded and others gay with purple heather and green ferns. This central hill, on which the handsome castellated county buildings now stand, was the site of Macbeth's Castle, concerning which Shakespeare represents King Duncan as saying, "This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself unto our gentle senses." Just in front of the buildings which now occupy this celebrated site stands a graceful statue of Flora Macdonald. She is represented as a comely young woman, with her left hand lightly holding her dress skirt, and her right raised as though shading her eyes, while she gazes intently across the water. A very finely executed Scotch collie at her side looks up into her face. [3]
Being a native of North Carolina, and having most pleasant memories of the Highland Scotch communities of the Cape Fear country, and the fine old town of Fayetteville, where Flora Macdonald lived during a portion of her maturer life, I was delighted to be thus reminded that I was now so near the scenes connected with the romantic incidents of her younger days, when, at the peril of her own life, she saved the worthless life of Prince Charles Stuart, the Young Pretender to the British throne.
Students of that period of English history, or readers of Waverly, that immortal romance, which, as the first venture of its then unknown author in this line of literature, gave its name to the whole series of those unrivalled historical romances which were put forth thereafter in rapid succession by Sir Walter Scott, and which have given a greater amount of wholesome pleasure to the world of readers in general than any other series of books that were ever written—students of history and readers of Waverly, I say, will remember, that after the Pretender's delusive victory at Prestonpans, near Edinburgh, and his disappointment at the failure of the Roman Catholic population of western England to rise in support of his cause, he fell back to the northern part of Scotland, and there, on the desolate moor of Culloden, four miles from Inverness, he was overwhelmingly defeated by the Duke of Cumberland, and his army of devoted Highlanders cut to pieces. Over that bloody field the star of the Stuarts, a race which had so long been a curse to Great Britain, sank to rise no more, and the Protestant succession has never since been seriously called in question.
The Pretender, with a few faithful friends, fled through the wild country to the southwest, and, after many hardships and hairbreadth escapes, reached the Outer Hebrides, and was concealed in a cave there, on the wet and windy island of Benbecula. But the fact that he was on this island soon became known to the government, and then his position became perilous in the extreme. By sea and land every precaution was taken to prevent his escape, every road, pass and landing place being guarded, and the whole coast being patrolled by government vessels in such numbers that no craft, however small, could approach or leave the island unobserved, except perhaps under cover of darkness by special good fortune, while some two thousand soldiers made diligent search on shore; in addition to which a prize of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars was offered for his capture. In this crisis of his affairs it was agreed that a final attempt for his rescue should be made through the agency of a young lady of the neighborhood, Miss Flora Macdonald, then twenty-four years of age, two years younger than the Prince himself, but whose selection for his perilous office argues a prudence and strength of character far beyond her years.
This remarkable young woman was well born, being the granddaughter of the Rev. Angus Macdonald, known throughout the Isles as "the strong minister," on account of his extraordinary physical strength. She was also well bred, and well educated, having enjoyed not only the advantages of her own home, and of the other respectable families of her native island, but also the benefit of long residence in the home of her kinsman, Sir Alexander Macdonald, of Monkstadt, in the Island of Skye, and of three years in the Ladies' Seminary of Miss Henderson, at Edinburgh. Sir Alexander was loyal to the house of Hanover, and had refused to take any part in supporting the pretensions of Prince Charles. Flora also was indifferent to the claim of the Stuarts, and saved the Pretender's life out of pure compassion. Indeed, afterwards, when she had been released from her imprisonment at London on the charge of treason, and the Prince of Wales called on her and asked her, half jocularly, how she dared to assist a rebel against his father's throne, she answered with characteristic simplicity and firmness that she would have done the same thing for him had she found him in like distress.
