Tracks Of A Rolling Stone - free ebook by Henry J. (Henry John) Coke

TRACKS OF A ROLLING STONE

BY THE HONOURABLE HENRY J. COKE AUTHOR OF ‘A RIDE OVER THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS’ ‘CREEDS OF THE DAY’ ETC. WITH A PORTRAIT SECOND EDITION LONDON SMITH, ELDER, &amp; CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1905 [All rights reserved] TO MY DAUGHTER SYBIL...

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PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

The First Edition of this book was written, from beginning to end, in the short space of five months, without the aid of diary or notes, beyond those cited as such from a former work. The Author, having no expectation that his reminiscences would be received with the kind indulgence of which this Second Edition is the proof, with diffidence ventured to tell so many tales connected with his own unimportant life as he has done. Emboldened by the reception his ‘Tracks’ have met with, he now adds a

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CHAPTER I

We know more of the early days of the Pyramids or of ancient Babylon than we do of our own. The Stone age, the dragons of the prime, are not more remote from us than is our earliest childhood. It is not so long ago for any of us; and yet, our memories of it are but veiled spectres wandering in the mazes of some foregone existence. Are we really trailing clouds of glory from afar? Or are our ‘forgettings’ of the outer Eden only? Or, setting poetry aside, are they perhaps the quickening germs

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CHAPTER II

Soon after I was seven years old, I went to what was then, and is still, one of the most favoured of preparatory schools—Temple Grove—at East Sheen, then kept by Dr. Pinkney. I was taken thither from Holkham by a great friend of my father’s, General Sir Ronald Ferguson, whose statue now adorns one of the niches in the façade of Wellington College. The school contained about 120 boys; but I cannot name any one of the lot who afterwards achieved distinction. There were three Macaulays there, ne

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CHAPTER III

Mr. Edward Ellice , who constantly figures in the memoirs of the last century as ‘Bear Ellice’ (an outrageous misnomer, by the way), and who later on married my mother, was the chief controller of my youthful destiny. His first wife was a sister of the Lord Grey of Reform Bill fame, in whose Government he filled the office of War Minister. In many respects Mr. Ellice was a notable man. He possessed shrewd intelligence, much force of character, and an autocratic spirit—to which he owed his sob

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CHAPTER IV

The passage from the romantic to the realistic, from the chimerical to the actual, from the child’s poetic interpretation of life to life’s practical version of itself, is too gradual to be noticed while the process is going on. It is only in the retrospect we see the change. There is still, for yet another stage, the same and even greater receptivity,—delight in new experiences, in gratified curiosity, in sensuous enjoyment, in the exercise of growing faculties. But the belief in the impossi

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CHAPTER V

The first time I ‘smelt powder’ was at Amoy. The ‘Blonde’ carried out Lord Palmerston’s letter to the Chinese Government. Never was there a more iniquitous war than England then provoked with China to force upon her the opium trade with India in spite of the harm which the Chinese authorities believed that opium did to their people. Even Macaulay advocated this shameful imposition. China had to submit, and pay into the bargain four and a half millions sterling to prove themselves in the wrong

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CHAPTER VI

The belief in phantoms, ghosts, or spirits, has frequently been discussed in connection with speculations on the origin of religion. According to Mr. Spencer (‘Principles of Sociology’) ‘the first traceable conception of a supernatural being is the conception of a ghost.’ Even Fetichism is ‘an extension of the ghost theory.’ The soul of the Fetich ‘in common with supernatural agents at large, is originally the double of a dead man.’ How do we get this notion—‘the double of a dead man?’ Thro

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CHAPTER VII

The next winter we lay for a couple of months off Chinhai, which we had stormed, blockading the mouth of the Ningpo river. Here, I regret to think, I committed an act which has often haunted my conscience as a crime; although I had frequently promised the captain of a gun a glass of grog to let me have a shot, and was mightily pleased if death and destruction rewarded my aim. Off Chinhai, lorchers and fast sailing junks laden with merchandise would try to run the blockade before daylight. And

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CHAPTER VIII

It was settled that after a course of three years at a private tutor’s I was to go to Cambridge. The life I had led for the past three years was not the best training for the fellow-pupil of lads of fifteen or sixteen who had just left school. They were much more ready to follow my lead than I theirs, especially as mine was always in the pursuit of pleasure. I was first sent to Mr. B.’s, about a couple of miles from Alnwick. Before my time, Alnwick itself was considered out of bounds. But as

