there, and I saw the doctor bending over a stretcher covered with a red
blanket, on which lay the wounded man. The man was Rummles.
I asked the doctor what he thought of the case. “It’s a bad business,”
he answered. “They have sent for the Police Magistrate. He says he wants
to make a deposition, and he had better make haste.”
Rummles looked up and saw me. “You’ll do,” he said, in a broken, hoarse
voice. “I’m done for, and I’d best make what amends I can. I’m doing it
for her; not for justice, mind you, but for her—for Nan.”
The Police Magistrate and the clergyman came in just then. The doctor
cleared a space round the dying man, and he made his last confession.
He confessed that it was he, who had stolen the watch and had placed it
in Nick’s pocket, and allowed Nick to be punished for the theft.
The deposition was read out to him, and, with an effort, he signed his
name. “She’s brought me bad luck,” were his last words. “I’ve never had
any luck since I took that watch. I’ve never had any luck, since I fell
in love with Nan. And just as I was beginning to get on, she came back,
and here’s the worst luck of all. But I’d like her to know that I loved
her, and that it’s done—for Nan.”
ALFRED CURRAN.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
EVE THE SIXTH.
REMARKS OF CHARLES TURRILL, ESQ., M. P., RELATIVE TO AN EPISODE IN THE
HOUSE.
_By JUSTIN HUNTLY MCCARTHY._
[Illustration:
Charles Turrill, Esq., M. P.
]
I HAVE found, in the course of a pretty long acquaintance with men and
things, that the House of Commons is one of the few places of which one
is never weary.
I am speaking for myself, of course. I know there are other men, who
think differently from me, who regard the House of Commons with disdain,
if not with positive dislike, and the men, I have at this moment in my
mind, are not men who affect a contempt for the unattainable thing, but
men who have been in the House of Commons and who could be there again,
if they wished.
But, for my own part, I candidly confess that I am unable to understand
their state of mind on the matter.
To me the House of Commons is always a delightful place. I offer it the
uncompromising admiration that young poets lay at the feet of their
mistresses; I feel for it the affection that a friend feels for a
friend. But I do not wish it to be supposed, because I say all this,
that I am convinced that I have in me the makings of a great statesman,
or, indeed, that my presence at Westminster is in any serious degree
indispensable to the safety of the commonweal.
I like, of course, to think that, when I have given a vote, I have given
it as an honest man for the side which I think to be in the right.
I like, of course, to think that, when I make my little speech—and I
confess that I address the House not infrequently, and the House is good
enough to hear me with patience—that I am doing what lies in me to
advance the general good. But my interest in the House of Commons does
not come in the first instance from philanthropy or a zeal for the
Constitution.
I like the House of Commons as other men like a theatre, as other men
like to travel. I like the theatre, too, and I like to travel; but I
would rather have the House of Commons, than any theatre that ever was
built, and would rather walk through the lobbies, than wander over
Europe.
What play was ever so keenly exciting as a heavy debate at Westminster;
what travels bring one more into touch with all varieties of men than
long experience of the ways of Westminster? None, none, none.
The House of Commons is like the _Eau de Jouvence_; it makes old men
young again, and revives, in the hearts of respectable elderly
gentlemen, the feverish pulses of youth.
The excitement, which leads a noble lord to leap upon the benches and
halloo for joy over a Ministerial defeat, is as keen as any which moves
the pulses of boyhood in the cricket field or the pulses of manhood in
battle or exploration. So the House of Commons is to me as the great
theatre of life, and I find unending pleasures in its acts and its
actors.
I have seen some pretty stirring scenes, too, in my time. I have been in
the House of Commons now for nearly twenty years, and, in that time, I
have been present at almost every event of any note, that has animated
its precincts and inspired its orators.
I have had my share of all-night sittings; have seen men stand at the
bar of the House; have watched the rise and ruin of reputations; have
seen Ministry after Ministry reel to its fall.
But I honestly think that I have never seen a more remarkable scene,
than the one to which you have referred, and about which you have asked
me, as an eye-witness, to give you some few particulars.
I saw Mr. John Drury on the day when he entered the House of Commons,
and I remember very well how struck I was by his commanding presence and
singularly beautiful face.