The plan adopted, and successfully carried out, for the escape of the Pretender from Benbecula to Skye was this: Our heroine, having expressed a strong desire to visit her mother, then living in Skye, procured a passport for herself and two servants from her stepfather, Captain Hugh Macdonald, who, though in command of a body of the King's militia on Benbecula, shared the general compassion for the beaten Prince, and the general desire that he might escape with his life. One of these servants was Neil Macdonald, a faithful, intelligent, and pretty well educated youth, who had spent several years in Paris, and, therefore, spoke French fluently, and who, after the adventures with which we are here concerned, followed the Pretender to France, and became the father of the celebrated Marshal Macdonald, Duke of Tarentum, one of Napoleon's great generals. The other, ostensibly an awkward and overgrown Irish girl, was in reality Prince Charles himself. With the principal member of the party thus disguised, and armed with the passport for use in case of need, these three, with a picked boat crew of six, set out on a dark night when the rain was falling in torrents, and, after an exceedingly tempestuous and perilous voyage, arrived safely in Skye, where the coolness, courage and resourcefulness of Flora Macdonald baffled the King's officers, overcame all difficulties, and eventually accomplished the desired end of getting the Pretender to the mainland, whence, after three months more of severe hardships, he got aboard of a French vessel, and so reached the continent. That he was utterly unworthy of the great service rendered him, is clearly shown by the fact, that though he lived for more than forty-two years after he parted with her on the beach of Portree, he never acknowledged, by letter or otherwise, the dangers to which she exposed herself in order to save his life. At his death his body was appropriately laid in St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome with the rest of his Romish kindred.
Flora Macdonald's part in the escape of the young Pretender could not long be concealed. As soon as it became known she was arrested, and taken on board one of the King's vessels, and by General Campbell sent to Dunstaffnage Castle, on Loch Etive, his note to the governor of the castle referring to her as "a very pretty young rebel." After ten days of imprisonment there, she was taken to Leith, the port of Edinburgh, and placed on board the Bridgewater, where she was detained for nearly three months, being lionized the while by the aristocracy and professional men of the Scottish metropolis in a way that would have turned a weaker head. An Episcopal clergyman of the place wrote of her as follows:
"Although she was easy and cheerful, yet she had a certain mixture of gravity in all her behavior, which became her situation exceedingly well, and set her off to great advantage. She is of a low stature, of a fair complexion, and well enough shaped. One would not discern by her conversation that she had spent all her former days in the Highlands, for she talks English easily, and not at all through the Erse tone. She has a sweet voice, and sings well; and no lady, Edinburgh-bred, can acquit herself better at the tea-table, than what she did when in Leith Roads. Her wise conduct, in one of the most perplexing scenes that can happen in life—her fortitude and good sense—are memorable instances of the strength of a female mind, even in those years that are tender and inexperienced."
In November, 1746, the Bridgewater sailed, with our heroine and others, to London, where they were to stand trial on charges of treason. Her popularity, however, was so great, and public sentiment so strongly opposed to the infliction of any stern penalty upon a young and attractive woman for the performance of a self-sacrificing act of humanity, that, after a short confinement in the gloomy Tower of London, whose walls have enclosed so many heavy hearts in the course of the centuries, she was turned over to friends, who became responsible to the government for her appearance when demanded, and, after remaining a state prisoner in this mitigated manner for some twelve months, she was set at liberty, under the Act of Indemnity of 1747. The first use she made of her freedom was to solicit as a special favor that her fellow-prisoners from the Isles should be given the same liberty as herself, and the request was granted, one of those thus released being her future father-in-law, Macdonald of Kingsburgh.
Some three years after her return to her native islands, she was married, in 1750, to Allan Macdonald. Boswell, in his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, thus describes the man to whom our heroine yielded her heart and hand:
"He was completely the figure of a gallant Highlander, exhibiting the graceful mien and manly looks which our popular Scotch song has justly attributed to that character. He had his tartan plaid thrown around him, a large blue bonnet with a knot of black ribbon like a cockade, a brown short coat, a tartan waistcoat with gold buttons, a bluish philibeg, and tartan hose. He had jet-black hair, tied behind, and was a large, stately man, with a steady, sensible countenance."
