The Foreign Office--The new Private Secretary--A Cabinet
key--Concerning theatricals--Some surnames which have passed into
everyday use--Theatricals at Petrograd--A mock-opera--The family from
Runcorn--An embarrassing predicament--Administering the oath--Secret
Service--Popular errors--Legitimate employment of information--The
Phoenix Park murders--I sanction an arrest--The innocent victim--The
execution of the murderers of Alexander II.--The jarring military
band--Black Magic--Sir Charles Wyke--Some of his experiences--The
seance at the Pantheon--Sir Charles' experiment on myself--The
Alchemists--The Elixir of Life, and the Philosopher's Stone--Lucid
directions for their manufacture--Glamis Castle and its
inhabitants--The tuneful Lyon family--Mr. Gladstone at Glamis--He sings
in the glees--The castle and its treasures--Recollections of Glamis.
Having successfully defeated the Civil Service Examiners, I entered the
Foreign Office in 1876, for the six or eight months' training which all
Attaches had to undergo before being sent abroad. The typewriter had
not then been invented, so everything was copied by hand--a wearisome
and deadening occupation where very lengthy documents were concerned.
The older men in the Foreign Office were great sticklers for observing
all the traditional forms. Lord Granville, in obedience to political
pressure, had appointed the son of a leading politician as one of his
unpaid private secretaries. The youth had been previously in his
father's office in Leeds. On the day on which he started work in the
Foreign Office he was given a bundle of letters to acknowledge. "You
know, of course, the ordinary form of acknowledgment," said his chief.
"Just acknowledge all these, and say that the matter will be attended
to." When the young man from Leeds brought the letters he had written,
for signature that evening, it was currently reported that they were
all worded in the same way: "Dear Sirs:--Your esteemed favour of
yesterday's date duly to hand, and contents noted. Our Lord Granville
has your matter in hand." The horror-stricken official gasped at such a
departure from established routine.
As was the custom then, after one month in the Foreign Office, my
immediate chief gave me a little lecture on the traditional high
standard of honour of the Foreign Office, which he was sure I would
observe, and then handed me a Cabinet key which he made me attach to my
watch-chain in his presence. This Cabinet key unlocked all the boxes in
which the most confidential papers of the Cabinet were circulated. As
things were then arranged, this key was essential to our work, but a
boy just turned twenty naturally felt immensely proud of such a proof
of the confidence reposed in him. I think, too, that the Foreign Office
can feel justifiably proud of the fact that the trust reposed in its
most junior members was never once betrayed, and that the most weighty
secrets were absolutely safe in their keeping.
I have narrated elsewhere my early experiences at Berlin and Petrograd.
In every capital the Diplomatists must always be, in a sense,
sojourners in a strange land, and many of them who find a difficulty in
amalgamating with the people of the country must always be thrown to a
great extent on their own resources. It is probably for this reason
that theatricals were so popular amongst the Diplomats in Petrograd,
the plays being naturally always acted in French.
Here I felt more or less at home. My grandmother, the Duchess of
Bedford, was passionately fond of acting, and in my grandfather's time,
one room at Woburn Abbey was permanently fitted up as a theatre. Here,
every winter during my mother's girlhood, there was a succession of
performances in which she, her mother and brothers and sisters all took
part, the Russell family having a natural gift for acting. Probably the
very name of Charles Matthews is unfamiliar to the present generations,
so it is sufficient to say that he was THE light comedian of the early
nineteenth century. The Garrick Club possesses a fine collection of
portraits of Charles Matthews in some of his most popular parts.
Charles Matthews acted regularly with the Russell family at Woburn, my
mother playing the lead. I have a large collection of Woburn Abbey
play-bills, from 1831-1839, all printed on white satin, and some of the
pieces they put on were quite ambitious ones. My mother had a very
sweet singing voice, which she retained till late in life; indeed a
tiny thread of voice remained until her ninety-third year, with a faint
remnant of its old sweetness still clinging to it. After her marriage,
her love of theatricals still persisted, so we were often having
performances at home, as my brothers and sisters shared her tastes. I
made my first appearance on the stage at the age of seven, and I can
still remember most of my lines.
At Petrograd, in the French theatricals, I was always cast for old men,
and I must have played countless fathers, uncles, generals, and family
lawyers. As unmarried girls took part in these performances, the French
pieces had to be considerably "bowdlerized," but they still remained as
excruciatingly funny as only French pieces can be.
