We crossed the border into Scotland and of course stopped at Walter Scott’s home and also visited the ruins of Linlithgow Castle, in which Mary Queen of Scots was born. And here the four reporters, who had been as constant as leeches and as inevitable as death and the taxgatherer, solemnly entered the ruins and gave Mr. Blaine a telegram which they had just received announcing Benjamin Harrison’s nomination at the convention. As Mr. Blaine had expected this for weeks, the news did not excite him greatly. He bade a friendly good-by to the four young sleuth-hounds, several of whom have since achieved fame in their profession, and we continued our journey farther north until we arrived at Mr. Carnegie’s home, Cluny Castle, on the evening of July 3.
It was bitter cold and the wind was whistling shrilly over the Dalwhinny Moors as we first caught sight of Cluny, but an American flag was floating proudly over its turrets, and inside warm fires and a delicious dinner were awaiting us.
Then began a summer of delights for me. Mr. Carnegie had a piper who, according to old Scotch custom, would walk around the outer walls of the house every morning to awaken us. My room was in the bachelor quarters and had a little fireplace in which a peat fire smouldered comfortably. The smell of peat and the sound of the piper as he drew nearer and nearer to my window and then again receded in the distance are always inseparably associated in my memory. In the mornings I usually worked at my studies in counterpoint and composition, but from luncheon on it was nothing but delightful entertainment or listening with keenest interest to discussions of all kinds—political, economic, poetical. Miss Dodge was a most stimulating person. She had a mind that would accept nothing without analysis or proof, and the verbal duels between her and Mr. Carnegie were fascinating, for, although she was not Scotch, she, as much as Mr. Carnegie, typified the story of the two Scotsmen who meet each other and one says: “Where are you going, Donald?” “Oh, just doon to the village to contradict a wee.”
Occasionally I would accompany Mr. Carnegie to some lonely loch among the hills to fish for trout, but I have never developed into a very ardent disciple of Izaak Walton. I used to get more pleasure from lying on my back watching the marvellous Scotch sky with its low-hanging clouds framing the hills in their loving embrace, with perhaps now and then just a speck of blue shining through, than from the catching of the “finny monsters.” These, however, rarely measured over six inches in length, although I certainly enjoyed them the following morning, when we had them for breakfast, rolled in oatmeal flour and deliciously fried.
In the evenings I had to contribute my little quota toward the house-party by playing Beethoven and Wagner on an excellent Broadwood piano.
During all this time I was amazed at the extreme simplicity and gentleness which characterized Mr. Blaine’s demeanor toward all with whom he came in contact. Here was a man who at that time was the most loved and the most execrated American, and yet he had in him absolutely nothing of the “prima donna” manner of many of those in my profession who have achieved fame. His dignity, however, was innate and unconscious, and during the many years that I knew him and knew him intimately I have never seen any one who dared to presume on his simplicity and general cordiality of manner by undue familiarity. His power of abstraction from his surroundings was remarkable. He enjoyed working in the room in which his family were talking, laughing, and disputing on all manner of subjects, while he would sit in a corner concentrated on some problem of his own and work it out, absolutely oblivious to what was going on about him.
The Blaine family left Cluny all too soon, and not only I, but the entire household felt their absence keenly.
Other guests followed, among them John Morley, with whom I went on long and to me very interesting walks. He seemed a very lonely and perhaps a disappointed man. He was married, but childless, and told me once that the great regret of his life was that he had no son, as he would like to have brought him up and educated him according to a theory all his own as to what an Englishman’s training really should be. How many men have had such dreams and how few, if any, can really control the future of their children!
In March, 1889, Benjamin Harrison was inaugurated President and Mr. Blaine became his secretary of state.
I was, as usual, terribly busy that winter with the opera, concerts, and Wagner lecture recitals, and there were times when Washington seemed very far away, but Margaret Blaine had good friends in New York whom she visited occasionally, also a sister, the wife of Colonel Coppinger of the United States army, who was stationed at Governor’s Island in New York harbor. Whenever she stayed with Mrs. Coppinger I was a very frequent passenger on the little ferry-boat which seemed to me maintained by our beneficent War Department for the sole purpose of enabling young men like myself to reach this picturesque though antiquated military fortress.