EXCURSIONS FROM LONDON.
Strange ways.--"The bears that went over to
Charlestown."--The delights of a runaway without
its dangers.--Flower show at the Crystal
Palace.--Whit-Monday at Hampton Court.--A queen
baby.--"But the carpets?"--Poor Nell
Gwynne.--Vandyck faces.--Royal beds.--Lunch at the
King's Arms.--O Music, how many murders have been
committed in thy name!--Queen Victoria's home at
Windsor.--A new "house that Jack built."--The
Round Tower.--Stoke Pogis.--Frogmore.--The Knights
of the Garter.--The queen's gallery.--The queen's
plate.--The royal mews.--The wicker
baby-wagons.--The state equipages.
WE bought an umbrella,--every one buys an umbrella who goes to
London,--and this, in its alpaca glory, became our constant companion.
We purchased a guide-book to complete our equipments; but so
disreputable, so yellow-covered, was its outward appearance, so
suggestive of everything but facts, that we consigned it to oblivion,
and put ourselves under the guidance of our Boston friends, the Good Man
and his family.
For two busy weeks we rattled over the flat pavings of the city in the
low, one-horse cabs. We climbed towers, we descended into crypts, we
examined tombstones, we gazed upon mummies. Everything was new,
strange, and wonderful, even to the little boys in the street, who, as
well as the omnibus drivers, were decked out in tall silk hats--a piece
of absurdity in one case, and extravagance in the other, to our minds.
The one-horse carriages rolled about upon two wheels; the occupants,
like cross children, facing in every direction but the one they were
going, and everybody, contrary to all our preconceived ideas of law and
order, turned to the left, instead of to the right,--to say nothing of
other strange and perplexing ways that came under our observation. We
had come abroad upon the same errand as the bears who "went over to
Charlestown to see what they could see," and so stared into every
window, into every passing face, as though we were seeking the lost. We
became known as the women who wanted a cab; our appearance within the
iron posts that guard the entrance to Queen's Square from Southampton
Row being the signal for a perfect Babel of unintelligible shouts and
gesticulations down the long line of waiting vehicles, with the charging
down upon us of the first half dozen in a highly dangerous manner.
Wisdom is sometimes the growth of days; and we soon learned to dart out
in an unexpected moment, utterly deaf and blind to everything and
everybody but the first man and the first horse, and thus to go off in
triumph.
But if our exit was triumphant, what was our entry to the square, when
weary, faint with seeing, hearing, and trying in vain to fix everything
seen and heard in our minds, we returned in a hansom! English ladies do
not much affect this mode of conveyance, but American women abroad
have, or take, a wide margin in matters of mere conventionality,--and so
ride in hansom cabs at will. They are grown-up baby perambulators upon
two wheels; the driver sitting up behind, where the handle would be, and
drawing the reins of interminable length over the top of the vehicle.
Picture it in your mind, and then wonder, as I did, what power of
attraction keeps the horse upon the ground; what prevents his flying
into the air when the driver settles down into his seat. A pair of low,
folding doors take the place of a lap robe; you dash through the street
at an alarming rate without any visible guide, experiencing all the
delights of a runaway without any of its dangers.
FLOWER SHOW AT THE CRYSTAL PALACE.
A ride by rail of half an hour takes one to Sydenham. It is a charming
walk from the station through the tastefully arranged grounds, with
their shrubberies, roseries, and fountains, along the pebble-strewn
paths, crowded this day with visitors. The palace itself is so like its
familiar pictures as to need no description. Much of the grandeur of its
vast proportions within is lost by its divisions and subdivisions. There
are courts representing the various nations of the earth,--America, as
usual, felicitously and truthfully shown up by a pair of scantily
attired savages under a palm tree; there are the courts of the Alhambra,
of Nineveh, and of Pompeii; there are fountains, and statues, and
bazaars innumerable, where one may purchase almost anything as a
souvenir; there are cafes where one may refresh the body, and an immense
concert hall where one may delight the soul,--and how much more I
cannot tell, for the crowd was almost beyond belief, and a much more
interesting study than Egyptian remains, or even the exquisite mass of
perfumed bloom, that made the air like summer, and the whole place a
garden. They were of the English middle class, the upper middle class,
bordering upon the nobility,--these rotund, fine-looking gentlemen in
white vests and irreproachable broadcloth, these stout, red-faced,
richly-attired ladies, with their soft-eyed, angular daughters following
in their train, or clinging to their arms. We listened for an hour to
the queen's own band in scarlet and gold, and then came back to town,
meeting train after train filled to overflowing with expensively arrayed
humanity in white kids, going out for the evening.
