An American Four-In-Hand in Britain Part 2

Do you know why the American worships the starry banner with a more intense pa.s.sion than even the Briton does his flag? I will tell you. It is because it is not the flag of a government which discriminates between her children, decreeing privilege to one and denying it to another, but the flag of the people which gives the same rights to all.

The British flag was born too soon to be close to the ma.s.ses. It came before their time, when they had little or no power. They were not consulted about it. Some conclave made it, as a pope is made, and handed it down to the nation. But the American flag bears in every fibre the warrant, "_We the People_ in Congress a.s.sembled." It is their own child, and how supremely it is beloved!

It is a significant fact that in no riot or local outbreak have soldiers of the United States, bearing the national flag, ever been a.s.saulted.

Militia troops have sometimes been stoned, but United States troops never. During the worst riot ever known in America, that in our own good city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, twenty-eight United States soldiers, all there were in the barracks, marched through the thousands of excited men unmolested. I really believe that had any man in the crowd dared to touch that flag, General Dix's famous order would have been promptly enforced by his companions. Major-General Hanc.o.c.k recently told me that he had never known United States soldiers to be attacked by citizens. He was in command of the troops during the riots in the coal regions in Pennsylvania some years ago, and whenever a body of his regulars appeared they were respected and peace reigned.

General Dix's order was, "If any man attempts to pull down the flag shoot him on the spot." So say we all of us. And it will be the same in Britain some day, ay and in Ireland too, when an end has been made of privilege and there is not a government and a people, but only a government of the people, for the people, and by the people. The day is not so far off either as some of you think, mark me.

But good-bye, London, and all the thoughts which crowd upon one when in your mighty whirl. You monster London, we are all glad to escape you!

But ere we "gang awa'" shall we not note our visit to one we are proud to call our friend, and of whom Scotland is proud, Dr. Samuel Smiles, a writer of books indeed--books which influence his own generation much, and the younger generation more. Burns's wish was that he,

"For poor auld Scotland's sake, Some useful plan or book could make, Or sing a sang at least."

Well, the Doctor has made several books that are books, and I have heard him sing a song, too, for the days of Auld Lang Syne. May he live long, and long may his devoted wife be spared to watch over him!

THURSDAY MORNING, June 16, 1881.

[Sidenote: _Brighton._]

We are off for Brighton. Mr. and Miss B. accompany us. Mr. and Mrs. K.

have run up to Paisley with the children, and Mr. and Mrs. G. have joined us in their place. The coach, horses, and servants went down during the night.

We had time to visit the unequalled aquarium and to do the parade before dinner. Miss F. and I stole off to make a much more interesting visit; we called upon William Black, whose acquaintance I had been fortunate enough to make in Rome, and whom I had told that I should some day imitate his "Adventures of a Phaeton." A week before we sailed from New York, I had dined with President Garfield at Secretary Blaine's in Washington. After dinner, conversation turned upon my proposed journey, and the President became much interested. "It is the 'Adventures of a Phaeton' on a grand scale," he remarked. "By the way, has Black ever written any other story quite so good as that? I do not think he has."

In this there was a general concurrence. He then said: "But I am provoked with Black just now. A man who writes to entertain has no right to end a story as miserably as he has done that of 'MacLeod of Dare.'

Fiction should give us the bright side of existence. _Real life has tragedies enough of its own._"

A few weeks more and we were to have in his own case the most terrible proof of the words he had spoken so solemnly. I can never forget the sad, careworn expression of his face as he uttered them.

"But come it soon or come it fast, It is but death that comes at last."

One might almost be willing to die if, as in Garfield's case, there should flash from his grave, at the touch of a mutual sorrow, to both divisions of the great English-speaking race, the knowledge that they are brothers. This discovery will bear good fruit in time.

"Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it."

Garfield's life was not in vain. It tells its own story--this poor boy toiling upward to the proudest position on earth, the elected of fifty millions of freemen; a position compared with which that of king or kaiser is as nothing. Let other nations ask themselves where are _our_ Lincolns and Garfields? Ah, they grow not except where all men are born equal! The cold shade of aristocracy nips them in the bud.

