and Greek, and rubbish of that kind. The training I got will be good
enough for him.'
"However, to our great astonishment, he came round to mother's view.
You see, he intended that I should carry on the money-lending business,
and he thought that if I were sent to a high-class school, I would form
a wide connection among young aristocratic spendthrifts, which would be
of great service to me. So the question came to be discussed, 'to what
school should I be sent?' and to settle this question our next door
neighbour assisted us.
"This man was Captain Beaumont, but was popularly called 'the Earl.' He
was, as he told everybody, 'a real gentleman that had taken a thousand
years to be produced, not a shoddy one that can be turned out nowadays
in a few weeks.' He was tall, grey, and scraggy, with a backbone as
stiff as a walking-stick, and with a head that was uncommonly small,
but that was 'large enough,' as our minister remarked, 'for all
the ideas he had got to put into it.' His house was, like himself,
cheerless but pretentious. He called it Dunmore, which, you must know,
was the name of the castle where his ancestors had lived, heaven
knows how long ago. He had a doited old serving-man, who was dressed
in the family livery, and waited at table, and served the thin broth
and scraggy mutton on the family silver. There was also above the
dining-room mantelpiece his genealogical tree, with many branches and
leaves, and each leaf had on it the name of one of his forefathers,
and on the topmost leaf was written his own name, 'Reginald Algernon
Beaumont, the present earl.'
"For some time the Earl was very haughty towards us, throwing us a
word occasionally, just as he would throw it to a neighbour's dog.
But by and by he made an excuse for calling on us; and in a few weeks
he came in regularly every night to have a game of draughts at our
fireside. 'His hungry nose,' my father said, 'had scented the havannas
and the Glenlivet.' In the first part of the evening he was silent and
grumpy, as if he looked down upon our society, and was half angry with
himself for being in it. But when the whisky and cigars were placed
on the table, he brightened up and grew pleasant and sociable, and
would talk for hours about his ancestors, and would tell that he was
the lineal descendant of Reginald de Beaumont, who came into Scotland
in the reign of David the First, and that he was, therefore, the Earl
of Abernethy; and then he would blackguard the House of Lords for not
acknowledging his title, and would call them 'Brummagem peers, mostly
made out of lucky lawyers, brewers, and cotton-spinners.' On one of
these occasions, my mother took courage to talk about me, saying that
she wished to make me a gentleman, and asked his advice as to what
should be done. He was startled, and, screwing up his nose, said:--
"My dear Madam, you can't make your son a gentleman. You can't put blue
blood into his veins and give him a pedigree a thousand years long.
But you may give him a gentlemanly education, and make him as good a
gentleman as ninety-nine out of every hundred who assume the name. Send
him to a high-class English school and then to Oxford. There he will
get up the classics, the only branch worthy of a gentleman.'
"So by the Earl's advice I was sent to Vere de Vere College, in
Yorkshire: Principal, the Rev. Augustus Caesar, LL.D. The doctor, as he
was called, received me in a very friendly manner. So did the pupils,
after their own way; rather a rollicking kind of way, however. They
were healthy, riotous, and as full of mischief as monkeys. Surrounding
me, staring at me, and pulling me about, they plied me with all sorts
of questions--what was my governor? had he lots of tin? was Scotland
such a wild place? how did I feel in trousers? had I brought my kilt
with me? Then they began 'to make me at home,' as they called it. One
borrowed a sixpence from me; another, learning that I could not box,
showed me the way and gave me a bloody nose; and all of them joined in
crying out, that, as a new boy, I must pay my footing and stand them a
jolly spread of pies and tarts and rum-shrub.