A DAY AT HAMPTON COURT.
It was Whit-Monday,--the workingman's holiday,--a day of sun and shower;
but we took our turn upon the outside of the private omnibus chartered
for the occasion, unmindful of the drops; our propelling power, six gray
horses. By virtue of this private establishment we were free to pass
through Hyde Park,--that breathing-place of aristocracy, where no public
vehicle, no servant without livery, is tolerated. It was early, and only
the countless hoof-prints upon Rotten Row suggested the crowd of wealth
and fashion that would throng here later in the day. One solitary
equestrian there was; perched upon a guarded saddle, held in her place
by some concealed band, serenely content, rode a queen baby in long,
white robes. A groom led the little pony. She looked at us in grave
wonder as we dashed by,--born to the purple! I cannot begin to describe
to you the rising up of London for this day of pleasure; the decking of
itself out in holiday attire; the garnishing of itself with paper
flowers; the smooth, hard roads leading into the country, all alive; the
drinking, noisy crowd about the door of every pot-house along the way.
It was a delightful drive of a dozen or more miles, through the most
charming suburbs imaginable,--past lawns, and gardens, and green old
trees shading miniature parks; past "detached" villas that had blossomed
into windows; indeed, the plate glass upon houses of most modest
pretension was almost reckless extravagance in our eyes, forgetting, as
we did, the slight duty to be paid here upon what is, with us, an
expensive luxury. No wonder the English are a healthful people,--the sun
shines upon them. I like their manner of house-building, of home-making.
They set up first a great bay-window, with a room behind it, which is of
secondary importance, with wide steps leading up to a door at the side.
They fill this window with the rarest, rosiest, most rollicksome
flowers. Then, if there remain time, and space, and means, other rooms
are added, the bay-windows increasing in direct proportion; while
shades, drawn shades, are a thing unknown. "But the carpets?" They are
so foolish as to value health above carpets.
It was high noon when we rolled up the wide avenue of Bushey Park, with
its double border of gigantic chestnuts and limes, through Richmond
Park, with its vast sweep of greensward flecked with the sunbeams,
dripping like the rain through the royal oaks, past Richmond terrace,
with its fine residences looking out upon the Thames, the translucent
stream, pure and beautiful here, before going down to the city to be
defiled--like many a life. We dismounted at the gates to the palace, in
the rambling old village that clings to its skirts, and joined the crowd
passing through its wide portals.
It is an old palace thrown aside, given over to poor relatives, by
royalty,--as we throw aside an old gown; a vast pile of dingy, red brick
that has straggled over acres of Hampton parish, and is kept within
bounds by a high wall of the same ugly material. It has pushed itself up
into towers and turrets, with pinnacles and spires rising from its
battlemented walls. It has thrust itself out into oriel and queer little
latticed windows that peep into the gardens and overhang the three
quadrangles, and is with its vast gardens and park, with its wide canal
and avenues of green old trees, the most delightfully ugly, old place
imaginable. Here kings and queens have lived and loved, suffered and
died, from Cardinal Wolsey's time down to the days of Queen Anne. It is
now one of England's show places; one portion of its vast extent, with
the grounds, being thrown open to the public, the remainder given to
decayed nobility, or wandering, homeless representatives of royalty,--a
kind of royal almshouse, in fact. A curtained window, the flutter of a
white hand, were to us the only signs of inhabitation.
