"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.
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.
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.
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 noble 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 Andrew 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 assent, 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 shore,
His wedded bride; and in the fulness of his marriage joy
He decorates her tawny brow with shells,
Retires a space 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.
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 pass 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 Sussex.
While we make our first stop to water the horses at the wayside inn, and some of the men as well, for a glass of beer asserts 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...