If I may be permitted a rather lengthy digression, "bowdlerised"
derives its name from Thomas Bowdler, who in 1818 published an
expurgated edition of Shakespeare. It would be rather interesting to
make a list of words which have passed into common parlance but which
were originally derived from some peculiarity of the person whose
surname they perpetuate. A few occur to me. In addition to
"bowdlerise," there is "sandwich." As is well known, this compact form
of nourishment derives its name from John, fourth Earl of Sandwich, who
lived between 1718-1792. Lord Sandwich was a confirmed gambler, and
such was his anxiety to lose still more money, and to impoverish
further himself, his family, and his descendants, that he grudged the
time necessary for meals, and had slices of bread and slices of meat
placed by his side. The inventive faculty being apparently but little
developed during the eighteenth century, he was the first person who
thought of placing meat between two slices of bread. Owing to the
economy of time thus effected, he was able to ruin himself very
satisfactorily, and his name is now familiar all over the world, thanks
to the condensed form of food he introduced.
Again, Admiral Edward Vernon was Naval Commander-in-Chief in the West
Indies in 1740. The Admiral was known as "Old Grog," from his habit of
always having his breeches and the linings of his boat-cloaks made of
grogram, a species of coarse white poplin (from the French grosgrain).
It occurred to "Old Grog" that, in view of the ravages of yellow fever
amongst the men of the Fleet, it would be advisable, in the burning
climate of the West Indies, to dilute the blue-jackets' rations of rum
with water before serving them out. This was accordingly done, to the
immense dissatisfaction of the men, who probably regarded it as a
forerunner of "Pussyfoot" legislation. They at once christened the
mixture "grog," after the Admiral's nickname, and "grog" as a term for
spirits and water has spread all over the world, and is used just as
much in French as in English.
The origin of the expression "to burke an inquiry," in the sense of
suppressing or stifling it, is due to Burke and Hare, two enterprising
malefactors who supplied the medical schools of Edinburgh with
"subjects" for anatomical research, early in the nineteenth century.
Their procedure was simple. Creeping behind unsuspecting citizens in
lonely streets, they stifled them to death by placing pitch-plasters
over their mouths and noses. Burke was hanged for this in Edinburgh in
1829.
In our own time, an almost unknown man has enriched the language with a
new verb. A Captain Boycott of Lough Mask House, Co. Mayo, was a small
Irish land-agent in 1880. The means that were adopted to try and drive
him out of the country are well known. Since that time the expression
to "boycott" a person, in the sense of combining with others to refuse
to have any dealings with him, has become a recognised English term,
and is just as widely used in France as with us.
A less familiar term is a "Collins," for the usual letter of thanks
which a grateful visitor addresses to his recent host. This, of course,
is derived from the Rev. Mr. Collins of Jane Austen's Pride and
Prejudice, who prided himself on the dexterity with which he worded
these acknowledgments of favours received. As another example, most
bridge-players are but too familiar with the name of a certain defunct
Earl of Yarborough, who, whatever his other good qualities may have
been, scarcely seems to have been a consistently good card-holder.
There must be quite a long list of similar words, and they would make
an interesting study.
To return to the Diplomatic Theatricals at Petrograd, Labiche's piece,
La Cagnotte, is extraordinarily funny, though written over sixty years
ago. We gave a very successful performance of this, in which I played
the restaurant waiter--a capital part. La Lettre Chargee and Le
Sous-Prefet are both most amusing pieces, which can be played, with
very slight "cuts," before any audience, and they both bubble over with
that gaiete francaise which appeals so to me. We were coached at
Petrograd by Andrieux, the jeune premier of the Theatre Michel, and we
all became very professional indeed, never talking of Au Seconde Acte,
but saying Au Deux, in proper French stage style. We also endeavoured
to cultivate the long-drawn-out "a's" of the Comedie Francaise, and
pronounced "adorahtion" and "imaginahtion" in the traditional manner of
the "Maison de Moliere."
The British business community in Petrograd were also extremely fond of
getting up theatricals, in this case, of course, in English. If in the
French plays I was invariably cast for old men, in the English ones I
was always allotted the extremely juvenile parts, being still very slim
and able to "make up" young. I must confess to having appeared on the
stage in an Eton jacket and collar at the age of twenty-four, as the
schoolboy in Peril.
Russians are extremely clever at parody. Two brothers Narishkin wrote
an intensely amusing mock serious opera, entitled Gargouillada, ou la
Belle de Venise. It was written half in French and mock-Italian, and
half in Russian, and was an excellent skit on an old-fashioned Italian
opera. All the ladies fought shy of the part of "Countess Gorganzola,"
the heroine's grandmother. This was partly due to the boldness of some
of "Gorganzola's" lines, and also to the fact that whoever played the
role would have to make-up frankly as an old woman. I was asked to take
"Countess Gorganzola" instead of the villain of the piece, which I had
rehearsed, and I did so, turning it into a sort of Charley's Aunt part.
