An American Four-In-Hand in Britain Part 5

... "that Nature never did betray The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy; for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold Is full of blessings."

Mr. Gladstone's fresh appearance Monday mornings gratifies his friends, and pleases even his opponents, for such a man can have no ill-wishers, surely. When Confucius had determined to behead the emperor's corrupt brother, his counsellors endeavored to dissuade him, from a just fear that the criminal's friends would rise and avenge his death. "Friends!"

said the sage, "such a character may have adherents, but friends never."

The result proved his wisdom. No revolt came, though Confucius stood by to see justice done, refusing to listen to the pet.i.tion of the emperor for his own brother's life. In like manner, Mr. Gladstone may have opponents--enemies never. All Englishmen must in their hearts honor the man who is a credit to the race. By the way, he's Scotch, let me note, and never fails to bear in mind and to mention this special cause for thankfulness. I suspect that this fact has not a little to do with the intense enthusiasm of Scotland for him. We are a queer lot, up in the North Countrie, and he is our ain bairn. Blood is thicker than water everywhere, but in no part of this world is it so _very much thicker_ as beyond the Tweed.

We attended church at Windsor and saw the great man and the Prince come to the door together. There the former stopped and the other walked up the aisle, causing a flutter in the congregation. Mr. Gladstone followed at a respectful distance, and took his seat several pews behind. How absurd you are, my young lady republican! Can you not understand? One is only the leading man in the empire--a man who, in a fifty years' tussle with the foremost statesmen of the age, has won the crown both for attainments and character; but the other, bless your ignorant little head!--he is a prince.

[Sidenote: _Kings and Princes._]

Well, if he is, he has never done anything, you say. True, but what are kings and princes for? The people of England, my dear, not so very long ago, used to have it beaten into them that "the king can do no wrong."

As this is historically the true doctrine and has antiquity on its side, it would have been very un-English to reject it; so they quietly accepted the dogma and made it true by arranging that the king should never be allowed to do anything--it's a way these islanders have--the form may be what it likes, the substance must be as they wish. They never revolutionize in England--they transform. What you complain of then, my red republican miss, is really the best proof that the prince will make that modern article called a Const.i.tutional Monarch, and spend his days as the English man-milliner Worth--setting the fas.h.i.+ons, laying foundation stones, and opening fancy bazars. Oh! you would not be such a prince or such a king. The Bruce at Bannockburn, at the head of his countrymen striking for the independence of Scotland, and King Edward leading his hosts, these were _real_ kings, you say? The kings of to-day are shadows. I am not going to dispute that with you, Miss; times have changed and kings with them; but were I Prince of Wales, I would be in Ireland to-day investigating the causes of discontent and devising a remedy; and above all showing my deep and abiding sympathy with that portion of my people. This would be better than leading men to murder their fellows--as your heroes did. Oh yes, indeed, says my young lady politician, I should like to be the Prince of Wales just to do that.

What a hero it would make him! Why, he would rank with Alfred the Good, or George Was.h.i.+ngton. Why doesn't Mr. Gladstone suggest this to him? I believe the Prince would just jump at the chance. Well, my dear girl, drop a postal card to the grand old man, and you will get his views upon the subject by return mail. The conversation ended by a toss of the head, and "Well, I would if I were a man. I should like a chance 'to talk it up' to the Prince." As the Prince is an admirer of pretty American young ladies, our friend might get a hearing and astonish him.

In the afternoon we attended St. George's Chapel. In one of the stalls we saw again that sadly n.o.ble lion-face--no one ever mistakes Gladstone.

He sat wrapped in the deepest meditation. He is very pale, haggard, and careworn--the weight of empire upon him!

"I tell thee, scorner of these whitening hairs, When this snow melteth there shall come a flood."

I could not help applying to him Milton's lines:

... "with grave Aspect he rose, and in his rising seem'd A pillar of state: deep on his front engraven Deliberation sat and public care; And princely counsel in his face yet shone, Majestic though in ruin."

He has work to do yet. If he were only fifty instead of seventy odd!

Well, G.o.d bless him for what he has done; may he rule England long!

[Sidenote: _The Queen Dowager._]

A memorable event occurred at Windsor, Sunday, June 19th--the Queen Dowager reached her seventy-first year. At breakfast Mr. B. rose, and addressing himself to her, made one of the sweetest, prettiest speeches ever heard. He presented to her an exquisite silver cup, ornamented with birds and flowers, and inscribed: "Presented to Mrs. M. C. at Windsor, by the members of the coaching-party, upon her seventy-first birthday."