It was in 1773 that Boswell and Dr. Samuel Johnson were entertained at the hospitable home of Allan Macdonald and his famous wife. The great lexicographer and moralist was delighted with his hostess and describes her as "a woman of middle stature, soft features, gentle manners, and elegant presence." He asked her, as a special favor, to let him sleep in the bed which had been occupied by the unfortunate Prince, a request which she readily granted, adding, to his immense gratification, that she would also furnish him with the identical sheets on which the Prince had lain, and which, by the way, she kept till the end of her days, taking them with her to North Carolina and back, and in which, at her own request, her body was wrapped after her death. Before leaving the house next morning, Dr. Johnson laid on his toilet table a slip of paper containing the pencilled words, Quantum cedat virtutibus aurum, which Boswell renders, "With virtue weighed, what worthless trash is gold."
Through no mismanagement or extravagance of his own, but in consequence of losses incurred by his father, by the part he had taken in the Pretender's cause, Allan Macdonald had become seriously embarrassed, and so, in the hope of mending his fortune, he determined to emigrate to North Carolina, where many other families from Skye had already settled. Accordingly, in 1774, with his wife and their nine children, he sailed for Wilmington, and, after receiving various attentions there, whither the fame of his wife had preceded them, they went up the Cape Fear River to Cross Creek, now called Fayetteville, and after some months in Cumberland county, where they were regular worshippers in the Presbyterian Church, purchased a place on the borders of Richmond and Montgomery counties, which they named Killiegray.
Their life in America was a sad one. Two of their children died, a bereavement made the more trying to the mother because of the absence of her husband, whose duties as a military officer required his presence elsewhere. The Revolutionary War was on the point of breaking out, and Governor Martin, seeing the honor paid to Allan Macdonald by the Highlanders, made him brigadier-general of a command of his countrymen, which became a part of the ill-fated army that was defeated by the American patriots at the battle of Moore's Creek. He was captured and committed to Halifax jail, Virginia, as a prisoner of war. With misfortunes thickening around her, her husband in prison, her five sons away from home in the service of the King, her youngest daughter enfeebled by a dangerous attack of typhus fever, and her adopted country in the throes of war, Flora Macdonald resolved, on the recommendation of her imprisoned husband, to return to Scotland, and, having obtained a passport through the kind offices of Captain Ingram, of the American army, she went to Wilmington, and later to Charleston, whence she sailed in 1779.
During this voyage she had the last of her notable adventures, in a sharp action between the vessel on which she sailed and a French privateer. She characteristically refused to take shelter below during the engagement, but appeared on deck, and encouraged the sailors, assuring them of success. She had an arm broken in this battle, and was accustomed to say afterwards that she had fought both for the house of Stuart and the house of Hanover, but had been worsted in the service of both.
When peace was restored between Britain and America, her husband was released from his long imprisonment, and returned as speedily as possible to Skye, where they continued to live comfortably and happily for eight or nine years. She died on the 5th of March, 1790, and was buried in the churchyard of Kilmuir, in the north end of Skye, her funeral being more numerously attended than any other that has ever taken place in the Western Isles.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Three or four months after our visit to Inverness, I had the pleasure of meeting the sculptor of this striking statue, Mr. Alexander Davidson, of Rome, and of talking with him at large about the heroine of the Highlands.
CHAPTER XVII.
From Scotland to England—Western Route.
Stratford-on-Avon, September 13, 1902.
The finest expanses of heather that we saw in Scotland were on the great moors through which our train ran southwards from Inverness, a rolling sea of pinkish purple bloom, stretching for miles and miles on every hand. Farther down we enjoyed the picturesqueness of the Pass of Killiecrankie, but it was the history here rather than the scenery which interested us, for it was here that Claverhouse, the stony-hearted persecutor of the Covenanters, fought and won his last battle, but lost his own life. Still farther south, at Dunkeld, we were reminded of the heroic and successful resistance made by the staunch men of Galloway to the hitherto victorious Highlanders, well described in Mr. Crockett's Lochinvar, which, as many of my young readers know, is a sort of sequel to The Men of the Moss Hags.