Garouillada went with a roar from the opening chorus to the final
tableau, and so persistently enthusiastic were the audience that we
agreed to give the opera again four nights in succession.
I was at work in the Chancery of the Embassy next morning when three
people were ushered in to me. They were a family from either St.
Helens, Runcorn, or Widnes, I forget which, all speaking the broadest
Lancashire. The navigation of the Neva being again opened, they had
come on a little trip to Russia on a tramp-steamer belonging to a
friend of theirs. There was the father, a short, thickset man in shiny
black broadcloth, with a shaven upper lip, and a voluminous red
"Newgate-frill" framing his face--exactly the type of face one
associates with the Deacon of a Calvinistic-Methodist Chapel; there was
the mother, a very grim-looking female; and the son, a nondescript
hobbledehoy with goggle-eyes. It appeared that after their passports
had been inspected on landing, the goggle-eyed boy had laid his down
somewhere and had lost it. No hotel would take him in without a
passport, but these people were so obviously genuine, that I had no
hesitation in issuing a fresh passport to the lad, after swearing the
father to an affidavit that the protuberant-eyed youth was his lawful
son. After a few kind words as to the grave effects of any carelessness
with passports in a country like Russia, I let the trio from Runcorn
(or St. Helens) depart.
That evening I had just finished dressing and making-up as Countess
Gorganzola, when I was told that three English people who had come on
from the Embassy wished to see me. The curtain would be going up in ten
minutes, so I got an obliging Russian friend who spoke English to go
down and interview them. The strong Lancashire accent defeated him. All
he could tell me was that it was something about a passport, and that
it was important. I was in a difficulty. It would have taken at least
half an hour to change and make-up again, and the curtain was going up
almost at once, so after some little hesitation I decided to go down as
I was. I was wearing a white wig with a large black lace cap, and a
gown of black moire-antique trimmed with flounces and hanging sleeves
of an abominable material known as black Chantilly lace. Any one who
has ever had to wear this hateful fabric knows how it catches in every
possible thing it can do. Down I went, and the trio from Widnes (or
Runcorn) seemed surprised at seeing an old lady enter the room. But
when I spoke, and they recognised in the old lady the frock-coated (and
I trust sympathetic) official they had interviewed earlier in the day,
their astonishment knew no bounds. The father gazed at me
horror-stricken, as though I were a madman; the mother kept on
swallowing, as ladies of her type do when they wish to convey strong
disapprobation; and the prominent-orbed boy's eyes nearly fell out of
his head. I explained that some theatricals were in progress, but that
did not mend matters; evidently in the serious circles in which they
moved in St. Helens (or Widnes), theatricals were regarded as one of
the snares of the Evil One. To make matters worse, one of my Chantilly
lace sleeves caught in the handle of a drawer, and perhaps excusably,
but quite audibly, I condemned all Chantilly lace to eternal
punishment, but in a much shorter form. After that they looked on me as
clearly beyond the pale. The difficulty about the passport was easily
adjusted. The police had threatened to arrest the young man, as his new
passport was clearly not the one with which he had entered Russia. The
Russian Minister of the Interior happened to be in the green-room, and
on my personal guarantee as to the identity of the Widnes youth, he
wrote an order to the police on his visiting-card, bidding them to
leave the goggle-eyed boy in peace. I really tremble to think of the
reports this family must have circulated upon their return to Widnes
(or Runcorn) as to the frivolity of junior members of the British
Diplomatic Service, who dressed up as old women, and used bad language
about Chantilly lace.
There is a wearisome formality known as "legalising" which took up much
time at the Berlin Embassy. Commercial agreements, if they are to be
binding in two countries, say Germany and England, have to be
"legalised," and this must be done at the Embassy, not at the
Consulate. The individual bringing the document has to make a sworn
affidavit that the contents of his papers are true; he then signs it,
the dry-seal of the Embassy is embossed on it, and a rubber stamp
impressed, declaring that the affidavit has been duly sworn to before a
member of the Embassy staff. This is then signed and dated, and the
process is complete. There were strings of people daily in Berlin with
documents to be legalised, and on a little shelf in the Chancery
reposed an Authorized Version of the Bible, a German Bible, a Vulgate
version of the Gospels in Latin, and a Pentateuch in Hebrew, for the
purpose of administering the oath, according to the religion professed
by the individual. I was duly instructed how to administer the oath in
German, and was told that my first question must be as to the religion
the applicant professed, and that I was then to choose my Book
accordingly. My great friend at Berlin was my fellow-attache Maude, a
most delightful little fellow, who was universally popular. Poor Maude,
who was a near relation of Mr. Cyril Maude the actor's, died four years
afterwards in China. Most of the applicants for legalisation were of
one particular faith. I admired the way in which little Maude, without
putting the usual question as to religion, would scan the features of
the applicant closely and then hand him the Hebrew Pentateuch, and
request him to put on his hat. (Jews are always sworn covered.) About a
month after my arrival in Berlin, I was alone in the Chancery when a
man arrived with a document for legalisation. I was only twenty at the
time, and felt rather "bucked" at administering my first oath. I
thought that I would copy little Maude's methods, and after a good look
at my visitor's prominent features, I handed him the Pentateuch and
requested him to put on his hat. He was perfectly furious, and declared
that both he and his father had been pillars of the Lutheran Church all
their lives. I apologised profusely, but all the same I am convinced
that the original family seat had been situated in the valley of the
Jordan. I avoided, however, guesses as to religions for the future.