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CHAPTER IX

To turn again to narrative, and to far less serious thoughts. The last eighteen months before I went to Cambridge, I was placed, or rather placed myself, under the tuition of Mr. Robert Collyer, rector of Warham, a living close to Holkham in the gift of my brother Leicester. Between my Ely tutor and myself there was but little sympathy. He was a man of much refinement, but with not much indulgence for such aberrant proclivities as mine. Without my knowledge, he wrote to Mr. Ellice lamenting

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CHAPTER X

Before dropping the curtain on my college days I must relate a little adventure which is amusing as an illustration of my reverend friend Napier’s enthusiastic spontaneity. My own share in the farce is a subordinate matter. During the Christmas party at Holkham I had ‘fallen in love,’ as the phrase goes, with a young lady whose uncle (she had neither father nor mother) had rented a place in the neighbourhood. At the end of his visit he invited me to shoot there the following week. For what el

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CHAPTER XI.

During my blindness I was hospitably housed in Eaten Place by Mr. Whitbread, the head of the renowned firm. After my recovery I had the good fortune to meet there Lady Morgan, the once famous authoress of the ‘Wild Irish Girl.’ She still bore traces of her former comeliness, and had probably lost little of her sparkling vivacity. She was known to like the company of young people, as she said they made her feel young; so, being the youngest of the party, I had the honour of sitting next her at

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CHAPTER XII

I HAD completed my second year at the University, when, in October 1848, just as I was about to return to Cambridge after the long vacation, an old friend—William Grey, the youngest of the ex-Prime-Minister’s sons—called on me at my London lodgings. He was attached to the Vienna Embassy, where his uncle, Lord Ponsonby, was then ambassador. Shortly before this there had been serious insurrections both in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. Many may still be living who remember how Louis Philippe fled to

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CHAPTER XIII

Vienna in the early part of the last century was looked upon as the gayest capital in Europe. Even the frightful convulsion it had passed through only checked for a while its chronic pursuit of pleasure. The cynical philosopher might be tempted to contrast this not infrequent accessory of paternal rule with the purity and contentment so fondly expected from a democracy—or shall we say a demagoguey? The cherished hopes of the so-called patriots had been crushed; and many were the worse for the

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CHAPTER XIV

It was with a sorry heart that I bade farewell to my Vienna friends, my musical comrades, the Legation hospitalities, and my faithful little Israelite. But the colt frisks over the pasture from sheer superfluity of energy; and between one’s second and third decades instinctive restlessness—spontaneous movement—is the law of one’s being. ’Tis then that ‘Hope builds as fast as knowledge can destroy.’ The enjoyment we abandon is never so sweet as that we seek. ‘Pleasure never is at home.’ Happ

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CHAPTER XV

The remainder of the year ’49 has left me nothing to tell. For me, it was the inane life of that draff of Society—the young man-about-town: the tailor’s, the haberdasher’s, the bootmaker’s, and trinket-maker’s, young man; the dancing and ‘hell’-frequenting young man; the young man of the ‘Cider Cellars’ and Piccadilly saloons; the valiant dove-slayer, the park-lounger, the young lady’s young man—who puts his hat into mourning, and turns up his trousers because—because the other young man does d

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CHAPTER XVI

Probably the most important historical event of the year ’49 was the discovery of gold in California, or rather, the great Western Exodus in pursuit of it. A restless desire possessed me to see something of America, especially of the Far West. I had an hereditary love of sport, and had read and heard wonderful tales of bison, and grisly bears, and wapitis. No books had so fascinated me, when a boy, as the ‘Deer-slayer,’ the ‘Pathfinder,’ and the beloved ‘Last of the Mohicans.’ Here then was

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CHAPTER XVII

On my arrival at the Havana I found that Durham, who was still an invalid, had taken up his quarters at Mr. Crauford’s, the Consul-General. Phoca, who was nearly well again, was at the hotel, the only one in the town. And who should I meet there but my old Cambridge ally, Fred, the last Lord Calthorpe. This event was a fruitful one,—it determined the plans of both of us for a year or more to come. Fred—as I shall henceforth call him—had just returned from a hunting expedition in Texas, with a

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CHAPTER XVIII

All punishments or penal remedies for crime, except capital punishment, may be considered from two points of view: First, as they regard Society; secondly, as they regard the offender. Where capital punishment is resorted to, the sole end in view is the protection of Society. The malefactor being put to death, there can be no thought of his amendment. And so far as this particular criminal is concerned, Society is henceforth in safety. But (looking to the individual), as equal security could b