I use the word “beautiful” advisedly. It is a word we reserve mostly
nowadays for the faces of women; but John Drury’s face impressed me
immediately with a sense of its beauty—its strong, calm, honourable
beauty.
All I knew of him was, that he came from the colonies; that he was
reputed to be wealthy, even very wealthy; and that he had come into the
House of Commons at a by-election, as the advocate of views, which he
had championed with great success in the columns of the London daily
paper, _The Planet_, which he himself owned and had founded.
That was all I knew then. There was, however, much more to know, and I
learned it later in a sufficiently remarkable manner.
It was a winter session, I remember. Fond as I am of the House of
Commons I have no great passion for winter sessions.
My affection for the House is a legitimate, not an abnormal affection,
and I like it to pursue its orderly course.
London is not pleasant in winter, while Cairo is; and, as a general
rule, I would rather spend my Christmas on the Nile than by the Thames.
But I would not have missed seeing the event, which I am about to tell
you, even to have been at Luxor a few weeks earlier, for I got off to
Egypt immediately after the House rose, thank goodness!
That winter session was unavoidable. There were things to do, which
ought to have been done before, and which had to be done then, on the
“better late than never” principle. We were really not very far off from
Christmas Eve, when the event took place, which compensated me at least
for the grey city and the weary winter days and the belated Commons.
Mr. Drury had proved himself to be a force in English public life,
before he entered the House of Commons.
His newspaper, _The Planet_, had made itself the outspoken mouthpiece of
all the interests of the labouring classes and of the poor, and he
himself had earned a very considerable reputation, as a public speaker
at more than one platform in the mining and agricultural regions of
England.
Naturally, when a man attains to any degree of eminence in England, his
fellow citizens want to know all about him. Demand creates a supply, and
the Society papers afforded the world at large the opportunity of
learning a number of facts about the past life of Mr. Drury.
It was soon well known that he had made his fortune at the gold-fields.
It was well known, also, that when he went to the gold-fields he went as
a pardoned felon, as a convict, who had been set at liberty on account
of his gallant conduct in saving a warder’s life, during a mutiny of his
fellow prisoners on board the transport ship.
It would be idle to deny that at first the stories which got into
circulation raised a kind of prejudice against Mr. Drury.
Of course the wrong version of any story always gets the greatest
hearing, and, as the particular line which Mr. Drury took up in politics
was not calculated to make him extremely popular with the easy-going and
with the well-to-do, the wrong story obtained a very considerable amount
of credence.
But it was an entirely wrong story, and its wrongfulness was made plain
soon enough, even to the most obstinate intelligence. For Mr. Drury took
the bull by the horns at once.
He published in _The Planet_ the whole of the proceedings connected with
his trial; he repeated with the most admirable firmness and coolness his
own denial of the crime, and he concluded his defence very triumphantly
by producing the written confession of the real thief—a man named
Rummles, I believe—who died in a drunken brawl at Eungella Diggings, a
confession duly attested by the police magistrate, the clergyman, and
Mr. Alfred Curran, who has since become conspicuous in Colonial politics
as the editor of Mr. Drury’s Australian paper, _The Southern Cross_.
Of course, this confession silenced everybody, or nearly everybody.
Unhappily, there is a class of politician, a small class I am glad to
believe, who will stick at nothing to harm an antagonist, and this small
class, like all other classes, does occasionally find its representative
in the House of Commons.
Mr. Drury had not been long in the House of Commons before he began to
make a name there, as he had already made a name in journalism. It does
not take long nowadays for a man to make his mark at St. Stephen’s.
In old days, before my time, and even in my time, it was a slow business
for a man to take his right place in the House. It was a kind of
unwritten law that a man should not speak at all till he had been in the
House for at least a session, and very scrupulous or very old-fashioned
persons carried the period of probation to a further degree still. But
we have changed all that, as _Sganarelle_ says in Molière’s play.
I have heard a new member make his maiden speech on the very night, on
which he entered the House for the first time, and within a few hours of
the ceremony of taking the oath.
Mr. Drury was not like that, indeed; but neither did he belong to the
old-fashioned school of politicians. He waited a decorous week before
speaking, and when he spoke for the first time, he spoke exceedingly
well, with a modest dignity which pleased all his hearers—or almost all
his hearers—and which won him at once a promising place amongst the
“young men.”