Both at Berlin and at Petrograd I kept what are known as the
"Extraordinary Accounts" of the Embassies. I am therefore in a position
to give the exact amount spent on Secret Service, but I have not the
faintest intention of doing anything of the sort. Suffice it to say
that it is less than one-twentieth of the sum the average person would
imagine. Bought information is nearly always unreliable information. A
moment's consideration will show that, should a man be base enough to
sell his country's secrets to his country's possible enemy, he would
also unhesitatingly cheat, if he could, the man who purchases that
information, which, from the very nature of the case, it is almost
impossible to verify. In all probability the so-called information
would have been carefully prepared at the General Staff for the express
purpose of fooling the briber. There is a different class of
information which, it seems to me, is more legitimate to acquire. The
Russian Ministries of Commerce and Finance always imagined that they
could overrule economic laws by decrees and stratagems. For instance,
they were perpetually endeavouring to divert the flow of trade from its
accustomed channels to some port they wished to stimulate artificially
into prosperity, by granting rebates, and by exceptionally favourable
railway rates. Large quantities of jute sacking were imported from
Dundee to be made into bags for the shipment of Russian wheat. One
Minister of Commerce elaborated an intricate scheme for supplanting the
jute sacking by coarse linen sacking of Russian manufacture, by
granting a bonus to the makers of the latter, and by doubling the
import duties on the Scottish-woven material. I could multiply these
economic schemes indefinitely. Now let us suppose that we had some
source of information in the Ministry of Commerce, it was obviously of
advantage to the British Government and to British traders to be warned
of the pending economic changes some two years in advance, for nothing
is ever done quickly in Russia. People in England then knew what to
expect, and could make their arrangements accordingly. I can see
nothing repugnant to the most rigid code of honour in obtaining
information of this kind.
On May 6, 1882, Lord Frederick Cavendish, the newly appointed Irish
Secretary, and Mr. Burke, the Permanent Under-Secretary for Ireland,
were assassinated in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. I knew Tom Burke very
well indeed. The British Government offered a reward of ten thousand
pounds for the apprehension of the murderers, and every policeman in
Europe had rosy dreams of securing this great prize, and was constantly
on the alert for the criminals and the reward.
In July 1882, the Ambassador and half the Embassy staff were on leave
in England. As matters were very slack just then, the Charge d'Affaires
and the Second Secretary had gone to Finland for four days' fishing,
leaving me in charge of the Embassy, with an Attache to help me. My
servant came to me early one morning as I was in bed, and told me that
an official of the Higher Police was outside my front door, and begged
for permission to come into my flat. I have explained elsewhere that
Ambassadors, their families, their staffs, and even all the Embassy
servants enjoy what is called exterritoriality; that is, that by a
polite fiction the Embassy and the houses or apartments of the
Secretaries are supposed to be on the actual soil of the country they
represent. Consequently, the police of the country cannot enter them
except by special permission, and both the Secretaries and their
servants are immune from arrest, and are not subject to the laws of the
country, though they can, of course, be expelled from it. I gave the
policeman leave to enter, and he came into my bedroom. "I have caught
one of the Phoenix Park murderers," he told me triumphantly in Russian,
visions of the possible ten thousand pounds wreathing his face in
smiles. I jumped up incredulously. He went on to inform me that a man
had landed from the Stockholm steamer early that morning. Though he
declared that he had no arms with him, a revolver and a dagger had been
found in his trunk. His passport had only been issued at the British
Legation in Stockholm, and his description tallied exactly with the
signalment issued by Scotland Yard in eight languages. The policier
showed me the description: "height about five feet nine; complexion
sallow, with dark eyes. Thickset build; probably with some recent cuts
on face and hands." The policeman declared that the cuts were there,
and that it was unquestionably the man wanted. Then he put the question
point-blank, would the Embassy sanction this man's arrest? I was only
twenty-five at the time. I had to act on "my own," and I had to decide
quickly. "Yes, arrest him," I said, "but you are not to take him to
prison. Confine him to his room at his hotel, with two or three of your
men to watch him. I will dress and come there as quickly as I can."