The Tay at Perth is a noble stream. It is said that when the Romans came in sight of it, they exclaimed, "Ecce Tiber! Ecce campus Martius!" The scornful resentment which Scotchmen feel at this comparison of their beautiful river to the more famous Italian stream, which Hawthorne somewhere describes as "a mud puddle in strenuous motion," is expressed in the lines which Sir Walter Scott has placed at the head of the first chapter of his Fair Maid of Perth:
It has been whimsically said that Perth is the smallest city in the world, because it is situated between two inches. Inch was the old Scottish word denoting an island or meadow. We were most interested, of course, in the North Inch, where the judicial combat took place between the two clans, and in which Henry Wynd and Conachar were engaged. The name of one of these clans, the Clan Quhele, reminded me of the thrifty little town built up by the Highland Scotch element in eastern North Carolina. They called the town "Quhele." But the other native elements of the population, not appreciating Scotch tradition and what seemed to them an outlandish name, changed it in common use to "Shoe Heel," and this undignified designation of their town so completely ousted the other that the people by act of legislature had the name changed to "Maxton," that is, Mac's Town, for nine-tenths of the people in that region are Macs, and mighty good people they are, too. We visited the Fair Maid's House, and in the evening read the Magician's romance about her. Through the great kindness of relatives and boyhood companions of friends of ours in Richmond, who had the good fortune to be born and brought up in Perth, we were given every opportunity to see the interesting old city from every point of view, and both those of us who climbed to the top of Kinnoul Hill, which an old traveller once called "the glory of Scotland," and those of us who drove with the kind friends above mentioned to Scone Palace, whence the ancient crowning stone now in Westminster Abbey was taken, were fully agreed that the place richly deserved its affectionate name of "The Fair City." One member of our party made an excursion one day from Perth to Kirriemuir, the "Thrums" of Mr. Barrie's stories, while two others devoted the day to an excursion in the other direction to the beautifully situated town of Crieff, world renowned as a health resort. Here we were most pleasantly entertained by the kind friends in whose delightful home I was a guest at Glasgow in 1896. Any one of the drives about Crieff on a perfect day, such as we had, will give one a new impression of the loveliness of Perthshire, the district of Scotland to which Sir Walter awards the palm for beauty.
On my former visit, I had made a detour from Perth, in this same direction, for the purpose of seeing Logiealmond, the "Drumtochty" of Ian Maclaren, which is only a few miles from Crieff, and had visited the Free Church, in which the young pastor of the Bonnie Brier Bush stories preached "his mother's sermon," and "spoke a gude word for Jesus Christ"; and the Established Church, where, under a big elm, the nippy tongue of Jamie Soutar was wont to wag on Sunday mornings; and the farm of Burnbrae, and other places in the glen which has now become so famous. I am sorry to say that Dr. John Watson's later development, both theological and literary, has not been so satisfactory as was once expected.