I shall not forget that night, less because of Drury’s first speech,
good though it was, and glad though I always am to hear a good speech,
than for another reason. If I remember rightly, it is Goethe who says
somewhere, that one should never pass a day without reading a beautiful
poem or looking upon the face of a beautiful woman.
Certainly the day in which one does look upon a beautiful woman, is
better than days less blessed, and I am always glad and grateful for the
privilege of seeing a beautiful woman. And I saw a very beautiful woman
that night.
I had gone up into the Ladies’ Gallery to look after the wife and
daughter of a constituent, whom I had been lucky enough to get places
for, when I saw in the gallery a woman’s face, such a glorious face. In
its divine, dark beauty it conquered my attention, my admiration. I
forgot manners, and stared—simply stared.
[Illustration:
In the Ladies’ Gallery.
]
I don’t think she noticed me at all. She seemed to be entirely occupied
by looking steadfastly at someone who was seated in the Chamber below.
Whoever he was, I envied him to have earned the homage of those
glorious, midnight eyes.
As I was leaving the gallery, I asked Wilson, the doorkeeper, who the
lady was, the dark, handsome lady in the front row of the gallery.
Wilson glanced in the direction I indicated, and answered me directly.
“That, sir,” he said, “is Mrs. John Drury.”
As I went down the stairs, to get to the corridor which leads to the
Chamber, I could not help reflecting upon the generous way in which
destiny seemed to have made amends to John Drury. Still young, very
rich, a famous journalist, a rising politician, and, above all, blessed
with a wife of such extraordinary beauty.
“John Drury,” I said to myself, “you are a lucky man, and I hope and
believe that you deserve it.”
But the event, which I know you want particularly to hear about, took
place some little time after that—a couple of weeks later if I remember
rightly.
There were some friends dining with me that night; there were ladies in
the party, and I had got one of the pleasantest tables in the ladies’
dining-room for my little group.
It chanced that John Drury and his wife were dining at the next table,
and if I had thought her beautiful before in the dim light of the
Ladies’ Gallery, I thought her still more radiantly fair in the bright
light of the dining-room.
I guessed from her presence that Drury was about to speak; it was an
important debate on some question of the hours of labour, and by this
time everyone “in the know” was not willing to miss a chance of hearing
John Drury.
So, when our dinner was over, I bundled my little party upstairs, saw
the ladies into their gallery, succeeded in wedging the men in “Under
the Clock,” and got back to my own seat, as soon as I could.
It was very lucky I did so, for I heard a fine speech, which I had
expected and hoped for, and witnessed a scene which I had neither
expected nor hoped for.
John Drury made his speech, and a very able speech it was, spoken with a
Saxon simplicity and straightforwardness, which reminded me a little of
Bright, but enriched with an amount of illustration, which showed a far
wider reading than Bright’s.
In its way I don’t think I ever heard a better speech. I daresay I
didn’t agree with all his arguments—that didn’t matter at all; it was a
real pleasure to listen to such a speech. Its very defect, in being too
eloquent for the modern conversational standard debate in the House of
Commons, gave it a freshness and a charm of its own.
Drury, too, had one great secret—he never wearied his audience. He never
uttered a sentence, never uttered a syllable too much. He said all that
he wanted to say, fully and finely, and then he sat down, as he always
sat down, amidst rapturous applause.
On this particular evening he spoke at his best; and when he sat down
the applause, on his side, was loud and long. While it lasted, I glanced
up at the gilded bars, which hide the occupants of the Ladies’ Gallery,
and thought of that dark, beautiful face which watched its lover’s
triumph, of the glorious dark eyes that widened with delight at their
lover’s success.
By the time that I had sighed the little sigh of envy, which one pays as
a tribute to the happy possessor of youth and beauty, the applause,
which had rung out for Drury’s eloquent championship of the poor, had
died away, and I noticed that a pert young member of the Government had
jumped to his feet to answer him.
[Illustration:
“On this particular evening he spoke at his best.” (_Page 222_)
]
As an answer it was ridiculous enough, about as valuable a contribution,
to the question in hand, as the suggestion of the luckless queen, that,
if the poor people had no bread to eat, they might eat cakes instead.