Half an hour later I was in a grubby room of a grubby hotel, where a
short, sallow, thickset man, with three recent cuts on his face, was
walking up and down, smoking cigarettes feverishly, and throwing
frightened glances at three sinister-looking plain-clothes men, who
pretended to be quite at ease. I looked again at the description and at
the man. There could be no doubt about it. I asked him for his own
account of himself. He told me that he was the Manager of the
Gothenburg Tramway Company in Sweden, an English concern, and that he
had come to Russia for a little holiday. He accounted for the cuts on
his face and hands by saying that he had slipped and fallen on his face
whilst alighting from a moving tram-car. He declared that he was well
known in Stockholm, and that his wife, when packing his things, must
have put in the revolver and dagger without his knowledge. It all
sounded grotesquely improbable, but I promised to telegraph both to
Stockholm and Gothenburg, and to return to him as soon as I had
received the answers. In the meanwhile I feared that he must consider
himself as under close arrest. He himself was under the impression that
all the trouble was due to the concealed arms; the Phoenix Park murders
had never once been mentioned. I sent off a long telegram in cypher to
the Stockholm Legation, making certain inquiries, and a longer one en
clair to the British Consul at Gothenburg. By nagging at the Attache,
and by keeping that dapper young gentleman's nose pretty close to the
grindstone, I got the first telegram cyphered and dispatched by 10
a.m.; the answers arrived about 4 p.m. The man's story was true in
every particular. He HAD fallen off a moving tram and cut his face; his
wife, terrified at the idea of unknown dangers in Russia, HAD borrowed
a revolver and dagger from a friend, and had packed them in her
husband's trunk without his knowledge. Mr. D---- (I remember his name
perfectly) was well known in Stockholm, and was a man of the highest
respectability. I drove as fast as I could to the grubby hotel, where I
found the poor fellow still restlessly pacing the room, and still
smoking cigarette after cigarette. There was a perfect Mont Blanc of
cigarette stumps on a plate, and the shifty-looking plain-clothes men
were still watching their man like hawks. I told the police that they
had got hold of the wrong man, that the Embassy was quite satisfied
about him, and that they must release the gentleman at once. They
accordingly did so, and the alluring vision of the ten thousand pounds
vanished into thin air! The poor man was quite touchingly grateful to
me; he had formed the most terrible ideas about a Russian State prison,
and seemed to think that he owed his escape entirely to me. I had not
the moral courage to tell him that I had myself ordered his arrest that
morning, still less of the awful crime of which he had been suspected.
Looking back, I do not see how I could have acted otherwise; the prima
facie case against him was so strong; never was circumstantial evidence
apparently clearer. Mr. D---- went back to Sweden next day, as he had
had enough of Russia. Should Mr. D---- still be alive, and should he by
any chance read these lines, may I beg of him to accept my humblest
apologies for the way I behaved to him thirty-eight years ago.
I happened to see the four assassins of Alexander II. driven through
the streets of Petrograd on their way to execution. They were seated in
chairs on large tumbrils, with their backs to the horses. Each one had
a placard on his, or her breast, inscribed "Regicide" ("Tsaryubeeyetz"
in Russian). Two military brass bands, playing loudly, followed the
tumbrils. This was to make it impossible for the condemned persons to
address the crowd, but the music might have been selected more
carefully. One band played the well-known march from Fatinitza. There
was a ghastly incongruity between the merry strains of this captivating
march and the terrible fate that awaited the people escorted by the
band at the end of their last drive on earth. When the first band
rested, the second replaced it instantly to avoid any possibilities of
a speech. The second band seemed to me to have made an equally unhappy
selection of music. "Kaiser Alexander," written as a complimentary
tribute to the murdered Emperor by a German composer, is a spirited and
tuneful march, but as "Kaiser Alexander" was dead, and had been killed
by the very people who were now going to expiate their crime, the
familiar tune jarred horribly. A jaunty, lively march tune, and death
at the end of it, and in a sense at the beginning of it too. At times
even now I can conjure up a vision of the broad, sombre Petrograd
streets, with the dull cotton-wool sky pressing down almost on to the
house-tops; the vast silent crowds thronging the thoroughfares, and the
tumbrils rolling slowly forward through the crowded streets to the
place of execution, accompanied by the gay strains of the march from
Fatinitza. The hideous incongruity between the tune and the occasion
made one positively shudder.
