UNTIL the a'bus stopped and the old gentleman entered, we had been a contented and genial company, travelling from a suburb into the city in high, good fellowship, and our absolute monarch was Baby. His mother was evidently the wife of a well-doing artisan, a wise-looking, capable, bonnie young woman; and Baby was not a marvel of attire, nor could he be called beautiful. He was dressed after a careful, tidy, comfortable fashion, and he was a clear-skinned, healthy child; that is all you would have noticed had you met the two on the street. In a'bus where there is nothing to do for forty minutes except stare into one another's faces, a baby has the great chance of his life, and this baby was made to seize it. He was not hungry, and there were no pins about his clothes, and nobody had made him afraid, and he was by nature a human soul. So he took us in hand one by one, till he had reduced us all to a state of delighted subjection, to the pretended scandal and secret pride of his mother. His first conquest was easy, and might have been discounted, for against such an onset there was no power of resistance in the elderly woman opposite—one of the lower middles, fearfully stout, and of course a grandmother. He simply looked at her—if he smiled, that was thrown in—for, without her knowledge, her arms had begun to shape for his reception—so often had children lain on that ample resting-place. “Bless 'is little 'eart; it do me good to see him.” No one cared to criticize the words, and we remarked to ourselves how the expression changes the countenance. Not heavy and red, far less dull, the proper adjective for the face is motherly. The next passenger, just above Grannie, is a lady, young and pretty, and a mother? Of course; did you not see her look Baby over, as an expert at her sharpest, before she grows old and is too easily satisfied? Will she approve, or is there something wrong which male persons and grandmothers cannot detect? The mother is conscious of inspection, and adjusts a ribbon His Majesty had tossed aside—one of his few decorations which he wore on parade for the good of the public and his own glory—and then she meekly awaited approval. For a moment we were anxious, but that was our foolishness, for in half a minute the lady's face relaxed, and she passed Baby. She leant forward and asked questions, and we overheard scraps of technical detail: “My first... fourteen months... six teeth... always well.” Baby was bored, and apologised to the'bus. “Mothers, you know—this is the way they go on; but what a lot they do for us! so we must be patient.” Although rank outsiders—excluded from the rites of the nursery—yet we made no complaint, but were rather pleased at this conference. One was a lady, the other a working woman; they had not met before, they were not likely to meet again, but they had forgotten strangeness and differences in the common bond of motherhood. Opposite me a priest was sitting and saying his office, but at this point his eye fell on the mothers, and I thought his lips shaped the words “Sancta Maria” before he went on with the appointed portion, but that may have been my fancy. The'bus will soon be dropping into poetry. Let us be serious and stare before us, as becometh well-bred English people.
Baby has wearied of inaction, and has begun another campaign, and my heart sinks, for this time he courts defeat; On the other side of Grannie and within Baby's sphere of influence was a man about whose profession there could be little doubt, even if he had not a bag on his knee and were not reading from a parchment document. After a long and serious consideration of the lawyer's clear-cut, clean-shaven, bloodless face, Baby leant forward and tapped gently on the deed, and then, when the keen face looked up in quick inquiry, Baby replied with a smile of roguish intelligence, as if to say, “Full of big words as long as myself, but quite useless; it could all have been said in a sentence, as you and I know quite well; by the way, that parchment would make an excellent drum; do you mind me? A tune has just come into my head.”
The lawyer, of course, drew away the deed, and frowned at the insolence of the thing? No, he did not—there is a soul in lawyers, if you know how to find it. He smiled. Well, it was not a first-rate smile, but I swear that it was genuine, and the next time he did it better, and afterwards it spread all over his face and lighted up his eyes. He had never been exposed in such a genial, irresistible way before, and so he held the drum, and Baby played a variation on “Rule Britannia” with much spirit, while grannie appealed for applause.
“If 'e don't play as well as the band in 'yde Park of a Sunday.”