But it had one significant passage.
The young fellow, flushed and excited by his own pertness, lost his head
and with it his manners.
“The honourable gentleman,” he said, pointing offensively in the
direction, where John Drury sat quietly listening to him; “the
honourable gentleman has made an eloquent appeal for the idle, for the
improvident, for all who go to make up what are rightly called the
dangerous classes. Well, Sir, in this House we go in for the
representation of minorities, and though I am thankful to think that the
dangerous classes are in the minority in this country, it is, no doubt,
according to the latest political lights, fit and proper that they, too,
should find their representative in this House.”
The speaker had got thus far, when several of the men on our side of the
House began to interrupt with cries of “Oh, oh,” which were somewhat
hotly responded to, by cheers from some of the men in the immediate
vicinity of the speaker. Goaded by the hostility and the applause, the
speaker flung out one last defiant, insolent sentence.
“Yes, Sir, the dangerous classes must have their representative in this
House, and where could they, by any possibility, find a better
representative than a convicted felon——”
He was not allowed to finish the sentence. The hubbub that arose of
angry groans and defiant cheers—for I am sorry to say that the foolish
young gentleman had his backers—drowned the rest of his sentence, and he
sat down amidst a display of the stormiest excitement on both sides of
the House.
[Illustration:
The noble Lord.
]
I have seen bad and bitter scenes in St. Stephen’s, but never a worse,
never a bitterer scene than on that night. Men who, I know, in their
hearts did not associate the name of John Drury with any stain, took
sides with his assailant and cheered vociferously for the savage attack
that had just been made upon him.
Drury’s speech had been a severe arraignment of the Government, and the
Ministerialists were sore and angry, and they took their revenge
unchivalrously, as even civilized men will still occasionally do.
I dare not say how many seconds the groaning and the cheering lasted,
groaning and cheering through which, at intervals, the Speaker’s stern
voice was heard calling persistently for order.
But at last it did die down, and when it had died down, half a dozen men
on each side were found standing on their legs, eager to catch the
Speaker’s eye. But when it was found that John Drury had risen with the
rest, the others sat down, and he remained standing, very pale, very
quiet, very determined, facing his antagonists, who greeted him with
cries of “Spoke, spoke, spoke.”
“I wish, Mr. Speaker,” said John Drury, “to make a personal
explanation,” and as he uttered those words all of us, who sat near him,
caught up the phrase, and shouted “personal explanation” as loudly and
as long as we could.
Amidst the tumult the Speaker rose from his chair, and John Drury
immediately sat down. The tumult subsided, as it always does when the
Speaker asserts his authority.
“Does the honourable member,” the Speaker asked, glancing in the
direction where John Drury sat, “wish to make a personal explanation to
the House?”
John Drury raised his hat, the Speaker sat down, gathering the folds of
his black robe about him, and John Drury rose to his feet, this time in
perfect silence. I glanced up to the Gallery, and saw, or thought I saw,
a pale, lovely face, and two enchanting eyes.
“I rise, Sir,” said John Drury, speaking very calmly and slowly, “to
utter, with your permission, and with the permission of this House,
which is always generous to an attacked man, a few, a very few, words of
personal explanation.”
Here almost everyone, even on the Ministerial side, applauded, for, to
do the House justice, it is generally willing to give a man a chance to
defend himself.
“The right honourable gentleman, who has just sat down,” John Drury went
on, “has accused me of being a convicted felon.”
Here a few cheers came from the neighbourhood of the Drury assailant,
but they were not convincing cheers, and they were hushed down by a
storm of disapproval on our side.
“I am in my right,” Drury went on, “in immediately taking notice of that
accusation. Mr. Speaker, the right honourable gentleman is unjust, when
he makes that accusation. I can only hope, for the sake of his own
honour, that he is not wilfully unjust. When he calls me a convicted
felon, he utters, and he knows he utters, words which are false words,
words which frame a lie.”
Here the storm broke out afresh, but it was silenced by the Speaker’s
stern call for order, and Drury went on composedly with his defence.