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CHAPTER XIX

We were nearly six weeks in the Havana, being detained by Lord Durham’s illness. I provided myself with a capital Spanish master, and made the most of him. This, as it turned out, proved very useful to me in the course of my future travels. About the middle of March we left for Charlestown in the steamer Isabel , and thence on to New York. On the passage to Charlestown, we were amused one evening by the tricks of a conjuror. I had seen the man and his wife perform at the Egyptian Hall, Picc

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CHAPTER XX

We must move on; we have a long and rough journey before us. Durham had old friends in New York, Fred Calthorpe had letters to Colonel Fremont, who was then a candidate for the Presidency, and who had discovered the South Pass; and Mr. Ellice had given me a letter to John Jacob Astor— the American millionaire of that day. We were thus well provided with introductions; and nothing could exceed the kindness and hospitality of our American friends. But time was precious. It was already mid May,

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CHAPTER XXI

Sport had been the final cause of my trip to America—sport and the love of adventure. As the bison—buffalo, as they are called—are now extinct, except in preserved districts, a few words about them as they then were may interest game hunters of the present day. No description could convey an adequate conception of the numbers in which they congregated. The admirable illustrations in Catlin’s great work on the North American Indians, afford the best idea to those who have never seen the wonderf

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CHAPTER XXII

At the risk of being tedious, I will tell of one more day’s buffalo hunting, to show the vicissitudes of this kind of sport. Before doing so we will glance at another important feature of prairie life, a camp of Sioux Indians. One evening, after halting on the banks of the Platte, we heard distant sounds of tomtoms on the other side of the river. Jim, the half-breed, and Louis differed as to the tribe, and hence the friendliness or hostility, of our neighbours. Louis advised saddling up and p

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CHAPTER XXIII

Fort Laramie was a military station and trading post combined. It was a stone building in what they called a ‘compound’ or open space, enclosed by a palisade. When we arrived there, it was occupied by a troop of mounted riflemen under canvas, outside the compound. The officers lived in the fort; and as we had letters to the Colonel — Somner — and to the Captain — Rhete, they were very kind and very useful to us. We pitched our camp by the Laramie river, four miles from the fort. Nearer than

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CHAPTER XXIV

Before the first streak of dawn I was up and off to hunt for the horses and mules, which were now allowed to roam in search of feed. On my return, the men were afoot, taking it easy as usual. Some artemisia bushes were ablaze for the morning’s coffee. No one but Fred had a suspicion of the coming crisis. I waited till each one had lighted his pipe; then quietly requested the lot to gather the provision packs together, as it was desirable to take stock, and make some estimate of demand and su

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CHAPTER XXV

We were now steering by compass. Our course was nearly north-west. This we kept, as well as the formation of the country and the watercourses would permit. After striking the great Shoshone, or Snake River, which eventually becomes the Columbia, we had to follow its banks in a southerly direction. These are often supported by basaltic columns several hundred feet in height. Where that was the case, though close to water, we suffered most from want of it. And cold as were the nights—it was

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CHAPTER XXVI

Our experiences are little worth unless they teach us to reflect. Let us then pause to consider this hourly experience of human beings—this remarkable efficacy of prayer. There can hardly be a contemplative mind to which, with all its difficulties, the inquiry is not familiar. To begin with, ‘To pray is to expect a miracle.’ ‘Prayer in its very essence,’ says a thoughtful writer, ‘implies a belief in the possible intervention of a power which is above nature.’ How was it in my case? What wa

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CHAPTER XXVII

My confidence was restored, and with it my powers of endurance. Sleep was out of the question. The night was bright and frosty; and there was not heat enough in my body to dry my flannel shirt. I made shift to pull up some briar bushes; and, piling them round me as a screen, got some little shelter from the light breeze. For hours I lay watching Alpha Centauri—the double star of the Great Bear’s pointers—dipping under the Polar star like the hour hand of a clock. My thoughts, strange to say

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CHAPTER XXVIII

What remains to be told will not take long. Hardships naturally increased as the means of bearing them diminished. I have said the salmon held out for many days. We cut it in strips, and dried it as well as we could; but the flies and maggots robbed us of a large portion of it. At length we were reduced to two small hams; nothing else except a little tea. Guessing the distance we had yet to go, and taking into account our slow rate of travelling, I calculated the number of days which, with

