Of course it was a step for me from the humble "one three six;" but I have had a more lively satisfaction from that little sum than from many a larger fee.
In the midst of all this rush of London business I still found time to run down to country places in cases of election petitions or compensation.
One day I found myself on my way to Sheffield to support the member against an attempt to deprive him of his seat in Parliament. I went with the Hon. Sir Edward Chandos Leigh, my distinguished junior on that memorable occasion.
The journey was pleasant until we got near the end of it, and then the smoke rolled over and around in voluminous dense clouds, for a description of which you may search in vain through "Paradise Lost." We were met at the station with great state, and even splendour, and treated with almost boundless hospitality.
To keep up our spirits, we were taken for a drive by the sitting member a few miles out, into what they call "the country" in those parts. The suburban residence was situated in a well-wooded park, if that can be called well-wooded where there are no woods, but only stunted undergrowths sickening with the baleful fumes that proceed from the city of darkness in the distance, and black with the soot of a thousand chimneys. The member apologized politely enough for bringing us to this almost uninhabitable and Heaven-forsaken region; but I begged him not to mind: it was only a more blasted scene than the heath in "Macbeth."
"Yes," said he, still apologetically; "it is very bad, I admit. You see, the fumes and fires from those manufactories make such havoc of our woods."
This was apparent, but the question was how to pass the time amidst this gloom and sickening atmosphere.
I found his residence, however, to my great joy, was farther than I expected from the appalling city of darkness, and hope began to revive both in my junior's heart and mine.
Our friend and host, seeing our spirits thus elated, began, to talk with more life-like animation.
"The fumes from the factories, Mr. Hawkins, have so played the devil with our trees that the general impoverishment of nature has earned for the locality of Sheffield the unpleasant title of the 'Suburbs of Hell.'"