Through thirty or more narrow, dark, bare rooms,--bare but for the
pictures that crowded the walls,--we wandered. There were two or three
halls of stately proportions finely decorated with frescoes by Verrio,
and one or two royal stairways, up and down which slippered feet have
passed, silken skirts trailed, and heavy hearts been carried, in days
gone by. The pictures are mostly portraits of brave men and lovely
women, of kings and queens and royal favorites,--poor Nell Gwynne among
them, who began life by selling oranges in a theatre, and ended it by
selling virtue in a palace. The Vandyck faces are wonderfully beautiful.
They gaze upon you through a mist, a golden haze,--like that which hangs
over the hills in the Indian summer,--from out deep, spiritual eyes; a
dream of fair women they are.
There were one or two royal beds, where uneasy have lain the heads that
wore a crown, and half a dozen chairs worked in tapestry by royal
fingers,--whether preserved for their questionable beauty, or because of
the rarity of royal industry, I do not know. We wandered through the
shrubberies, paid a penny to see the largest grape vine in the
world,--and wished we had given it to the heathen, so like its less
distinguished sisters did the vine appear,--and at last lunched at the
King's Arms, a queer little inn just outside the gates, edging our way
with some difficulty through the noisy, guzzling crowd around the
door--the crowd that, having reached the acme of the day's felicity, was
fast degenerating into a quarrel. In the long, bare room at the head of
the narrow, winding stairs, we found comparative quiet. The tables were
covered with joints of beef, with loaves of bread, pitchers of ale, and
the ubiquitous cheese. A red-faced young man in tight new clothes--like
a strait-jacket--occupied one end of our table with his blushing
sweetheart. A band of wandering harpers harped upon their harps to the
crowd of wrangling men and blowsy women in the open court below;
strangely out of tune were the harps, out of time the measure, according
well with the spirit of the hour. A loud-voiced girl decked out in
tawdry finery, with face like solid brass, sang "Annie Laurie" in hard,
metallic tones,--O Music, how many murders have been committed in thy
name!--then passed a cup for pennies, with many a jest and rude, bold
laugh. We were glad when the day was done,--glad when we had turned away
from it all.
QUEEN VICTORIA'S HOME AT WINDSOR.
The castle itself is a huge, battlemented structure of gray stone,--a
fortress as well as a palace,--with a home park of five hundred acres,
the private grounds of Mrs. Guelph, and, beyond that, a grand park of
eighteen hundred acres. But do not imagine that she lives here with only
her children and servants about her,--this kindly German widow, whose
throne was once in the hearts of her people. Royalty is a complicated
affair,--a wheel within a wheel,--and reminds us of nothing so much as
"the house that Jack built."
This is the Castle of Windsor.
This is the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
These are the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of
Windsor.
These are the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that
lives in the Castle of Windsor.
These are the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies that
'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
These are the soldiers, tried and sworn, that guard the crown from the
unicorn, that stand by the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to
the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
These are the "military knights" forlorn, founded by Edward before you
were born, that outrank the soldiers, tried and sworn, that guard the
crown from the unicorn, that stand by the lackeys that wait on the pages
that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle
of Windsor.
These are the knights that the garter have worn, with armorial banners
tattered and torn, that look down on the military knights forlorn,
founded by Edward before you were born, that outrank the soldiers, tried
and sworn, that guard the crown from the unicorn, that stand by the
lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies that 'tend on the
queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
This is the dean, all shaven and shorn, with the canons and clerks that
doze in the morn, that install the knights that the garter have worn,
with armorial banners tattered and torn, that look down on the military
knights forlorn, founded by Edward before you were born, that outrank
the soldiers, tried and sworn, that guard the crown from the unicorn,
that stand by the lackeys that wait on the pages that bow to the ladies
that 'tend on the queen that lives in the Castle of Windsor.
And so on. The train within the castle walls that follows the queen is
endless.