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CHAPTER XXIX

‘ Where is the tent of the commanding officer?’ I asked of the first soldier I came across. He pointed to one on the hillside. ‘Ags for Major Dooker,’ was the Dutch-accented answer. Bidding Samson stay where he was, I made my way as directed. A middle-aged officer in undress uniform was sitting on an empty packing-case in front of his tent, whittling a piece of its wood. ‘Pray sir,’ said I in my best Louis Quatorze manner, ‘have I the pleasure of speaking to Major Dooker?’ ‘Tucker, sir. And w

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CHAPTER XXX

What was then called Fort Vancouver was a station of the Hudson’s Bay Company. We took up our quarters here till one of the company’s vessels—the ‘Mary Dare,’ a brig of 120 tons, was ready to sail for the Sandwich Islands. This was about the most uncomfortable trip I ever made. A sailing merchant brig of 120 tons, deeply laden, is not exactly a pleasure yacht; and 2,000 miles is a long voyage. For ten days we lay at anchor at the mouth of the Columbia, detained by westerly gales. A week aft

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CHAPTER XXXI

It was an easier task when all was over to set the little Amazons on their horses than to keep them there, for by the time we had perched one on her saddle, or pad rather, and adjusted her with the greatest nicety, another whom we had just left would lose her balance and fall with a scream to the ground. It was almost as difficult as packing mules on the prairie. For my part it must be confessed that I left the completion of the job to others. Curious and entertaining as the feast was, my who

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CHAPTER XXXII

A STEAMER took us down to Acapulco. It is probably a thriving port now. When we were there, a few native huts and two or three stone buildings at the edge of the jungle constituted the ‘town.’ We bought some horses, and hired two men—a Mexican and a Yankee—for our ride to the city of Mexico. There was at that time nothing but a mule-track, and no public conveyance of any kind. Nothing could exceed the beauty of the scenery. Within 160 miles, as the crow flies, one rises up to the city of M

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CHAPTER XXXIII

The following winter, my friend, George Cayley, was ordered to the south for his health. He went to Seville. I joined him there; and we took lodgings and remained till the spring. As Cayley published an amusing account of our travels, ‘Las Aforjas, or the Bridle Roads of Spain,’ as this is more than fifty years ago—before the days of railways and tourists—and as I kept no journal of my own, I will make free use of his. A few words will show the terms we were on. I had landed at Cadiz, and had

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CHAPTER XXXIV

Before setting out from Seville we had had our Foreign Office passports duly viséd . Our profession was given as that of travelling artists, and the visé included the permission to carry arms. More than once the sight of our pistols caused us to be stopped by the carabineros . On one occasion these road-guards disputed the wording of the visé . They protested that ‘armas’ meant ‘escopetas,’ not pistols, which were forbidden. Cayley indignantly retorted, ‘Nothing is forbidden to Englishmen.

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CHAPTER XXXV

In February of this year, 1852, Lord Palmerston, aided by an incongruous force of Peelites and Protectionists, turned Lord John Russell out of office on his Militia Bill. Lord Derby, with Disraeli as Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons, came into power on a cry for Protection. Not long after my return to England, I was packed off to canvas the borough of Cricklade. It was then a very extensive borough, including a large agricultural district, as well as Swindon, the

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CHAPTER XXXVI

My stepfather, Mr. Ellice, having been in two Ministries—Lord Grey’s in 1830, and Lord Melbourne’s in 1834—had necessarily a large parliamentary acquaintance; and as I could always dine at his house in Arlington Street when I pleased, I had constant opportunities of meeting most of the prominent Whig politicians, and many other eminent men of the day. One of the dinner parties remains fresh in my memory—not because of the distinguished men who happened to be there, but because of the statesman

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CHAPTER XXXVII

It is curious if one lives long enough to watch the change of taste in books. I have no lending-library statistics at hand, but judging by the reading of young people, or of those who read merely for their amusement, the authors they patronise are nearly all living or very recent. What we old stagers esteemed as classical in fiction and belles-lettres are sealed books to the present generation. It is an exception, for instance, to meet with a young man or young woman who has read Walter Scott

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CHAPTER XXXVIII

The winter of 1854–55 I spent in Rome. Here I made the acquaintance of Leighton, then six-and-twenty. I saw a good deal of him, as I lived almost entirely amongst the artists, taking lessons myself in water colours of Leitch. Music also brought us into contact. He had a beautiful voice, and used to sing a good deal with Mrs. Sartoris—Adelaide Kemble—whom he greatly admired, and whose portrait is painted under a monk’s cowl, in the Cimabue procession. Calling on him one morning, I found him o