[Sidenote: _William Black._]

Mr. Black came to see us off, but arrived at our starting-place a few minutes too late. A thousand pities! Had we only known that he intended to do us this honor, until high noon, ay, and till dewy eve, would we have waited. Just think of our start being graced by the author of "The Adventures of a Phaeton," and we privileged to give him three rousing cheers as our horn sounded! Though grieved to miss him, it was a consolation to know that he had come, and we felt that his spirit was with us and dwelt with us during the entire journey. Many a time the incidents of his charming story came back to us, but I am sorry to record, as a faithful chronicler, that we young people missed one of its most absorbing features--we had no lovers. At least, I am not apprized that any engagements were made upon the journey, although, for my part, I couldn't help falling in love just a tiny bit with the charming young ladies who delighted us with their company.

BRIGHTON, Friday Morning, June 17.

[Sidenote: _The Supreme Moment._]

Let us call the roll once more at the door of the Grand Hotel, Brighton, that our history may be complete: Mr. and Mrs. B., London; Mr. and Mrs.

T. G., Wolverhampton; Miss M. L., Dunfermline; Miss E. F., Liverpool; Mr. and Mrs. McC., Miss J. J., Miss A. F., Mr. B. F. V., Mr. H. P., Jr., Mr. G. F. McC., the Queen Dowager and the Scribe. These be the names of the new and delectable order of the Gay Charioteers, who mounted their coach at Brighton and began the long journey to the North Countrie on the day and date aforesaid. And here, O my good friends, let me say that until a man has stood at the door and seen his own four-in-hand drive up before him, the horses--four n.o.ble bays--champing the bits, their harness buckles glistening in the sun; the coach spick and span new and as glossy as a mirror, with the coachman on the box and the footman behind; and then, enchanted, has called to his friends, "Come, look, there it is, just as I had pictured it!" and has then seen them mount to their places with beaming faces--until, as I say, he has had that experience, don't tell me that he has known the most exquisite sensation in life, for I know he hasn't. It was Izaak Walton, I believe, who when asked what he considered the most thrilling sensation in life, answered that he supposed it was the tug of a thirty-pound salmon. Well, that was not a bad guess. I have taken the largest trout of the season on bonnie Loch Leven, have been drawn over Spirit Lake in Iowa in my skiff for half an hour by a monster pickerel, and have played with the speckled beauties in Dead River. It is glorious; making a hundred thousand is nothing to it; but there's a thrill beyond that, my dear old quaint Izaak. I remember in one of my sweet strolls "ayont the wood mill braes"

with a great man, my Uncle Bailie M.--and I treasure the memory of these strolls as among the chief of my inheritance--this very question came up. I asked him what he thought the most thrilling thing in life. He mused awhile, as was the Bailie's wont, and I said, "I think I can tell you, Uncle." "What is it then, Andrea?" (Not And_rew_ for the world.) "Well, Uncle, I think that when, in making a speech, one feels himself lifted, as it were, by some divine power into regions beyond himself, in which he seems to soar without effort, and swept by enthusiasm into the expression of some burning truth, which has lain brooding in his soul, throwing policy and prudence to the winds, he feels words whose eloquence surprises himself, burning hot, hissing through him like molten lava coursing the veins, he throws it forth, and panting for breath hears the quick, sharp, explosive roar of his fellow-men in thunder of a.s.sent, the precious moment which tells him that the audience is his own, but one soul in it and that his; I think this the supreme moment of life." "Go! Andrea, ye've hit it!" cried the Bailie, and didn't the dark eye sparkle! He had felt this often, had the Bailie; his nephew had only now and then been near enough to imagine the rest.

The happiness of giving happiness is far sweeter than the pleasure direct, and I recall no moments of my life in which the rarer pleasure seemed to suffuse my whole heart as when I stood at Brighton and saw my friends take their places that memorable morning. In this variable, fantastic climate of Britain the weather is ever a source of solicitude.