After a well deserved rest of forty seconds, during which we wagged our heads in wonder, Baby turned his attention to his right-hand neighbour, and for the balance of the minute examined her with compassion. An old maid without question, with her disposition written on the thin, tightly drawn lips, and the hard, grey eyes. None of us would care to trifle with... Will he dare?... if he has not! That was his chief stroke of genius, and it deserved success—when, with an expression of unaffected pity, he put out his soft, dimpled hand and gently stroked her cheek. “Poor thing, all alone, 'lone, 'lone,” he cooed in her ear, as if to say with liquid baby speech, “I'm so solly, solly, solly, so velly, velly, velly solly.” Did I say that her eyes were tender and true enough to win a man's heart and keep it, and that her lips spoke of patience and gentleness? If I did not, I repair my neglect. She must have been a beautiful woman in her youth—no, no, to-day, just when she inclines her head ever so slightly, and Baby strokes her cheek again, and cooes, “Pretty, pretty, pretty, and so velly, velly, velly good.” Was not that a lovely flush on her cheek?—oh, the fool of a man who might have had that love. She opens a neat little bag, and as this was an imperial incident we watched without shame. Quite so; she is to be away all day, and has got a frugal luncheon, and—it's all she can do in return. Perhaps he cannot eat it. I don't know, nor does she; that's the pity of it, poor soul, baby-ways are a mystery to her; but would he refuse that biscuit? Not he; he makes an immense to do over it, and shows it to his mother and all his loyal subjects; and he was ready to be kissed, but she did not like to kiss him. Peace be with thy shy, modest soul, the Christ-child come into thine heart!
Two passengers on Baby's left had endured these escapades with patient and suffering dignity. When a boy is profoundly conscious that he is—well, a man—and yet a blind and unfeeling world conspires to treat him as—well, a child—he must protect himself and assert his position. Which he does, to the delight of everybody with any sense of humour, by refusing indignantly to be kissed by his mother—or at least sisters—in public, by severely checking any natural tendency to enthusiasm about anything except sport, by allowing it to be understood that he has exhausted the last remaining pleasure and is fairly burnt out. Dear boy, and all the time ready to run a mile to see a cavalry regiment drill, and tormented by a secret hankering after the Zoological Gardens. These two had been nice little chaps two years ago, and would be manly fellows two years hence. Meanwhile they were provoking, and required chastisement or regeneration. Baby was to them a “kid,” to be treated with contempt, and when in a paroxysm of delight over the folly of a law paper he had tilted one of the young men's hats, that blase ancient replaced it in position with a bored and weary air. How Baby had taken in the situation I cannot guess, but he had his mind on the lads, and suddenly, while they were sustaining an elaborate unconcern, he flung himself back and crowed—yes, joyfully crowed—with rosy, jocund countenance in the whites of the eyes of the two solemnities. One raised his eyebrows, and the other looked at the roof in despair; but I had hopes, and who could resist this bubbling, chortling mirth? Next minute one chuckles joyfully, and the other tickles Baby just at the right spot below the chin—has a baby at home after all, and loves it—declaring aloud that he is “a jolly little beggar.” Those boys are all right; there is a sound heart below the little affectations, and they are going to be men.
This outburst of His Majesty cheered us all mightily, and a young woman at the top of the'bus catching his eye, waved her hand to him, with a happy smile. Brown glove, size six and a quarter, perhaps six, much worn, and jacket also not of yesterday; but everything is well made, and in perfect taste. Milk-white teeth, hazel eyes. Grecian nose, what a winsome girl!—and let me see, she takes off a glove—yes, is wearing an engagement ring: a lucky fellow, for she must be good with those eyes and that merry smile. Daughter of a doctor or clergyman who died before he could provide for his family; a teacher, one guesses, and to-day off duty, going to meet her fiancé in the city; and then the three—her mother, that dear woman with hair turning grey—will go upon the river, and come home in the sweet summer evening, full of content. As soon as he gets a rise in the office they will marry, and she will also have her gift, as every woman should. But where am I now?—let that Baby bear the blame.
We had one vacant place, and that was how the old gentleman intruded on our peace; but let me make every excuse for him. It is aggravating to stand on the edge of the pavement and wave your umbrella ostentatiously to a'bus which passes you and draws up fifteen yards ahead, to make your dangerous way along a slippery street with hansoms bent upon your life, to be ordered to “hurry up,” by an impatient conductor and ignominiously hauled on to a moving 'bus. For an elderly man of military appearance and short temper it was not soothing, and he might have been excused a word or two, but he distinctly exceeded.