"For the first few days I had rather a lively time. As I was a new boy,
they thought it only right to practise all their tricks upon me, such
as putting a bunch of thistles in my bed, filling my boots with hot
water, and putting cobbler's wax upon my seat, which held me fast when
the doctor called me to get up. They also exercised their ingenuity in
inventing nick-names for me, and I was addressed as 'Scotty,' 'Haggis,'
'Jew,' and 'Balls' (for they had ferreted out that my father had been a
pawnbroker). But at length Lord Gulpington, who was the trump card of
the college, being the heir to a marquisate, claimed me as his fag, and
would allow no one to torment me except himself. He slept in the same
room with me, and generally awoke me in the morning by throwing his
slipper at my head. Then I got up, and, after dressing hurriedly, went
down for his boots and his hot water. During the day I did anything
that he required, and at night I often had to smuggle in 'grub and
lush,' as he called it. We got on well together. I was quite delighted
to be connected in any way with a lord; and after a while he said that
next to his bull dog, Griffin, which he kept at the butcher's in the
village, he liked me best of any creature about the place.
"As far as the body was concerned, the pupils got on very well. They
had capital appetites, which they constantly attended to; and they were
not content with the abundance that was placed before them, but they
were constantly devouring apples, oranges, hardbake, and ginger-beer.
Most hearty were they also in taking physical exercise. They played
cricket and football, and talked about them incessantly, as if they had
been the chief end of man; and they ran at hounds and hares as if they
had been hunting a fortune, and not a dirty little boy with a bag of
paper scraps.
"The physical training, indeed, was splendid, but I can't say as much
for the mental training. With the exception of a little Greek, the
thing that we always seemed to be grinding at was Latin. Our grammar
book was in Latin. Our reading book was in Latin. The very grace said
at table was in Latin. I tried to fix Latin in my head, but it came out
again as fast as I put it in. They endeavoured to improve my memory
by giving me several hundred verses to commit, but that only made me
worse. In despair, one day I told the doctor that I would never be able
to learn Latin. He told me that I must learn it, if I wished to be
educated. I then had the presumption to ask him what was the use of it.
"'Oh,' he said, 'it is the best instrument for training the faculties.
Besides, it is the "open sesame" into good society.'
"Had I been the only backward pupil, I might have thought that the
fault lay in my stupidity. But with the exception of two or three, the
other pupils were nearly as bad as myself, and detested their lessons.
If a knowledge of Latin was to be the 'open sesame' into good society,
I'm afraid they would never get in.
"At the end of four years my course at school was finished; and before
proceeding to Oxford I spent a few weeks at home. One evening my
father, in his business-like way, asked me to make up an account of
the items I had got in return for the money he had laid out,--in other
words, to tell him distinctly how much I had learnt.
"Afraid to go into details, I said, 'Well, at least, I've learnt the
ways and manners of a gentleman.'
"'Ah,' replied my father, 'to be sure, that's worth all the book
knowledge. You'll be better able to do business with gentlemen.'
"In this way I had staved off an ugly question; but in my own room,
before going to bed that night, I ran over in my mind what I had learnt
and what I had not learnt at school. I had learnt to play cricket and
football, to run, to leap, to box, to smoke, to drink beer, and make
bets. I had _not_ learnt to write a good hand, to spell correctly, to
count correctly, and to know something of the history and geography of
my native country.
"My mother came to have some notion of the true state of matters. She
had asked me to write to the minister, inviting him to our house on
a certain night to meet some friends, and unfortunately I had spelt
_meet_ with an _a_. The minister was a great humorist, and this was an
occasion for a joke which he could not neglect. Consequently, he called
next morning, with my letter in his hand, to ask what kind of meat he
would bring--beef, or mutton, or pork. My mother, when she understood
the mistake, felt it keenly. So, one evening at the fireside, while the
Earl and my father were having their game of draughts, she said:
"'Well, Ben, I hope you will get on at Oxford, and correct all your
deficiencies, and come out a perfect scholar.'
"'My dear madam,' said the Earl, 'if any place can make him a scholar
Oxford is that place. It has got all the means; it has the most money,
the best teachers, and the greatest reputation.'
"My mother, however, although she knew it not, was cruelly deceived.
To men who were in love with learning, Oxford gave every facility for
maturing their scholarship. But to those who had no such love she could
do nothing. Into this latter class I was unfortunate enough to fall.