What must it have been to me, when a good start was all important! I remember I awoke early in the morning and wondered whether it was sunny or rainy. If a clear day could have been purchased, it would have been obtained at almost any outlay. I could easily tell our fate by raising the window-blind, but I philosophically decided that it was best to lie still and take what heaven might choose to send us. I should know soon enough. If rain it was, I could not help it; if fair, it was glorious.

But let me give one suggestion to those who in England are impious enough to ask heaven to change its plans: don't ask for dry weather; always resort to that last extremity when it is "a drizzle-drozzle" you wish. Your supplications are so much more likely to be answered, you know.

There never was a lovelier morning in England than that which greeted me when I pulled up the heavy Venetian blind and gazed on the rippling sea before me, with its hundreds of pretty little sails. I repeated to myself these favorite lines as I stood entranced:

"The Bridegroom Sea is toying with the sh.o.r.e, His wedded bride; and in the fulness of his marriage joy He decorates her tawny brow with sh.e.l.ls, Retires a s.p.a.ce to see how fair she looks, Then proud runs up to kiss her."

That is what old ocean was doing that happy morning. I saw him at it, and I felt that if all created beings had one mouth I should like to kiss them too.

[Sidenote: _The Start._]

All seated! The Queen Dowager next the coachman, and I at her side. The horn sounds, the crowd cheers, and we are off. A mile or two are traversed and there is a unanimous verdict upon one point--this suits us! Finer than we had dreamt! As we pa.s.s the pretty villas embossed in flowers and vines and all that makes England the home of happy homes, there comes the sound of increasing exclamations. How pretty! Oh, how beautiful! See, see, the roses! Oh the roses! Look at that lawn! How lovely! Enchanting! entrancing! superb! exquisite! Oh, I never saw anything like this in all my life! And then the hum of song--La-_la_-LA-LA, Ra-da-_da_-DUM! Yes, it is all true, all we dreamt or imagined, and beyond it. And so on we go through Brighton and up the hills to the famous Weald of Suss.e.x.

While we make our first stop to water the horses at the wayside inn, and some of the men as well, for a gla.s.s of beer a.s.serts its attractions, let me introduce you to two worthies whose names will occupy important places in our narrative, and dwell in our memories forever; men to whom we are indebted in a large measure for the success of the coaching experiment.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Perry, Perry our coachman; and what he doesn't know about horses and how to handle them you needn't overtask yourselves trying to learn. And this is Joe--Joey, my lad--footman and coach manager. A good head and an eloquent tongue has Joe. Yes, and a kind heart. There is nothing he can do or think of doing for any of us--and he can do much--that he is not off and doing ere we ask him.

"Skid, Joe!" "Right, Perry!" these talismanic words of our order we heard to-day for the first time. It will be many a long day before they cease to recall to the Charioteers some of the happiest recollections of life. Even as I write I am in English meadows far away and hear them tingling in my ears.

It was soon discovered that no mode of travel could be compared with coaching. By all other modes the views are obstructed by the hedges and walls; upon the top of the coach the eye wanders far and wide,

"O'er deep waving fields and pastures green, With gentle slopes and groves between."

Everything of rural England is seen, and how exquisitely beautiful it all is, this quiet, peaceful, orderly land!

"The ground's most gentle dimplement (As if G.o.d's finger touched, but did not press, In making England)--such an up and down Of verdure; nothing too much up and down, A ripple of land, such little hills the sky Can stoop to tenderly and the wheat-fields climb; Such nooks of valleys lined with orchises, Fed full of noises by invisible streams, I thought my father's land was worthy too of being Shakespeare's."