“I was, it is true, convicted; I never was a felon. I was convicted, as
anyone may learn who cares to take the trouble to read what I have
published concerning this matter, on false evidence; I was betrayed by
the treachery of a friend, of a man who on his death-bed confessed to
the crime of which he had been guilty, a confession duly attested by
unimpeachable witnesses.
“I stand here to-night with a conscience as clean as that of any member
of this House, a conscience, I may venture to say, that is cleaner than
that of the man who has wantonly, if not maliciously, accused me of what
he may know, or ought to know, is not true. And, Sir, if I cannot within
the scope of a life filled with many hardships, many temptations, and
few successes, hope to fulfil the motto, ‘Vivit post funera Virtus,’
which, as I only too well remember, was the motto on the watch, which I
was supposed to have stolen, and for the theft of which I was sentenced
to transportation, still, Sir, I can cast back denial in the teeth of
the right honourable member, from whose lips the charge has come, and to
him I say in the presence of this honourable assembly that I can claim
to stand amongst you, shoulder to shoulder, as an honest man.”
Drury sat down amidst renewed excitement; the cheers on our side were
simply deafening, and I am glad to say that they were accompanied by
hearty cheers from the other side.
Before they were quite silenced Drury’s assailant had the grace to get
up and express his regret for what he had, in the heat of an unguarded
moment, allowed himself to say.
So in the phrase familiar to the reports of foreign assemblies, “the
incident then closed,” as far as the outer public was concerned. What I
have told you, you will find in Hansard, if you choose to look for it.
What happened immediately afterwards, you will not find in Hansard.
After Drury’s antagonist had apologized, Drury rose and left the House.
As he did so, one of the occupants of the Treasury Bench, my excellent
friend Barkston, who was a member of the Cabinet, followed his example.
A few minutes later I left the House myself, with my thoughts turned in
the direction of the Ladies’ Gallery. In the long corridor, that runs
parallel with the Library, I found two men in deep colloquy. They were
John Drury and Samuel Barkston.
What Barkston told me himself a little later—we were old friends,
Barkston and I—would seem incredible if it were not actually true.
In John Drury, Barkston had actually discovered his long-lost son.
Perhaps I ought not to use the phrase “long-lost,” for Barkston only
learned that night, that he ever had a son. But that John Drury was his
son there was no doubt whatever. And the curious thing was, that
Barkston was led to make this extraordinary discovery entirely through
John Drury’s speech of that evening.
For when John Drury, in his concluding sentences, quoted the Latin words
upon the watch, that he had been accused of stealing, Mr. Barkston
started as if he had been struck.
For the motto on the watch was his own motto, the motto which, as he
remembered, had been engraved upon the watch, that he had lost.
This it was that led him, as I say, to follow John Drury from the
Chamber, and to begin that conversation with him, which I had witnessed
in the Library Lobby.
In this conversation, bit by bit, Mr. Barkston learned enough to
convince him—and subsequent inquiries absolutely confirmed the
conviction—that John Drury, the brilliant journalist, one of the most
conspicuous of the coming men, was in very fact his own child.
When Barkston was a young man, he fell in love with a beautiful actress
in a burlesque theatre, and, being a rash young man, he married her
privately.
The woman was light-hearted and light-headed to an astonishing degree,
and at a time, when it seemed probable that she was likely to become a
mother, she actually left Barkston in the company of an actor, in the
company to which she belonged.
Barkston tried without success to trace her, but it seemed, after long
inquiries, he ascertained that she gave birth to a boy, that her lover
objected to the encumbrance of the child, and that the unhappy mother
abandoned it. She was herself afterwards abandoned by her lover, and
died, it would seem, wretchedly.
It is a sad little story, my dear friend, and has in it, perhaps, the
pith of a sermon against vice, which some better fellow than I might
preach with advantage to his hearers.
I am not a preacher, I am only a humble looker-on at the grim game of
life, with its joys and its sorrow, its dances and its dirges, and if I
find a lot that is sad in it, I find a lot that is bright and brave as
well.
Anyhow, I think old Barkston is to be envied. It is pleasant to be rich
and to be a Cabinet Minister, but it is more pleasant to be the father
of a man like John Drury.
Let me add that I think it is still more pleasant to be the
father-in-law of a woman like John Drury’s wife.