We passed through the great, grand, state apartments, refurnished at the
time of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, for the use of the Danish
family. We mounted to the battlements of the Round Tower by the hundred
steps, the grim cannon gazing down upon us from the top. Half a dozen
visitors were already there, gathered as closely as possible about the
angular guide, listening to his geography lesson, and looking off upon
the wonderful panorama of park, and wood, and winding river. Away to the
right rose the spire of Stoke Pogis Church, where the curfew still
"tolls the knell of parting day." To the left, in the great park below,
lay Frogmore, where sleeps Prince Albert the Good. Eton College, too,
peeped out from among the trees, its gardens touching the Thames, and in
the distance,--beyond the sleeping villages tucked in among the
trees,--the shadowy blue hills held up the sky.
St. George's Chapel is in the quadrangle below. It is the chapel of the
Knights of the Garter. And now, when you read of the chapels, or
churches, or cathedrals in the old world,--and they are all in a sense
alike,--pray don't imagine a New England meeting-house with a double row
of stiff pews and a choir in the gallery singing "Antioch"! The body of
the chapel was a great, bare space, with tablets and elaborate monuments
against the walls. Opening from this were alcoves,--also called
chapels,--each one containing the tombs and monuments of some family. As
many of the inscriptions are dated centuries back, you can imagine they
are often quaintly expressed. One old knight, who died in Catholic
times, desired an open Breviary to remain always in the niche before his
tomb, that passers might read to their comfort, and say for him an
orison. Of course this would never do in the days when the chapel fell
into Protestant hands. A Bible was substituted, chained into its place;
but the old inscription, cut deep in the stone, still remains, beginning
"Who leyde thys book here?" with a startling appropriateness of which
the author never dreamed. Over another of these chapels is rudely cut an
ox, an N, and a bow,--the owner having, in an antic manner, hardly
befitting the place, thus written his name--Oxenbow.
You enter the choir, where the installations take place, by steps,
passing under the organ. In the chancel is a fine memorial window to
Prince Albert. On either side are the stalls or seats for the knights,
with the armorial banner of each hanging over his place. Projecting over
the chancel, upon one side, is what appears to be a bay-window. This is
the queen's gallery, a little room with blue silk hangings,--for blue is
the color worn by Knights of the Garter,--where she sits during the
service. Through these curtains she looked down upon the marriage of the
Prince of Wales. Think of being thus put away from everybody, as though
one were plague-stricken. A private station awaits her when she steps
from the train at the castle gates. A private room is attached to the
green-houses, to the riding-school in the park, and even to the private
chapel. A private photograph-room, for the taking of the royal pictures,
adjoins her apartments. It must be a fine thing to be a queen,--and so
tiresome! Even the gold spoon in one's mouth could not offset the
weariness of it all, and of gold spoons she has an unbounded supply;
from ten to fifteen millions of dollars worth of gold plate for her
majesty's table being guarded within the castle! Think of it, little
women who set up house-keeping with half a dozen silver teaspoons and a
salt-spoon!
We waited before a great gate until the striking of some forgotten hour,
to visit the royal mews. You may walk through all these stables in
slippers and in your daintiest gown, without fear. A stiff young man in
black--a cross between an undertaker and an incipient clergyman in
manner--acted as guide. Other parties, led by other stiff young men,
followed or crossed our path. There were stalls and stalls, upon either
side, in room after room,--for one could not think of calling them
stables,--filled by sleek bays for carriage or saddle. And the
ponies!--the dear little shaggy browns, with sweeping tails, and
wonderful eyes peeping out from beneath moppy manes, the milk-white,
tiny steeds, with hair like softest silk,--they won our hearts. Curled
up on the back of one, fast asleep, lay a Maltese kitten; the "royal
mew" some one called it. The carriages were all plain and dark, for the
ordinary use of the court. In one corner a prim row of little yellow,
wicker, baby-wagons attracted our attention, like those used by the
poorest mother in the land. In these the royal babies have taken their
first airings.
The state equipages we saw another day at Buckingham Palace,--the
cream-colored horses, the carriages and harnesses all crimson and gold.
There they stand, weeks and months together, waiting for an occasion.
The effect upon a fine day, under favoring auspices,--the sun shining,
the bands playing, the crowd of gazers, the prancing horses, the gilded
chariots,--must almost equal the triumphal entry of a first class circus
into a New England town!