Lord Gulpington was there before me, and introduced me to his set,
which consisted of the sons of the aristocratic and the wealthy. These
youths, though passing through the curriculum of the University, were
students merely in name. They did almost everything but study. Bless
you! how could you expect them to do otherwise? What charms could they
find in musty, out-of-date Latin and Greek works? They were young,
healthy, spirited, and rich; and the bright and breathing world lay
around them. Everything within them and without them called upon them
to enjoy themselves. They, indeed, went through the farce of attending
chapel in the morning, and lectures in the forenoon. But everyone,
their teachers as well as themselves, knew it to be a farce. As soon as
they went back to their rooms, they tossed their gowns aside, donned
their sporting habiliments, and were off to the river, or the road,
or the hunting-field, or the racecourse. Then back they came in the
evening with a keen relish for other kinds of enjoyment. They feasted,
they caroused, they gamboled, they sang jovial glees and choruses, and
in fact rattled on as if life were to be a perpetual feast, without
any such thing as duty, or trial, or suffering. In all these frolics
I mingled. The jolly fellows, though they knew my origin, and called
me by no other name than 'Balls,' were free and easy with me, played
practical jokes upon me, borrowed my money, smoked my cigars, drank my
wine, and even used my rooms for their parties.
"But all things come to an end; and the time arrived when the most of
these devotees of pleasure had to lay aside their frivolities, and, in
order to please the old folks at home, had to go in for their degree,
or, as they called it, 'their smalls.' Many of them were, as it is
called, 'plucked,' and no wonder! Their feathers were not home-grown,
but were borrowed plumes stuck on with infinite labour and skill by
tutors, and, therefore, came off easily. On me they would not even
stick, and so I could not go up for the degree, and had not even the
honour of being plucked.
"My poor parents were spared the chagrin of seeing the failure of their
efforts to make me a gentleman. Before my Oxford career was finished,
they died, both in the same week, the victims of the terrible Asiatic
cholera, during its first visit to this country in 1832. As I now
came into a considerable fortune, I saw no necessity for adopting a
profession, or doing any useful work. To enjoy myself was, I thought,
to be my only business; and the proper place for enjoyment was London,
the centre of all that is pleasant and grand. So, as soon as I had
wound up affairs in Edinburgh, I hastened to the metropolis.
"I put up at the Golden Cross, and proceeded, as it is called, 'to do
the sights of London.' I visited picture galleries, museums, theatres,
concert rooms, until I was tired out and disgusted. Then came on the
most terrible feeling I ever experienced, a feeling which you busy and
healthy people never had. _I did not know what to do._ I did not care
to stroll about the streets, for the everlasting din and endless throng
grew intolerable. I could not sit all day in the coffee-room of the
hotel, staring at everyone that entered, and pretending to read the
newspaper. When I got up in the morning, it seemed as if I would never
manage to get through the day. Time was my great enemy. It loaded the
present, and blocked up the future. How was I to kill it? To do this I
would have been inclined to try almost anything. I now understood how
men committed suicide through sheer weariness. I also felt the truth of
the saying that idleness is the cause of nearly every crime, and that
the idle man does not wait to be tempted, but of his own accord tempts
the devil. My devil soon appeared.
"I had noticed among the inmates of the hotel a middle-aged, stout, and
grey-headed gentleman, whom the waiters addressed as Colonel. He seemed
to me to be round and oily with health, good nature, and jollity. One
day, when he appeared to be idle, he sat down and had a talk with me.
Without telling me much about himself, except that he been an officer
in the Spanish service, he managed to extract from me a good deal about
myself; and when he heard me complain about feeling dull, he at once
placed his services at my disposal.
"'London dull!' he said, 'why, it's a paradise, a garden full of
flowers, and I, like a bee, or rather a bumble-bee, have visited all of
them.'
"And certainly no idle man could have a pleasanter companion than the
Colonel. He was stimulating and enlivening, like the morning sunshine.