There is in the Russian temperament a peculiar unbalanced hysterical
element. This, joined to a distinct bent towards the mystic, and to a
large amount of credulity, has made Russia for two hundred years the
happy hunting-ground of charlatans and impostors of various sorts
claiming supernatural powers: clairvoyants, mediums, yogis, and all the
rest of the tribe who batten on human weaknesses, and the perpetual
desire to tear away the veil from the Unseen. It so happened that my
chief at Lisbon had in his youth dabbled in the Black Art. Sir Charles
Wyke was a dear old man, who had spent most of his Diplomatic career in
Mexico and the South American Republics. He spoke Spanish better than
any other Englishman I ever knew, with the one exception of Sir William
Barrington. He was unmarried, and was a most distinguished-looking old
gentleman with his snow-white imperial and moustache. He was
unquestionably a little eccentric in his habits. He had rendered some
signal service to the Mexican Government while British Minister there,
by settling a dispute between them and the French authorities. The
Mexican Government had out of gratitude presented him with a splendid
Mexican saddle, with pommel, stirrups and bit of solid silver, and with
the leather of the saddle most elaborately embroidered in silver. Sir
Charles kept this trophy on a saddle-tree in his study at Lisbon, and
it was his custom to sit on it daily for an hour or so. He said that as
he was too old to ride, the feel of a saddle under him reminded him of
his youth. When every morning I brought the old gentleman the day's
dispatches, I always found him seated on his saddle, a cigar in his
mouth, a skull-cap on his head, and his feet in the silver
shoe-stirrups. Sir Charles had been a great friend of the first Lord
Lytton, the novelist, and they had together dabbled in Black Magic. Sir
Charles declared that the last chapters in Bulwer-Lytton's wonderful
imaginative work, A STRANGE STORY, describing the preparation of the
Elixir of Life in the heart of the Australian Bush, were all founded on
actual experience, with the notable reservation that all the recorded
attempts made to produce this magic fluid had failed from their very
start. He had in his younger days joined a society of Rosicrucians, by
which I do not mean the Masonic Order of that name, but persons who
sought to penetrate into the Forbidden Domain. Some forty years ago a
very interesting series of articles appeared in Vanity Fair (the weekly
newspaper, not Thackeray's masterpiece), under the title of "The Black
Art." In one of these there was an account of a seance which took place
at the Pantheon in Oxford Street, in either the "forties" or the
"fifties." A number of people had hired the hall, and the Devil was
invoked in due traditional form, Then something happened, and the
entire assemblage rushed terror-stricken into Oxford Street, and
nothing would induce a single one of them to re-enter the building. Sir
Charles owned that he had been present at the seance, but he would
never tell me what it was that frightened them all so; he said that he
preferred to forget the whole episode. Sir Charles had an idea that I
was a "sensitive," so, after getting my leave to try his experiment, he
poured into the palm of my hand a little pool of quicksilver, and
placing me under a powerful shaded lamp, so that a ray of light caught
the mercury pool, he told me to look at the bright spot for a quarter
of an hour, remaining motionless meanwhile. Any one who has shared this
experience with me, knows how the speck of light flashes and grows
until that little pool of quicksilver seems to fill the entire horizon,
darting out gleaming rays like an Aurora Borealis. I felt myself
growing dazed and hypnotised, when Sir Charles emptied the mercury from
my hand, and commenced making passes over me, looking, with his slender
build and his white hair and beard, like a real mediaeval magician.
"Now you can neither speak nor move," he cried at length. "I think I
can do both, Sir Charles," I answered, as I got out of the chair. He
tried me on another occasion, and then gave me up. I was clearly not a
"sensitive."
Sir Charles had quite a library of occult books, from which I
endeavoured to glean a little knowledge, and great rubbish most of them
were. Raymond Lully, Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, and Van Helmont; they
were all there, in French, German, Latin, and English. The Alchemists
had two obsessions: one was the discovery of the Elixir of Life, by the
aid of which you could live forever; the other that of the
Philosopher's Stone, which had the property of transmuting everything
it touched into gold. Like practical men, they seemed to have
concentrated their energies more especially on the latter, for a
moment's consideration will show the exceedingly awkward predicament in
which any one would be placed with only the first of these conveniences
at his command. Should he by the aid of the Elixir of Life have managed
to attain the age of, say, 300 years, he might find it excessively hard
to obtain any remunerative employment at that time of life; whereas
with the Philosopher's Stone in his pocket, he would only have to touch
the door-scraper outside his house to find it immediately transmuted
into the purest gold. In case of pressing need, he could extend the
process with like result to his area railings, which ought to be enough
to keep the wolf from the door for some little while even at the
present-day scale of prices.
