Flying visits online

burly of stone-
paved Man-
chester.

My sketch
at the head of
this article is

typical of Manchester. The imposing exterior
of the fine Town Hall can only be seen in
silhouette, and the busy populace, on business
bent, flit about like shadows in the mist ; but,
after all, the noise and din of commerce is
the sweetest of music to the mercantile ear,
which hears the chink of gold through the rattle
of heavily-laden wagons. In the foreground is



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2/6 FLYING VISITS.

the daughter of a wealthy merchant, interesting
herself in the poor sister of the slums ; this
makes a pretty little scene, and is true to
Nature, for wealth and misery are ever side
by side.

In this square stands the statue of John
Bright. The great orator of Parliament is
turning his back upon the late
Bishop, and I was singul;
struck by the fact that the p

sculptor ha

great difificultie

to contend wit]

The Bishop i
k his gaiters is a

right, but juj

look at Mr.

Bright's back,

and you will

find he looks \

like a clumsy

amateur con- .

jurer about to

perform some ^

trick with an

^gg" ^^d a handkerchief. It is

a pity, for the face and front



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COTTONOPOLIS. 277

View of the statue are particularly good.
Bright might have been shown in Quaker
gaiters or ministerial garb.



Not a hundred yards from the square, down
a side street, I made a sketch of some girls
waiting at a stage door to be engaged. What
a change from the dull streets and workshops
to the halls of dazzling delight !

To what base uses do we come ! Here in



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278 FLYING VISITS.

the centre of the town was a Crimean hero,
standing dressed in the famed and revered
uniform of the Light Brigade, offering his
pictures and an account of his daring deeds.

An old washing-stand
serves as a counter on
which to place his
photos, and I noticed
that the poor fellow
had, either by accident
or design, selected a
spot near the statue of
the great Wellington
on which to take his
stand.

As in all big cities,
the streets of Cotton-
opolis abound in side-
lights and character, to
describe one hundredth
part of which, seen
even by the casual visitor, would require a
volume in itself; but at some other time I will
give my impressions of Manchester more fully,
and more worthy 'of the great city.



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vv

4/*"/



Manchester.



My dear J/.,

A little novelty in hotels at last ! We were
waited upon by neat-handed Phyllises in our hotel at
Preston ; and this fact ^ combined with the general ap-
pearance of the establishment^ suggests a convalescent
home rather than a hotels surrounded as it is by
grounds^ and the long covered passage^ which leads
right down from the hotel entrance down to the rail-
way station^ bears out this idea^ particularly as the
place %vas most scrupulously clean and well ordered.
I had a packed audience ; in fact ^ I couldn't have ex-
pected to see the hall any better filled if my theme had
been football in lieu of politics. Back to Cottonopolis
next day^ as in the evening I had to fulfil an engage-
ment at Stretford, I seem to have taken a lease of
the York Room in the Queen's Hotel here^ so many



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280 FLYING VISITS.

times during my tour have I put up in Manchester.
The lift has just taken down the " Two Macs^' Mac-
lure and Maclean^ and brought up my friend Agnew ;
in fact ^ one friend after another invades me^ all full
of excitement over the Manchester School Board elec-
tions and the symptoms of the approaching Parlia-
mentary contest. It is a good thing there is no junc-
tion in the lift ; for party feeling is running high^
and the different shades of political opinion might
cause an amusing contretemps invaluable to the far-
cical comedy now so much in vogue. . . .

. . • But really I thought last night that some
dreadful faction fight Jtad occurred, for in the early
hours of the morning I was awoke by what I thought
was heavy cannonading, which continued with inde-
scribable aggressiveness. Catling guns were going
off, explosions were taking place every second. In my
sleepy state of semi-consciousness, I put this down to
either a fierce battle or an unusually protracted fire-
work display ; but when it had continued for some
time I got frantic and rang the bell violently, when
in answer to my furious peals a sleepy domestic in-
formed me that they were " only putting new boilers
in the kitchen^ Only, indeed! I think they might
have taken the votes of their patrons in the hotel as to
whether they would rather have their nerves shat-



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FLYING VISITS. 28 1

tered when they ought to be asleep^ or take their meals
outside the hotel on the following day. I know which
way my vote would have gone. . . .

. . . We are now off to Darwen — the last night
of the tour^ after sixteen weeks of unbroken engage-
ments. Luckily^ this last is an engagement^ as the
house is sure to be full of paper ; for my show comes
among a series of entertainments given by Mr. Hunt-
ington^ the great papermaker^ to his townspeople. I
wonder if the first lecture given in this series^ con-
sidering the name of this enterprising town, was on
" The Origin of Species " ? The Professor thinks it
was, afid moreover assured us that " The Murder in
the Rue Morgue " was first rehearsed at Darwen, and
that Jekyll and Hyde came from these parts ; but,
judging from the hearty, laughter-loving audience
I had, I think this must be an invention on the Pro-
fessor^ s part. . . .

Yours, etc..




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TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND.