On our way down to Edinburgh we had a glimpse from the car windows of Loch Leven, and the island castle in which Mary Queen of Scots was confined to keep her out of mischief, and in connection therewith recalled what we could of The Monastery and The Abbot, the former one of the least successful, and the latter one of the most successful of Scott's romances. We had a glimpse also of Dunfermline, the birthplace of Andrew Carnegie, to say nothing of its ancient renown, crossed the Forth Bridge once more, made a brief stay in Edinburgh, and pushed on to Ayr, passing the battlefield of Ayrsmoss and other points of interest in connection with the Covenanters. We could give only two days to Ayr, but saw the birthplace of Burns, Auld Alloway Kirk, Bonnie Doon, and the various memorials of the poet; then went to Dumfries principally to see the Burns monuments there, passing reluctantly through the Covenanter country without stopping. From Dumfries we crossed the border, passing the original Gretna Green, where for more than a hundred years the runaway couples from England were married, and went direct to Keswick, at the head of Derwentwater, for the purpose of seeing something of the English Lake District. Skiddaw is a noble and satisfying mountain. We were interested also in the memorials of Southey at Crossthwaite Church. But Southey is responsible for the severest disappointment that comes to travellers in the Lake District. By his artificial and jingling lines on "How the water comes down at Lodore," he has raised expectations which the poor little falls at the foot of Derwentwater cannot realize. The American who came there and sat down on a rock and watched the falls for a while, and then declared that there was at least a gill of water coming down, was hardly guilty of a greater exaggeration in one direction than Southey in the other. But there is no other disappointment about the scenery of the English Lakes. It is lovely. It is said that a famous classical scholar, preaching to a small congregation of rustics in the Lake District, said to them, "In this beautiful country, my brethren, you have an apotheosis of nature and an apodeikneusis of theocratic omnipotence!" We trust that the sentiment which he tried to express was all right, notwithstanding the insufferably pedantic form of it. Of course we took the coach from Keswick to Windermere, stopping for the night at Ambleside, and visiting the grave of Wordsworth hard by the clear and placid stream, an ideal resting-place for the poet of nature.
Chester, with its quaint Rows, and red sandstone cathedral, and its high promenade on top of the walls encircling the old part of the town, and especially its Roman remains—for Chester is fundamentally a Roman town, as its name indicates (it was the Castra of the Twentieth Legion)—interested us, as did also Eaton Hall, the magnificent seat of the Duke of Westminster, three miles distant; but we had rain, rain, rain, and besides, we had lingered so long in the fascinating "land of the mountain and the flood" that we were anxious to push on to places of still more interest to us. So we did not tarry there long. We treated Coventry, Kenilworth, Leamington, and even Lichfield, in the same touch-and-go fashion. We could not bring ourselves to omit Lichfield altogether, partly because of its lovely cathedral, but chiefly because it was the town of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the greatest man of books that ever lived. Therefore, we stopped there long enough to go through the rich collection of Johnson relics in the house where he was brought up, to study the monument to him in the marketplace in front, and to inspect the cathedral. Boswell's Life of Johnson is the best biography in the English language. The careful reading of it is a pretty thorough education in literature. I fear it is not read as much as it used to be. People are too much occupied with the ephemeral effusions of contemporary mediocrities to read the great books.
Our visit to this town reminded me of a story that I had read years ago of a certain bishop of Lichfield who had a reputation for repartee and ready replies to difficult questions. In a crowded room one evening, when it was not known that the bishop was present, the conversation turned to this aptness of his, and a man said, "I should like to meet that bishop of Lichfield; I'd put a question to him that would puzzle him."
"Very well," said a voice from another corner, "now is your time, for I am the bishop."
The first speaker was somewhat taken aback, but recovered himself sufficiently to say, "Well, my lord, can you tell me the way to heaven?"
"Nothing easier," answered the bishop, "you have only to turn to the right and go straight ahead."
And now we are off for the Shakespeare country, not far away. Very different from the bold scenery of Scotland is that of this part of England. Here one sees—
The most striking feature of an English landscape to an American eye is the extraordinary finish—lawns, fields, fences, houses, roads, are all such as can belong only to an old and prosperous country. An Oxford man, when asked how they managed to get such perfect sward in the college lawns, replied: "It is the simplest thing in the world; you have only to mow and roll regularly for about four hundred years."
At Stratford-on-Avon we stayed at the Red Horse Inn, Washington Irving's hotel when here. We visited Anne Hathaway's cottage, the school of the poet's boyhood, the ugly and staring Shakespeare memorial, and the other points of interest. It is familiar ground to most readers, and I shall refer to only two things.