Mr. B.'s reference to her intense love of nature in all its glorious forms, from the tiny gowan to the extended landscape, was most appropriate.

We were completely surprised; and when the speaker concluded, the Scribe was about to rise and respond, but a slight motion from Her Majesty apprized him that she preferred to reply in person. She acquitted herself grandly. Her speech was a gem (Mem.--it was so short). After thanking her dear friends, she said:

"I can only wish that you may all have as good health, as complete command of all your faculties, and enjoy flowers and birds and all things of nature as much as I do at seventy-one." Here the voice trembled. There were not many dry eyes. The quiver ran through the party, and without another word the Queen sat slowly down. I was very, very proud of that seventy-year old (I am often that), and deeply moved, as she was, by this touching evidence of the regard of the coaching-party for her.

This incident led to some funny stories about presentation speeches.

Upon a recent occasion, not far from Paisley, Aggie told us, a worthy deacon had been selected to present a robe to the minister. The church was crowded, and the recipient stood expectantly at the foot of the pulpit, surrounded by the members of his family. Amid breathless silence the committee entered and marched up the aisle, headed by the deacon bearing the gift in his extended arms. On reaching the pulpit a stand was made, but never a word came from the deacon, down whose brow the perspiration rolled in great drops. He was in a daze, but a touch from one of the committee brought him back to something like a realizing sense of his position, and he stammered out, as he handed the robe to the minister:

"Mr. Broon, Here's the goon."

You need not laugh. It is not likely that you could make as good a speech, which, I'll wager, is far better than the one over which he had spent sleepless nights, but which providentially left him at the critical moment.

Windsor, seen from any direction at a distance, is _par excellence_ the castle--a truly royal residence; but, seen closely, it loses the grand and sinks into something of prettiness. It is no longer commanding, and is insignificant in comparison with the true castles of the North, the surroundings of which are in keeping with the idea of a stronghold, and take you at once to the times of the chieftain and his armed men. There is nothing of this at Windsor, and the glamour disappears when you begin to a.n.a.lyze. Royalty's famous abode should be looked at, as royalty itself should be--at a safe distance.

[Sidenote: _St. George's Chapel._]

Service at St. George's Chapel will not soon be forgotten by our party.

The stalls of the Knights of the Garter, over the canopies of which hang their swords and mantles surmounted by their crests and armorial bearings, carry one far back into the days of chivalry. One stall arrested and held my attention--that of the Earl of Beaconsfield. When I was not gazing at Gladstone's face, I was moralizing upon the last Knight of the Garter, whose flag still floats above the stall. Disraeli won the blue ribbon about as worthily as most men, and by much the same means--he flattered the monarch. But there is this to be said of him: he had brains and made himself.

What a commentary upon pride of birth, the flag of the poor literary adventurer floating beside that of my lord duke's! It pleased me much to see it. How that man must have chuckled as he bowed his way among his dupes, from Her Majesty to Salisbury, and pa.s.sed the radical extension of the suffrage that doomed hereditary privilege to speedy extinction.

But where will imperialism get such another leader, after all? It has not found him yet.

"What is that up there?" asked one of our party. "The royal box, miss."

Were we really at the opera, then? A royal box in a church for the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d! Did you ever hear anything like that! There is a royal staircase, too. Why not? You would not have royalty on an equality with us, would you, even if we are all alike miserable sinners and engaged in the wors.h.i.+p of that G.o.d who is no respecter of persons.

"Well, I think this is awful," said one of the party. "I don't believe the good Queen would go to church in this way, if she only thought of it. Our President and family have their pew just like the rest of us."

Our English members were equally surprised that the American should see anything shocking in the practice, and the ladies fought out the matter between themselves; the Americans insisting that the Queen should attend wors.h.i.+p as other poor sinners do, since all are equal in G.o.d's eyes; and the English saying little, but evidently harboring the idea that even in heaven special accommodations would probably be found reserved for royalty, with maybe a special staircase to ascend by. Early education and inherited tendencies account for much.

[Sidenote: _Royal Etiquette._]

The staircase question led to the story that the Marquis of Lorne was not allowed to enter some performance by the same stair with his wife.