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CHAPTER XXXIX

In February, 1855, Roebuck moved for a select committee to inquire into the condition of the Army before Sebastopol. Lord John Russell, who was leader of the House, treated this as a vote of censure, and resigned. Lord Palmerston resisted Roebuck’s motion, and generously defended the Government he was otherwise opposed to. But the motion was carried by a majority of 157, and Lord Aberdeen was turned out of office. The Queen sent for Lord Derby, but without Lord Palmerston he was unable to fo

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CHAPTER XL

The lectures at the Royal Institution were of some help to me. I attended courses by Owen, Tyndall, Huxley, and Bain. Of these, Huxley was facile princeps , though both Owen and Tyndall were second to no other. Bain was disappointing. I was a careful student of his books, and always admired the logical lucidity of his writing. But to the mixed audience he had to lecture to—fashionable young ladies in their teens, and drowsy matrons in charge of them, he discreetly kept clear of transcendent

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CHAPTER XLI

Before I went to America, I made the acquaintance of Dr. George Bird; he continued to be one of my most intimate friends till his death, fifty years afterwards. When I first knew him, Bird was the medical adviser and friend of Leigh Hunt, whose family I used often to meet at his house. He had been dependent entirely upon his own exertions; had married young; and had had a pretty hard fight at starting to provide for his children and for himself. His energy, his abilities, his exceeding amiabi

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CHAPTER XLII

Through George Bird I made the acquaintance of the leading surgeons and physicians of the North London Hospital, where I frequently attended the operations of Erichsen, John Marshall, and Sir Henry Thompson, following them afterwards in their clinical rounds. Amongst the physicians, Professor Sydney Ringer remains one of my oldest friends. Both surgery and therapeutics interested me deeply. With regard to the first, curiosity was supplemented by the incidental desire to overcome the natural r

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CHAPTER XLIII

Through the Cayley family, I became very intimate with their near relatives the Worsleys of Hovingham, near York. Hovingham has now become known to the musical world through its festivals, annually held at the Hall under the patronage of its late owner, Sir William Worsley. It was in his father’s time that this fine place, with its delightful family, was for many years a home to me. Here I met the Alisons, and at the kind invitation of Sir Archibald, paid the great historian a visit at Possil

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CHAPTER XLIV

In November, 1862, my wife and I received an invitation to spend a week at Compiègne with their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of the French. This was due to the circumstance that my wife’s father, Lord Wilton, as Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, had entertained the Emperor during his visit to Cowes. We found an express train with the imperial carriages awaiting the arrival of the English guests at the station du Nord. The only other English besides ourselves were Lord and Lady Winchi

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CHAPTER XLV

Some few years later, while travelling with my family in Switzerland, we happened to be staying at Baveno on Lago Maggiore at the same time, and in the same hotel, as the Crown Prince and Princess of Germany. Their Imperial Highnesses occupied a suite of apartments on the first floor. Our rooms were immediately above them. As my wife was known to the Princess, occasional greetings passed from balcony to balcony. One evening while watching two lads rowing from the shore in the direction of Iso

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CHAPTER XLVI

In the autumn following the end of the Franco-German war, Dr. Bird and I visited all the principal battlefields. In England the impression was that the bloodiest battle was fought at Gravelotte. The error was due, I believe, to our having no war correspondent on the spot. Compared with that on the plains between St. Marie and St. Privat, Gravelotte was but a cavalry skirmish. We were fortunate enough to meet a German artillery officer at St. Marie who had been in the action, and who kindly e

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CHAPTER XLVII

A MAN whom I had known from my school-days, Frederick Thistlethwayte, coming into a huge fortune when a subaltern in a marching regiment, had impulsively married a certain Miss Laura Bell. In her early days, when she made her first appearance in London and in Paris, Laura Bell’s extraordinary beauty was as much admired by painters as by men of the world. Amongst her reputed lovers were Dhuleep Singh, the famous Marquis of Hertford, and Prince Louis Napoleon. She was the daughter of an Irish c

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CHAPTER XLVIII

For eight or nine years, while my sons were at school, I lived at Rickmansworth. Unfortunately the Leweses had just left it. Moor Park belonged to Lord Ebury, my wife’s uncle, and the beauties of its magnificent park and the amenities of its charming house were at all times open to us, and freely taken advantage of. During those nine years I lived the life of a student, and wrote and published the book I have elsewhere spoken of, the ‘Creeds of the Day.’ Of the visitors of note whose acquaint

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