Basil Valentine, the German Benedictine monk and alchemist, who wrote a
book which he quaintly termed The Triumphant Wagon, in praise of the
healing properties of antimony, actually thought that he had discovered
the Elixir of Life in tartrate of antimony, more generally known as
tartar emetic. He administered large doses of this turbulent remedy to
some ailing monks of his community, who promptly all died of it.
The main characteristics of the Alchemists is their wonderful clarity.
For instance, when they wish to refer to mercury, they call it "the
green lion," and the "Pontic Sea," which makes it quite obvious to
every one. They attached immense importance to the herb "Lunary," which
no one as yet has ever been able to discover. Should any one happen to
see during their daily walks "a herb with a black root, and a red and
violet stalk, whose leaves wax and wane with the moon," they will at
once know that they have found a specimen of the rare herb "Lunary."
The juice of this plant, if boiled with quicksilver, has only to be
thrown over one hundred ounces of copper, to change them instantly into
fine gold. Paracelsus' directions for making the Philosopher's Stone
are very simple: "Take the rosy-coloured blood of the lion, and gluten
from the eagle. Mix them together, and the Philosopher's Stone is
thine. Seek the lion in the west, and the eagle in the south." What
could be clearer? Any child could make sufficient Philosopher's Stones
from this simple recipe to pave a street with--a most useful asset, by
the way, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the present time, for
every bicycle, omnibus and motor-lorry driving over the Philosopher
Stone-paved street would instantly be changed automatically into pure
gold, and the National Debt could be satisfactorily liquidated in this
fashion in no time.
Whenever I returned home on leave, whether from Berlin, Petrograd,
Lisbon, or Buenos Ayres, I invariably spent a portion of my leave at
Glamis Castle. This venerable pile, "whose birth tradition notes not,"
though the lower portions were undoubtedly standing in 1016, rears its
forest of conical turrets in the broad valley lying between the
Grampians and the Sidlaws, in the fertile plains of Forfarshire. Apart
from the prestige of its immense age, Glamis is one of the most
beautiful buildings in the Three Kingdoms. The exquisitely weathered
tints of grey-pink and orange that its ancient red sandstone walls have
taken on with the centuries, its many gables and towers rising in
summer-time out of a sea of greenery, the richness of its architectural
details, make Glamis a thing apart. There is nothing else quite like
it. No more charming family can possibly be imagined than that of the
late Lord Strathmore, forty years ago. The seven sons and three
daughters of the family were all born musicians. I have never heard
such perfect and finished part-singing as that of the Lyon family, and
they were always singing: on the way to a cricket-match; on the road
home from shooting; in the middle of dinner, even, this irrepressible
family could not help bursting into harmony, and such exquisite
harmony, too! Until their sisters grew up, the younger boys sang the
treble and alto parts, but finally they were able to manage a
male-voice quartet, a trio of ladies' voices, and a combined family
octette. The dining-room at Glamis is a very lofty hall, oak-panelled,
with a great Jacobean chimney-piece rising to the roof. After dinner it
was the custom for the two family pipers to make the circuit of the
table three times, and then to walk slowly off, still playing, through
the tortuous stone passages of the ancient building until the last
faint echoes of the music had died away. Then all the lights in the
dining-room were extinguished except the candles on the table, and out
came a tuning-fork, and one note was sounded--"Madrigal," "Spring is
Come, third beat," said the conducting brother, and off they went,
singing exquisitely; glees, madrigals, part-songs, anything and
everything, the acoustic properties of the lofty room adding to the
effect. All visitors to Glamis were charmed with this most finished
singing--always, of course, without accompaniment. They sang equally
well in the private chapel, giving admirable renderings of the most
intricate "Services," and, from long practice together, their voices
blended perfectly. This gifted family were equally good at acting. They
had a permanent stage during the winter months at Glamis, and as every
new Gilbert and Sullivan opera was produced in London, the concerted
portions were all duly repeated at Glamis, and given most excellently.
I have never heard the duet and minuet between "Sir Marmaduke" and
"Lady Sangazure" from The Sorcerer better done than at Glamis, although
Sir Marmaduke was only nineteen, and Lady Sangazure, under her white
wig, was a boy of twelve. The same boy sang "Mabel" in the Pirates of
Penzance most admirably.