In the church where Shakespeare is buried there is an American window, not yet finished when I first saw it, and there was a box hard by to receive the donations of American visitors. The rich stained glass represents the infant Christ in his mother's arms, and on either side English and American worthies in attitudes of adoration. On one side are Amerigo Vespucci, Christopher Columbus and William Penn, representative pious Americans, and on the other Bishop Egwin of Worcester, "King Charles the Martyr and Archbishop Laud!" The fact that more than two thousand dollars have been contributed for this window is conclusive proof of the humiliating fact that a large number of the Americans who visit Stratford are ninnies. I venture the assertion that their admiration for Shakespeare is humbug, that they have not sufficient intelligence to appreciate his real worth, and that they could stand about as good an examination on the immortal plays as that King George who, after vain attempts to read Shakespeare, gave it up with the remark that it was very dull stuff. He was "clever just like a donkey," as one of our European guides said when we asked him about the intellectual grade of certain monks, and these citizens of a free country who give money for a monument to Charles I. and Archbishop Laud are equally clever. I was speaking of this window to one of the most interesting men I met in Scotland, my host, the learned and distinguished Dr. W. G. Blackie, and he put the whole thing into "the husk o' a hazel" with the remark that "Charles the First was one of the most incorrigible liars that ever lived." He was, and he was moreover the inveterate foe of every principle represented by the American Government. And yet Americans are contributing to a memorial window of him and Laud!
As one wanders about the streets of the quaint English town he is beset from time to time by groups of children, who in a kind of humming or chanting chorus recite the leading facts in the life of Shakespeare, for which they expect, of course, to receive a small fee. The substance and sound of this curious monotone have been represented approximately as follows: "William Shykespeare, the gryte poet, was born in Stratford-on-Avon in 1564—the 'ouse in which he dwelt may still be seen—'is father in the gryte poet's boyhood was 'igh bailiff of the plyce—one who shykes a spear is the meaning of 'is nyme," and so on. In like manner the London newsboys say, "Pipers, sir?" As a friend of mine puts it, they do not "label your trunks" here, but "libel your boxes," and they call the Tate Gallery "Tight." That reminds me of the queer pronunciation of many proper names in Great Britain. Of course you know that Thames is pronounced Temz, and Greenwich Grinij, and Beauchamp Beecham, and Gloucester Gloster, and Brougham Broom. But did you know that Kirkcudbright was pronounced Kirk-coó-bree, that at Cambridge they call Caius College Keys College, and that at Oxford they call Magdalen College Maudlen College? The Cockburn Hotel at which we stopped in Edinburgh is called Coburn. So Colquhoun is Cohoon, Wemyss is Weems, Glamis is Glams, Charteris is Charters, Methuen is Methven, Cholmondeley is Chumley, Marjoribanks is Marchbanks, Ruthven is Riven, DeBelvoir is De Beever and Menzies is Mingis. Worse yet, Bethune is Beeten, Levison-Gower is Luson-Gore, Colclough is Coatley, St. John is Sinjun, St. Leger is Silleger, and Uttoxeter is Uxeter. But, then, we have in Virginia the name Enroughty pronounced Darby. High Holborn in London is 'I 'Obun. Some of their contractions are remarkable. The name of Bunhill Fields, the great Nonconformist burying-ground, is short for Bone Hill. The famous charity school, where the boys wear blue coats, is called "The Blukkit School," instead of the Blue Coat School. Rotten Row, the fashionable track for horseback riders in Hyde Park, is an ugly contraction of the French words route de roi, the king's road, because there was a time when only the king was allowed to use it. I cannot leave this subject without telling you that the name of Dugald Dalgetty of Drumthwacket, who afforded you so much amusement when you were reading The Legend of Montrose, is called in Scotland Diggety instead of Dalgetty.