His animal spirits and relish for life never flagged, and he was always
ready, when the occasion turned up, to joke, to laugh, to eat, or to
drink. Every day he had some novelty to offer. 'Now,' he would say,
'I'll give you a treat that you never had before;' and then he would
drive me to a racecourse or some other resort of fashion, or he would
take me to some famous old chop-house in the recesses of the city, or
some new and gorgeous hotel in one of the fashionable thoroughfares;
and, while we sat down to what he called, 'a nice little dinner,' he
would introduce some new dish, or some new blend of whisky, or some
new brand of wine; and while we discussed it he would smack his lips,
rub his hands, and look at me as much as to say, 'Did I not tell you
so?' His enjoyment of the pleasures of the great city never seemed to
fail. The only thing, in fact, that ever failed with him was money. He
sometimes had no change, or had forgotten his purse; but I was only
too glad to pay his expenses in return for his company. I could not do
without him. He had made life like a dream, a little feverish perhaps,
but exceedingly pleasant.
"One night after the theatre, he took me to a house in the Haymarket,
where, he said, we could sup cosily together. As soon as we had
entered, to his great surprise, he found two old friends who had just
arrived from the Continent. They were middle-aged, fashionably dressed,
and well-mannered, and were introduced to me as Captain Spurr and
Count Lago. At my invitation they joined us in a private room, where
we supped on lobster and champagne, and all grew as sociable and as
pleasant as you like. A game of whist was proposed, and the Colonel and
I played against the other two for small stakes. We had astonishing
luck, and won game after game; and at the end of several hours, rose
the winners of a considerable sum of money. Of course, we continued
the practice of meeting and playing there, and night after night the
same results happened. The Colonel and I always won. Such a thing had
never been known before. They all attributed it to me; and even the
landlord and the waiters complimented me, and wondered that I did not
back my luck sufficiently. This was pleasant so far; but I did not like
the idea of winning so much money, and feared that we might completely
clean out our opponents, and I frankly told the Colonel my feelings on
the matter, and suggested that we should stop.
"'Stop!' he exclaimed, 'we can't stop; we must give them their revenge.
Oh, don't be afraid that you'll beggar them; they have plenty of the
needful.'
"So on we drove in our career of victory, until our winnings amounted
to a large sum. Then fortune changed, and, strange to say, went on as
steadily against us as it had done for us, until our opponents had not
only regained all they had lost, but had won some of our money.
"While on our way home that night I said to the Colonel--'As our
opponents have recouped themselves, we must now stop.'
"'Hang it!' said the Colonel, 'not just yet if you please. I can't
afford to lose any money if you can. Let us adopt this method. We are
so much money out of pocket. On our first game to-night, let us stake
the double of that. If we lose, let us double it again; and let us go
on doing this; and whenever the luck turns, and, hang it! you know, it
must turn very soon, we shall, at one go, have won all our money back,
and then we can cry quits.'
"This seemed a dangerous plan, but I felt that we must follow it. So
on we went, night after night losing our games, and always piling up
the money, till the stake had become something tremendous, and I became
almost mad with excitement. To provide funds, I kept selling out my
investments and lodging the money in a London bank; and to keep up my
nerve I drank champagne incessantly--and then the crash came!
"I woke up one day with a head a mass of pain, a mouth as dry as a
lime-kiln, and a confused memory of exciting scenes, to find myself in
a bed in our nightly resort. On summoning the waiter, I learnt from
him that I had been very tipsy, and that the Colonel and his friends
had had some difficulty in managing me, and getting me to bed. I lost
no time in going to the Golden Cross Hotel to see the Colonel, but to
my horror I was told that the Colonel had left that morning with all
his luggage. I understood now the hellish plot which had been devised
for my ruin; but I thanked God that I had still ten thousand pounds
in the bank. I hurried to the bank to make sure; but there I was met
with the intelligence that a gentleman, that morning, had presented my
cheque for the whole amount, and that all my money had been paid to
him. I asked to see the cheque, thinking that it must have been forged;
but no, there was my undoubted signature! I had been drugged, and while
in a stupor made to sign my name; and my whole fortune was gone. The
Colonel, who, it seems, was notorious as a most accomplished blackleg,
was advertised for, but was never caught.