In 1884 it was conveyed to Lord Strathmore that Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone,
whom he did not know personally, were most anxious to see Glamis. Of
course an invitation was at once dispatched, and in spite of the
rigorously Tory atmosphere of the house, we were all quite charmed with
Mr. Gladstone's personality. Lord Strathmore wished to stop the
part-singing after dinner, but I felt sure that Mr. Gladstone would
like it, so it took place as usual. The old gentleman was perfectly
enchanted with it, and complimented this tuneful family
enthusiastically on the perfect finish of their singing. Next evening
Mr. Gladstone asked for a part-song in the middle of dinner, and as the
singing was continued in the drawing-room afterwards, he went and, with
a deferential courtesy charming to see in a man of his age and
position, asked whether the young people would allow an old man to sing
bass in the glees with them. Mr. Gladstone still had a very fine
resonant bass, and he read quite admirably. It was curious to see the
Prime Minister reading off the same copy as an Eton boy of sixteen, who
was singing alto. Being Sunday night, they went on singing hymns and
anthems till nearly midnight; there was no getting Mr. Gladstone away.
Mrs. Gladstone told me next day that he had not enjoyed himself so much
for many months.
There was a blend of simplicity, dignity, and kindliness in Mrs.
Gladstone's character that made her very attractive. My family were
exceedingly fond of her, and though two of my brothers were always
attacking Mr. Gladstone in the most violent terms, this never strained
their friendly relations with Mrs. Gladstone herself. I always conjure
up visions of Mrs. Gladstone in her sapphire-blue velvet, her
invariable dress of ceremony. Though a little careless as to her
appearance, she always looked a "great lady," and her tall figure, and
the kindly old face with its crown of silvery hair, were always
welcomed in the houses of those privileged to know her.
The Lyon family could do other things besides singing and acting. The
sons were all excellent shots, and were very good at games. One brother
was lawn-tennis champion of Scotland, whilst another, with his partner,
won the Doubles Championship of England.
Glamis is the oldest inhabited house in Great Britain. As Shakespeare
tells us in Macbeth,
"This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly
recommends itself Unto our gentle senses."
The vaulted crypt was built before 1016, and another ancient
stone-flagged, stone-vaulted hall leading out of it is the traditional
scene of the murder of Duncan by Macbeth, the "Thane of Glamis." In a
room above it King Malcolm II. of Scotland was murdered in 1034. The
castle positively teems with these agreeable traditions. The staircases
and their passages are stone-walled, stone-roofed, and stone-floored,
and their flags are worn into hollows by the feet which have trodden
them for so many centuries. Unusual features are the secret winding
staircases debouching in the most unexpected places, and a well in the
front hall, which doubtless played a very useful part during the many
sieges the castle sustained in the old days. The private chapel is a
beautiful little place of worship, with eighty painted panels of
Scriptural subjects by De Witt, the seventeenth-century Dutch artist,
and admirable stained glass. The Castle, too, is full of interesting
historical relics. It boasts the only remaining Fool's dress of motley
in the kingdom; Prince Charlie's watch and clothes are still preserved
there, for the Prince, surprised by the Hanoverian troops at Glamis,
had only time to jump on a horse and escape, leaving all his belongings
behind him. There is a wonderful collection of old family dresses of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and above all there is the
very ancient silver-gilt cup, "The Lion of Glamis," which holds an
entire bottle of wine, and on great family occasions is still produced
and used as a loving-cup, circulating from hand to hand round the
table. Walter Scott in a note to Waverly states that it was the "Lion
of Glamis" cup which gave him the idea of the "Blessed Bear of
Bradwardine." In fact, there is no end to the objects of interest this
wonderful old castle contains, and the Lyon family have inhabited it
for six hundred years in direct line from father to son.
It is difficult for me to write impartially about Glamis, for it is as
familiar to me as my own home. I have been so much there, and have
received such kindness within its venerable walls, that it can never be
to me quite as other places are. I can see vast swelling stretches of
purple heather, with the dainty little harebells all a-quiver in the
strong breeze sweeping over the grouse-butts, as a brown mass of
whirling wings rushes past at the pace of an express train, causing one
probably to reflect how well-nigh impossible it is to "allow" too much
for driven grouse flying down-wind. I can picture equally vividly the
curling-pond in winter-time, tuneful with the merry chirrup of the
curling-stones as they skim over the ice, whilst cries of "Soop her up,
man, soop! Soop!" from the anxious "skip" fill the keen air. I like
best, though, to think of the Glamis of my young days, when the ancient
stone-built passages and halls, that have seen so many generations pass
through them and disappear, rang with perpetual youthful laughter, or
echoed beautifully finished part-singing; when nimble young feet
twinkled, and kilts whirled to the skirl of the pipes under the vaulted
roof of the nine-hundred-year-old crypt; when the whole place was
vibrant with joyous young life, and the stately, grey-bearded owner of
the historic castle, and of many broad acres in Strathmore besides,
found his greatest pleasure in seeing how happy his children and his
guests could be under his roof.