The American was up at this. "If I had a husband, and he couldn't come with me, I wouldn't go." This made an end of the discussion, for the English young lady's eyes told plainly of her secret vow that wherever she went ---- must go too. All were agreed on this point; but on the general question it was a drawn battle, the one side declaring that if they were men they would not have a princess for a wife under any circ.u.mstances, and the other insisting that, if they were princesses, they would not have anybody but a prince for a husband.

We were honored while here by the presence of Mr. Sidney G. Thomas and his sister, who came down from London and spent the day with us. Mr.

Thomas is the young chemist, who, in conjunction with his cousin Mr.

Gilchrist, would not accept the dictum of the authorities that phosphorus, that fiend of steel manufacturers, cannot be expelled from iron ores at a high temperature. They set to work over a small toy pot, which deserves to rank with Watt's tea-kettle, to see whether the scientific world had not blundered. Let me premise that the presence of phosphorus in pig iron to the extent of more than about one tenth of one per cent. is fatal to the production of good steel by the Bessemer or open hearth processes. Do what you will, this troublesome substance persists in remaining with the iron. If there be phosphorus in the iron-stone you smelt, every atom of it will be found in the resulting iron; and if there be any in the limestone, or the c.o.ke or coal used, every atom of it also will find its way into the iron.

It is essential, therefore, that iron-stone should be found practically free from phosphorus; but unfortunately such ore is scarce, and therefore expensive. The great iron-stone deposits of England are full of the enemy; so are those of America; hence, both countries depend largely upon ores which have to be transported from Spain and other countries. One authority estimates that if all the high phosphorus ores in Britain could be made as valuable as those free from the objectionable ingredient, the saving per annum would go far to pay the interest upon the national debt. Many have been the attempts to devise some tempting bait to coax this fiend to forego his strange affinity for iron, and unite with some other element; but no, his satanic majesty would cling to the metal.

Messrs. Thomas and Gilchrist, in studying some highly creditable experiments made by my friend Lothian Bell, Esq. (for he was upon the right track), discovered an oversight which seemed to qualify the results which he reached, and to render his experiments inconclusive.

It was possible, they thought, that his failure might have resulted from the fiend not being _kept_ out when he _was_ out. So they went quietly to work with their toy pot, and Eureka! Their charm had not only exorcised the fiend, but they had discovered how to lead him away from the molten metal into the refuse and shut the door on him there. Here was a triumph indeed! I fancy they neither ate nor slept till repeated experiments proved that the true charm had been found at last.

[Sidenote: _Iron and Phosphorus._]

Mr. E. Windsor Richards, the broad manager of the largest manufactory of iron and steel in the world, was soon acquainted by them with the discovery. He tried it upon a large scale, and announced the end of the reign of King Phosphorus; but he dies hard. This was some years ago, for I read the good news a few minutes after I had landed at Naples from the East, on my way round the world in the year 1879. Many obstacles had yet to be surmounted, but now every ton of steel manufactured at Mr.

Richards's great works is made from iron stone which a few years ago was counted worthless for steel. Enough iron stone can be had for three dollars to make a ton of pig iron suitable for steel rails. The same amount of low phosphorus stone at Pittsburgh cost last year sixteen dollars, and yet there are intelligent people who do not understand why we cannot make rails as cheap as the English.

I wonder if I could explain to the general reader how Messrs. Thomas and Gilchrist succeeded. It always seems to me like a fairy tale--I will try. In making steel, ten tons of molten pig iron is run into a big pot called a converter, and hundreds of jets of air are blown up through the ma.s.s to burn out the silica and carbon, and finally to make it steel.

Now, phosphorus has a greater affinity for lime than for iron when it reaches a certain temperature, and when the air blast brings the ma.s.s to the required heat, the million particles of phosphorus, like so many tiny ants disturbed, run hither and thither, quite ready to leave the iron for the lime. These clever young men first put a lot of lime in the bottom of the pot as a bait, and into this fly the ants, perfectly delighted with their new home. The lime and slag float to the top and are drawn off--but mark you, let the temperature fall and the new home gets too cold to suit these salamanders, although the temperature may be over 2,000 degrees, hot enough to melt a bar of steel in a moment if thrown into the pot. No, they must have 2,500 degrees in the lime or they will rush back to the metal.

