One of the largest of these meetings, held in Dalkeith on 31st January, gave him an opportunity of twitting the Liberals upon their alliance with Mr. Parnell, and upon the exposure made to the country by his having a bag of lime thrown in his face, 'not by an alien Saxon, but by a Paddy belonging to the soil, in the county of Kilkenny, in the very midst of dear old Ireland.' The great issue, he said, now before the country has been wonderfully cleared up, and he strongly believed that if the people of this country could have the truth put before them, there would be no more talk of Home Rule—referring, of course, to the scandal connected with the Irish leader's temporary retirement from political life by recent exposures in the Divorce Court.
These peregrinations through the county brought Colonel Wauchope in contact with all classes of people. The very reporters, whose duty it was to follow him and report his speeches, he made friends of, and by all who had dealings with him he was regarded as the most genial and generous-minded of political candidates. As one of them said, 'he was affability itself, and gave the impression of regarding the reporters as his personal friends.' One of these gentlemen has given us the following graphic account of an electioneering visit to one of the outlying parishes in the county:—
Once in the course of one of his Midlothian tours we had something in the nature of adventure. He was to address an evening meeting at Heriot, and arrangements were duly made for the stopping of an outgoing express which left the Waverley Station about six o'clock, as well as for the stopping of the Pullman express in order to bring him back to Edinburgh. The arrangement was so beautifully fine that it failed disastrously. To begin with, the departure of the outgoing train was delayed for over twenty minutes awaiting a Glasgow connection, and, to make matters worse, the fact that the village of Heriot is about two miles distant from the railway station had been totally disregarded—if, indeed, it was known. The result was that the candidate, his agent, and the writer alighted at Heriot Station just about the time that the meeting was announced to begin. There was nothing for it but walking. In a drenching rain the three of us set out for the meeting-place. When we had accomplished a considerable part of the journey we were overtaken by a light country van. The driver on having our plight explained to him, readily gave us a 'lift,' and in this way we reached Heriot about the time we ought to have been leaving it in order to catch the train that was being stopped for the express purpose of picking us up. The audience, it was evident, was not quite in the best of humour at having been kept waiting so long; but the explanation of the Colonel, and his candid, honest attitude won the hearts of his audience, and he had an excellent reception. A passage in his speech on that occasion is worth recalling in the light of the event over which all Scotland to-day mourns. 'People state,' he said, 'that I am a warlike candidate; but, gentlemen, I have twice or thrice been shot in the body already, and I declare to you I have no great desire to be shot again.' At the close of the meeting we set out on the return trudge to Heriot, painfully aware of the fact that the last train had gone, and not knowing in the least how or where we were going to pass the night. In the course of our march, I remember, the Colonel turned to me and said seriously, 'I hope you don't get into any bother over this?' I assured him that he need have no anxiety on that score. 'Because,' he added, 'I'll sign any certificate you like.' The remark was quite like him. It reflected at once the soldier and the considerate gentleman. Well, when we got to the railway station, we found that the train that was to have picked us up, had passed quite an hour previously. The stationmaster, I remember, took in the situation sympathetically at a glance. If he was not a sturdy Unionist he must have been one of the General's numerous admirers. 'There is nothing for it,' said he, 'but to walk up the line to Falahill, where we may have a chance of getting a pilot engine to run you down at least to Dalkeith.' Accordingly the stationmaster lit a lamp, and the four of us started to walk up the line in the dark, wet night. When we reached Falahill we learned with intense relief that a spare engine was at that very moment pushing up a goods train from Eskbank. The train arrived at the signal-box in the course of a very few minutes, and in the course of a few minutes more the Colonel, his agent, and myself had mounted the spare engine. The engine-driver was a brick. He drove us down the hill like the wind—tender first, by the way. We alighted from the engine at the point where the Dalkeith section debouches from the main line, and after the chilling effect of our rough ride, at once started off at a smart pace to walk to Dalkeith Station. We reached Dalkeith exactly at ten minutes to ten o'clock. There were thus ten minutes left to us in which to obtain a much-needed refreshment, and we needed little persuasion to visit an adjoining inn for the purpose. We caught the last train from Dalkeith, and were in the Waverley Station about half-past ten o'clock. Many a time afterwards was that eventful evening recalled by all three.
In the spring of this same year (1891), when political parties in Midlothian were busy preparing for the possibility of a general election occurring in the following year, a portion of Colonel Wauchope's regiment was ordered home from Gibraltar, and he was posted to the Second Battalion to be stationed at Belfast. This transference made him now second in command, with the rank of Senior Major of the Black Watch. He did not therefore require to go back to Gibraltar again, but served the greater part of this and the following year, first in Belfast and afterwards in Limerick.
Third tour of Midlothian
In January 1892 Colonel Wauchope began his third tour of Midlothian, carrying it on with energy for the next three months. Still the dogged determination to do well and thoroughly what he had undertaken is patent in all the steps of his progress. The 'forlorn hope' was now looking more hopeful, and his opponents were beginning to take alarm. At one meeting it had been insinuated that Mr. Gladstone being an old man of eighty-two, he was only working with a view to ultimately taking the great statesman's place. He repudiated the idea with all the eloquence he could command. 'It had been said that he was waiting to step into dead men's shoes. That, he thought, was striking a bit below the belt. He certainly could look any man in Midlothian straight in the face—ay, into his very eye—and say that he was waiting to fill no dead man's shoes. He was telling the truth, and nothing but the truth, when he said he hoped Mr. Gladstone might live for many years. He knew that a greater statesman than Mr. Gladstone perhaps never lived in this country; but, despite that, he was sorry to say he could not agree with his policy. Indeed, the more he admired Mr. Gladstone's genius, and the more wonderful he considered all that he had done, the more deeply and the more profoundly did he regret the course he had pursued in regard to the Irish Home Rule question. There was no doubt that the greatest men had made the greatest mistakes.' Home Rule he characterised in another speech as 'Federalism that would completely change the character of the Government of the United Kingdom,' and 'he could not help feeling it was a measure which would never be sanctioned by the people of this country.'
As a counteractive to the Colonel's prolonged canvass, a great Liberal demonstration took place in Edinburgh on 29th March, when, in addition to the great statesman himself, Lord Carrington, Governor of New South Wales, appeared.
Parliament was dissolved three months after, on 25th June, and immediately the electoral battle was waged with greater intensity. Mr. Gladstone came down to Edinburgh on the 30th June to begin a tour of the county, and the eyes of the whole country were turned upon Midlothian and the fate of the great leader of the Liberal party. Charmed with the flow of eloquence, crowded audiences hung upon his lips, and, no doubt, led away with the popular enthusiasm with which he was on all hands greeted, Mr. Gladstone's supporters overlooked the influence that had silently but surely been working against his return, and were incredulous as to the possibility of defeat, while a too confident committee were thought to have relaxed their efforts. One Radical writer had no hesitation in saying, that 'as to the result of the election, no one seems to have any doubt. It is fully admitted that Colonel Wauchope is in many respects an admirable candidate, but to compare him with Mr. Gladstone is looked upon by the latter gentleman's followers as almost ludicrous!'
The result was nevertheless looked forward to with the utmost interest. Speculation ran high; and while the odds were certainly in favour of Mr. Gladstone, an element of uncertainty was daily growing as the polling-day drew near, which only whetted public curiosity the more.