He insisted in language of great directness and simplicity that the conductor had seen him all the time; that if he didn't he ought to have been looking; that he—the Colonel—was not a fox-terrier to run after a'bus in the mud; that the conductor was an impertinent scoundrel, and that he would have him dismissed, with other things and words unworthy even of a retired Anglo-Indian. The sympathy of the'bus did not go out to him, and when he forced himself in between the lawyer and Grannie, and, leaning forward with his hands on his cane, glared at us impartially, relations were strained. A cut on his left cheek and a bristly white moustache, half hiding, half concealing a cruel mouth, did not commend the new passenger to a peaceable company. Baby regarded the old man with sad attention, pained at his unlicensed talk, but full of charity, and at last he indicates that his fancy is to examine the silver head of the Colonel's cane. The Colonel, after two moments' hesitation, removes his hands and gives full liberty. On second thoughts, he must have got that cut in some stiff fight; wonder whether he is a V.G. Baby moves the cane back and forwards to a march of his own devising—the Colonel actively assisting. Now that I see it in a proper light, his moustache is soft and sets off the face excellently. Had it not been the cut puckering the corner of the upper lip, that would have been a very sweet mouth for a man, or even for a woman. Baby is not lifted above all human weaknesses—preserve us from perfect people—and he indicates a desire to taste as well as handle the silver head. The Colonel is quite agreeable—the most good-natured man you could meet in a day's journey. But Baby's guardian objects, and history warns us of the dangers which beset a collision between an absolute monarch and his faithful Commons. We were all concerned, but the crisis is safe in the Colonel's hands. He thrusts his hand within the tightly-buttoned frock-coat and produces a gold hunting-watch—crested, did you notice, and... yes, just what every father has done for his baby since watches were invented—before that a fist served the purpose—he blew, the lid flew open. Baby blew, and the lid flew open faster and farther. Grannie would like to know whether any baby could have done the trick better, but there was no use asking us. “Reminds me of my boy at that age... Bailed on frontier last year.” Is much ashamed of this confidence, and we all look unconscious. What a fine, simple old fellow he is!
“Saved up, has he”—the Colonel is speaking to the mother—“to give Baby and you a week at Ramsgate?... he's the right sort, your husband... it's for Baby, not for you, to get him some fol-de-rol, you know... he's done a lot of good to a crusty old chap.”... The conductor has taken in the scene with huge delight, and closes it just at the right point. “Your club, General; just wait till the'bus stops.... Can ye get near the kerb, Bill? Now, that's right, take care, sir, plenty of time... Oh, that was nothing, might'ave seen you sooner... thank ye, I do smoke at a time... Mornin', General; all right, Bill.” The Colonel was standing on the broad top step of the “Veteran's” smiling and waving his hand; the'bus waved back, and the conductor touched his cap. “A gentleman every inch; cads ain't mide that wy,” and Baby danced for sheer Christian joy, since there is no victory like Love.
HE had been talking that morning at the Office of the siege of Ladysmith, for six relatives of the family were at the front, three with Sir George White in the besieged place, and three with Sir Redvers Buller, fighting for their deliverance. Word had come to the house the night before that Ladysmith might be relieved any hour, and every one knew that unless help came speedily, the garrison would have to surrender. Duty took me to Cambridge that day, and I had gone upstairs to get ready, and coming down again I heard a shout in the hall as if something had happened, but it did not occur to me what it was. My hostess was speaking excitedly somewhere, and I could not catch what she was saying. Servants had rushed out from bedrooms and other places, and were standing on the breakfast-table in a house near the War landings. As I reached the hall the butler, a most stately personage, broke forth from his quarters and rushed past me carrying his coat on his arm, and then in his shirt sleeves, having forgotten to put on his coat, and without a hat—he will likely deny this, but he was a spectacle for gods and men—he ran, yes, he who was intended by nature to be an archbishop, ran across the square. Then I understood, and turned to a footman, who looked as if he would like to follow the butler.
“Ladysmith,” was all I said.
“Yes,” he cried; “word come, War Office, sent here, butler gone, make sure”; then he went out to the doorstep to catch the first sight of the returning butler. Meanwhile my hostess had come down to the hall, and there had gathered the household of all kinds and degrees—my host and the other guests had gone out—housemaids, ladies' maids, kitchen-maids, footmen, her majesty the cook, and every other person beneath the roof, high and low, and we were all trembling lest there had been some mistake in the message, and the news was not true. The butler came across St. James's Square, and when he saw us standing—forgetting himself again, but now he had his coat on—he waved triumphantly, and then we knew that Ladysmith was saved. We gave some sort of cheer and shook hands indiscriminately, each one with his neighbour, and with two or three neighbours, and talked together, mingling names of Generals and relatives, and places, and battles, while the butler, who had arrived and regained his breath, but not yet his unapproachable dignity, assured us that the siege was lifted, and that White, and what remained of his gallant men, were unconquered.