"I had now to give up my rooms in the hotel, and all my refined habits,
take lodgings in a street near Drury Lane, and seek for some way of
earning my bread. Surely, I thought, I can't starve: in this immense
community there must be many thousands of vacant situations. But I did
not take into account, that for every single vacancy there must be at
least ten applicants. And I very soon found that the education which I
had got at school and at the university, and which had cost so much,
was practically useless. In fact, it was now the great stumbling-block
in my way. It had not fitted me for the higher situations, for I could
not even spell correctly; and it had _un_fitted me for the lower
situations, for no one would engage an Oxford scholar for a menial
office. I could not even compete with the ragged street boys in running
on an errand, holding a horse, or sweeping a crossing. Their education,
picked up amid the mud and jostle of the streets, had been far more
practical and effective than mine. Instead, therefore, of living by
my labour, I was obliged to subsist by pawning my valuables, and bit
after bit of my finery, like the plumes of a moulting peacock, dropped
from me, till I was left almost bare. Then I was obliged to give up my
lodgings, and go out on the streets.
"I was now an outcast in London. It seemed strange that in the midst
of so many thousand houses, I should be without a corner to lay my
head in,--that in the midst of millions of people I should not have a
single one to help me, or take an interest in me. Such was my condition
on a night of August last. I had a few shillings in my pocket, but as
I did not see any way by which I could earn money, it was necessary
to be rigidly economical. I applied for a night's shelter at a cheap
lodging-house in the Borough, but it was so crowded with shabby, dirty,
and noisy lodgers that I turned sick, and was obliged to leave. I then
tried the casual ward in one of the infirmaries, but it was even more
disgusting. Quite at a loss to know what to do, I wandered aimlessly up
and down till I found myself on London Bridge, when the steeples were
pealing out the hour of midnight. Footsore and weary, I threw myself
down on the hard stone seat in one of the recesses; but shortly, a
poor, slouching tatterdemalion squatted down beside me, actually laying
his unkempt head upon my legs. In disgust, I started up, and crawled
away into the city. Hour after hour I dragged my weary limbs along the
solitary, interminable streets, looking for some covered doorway where
I might lay me down and sleep. Twice I had found a suitable spot;
but before I could take possession of it, a policeman's lantern was
seen approaching, and I was obliged to move on. When morning began to
break I found myself close to Regent's Park, and the soft green sward
appeared a temptation which I could not resist. Climbing the fence with
some difficulty, I made for a large beech tree, and pillowing my head
on one of its extended roots, and stretching out my legs on the soft
delightful grass, I fell at once into a deep slumber.
"After several hours of absolute unconsciousness, I had a dream, and
thought I was back again in Scotland, in our garden at Eskbank, and
heard somebody calling to me. I gradually came to myself, and opened my
eyes; and there was a working-man standing over me, and, in an accent
unmistakably Scotch, calling me by name, and asking why I was there. I
cannot describe the gush of delight that ran through me when I heard
the kindly tones of my native land, and realised that here at least was
a man who took an interest in me. Raising myself up, I asked him how he
came to know me? He told me that he belonged to Eskbank, that he used
to know me by sight, that he was on his way to his work in Regent Park
Gardens, and that he was astonished to see me lying like an outcast
there. What could I do but tell him my sad story? He said that it might
be a long time before I could get any suitable berth in London, and
that my best plan would be to go home at once, and that he would lend
me five shillings--all that he had on him--to help me on my way. My
heart bounded with delight at the suggestion, and I wondered that I
had never thought of it before. So, taking his offered loan, and along
with it his address, and promising to repay him as soon as I was able,
I shook hands with my humble friend, and set off at once to prepare for
my journey. Not having enough money to pay the fare either by coach
or boat, I resolved to go on foot, and hoped that by taking every
precaution, I would not find it too much for me, and that I might be
able to get some odd jobs by the road, which would assist my expenses.
So I packed up all my effects in a napkin, and bravely set my face to
the north.