Other things of interest in this connection are that shoes are not shoes in England, they are boots. If you ask for shoes they will give you slippers. There are no overshoes, only galoches. No shirtwaists, nothing but blouses. You can't get a spool of thread, but a reel of cotton. Locomotive engineers are called "drivers," and conductors are called "guards." In Scotland all the church notices are "intimations."
CHAPTER XVIII.
A Visit to Rugby and a Tramp to the White Horse Hill.
London, September 20, 1902.
One would think at first view that it would be as easy to write a good book for boys about school life as to write a good story about any other subject. But it does not seem to be so. At any rate, many gifted and practised authors have attempted it, with only moderate success. Archdeacon Farrar, one of the most versatile writers of our time, has given us a pretty good story of school life in his St. Winifred's, but the work is marred by its too constant appeal to morbid emotion. Mr. Rudyard Kipling, too, has tried his hand on a book for boys, and has only given us what Dr. Robertson Nicoll justly calls "that detestable thing," Stalky & Co. The less boys have to do with that kind of books the better. High hopes were raised by the announcement that the Rev. John Watson, D. D., of Liverpool, better known as "Ian Maclaren," author of Beside the Bonny Brier Bush, and many other exceedingly popular volumes, was to publish a book on school-boy life. It was known that he had the requisite talent, sympathy and humor, that he was a scholarly and high-minded man, and that he had sons of his own. Surely these are just the qualifications that a man ought to have in order to write an ideal book for boys. But Dr. Watson's book, Young Barbarians, was a disappointment. It has many true and bright and laughable things in it, and it glorifies manliness and pluck, but it often ridicules the good boys of the school, the boys who give the teacher no trouble and perform their tasks faithfully, and it makes the most mischievous and lawless boy in school its hero. Besides, it is not one continuous story, but a group of sketches.
In short, I know only one book of this class having the first order of merit, and that is Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby. In my judgment, that is the best book for boys that has yet been written, the most natural, the most interesting, the most wholesome. It has an abiding charm. I read it as a boy, and I have read it again and again since I was grown. It is one of the books whose scenes I have always wished to visit. The opportunity came a few days ago while I was travelling through Central England with several youngsters, ranging from eleven years to fifteen, to whom I had read Tom Brown, and who wished to visit Rugby.
The place is now an important railway junction, with a wilderness of tracks, and trains flying in and out in every direction. What a change in the mode of travel since the days of the Pig and Whistle which brought Tom down to Rugby! The school itself, however, is much the same—the venerable buildings and quadrangles; the doctor's house, with its wealth of vines; the wide sweep of green playground, where Tom had his memorable first experience at football, and "the island," as the mound on one side was called. On the bulletin board was an announcement about "hare and hounds," so that this splendid game, so finely described in the book, is evidently still a favorite. One marked innovation since Tom's time is the introduction of the military feature into the school. The boys are now regularly drilled, and in passing through the buildings one sees the rows of rifles neatly ranged along the walls. It is one of many indications of England's effort to keep up a full stream of recruits for her army.
In the library we are shown the long gilt hand from the old clock in the school tower, the very hand on which Tom and East scratched their names as a suitable conclusion to a certain series of exploits; and, looking closely, we see the name "Thomas Hughes." He was the original of Tom Brown, and to him we are indebted for this unrivalled story of life at school. Just in front of the library building stands a singularly fit and vital bronze statue of Judge Hughes, represented as wearing a sack coat, informal, manly, keenly intelligent, kind and true—the very thing to appeal to boys.
I spoke above of the generally unchanged appearance of the buildings. But the library just mentioned is an exception, being new; and another exception is the very large and handsome new chapel of variegated brick, so that we no longer see it just as it was when Tom, on revisiting Rugby, knelt before Dr. Arnold's tomb, and lifted a subdued and thankful heart to God. But the remains of the great head-master still lie there, and on one side of the chapel is a good recumbent statue of Arnold, and just below it a similar one of his favorite pupil, Stanley, afterwards the celebrated dean of Westminster.