It was time for me to start, and I told the hansom man to drive round by the War Office, that I might see this great thing. When we got down the Press were just leaving with the intelligence, and the first of the public were reading the news. Each man took the news in his own fashion, one laughing and slapping his legs, another crying and speaking to himself, a third rushing out to cheer, and I, why I, being an unemotional Scot, remembered that if I fooled away any more time, reading news of victories, I might lose my train, so I rushed back to the hansom.
“Is't all correct?” the driver leant down from his perch, determined not to let himself go till he was perfectly certain that, not only the straight tip had been given, but that at last the event had come off.
“All right,” I said; “Buller's army have driven back the Boers, and the advance guard has entered Ladysmith.”
Whereupon he whipped off his hat, and standing up in his place, a stout, red-faced Englishman in sporting dress, he gave a cheer all on his own account, and then when I got in he opened the trap and shouted down, “Old Buller's done it; he had a bloomin' tough job, but he's a game sportsman, and I said he'd do it. And old Buller's done it.” Again he celebrated the event with a cheer, and we started for Charing Cross.
Something occurred to me, and I pushed the trap open. “Look here,” I said, “the people near the War Office have heard the news, but after we pass Piccadilly Circus you'll be the first man to tell that the siege is raised.”
“Right, sir, I'm on the job. Old Buller's done it.” By the time we reached Bloomsbury he had the whole country to himself, and he did his duty manfully. As we crossed a thoroughfare, he would shout to the'bus drivers on either side, “Ladysmith relieved; just come from the War Office. Old Buller's done it.” Then in an instant, before we plunged into the opposite street, one could see the tidings run both ways, from 'bus to 'bus, from cab to cab, and the hats waving in the air, and hear, “Ladysmith and Buller.” Bloomsbury is a fearfully decorous and immovable district, inhabited by professors and British Museum students, and solid merchants, and professional men, but my driver for once stirred up Bloomsbury. A householder would be standing on his doorstep in tall hat and frock coat, well brushed, and with a daintily folded umbrella under his left arm, fastening the left button of the second glove, and looking out upon the world from the serene superiority of a single eyeglass. Then he would catch sight of us, and the sound of something my driver was flinging to the men on a furniture van.
“What's that?” he would cry in a sharp, excited, insistent voice; “anything about Ladysmith?”
“Relieved,” from the hansom top. “War Office news. Old Buller's done it.”
Down fell the umbrella on the step, and down came the eyeglass from the eye, and with an answering cheer the unstarched, enthusiastic, triumphant, transformed householder bolted into his home to make it known from attic to kitchen that White and his men had not fought in vain.
Round the dustbin at the corner of a street half a dozen street boys were gathered, and the driver in his glory passed a word to them also. They did not know where they would get their dinner, and they had not had much breakfast, their whole stock of clothes would not have been worth 1s. 9d., and not one of them had a cap, but they also were a bit of England, and this victory was theirs, and the last I saw of them they were standing each one upon his head and waving joyfully with his feet.
“See, sir, how the kids took it,” for my driver was getting more magnificent every minute; “said all along old Buller would do it.”
Coming down Euston Road was one blaze of glory, and when we swept into King's Cross Station at the gallop, and my driver saw the crowd of waiting porters and other hangers-on, an audience as yet unspoiled and waiting, ready for such news, it was, I take it, the greatest moment in his life. He pulled up the horse on his haunches, and again stood up on his high place.
“Straight from the War Office, as hard as we could drive; it's all right at Ladysmith—the siege is lifted, and old Buller's done it”; and then, to crown the occasion, “Three cheers for General Buller.”
He led from the top, and they joined from below, and so great was the excitement that when I offered the usual tip to the porter to carry my things to the carriage, he flatly refused to take it.
“Hexcuse me, sir, not to-day; I ain't that sort. You brought the news of Ladysmith.” Which indeed was all my share of the glory of the passage: the rest belonged to my driver, who was indeed a Mercury fit for the work of the gods.