But here lay a difficulty: 2,500 degrees is so very hot that no ordinary pot lining will stand it, and of course the iron pot itself will not last a moment. If ganister or fire brick is used it just crumbles away, and besides this, the plaguey particles of phosphorus will rush into it and tear it all to pieces. The great point is to get a basic lining, that is, one free from silica. This has at last been accomplished, and now the basic process is destined to revolutionize the manufacture of steel, for out of the poorest ores, and even out of puddle cinder, steel or iron much purer than any now made for rails or bridges can be obtained, and the two young chemists, patentees of the Thomas-Gilchrist process, take their rank in the domain of metallurgy with Cort, Nelson, Bessemer and Siemens. These young men have done more for England's greatness than all her kings and queens and aristocracy put together.

[Sidenote: _A Modern Moses._]

It was this pale Gladstonian-looking youth we had with us for the day and for our Sunday evening dinner at Windsor. He wears no t.i.tle--he is too sound a Radical, and too sensible a man to change the name his honored father gave him--but nevertheless we felt we had one of the great men of our generation as our guest. If it be true, as it is, that he who causes two blades of gra.s.s to grow where but one grew before is a benefactor to the race, what is the magician who takes from the bowels of the earth a ton of dross, and transforms it into steel before our eyes--strikes with his enchanted wand a hundred mines of worthless stone and turns it into gold, as the prophet struck the dry rock and called water forth? The age of real miracles is not over, you see, it has only begun, and Thomas is our modern Moses; his miracle seems as much greater than that of his prototype as the nineteenth century is advanced beyond that of the Jewish dispensation.

Monday was another thoroughly English day. The silver Thames, that glistened in the sun, was enlivened by many stately swans. The castle towered in all its majesty, vivified by the meteor flag which fluttered in the breeze. The grounds of Eton were crowded with nice-looking English boys as we pa.s.sed. Many of us walked down the steep hill and far into the country in advance of the coach, and felt once more that a fine day in the south of England was perfection indeed. The sun here reminds one of the cup that cheers, but does not inebriate: its rays cheer, but never scorch. You could not tell whether, if there were to be any change, you would prefer it to be a shade cooler or a shade warmer.

The swans of Windsor are an inst.i.tution almost as old as the castle itself, for they are mentioned in records more than five hundred years ago. The swan is indeed a royal bird, and it is said that no subject can own them when at large in a public river except by special grant from the crown. Such a grant is accompanied by a swan-mark for each _game_ of swans--the proper term, mark you, for a collection of the n.o.ble birds.

You may say a flock of geese but not of swans; a game of swans, please, if you would "speak by the card." The corporation of Windsor has possessed the right of keeping swans in the Thames almost from time immemorial. Formerly the king's swanherd made an annual expedition up the river to mark them. He and his a.s.sistants chased the poor frightened birds in boats, caught them roughly with long hooks, with little deference to their beautiful plumage, and marked them by cutting one or more nicks in the upper mandible of their beaks. This expedition, called swan-upping (corrupted into swan-hopping), is still made by the deputies of the Dyers' and Vintners' companies, now the princ.i.p.al swan owners on the Thames, the mark of the former being one nick and of the latter two nicks on the bill.

[Sidenote: _Stoke Pogis._]

Stoke Pogis is a few miles out of our direct road, but who would miss that, even were the detour double what the ordnance survey makes it?

Besides, had not a dear friend, a stay-at-home, told us that one of the happiest days of her life was that spent in making a pilgrimage to the shrine of the poet from this very Windsor? Gray's was the first shrine at which we stopped to wors.h.i.+p, and the beauty, the stillness, the peace of that low, quaint, ivy-covered church, and its old-fas.h.i.+oned graveyard, sank into our hearts. Surely no one could revive memories more sweetly English than he who gave us the Elegy. Some lines, and even verses of that gem, will endure, it may safely be predicted, as long as anything English does, and that is saying much. We found just such a churchyard as seemed suited to the ode. Gray is fortunate in his resting-place. Earth has no prettier, calmer spot to give her child than this. It is the very ideal G.o.d's acre. The little church, too, is perfect. How fine is Gray's inscription upon his mother's tomb! I avoid cemeteries whenever possible, but this seemed more like a place where one revisits those he has once known than that where, alas! we must mourn those lost forever. Gray's voice--the voice of one that is still, even the touch of the vanished hand, these seemed to be found there, for after our visit the poet was closer to me than he had ever been before.

It is not thus with such as we have known and loved in the flesh--their graves let us silently avoid. He whom you seek is not here; but the great dead, whom we have known only through their souls, do come closer to us as we stand over their graves. The flesh we have known has become spiritualized; the spirits we have known become in a measure materialized, and I felt I had a firmer hold upon Gray from having stood over his dust.

Here is the inscription he put upon his mother's grave: