Canon Liddon was anxious that I should lay my facts before Mr Gladstone. He despatched a telegram to him and ascertained that he would be willing to receive me at Hawarden on the morrow, and armed with a brief letter of introduction, I set out next day, and found the great Liberal statesman placidly dozing in an armchair in a little study on the ground floor of the house. At first he hardly seemed to recognise why I was there, but in less than a minute he became astonishingly alert, and providing himself with hat and walking-stick took me out into the park. He walked at an extraordinary pace and plied me with questions in those ringing, rolling, parliamentary tones of his, with which I had been familiar in the House of Commons two or three years before. He could not for one instant lay aside his platform manner, and before I had been in his society for two minutes I appreciated the statement attributed to Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, that Mr Gladstone always addressed her as if she were a public meeting. Every sentence was rounded, polished and precise, every syllable had its particular rhythmic weight and value, and with it all there was a certain suavity and courtesy which, for my own part, I thought very gracious and charming. I had heard one of his remarkable Budget speeches and knew already with what ease he handled figures, but he surprised me more than once by his quickness in calculation. He was questioning me as to Turkish methods of taxation: population of a province so many—piastres per head of population so many—what was the precise value of the piastre? Twopence and a fraction of a farthing.—Ah! in pounds sterling that would be approximately so much. He made his reckoning with lightning rapidity and he was always accurate, as I could tell, having all the figures at my fingers' ends just then.
After two hours' hard walking, he took me in to luncheon. We were by this time in the thick of our theme, and on our arrival at table he banished the servants from the room and himself carved at the sideboard and handed round the dishes. H e ate his own meal standing, and he carried on his questions all the while. I do not know if he had then made his famous rule about the seventy-two bites to a mouthful, but I certainly thought him anything but deliberate in eating. Whether he took much or little I could not tell, but he was certainly talking all the time, and I shall never forget the noble sonorosity of the tone with which he approached me with a dish in either hand and asked': “Can I assist you to another potato, Mr Murray?” The simple query was offered in the finest parliamentary manner. There were present at the meal the members of the family and one guest beside myself, a Mr Howard, a corpulent, silent gentleman, who accompanied us when we went out into the park again. We recommenced our walk at about two o'clock, and kept it up until the evening shades were growing pretty thick about us. I was inclined to be pretty glad when it was over, for though I was as hard as nails at that time, being fresh as I was from the severe training of the campaign, I was walked almost off my legs. The talk went on ding-dong all the time, and in the course of it my host asked me with what weapons the Zaptiehs—the mounted police who were relied on to keep order—and the irregulars who were committing unchecked atrocities everywhere, were respectively armed. I was compelled to tell him that the Zaptiehs carried an old-fashioned matchlock, whilst the Irregulars were in great part armed with the Winchester repeating rifle, which was then the latest invention of destructive science. The corpulent visitor had long since resigned the effort to keep within hearing. Gladstone faced round, and in those noble, oratorical tones of his called out, “Is it not odious, Howard; is it not odious?” The gentleman appealed to was utterly out of earshot, and came trotting briskly towards us to find out what the question meant, but Gladstone was away again at score, and he was again out-distanced in a minute. Gladstone spoke of the duty which was imposed upon him to turn out the Government of Lord Beaconsfield, of whom he invariably spoke as Mr Disraeli. I ventured to say to him, “You will have to fight for that, sir,” when he turned upon me with a most vivid gesture, and striking his walking-stick upon the pathway with such vehemence that he made the gravel fly, answered me, “Aye, sir, and we shall fight.” When the time came for me to go, he accompanied me to the hall, and with great courtesy assisted me into my overcoat with his own hands. It was a rather remarkable-looking garment, that overcoat, and one of a sort not often seen in England, but I had passed through London so rapidly that I had had no time to replenish my wardrobe. The garment itself was woven of camel's hair, and it was lined with bearskin. As he was helping me into it he asked, “Where did you obtain possession of this extraordinary garment, Mr Murray?” “I bought it, sir, in Bulgaria,” I answered. “Ah,” said he, with a perfectly grave face and falling back a step to look at it, “I have had much to say of the Bulgarian atrocities of late years, but this is the only one of which I have had ocular demonstration.”
