Part 6

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 analyze. 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 passed 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 worship of God! 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 worship of that God 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 worship as other poor sinners do, since all are equal in God'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 circumstances, 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 coke 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 mass 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 mass 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 title--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 grass 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 passed. 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 institution 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 noble 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 assistants 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 principal 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 worship, and the beauty, the stillness, the peace of that low, quaint, ivy-covered church, and its old-fashioned 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 God'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:

"Dorothy Gray.

The careful, tender mother of many children, one of whom alone had the misfortune to survive her."

The touch in the last words, "the misfortune to survive her!"--Carlyle's words upon his wife's tomb recur to me:

"And he feels that the light of his life has gone out."

These were men wailing for women. I cannot believe but that there are many women who would prefer to share the fate of men who die. There is such love on earth. Sujâtas are not confined to India. As she says:

"But if Death called Senáni, I should mount The pile and lay that dear head in my lap, My daily way, rejoicing when the torch Lit the quick flame and rolled the choking smoke. For it is written, if an Indian wife Die so, her love shall give her husband's soul For every hair upon her head, a crore Of years in Swerza."

I think I know women who would esteem it a mercy to be allowed to pass away with _him_, if the Eternal had not set his "canon 'gainst self-slaughter." This prohibition the Indian wots not of, but mounts the pile believing as thoroughly as Abraham did when he placed Isaac on the altar, that God wills it so. They were equally mistaken; and this suggests that we may all be very much surprised when we come to understand rightly, how very seldom the unknown requires any sacrifice of what is pleasing to us in this present world of his. It seems to me it is not God but men who are disposed to make the path so very thorny.

[Sidenote: _Gray's Tomb._]

Upon Gray's own tomb there is inscribed:

"One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill. Along the heath, and near his favorite tree; Another came, nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he."

One perfect gem outweighs a thousand mediocre performances and makes its creator immortal. The world has not a second Gray's Elegy among all its treasures. Nor is it likely to have. We found you still in your accustomed place.

The manor house of Stoke Pogis, which took its name from a marriage, away back in the 13th century, between a member of the Pogis family and an heiress, Amicia de Stoke, furnished the subject of Gray's "Long Story," a poem known now only to the curious student of English literature. How fortunate for the world that the poet did not let his reputation rest upon it!

[Sidenote: _Chief Justice Coke._]

The old house, built in the time of good Queen Bess on an older foundation, is still more noted as the home of Sir Edward Coke, the famous Lord Chief Justice and the rival of Bacon. In 1601 Coke, who had married three years before a wealthy young widow, Lady Hatton of Hatton House, the daughter of Lord Burleigh, entertained the Virgin Queen at Stoke Pogis in a manner befitting the royal dignity and the length of his own purse. Among other presents which her Majesty graciously deigned to accept at the hands of her subject on the occasion was jewelry valued at £1,000, a large sum in those days.

Coke's marriage did not turn out very happily. He was old enough to be his wife's father, and she always affected for him the utmost contempt, even forbidding him to enter her house in London except by the back door. The poor man bore his hen-pecking in silence for many years, but at last she went one step too far. During his absence in London she packed up and removed from Stoke to one of her own houses his plate and other valuables. The outraged husband forcibly entered her house and reclaimed his property, taking, as she said, some of hers also. This led to legal proceedings, in which she, through the aid of Bacon, got the better of him, and a reconciliation took place.

The next year the broil took another phase. Lady Hatton--she always refused to take Coke's name--had borne him a daughter, who was the heiress of her mother's estates as well as of Coke's wealth. Her hand had been sought by Sir John Villiers, but as he was poor his suit had been rejected. A turn came in the tide. Coke, shorn of most of his honors, was in disgrace, and the Duke of Buckingham, Sir John's brother, was King James's favorite and the dispenser of immense patronage. Coke, with the object of winning back the royal favor and of humbling Bacon, his great enemy, now determined to ally himself with the rising house, and offered his daughter to Villiers. Lady Hatton, who had not been consulted in the matter, refused her consent, ran away with her daughter, and concealed her in the house of a kinsman. But Coke found out her hiding place, and with a dozen stout fellows broke into the house and seized his daughter. Lady Hatton, aided by Bacon, carried her case to the privy council and Coke was proceeded against in the Star Chamber. But with Buckingham behind him the old lawyer proved too strong for Bacon this time, and succeeded in throwing his wife into prison and in forcing her to consent to the match.

The marriage took place at Hampton Court in the presence of the king, the queen, and the most distinguished of the nobility, and Frances became Lady Villiers. Stoke Pogis was settled on the bridegroom, who was shortly raised to the peerage as Viscount Purbeck and Baron Villiers, of Stoke Pogis, and Coke flattered himself that his troubles had at last ended. But the marriage resulted like many another ill-assorted union. Lady Villiers, after driving her husband nearly to the verge of distraction, eloped with Sir Robert Howard, and lived for many years an eventful and scandalous life, which finally brought its reward in her degradation, imprisonment, and death.

If the course of true love never runs smooth, it may be taken for granted that the stream is even more tempestuous when marriage is made a matter of family alliance with no love at all in the matter. Our young ladies were unanimous upon this point, and one and all declared their firm resolve and readiness to trust to "true love" with all its risks. The Queen Dowager, being appealed to by them for support, settled the matter by reciting the lines of an old Scotch song:

"Lassie tak the man ye loe Whate'er ye're minnie say, Though ye sud mak ye're bridal bed Amang pea strae."

So ta-ta all worldly considerations and family alliances, and the rest of it, say the wild romps of the Gay Charioteers.

[Sidenote: _Royal Visits._]

Several years after the death of Coke, Stoke Pogis was for a short time the place of confinement of Charles I., who could see from its windows the towers of Windsor Castle, which he was never again to enter except as a headless corpse. On the death of Viscount Purbeck, who resided in the manor house after Coke's decease, Stoke Pogis passed by purchase into the hands of the Gayer family. When Charles II. came to his own again the then possessor of the mansion was knighted, and became so devoted in his affection for the Stuarts that when in after time King William desired to visit Stoke Pogis to see a place so rich in historical associations, the old knight would not listen to it. In vain did his wife intercede: he declared that the usurper should not cross his threshold, and he kept his word. So it came to be said that Stoke Pogis had sumptuously entertained one sovereign, been the prison of another, and refused admission to a third.

We were told that quite recently Queen Victoria had visited it in person, with a view to its purchase for her daughter, and while walking through its magnificent suite of rooms she expressed the wish that her own Windsor had their equal. She finally decided to purchase Claremont, the price demanded for Stoke, it is said, having been too great to square with her majesty's estimate of value. It is in the market to-day. If any of our bonanza kings want one of the stately homes of England, rich in historical associations and "looking antiquity," here is his chance.