[Sidenote: _Rural England._]

I think this extract from Mr. Winter's charming volume expresses the feelings one has amid such scenes better than anything I know of:

"If the beauty of England were merely superficial, it would produce a merely superficial effect. It would cause a pa.s.sing pleasure, and would be forgotten. It certainly would not--as now in fact it does--inspire a deep, joyous, serene and grateful contentment, and linger in the mind, a gracious and beneficent remembrance. The conquering and lasting potency of it resides not alone in loveliness of expression, but in loveliness of character. Having first greatly blessed the British Islands with the natural advantages of position, climate, soil, and products, nature has wrought out their development and adornment as a necessary consequence of the spirit of their inhabitants. The picturesque variety and pastoral repose of the English landscape spring, in a considerable measure, from the imaginative taste and the affectionate gentleness of the English people. The state of the country, like its social const.i.tution, flows from principles within (which are constantly suggested), and it steadily comforts and nourishes the mind with a sense of kindly feeling, moral rect.i.tude, solidity, and permanence. Thus, in the peculiar beauty of England the ideal is made the actual, is expressed in things more than in words, and in things by which words are transcended. Milton's 'L'Allegro,' fine as it is, is not so fine as the scenery--the crystallized, embodied poetry--out of which it arose. All the delicious rural verse that has been written in England is only the excess and superflux of her own poetic opulence; it has rippled from the hearts of her poets just as the fragrance floats away from her hawthorn hedges. At every step of his progress the pilgrim through English scenes is impressed with this sovereign excellence of the accomplished fact, as contrasted with any words that can be said in its celebration."

[Sidenote: _The Scribe as a Singer._]

The roads are a theme of continual wonder to those who have not before seen England. To say that from end to end of our journey they equalled those of New York Central Park would be to understate the fact. They are equal to the park roads on days when these are at their best, and are neither wet nor dusty. We bowl over them as b.a.l.l.s do over billiard-tables. It is a glide rather than a roll, with no sensation of jolting. You could write or read on the coach almost as well as at home.

I mean you could if there was any time to waste doing either, and you were not afraid of missing some beautiful picture which would dwell in your memory for years, or Aleck's last joke, or the Prima Donna's sweet song, Andrew's never-to-be-forgotten lilt, or the Queen Dowager's Scotch ballad pertaining to the district; or what might be even still more likely, if you didn't want to tell a story yourself, or even join in the roaring chorus as we roll along, for truly the exhilarating effect of the triumphant progress is such as to embolden one to do anything. I always liked Artemus Ward, perhaps because I found a point of similarity between him and myself. It was not he but his friend who "was saddest when he sang," as the old song has it. I noticed that my friends were strangely touched when I burst into song. I do not recall an instance when I was encored; but the apparent slight arose probably from a suspicion that if recalled I would have essayed the same song. This is unjust! I have another in reserve for such an occasion, if it ever happen. The words are different, although the tune may be somewhat similar. When I like a tune I stick to it, more or less, and when there are fine touches in several tunes I have been credited with an eclectic disposition. However this may be, there was never time upon our coach for anything which called our eyes and our attention from the rapid succession of pretty cottages, fine flowers, the birds and lowing herds, the grand lights and grander shadows of that uncertain fleecy sky, the luxuriance of the verdure, flowery dells and dewy meads, and the hundred surprising beauties that make England England.

These bind us captive and drive from the mind every thought of anything but the full and intense enjoyment of the present hour; and this comes without thought. Forgetful of the past, regardless of the future, from morn till night, it is one uninterrupted season of pure and unalloyed joyousness. Never were the words of the old Scotch song as timely as now:

"The present moment is our ain, The neist we never see."

Having got the party fairly started, let me tell you something of our general arrangements for the campaign. The coach, horses, and servants are engaged at a stipulated sum per week, which includes their travelling expenses. We have nothing to do with their bills or arrangements, neither are we in any wise responsible for accidents to the property. Every one of the party is allowed a small hand-bag and a strap package; the former contains necessary articles for daily use, the latter waterproofs, shawls, shoes, etc. The Gay Charioteers march with supplies for one week. The trunks are forwarded every week to the point where we are to spend the succeeding Sunday, so that every Sat.u.r.day evening we replenish our wardrobe, and at the Sunday dinner appear in full dress, making a difference between that and other days. This we found well worth observing, for our Sunday evenings were thereby made somewhat unusual affairs. In no case did any failure of this plan occur, nor were we ever put to the slightest inconvenience about clothing. Our hotel accommodations were secured by telegraph. The General Manager had engaged these for our first week's stage, previous to our start.

[Sidenote: _Luncheon._]