I met Mr Gladstone afterwards at a big social function which was engineered by the late William Woodhall, some time member for Stoke and Master of the Ordnance. Finding him unoccupied and alone, I ventured to ask to be recalled to his remembrance. “No need for that, Mr Murray,” he answered, “no need for that,” and plunged back straightway into the talk at Hawarden as if it had taken place only yesterday. There were all manner of amusements provided for Mr Wood-hall's guests, and into one of them at least he plunged with the delighted enthusiasm of a boy.
Poor Charles Bertram, the conjurer, was there, and it was arranged that a hand of Napoleon should be played under his direction between the statesman and Sir Francis Burnand, then editor of Punch. “You, gentlemen, must decide between you,” said the conjurer, “as to who is to win.” It was agreed that Gladstone was to be the victor, and Bertram, who, of course, had not apparently seen the cards, instructed him as to what he was to lead and what to play in sequence, securing for him all five tricks out of an apparently impossible hand. He was immensely delighted and interested, and held a very animated conversation afterwards with Bertram on the art of conjuring.
A good many years later yet, when I brought over from Australia the nucleus of a comedy company to perform here in a piece of my own writing, I had amongst them a very remarkable child actor, whose name was Leo Byrne. He played the title rôle in my comedy of Neds Churn, and when the provincial run of the piece was over he was employed by Sir Henry Irving to play the child's part in Lord Tennyson's tragedy of Becket. Mr Gladstone was present at one performance, and not wishing for some reason of his own to be identified by the public, took his seat out of view of the audience on the prompt side of the stage. Whilst the curtain was down, Mr Gladstone took the fictitious son of the Fair Rosamund on his knee and began to question him. “You come from Australia, my little man?” he said. “Yes, sir,” the boy answered. “And what do you think of England?” he was asked. “I think it is being ruined by the Liberal Party,” Master Byrne responded. The great man laughed and suffered him to escape, which I am told he did very willingly. Mr Bram Stoker afterwards took the child apart and told him that one of these days he would be very proud of having been taken on that old gentleman's knee. “Oh! I know,” the imp responded, “it's old Gladstone; I don't want to be bothered with him. I have promised another boy to go and spin tops with him behind the scenes.”
CHAPTER XII
First Fiction—A Life's Atonement—The Casual Tramp—Poor
Law Relief—Charles Reade—The Cloister and the Hearth—
Wilkie Collins—The Figure in Mediaeval Costume—Joseph's
Coat—At Rochefort—Rainbow Gold—The Anarchist—The
Police—The Text of Scripture.
Whilst I was still engaged on the staff of the Birmingham Morning News, as I have mentioned previously, Mr Edmund Yates was running through its columns a novel which he entitled A Bad Lot. He was lecturing in America at the time, and must have been living a hand to mouth life with his story, for he brought it to an abrupt and rather disastrous conclusion. When the final instalment of copy was received there was a momentary consternation in the office. New arrangements were pending, but we had supposed ourselves to have at least two months in hand. In these circumstances my chief came to me and asked me if I thought that I could fill the gap. I was simply burning for a chance to try my hand at fiction, and I leapt eagerly at the opportunity. I began that very day and I wrote a chapter which I am quite sure must have led my readers to expect a tolerable weekly entertainment for some time, but I had no plot in mind and I had not the remotest notion as to whither I was going. I struggled on week by week and succeeded, as I now believe, in producing absolutely the most formless and incoherent work of fiction which was ever put in type. Scores of letters were sent week by week to the editor protesting against its continuance, and at last I had worked all my characters into such a tangle that, with the exception of the hero and heroine and a few subordinates, whose fate it was not necessary to particularise, I sent them all into a coal-mine, flooded the workings and drowned the lot of them.
A very able and kindly critic told me that this amorphous first attempt at fiction had flesh and blood but no bones, and I have learned since that in writing a work of imagination as in much more serious enterprises, the first essential is to be aware of your own purpose. For some years afterwards I tried my hand on the short story, but before I left England for the Russo-Turkish campaign, I had embarked upon a more ambitious work, which finally took shape in A Life's Atonement. In the hurry of departure I forgot my manuscript and left it at my lodgings. I had quite resigned myself to think it lost, but when I received my first commission for a three-volume story, it occurred to me that the manuscript was worth inquiring after, and it surprised me agreeably to find that it had been preserved. It was finished, sent in and accepted, and achieved more than a commonplace success. New commissions came in, and I found myself fairly launched as a novelist.