Just as the train was starting a man arrived with a pile of newspapers to sell them on the downward journey, for the special editions with the relief of Ladysmith had been got out with vast celerity. It was a pretty sight when the train stopped at some country station to see the man jump out and hear him shout the news, while the people, a moment ago stolid and indifferent, crowded round him to buy the paper. And then the train went on its way, followed by a cheer, because Ladysmith was safe. At one station two respectable country women got into the compartment where I had been alone, and they had been so eager, as their kind is, to secure their places, that they had not caught the news before the train left the station. By-and-by they began talking together, and it appeared that the elderly woman had a son at the front, a reservist in an infantry regiment with General Buller, while the other was the wife of a reservist who was with the cavalry under General French. It was hard lines, one could not but feel, for those women to have a son and a husband taken away from their homes and peaceful employment, and sent out to hardship and danger. And it would not have been wonderful if they had complained of their lot. But no, my heart swelled with pride as in a corner of the carriage, and behind my newspaper, I heard the mother and the wife exchanging news from the seat of campaign, and talking cheerily of critical affairs. Till at last, and quite suddenly, trouble arose, and there might have been a hot quarrel in that compartment.
“My man's all right,” said the wife; “he's with French, you know, and French looks after his men, 'e does. Jim says as 'ow 'is General won't let 'is men into any traps.”
“Who are ye getting hat may I ask?” said the elderly lady, flushing purple with indignation—“talking about traps. If it's General Buller ye're meanin', hexcuse me telling you, 'e don't get 'is men into traps. My boy says that he 'ad the hardest job of them hall, 'ad General Buller, and George, 'e writes and says to me in 'is last letter, 'you just wait and see if General Buller don't do it'—them's 'is very words, 'you just wait and see if General Buller don't do it.'”
The younger woman explained she had been making no reflections on General Buller, but only had been telling how proud her husband was of his Commander, but nothing would appease the old lady.
“I know nothing about French, and I say nothing against French, but I wish you to understand that Buller is a good old sort, and, as sure as you're sitting there in this carriage, 'e'll do the job.”
Then I laid down my newspaper, and addressed the reservist's mother.
“Madam,” I said, “your son was right, and Buller is a good old sort; he's done the job, and Ladysmith is safe.”
We all shook hands, two women wept, but not for sorrow, and a man looked out of the window, intent upon the scenery.
BEING a household of moderate attainments, and not being at all superior people, we were gravely concerned on learning that it was our duty to entertain the distinguished scholar, for our pride was chastened by anxiety and we had once received moderators. His name was carried far and wide on the wings of fame, and even learned people referred to him with a reverence in the tone, because it was supposed there was almost nothing within the range of languages and philosophy and theology which he did not know, and that if there happened to be any obscure department he had not yet overtaken, he would likely be on the way to its conquest. We speculated what like he would be—having only heard rumours—and whether he would be strangely clothed, we discussed what kind of company we could gather to meet such a man, and whether we ought, that is the two trembling heads of the household, to read up some subject beforehand that we might be able at least to know where he was if we could not follow him. And we were haunted with the remembrance of a literary woman who once condescended to live with us for two days, and whose conversation was so exhausting that we took it in turns like the watch on board ship, one standing on the bridge with the spin-drift of quotations flying over his head, and the other snatching a few minutes' sleep to strengthen her for the storm. That overwhelming lady was only the oracle of a circle after all, but our coming visitor was known to the ends of the earth.
It was my place to receive him at the station, and pacing up and down the platform, I turned over in my mind appropriate subjects for conversation in the cab, and determined to lure the great man into a discussion of the work of an eminent Oxford philosopher which had just been published, and which I knew something about. I had just arranged a question which I intended to submit for his consideration, when the express came in, and I hastened down the first-class carriages to identify the great man. High and mighty people, clothed in purple and fine linen, or what corresponds to such garments in our country, were descending in troops with servants and porters waiting upon them, but there was no person that suggested a scholar. Had he, in the multitude of his thoughts, forgotten his engagement altogether, or had he left the train at some stopping-place and allowed it to go without him—anything is possible with such a learned man.
Then I saw a tall and venerable figure descend from a third-class compartment and a whole company of genuine “third classers” handing out his luggage while he took the most affectionate farewell of them. A working man got out to deposit the scholar's Gladstone bag upon the platform while his wife passed out his umbrella, and another working man handled delicately a parcel of books. The scholar shook hands with every one of his fellow-passengers including children, and then I presented myself, and looked him in the face. He was rather over six feet in height, and erect as a sapling, dressed in old-fashioned and well brushed black clothes, and his face placed me immediately at ease, for though it was massive and grave, with deep lines and crowned with thick white hair, his eyes were so friendly and sincere, had such an expression of modesty and affection, that even then, and on the first experience, I forgot the gulf between us. Next instant, and almost before I had mentioned my name he seized me by the hand, and thanked me for my coming.