A Stranger in a Strange Land — Over the Border — My First
Glimpse of the "Land o* Cakes" — And my First of
Switzerland — ^Draughty Carriages — Gretna Green — Elope-
ments up to Date — " Caledonia, Stern and Wild " —
Giants' Golf Links—" Caller Herrin* I "

I HAD never visited Scotland until I did so
this winter. Year after year I have done the
" Continong " more or less ; I have explored
England, Ireland, and Wales, but by some
odd chance or other I found myself a stranger
in a strange land when I crossed the border a
short time ago.

There is a curious fascination in visiting a
new country for the first time; the traveller
always imagines for the time being that he is
a Columbus on a voyage of discovery, and it
is quite a disappointment to find nothing
particularly worthy of notice in the hitherto
unknown land. The moment you cross the
border-line you peer out of the window — the
grass is the same green, the trees bear the
same foliage, and the telegraph poles are of



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TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND. 283

the same pattern as those you have been
passing for hours ; yet you imagine that some-
how the grass grows more in patches, that the
trees are all bent toward the north, and that
the telegraph poles are shorter and placed
nearer to each other. Are they ? I have more
than once (to test this) " made believe " I have
been travelling in a str^mge country, and have
watched with interest everything I passed^
everything I had been in the habit of seeing
continually, with a fresh eye. It is really
astonishing how many things you notice in
this way that strike you as being unique and
peculiar. It is very good fun playing a
practical joke on yourself in this way, and it
also brings home to you the fact that you
often imagine you see things that are new
which are really not so. Still I declare that
as soon as I passed the border, and found
myself for the first time in the " Land o'
Cakes," my artistic eye was struck by the
rich coloring of the landscapes, and I was
forcibly reminded of the strong tones of the
Scotch pictures I was familiar with. The red
soil, the vivid green, and the rich purple back-
ground of the mountain scenery was fresh and
new to my eye, and there was no deceiving



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284 FLYING VISITS.

my ear when at the stations the names were
(unintelligible to me) called out as they were
in a strong Scotch accent, but the picture as a
whole is naturally enough not so strikingly
different to the English eye as that presented
by a country abroad.

I recollect travelling right through the
Continent by express without a change, and,
awaking one morning in the train, I looked
sleepily out of the window. There was a
Swiss scene before me — the chalet covered
with snow, the little village and the toy figures
standing about, the mountains and the fir-
trees. I thought for the moment my travelling
companion had put a very indifferent oleo-
graph on the window, and I stretched out my
hand to take it down. I had had my first
peep at Switzerland, but I doubt if the Swiss
scenery can compare with that of Scotland.
There is more of Nature and less of the made
picture about the rugged Highlands, and it
requires the pen of a Black and the brush of
a MacWhirter to do justice to it.

I must admit that, although I did not
find the Scotch people cold (on the contrary,
a warmer-hearted race it has never been my
lot to meet), I found the travelling cold enough



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TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND. 285

in all conscience. Whether it is that the wind
is more penetrating, or that the carriages are
not so well built as ours, I cannot say, but I



think the latter the more likely explanation.
The compartments are leaky, the windows
and doors being simply very open ventilating
shafts. The result is better shown by a sketch,



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286 FLYING VISITS.

SO here is my travelling companion literally
sketched in the train from life.



Steaming away northward from Carlisle
we pass a spot romantic in the extreme and
dear to the heart of every daughter of the
northern shires. It is Gretna Green. The
country is pretty, and its charms are en-
hanced by glimpses of the beautiful river in
the distance. From the carriage window you
can see a few houses and the blacksmith's
shop, the most romantic spot in this romantic
place ; perhaps also you may catch a glimpse
of the little inn close by, where the marriages



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TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND. 287

took place, and where the unique register is
still to be seen. As your eye takes in
the picturesque
scene, you can
imagine to your-
self the runaway
couple flying
along in a post-
chaise, the
horses covered
with foam and
wincing again
and again under
the whip which
is being freely
plied by the pos-
tilion, eager to
reach the goal

and claim his promised reward ; perhaps
also he enters into the spirit of the thing,
and excitement is another stimulant. Behind
follows the irate parent in hot pursuit. Now-
adays, had not the marriage laws of Scot-
land been altered, the tandem tricycle of these
prosaic times would have taken the place of
the post-chaise of the past, and the angry
father or guardian would have given chase on



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288 FLYING VISITS.

a racing safety; or the fleeing couple would
have travelled by the Scotch express, and the
chaser have chartered a pilot engine on which
to follow them. It is well the law was altered
before the romance could be destroyed by any
such inartistic surroundings.

But the strong feature of Scotland is the
wild beauty of its picturesque scenery, and
when traversing the length and breadth of
the country in the train one panorama after
another of varied landscape pleases and
gratifies the English eye. In many of the
hilly parts the land is unsuited for any pur-
pose but grazing, and it is while the eye is
surveying these desolate tracts that the mind
realizes the beautiful fitness of the line, " O
Caledonia, stern and wild."

As an instance of this, you can travel for
miles through the huge estate of the Duke of
Buccleuch without seeing any life on the wild,
undulating, heather-covered hills, except here
and there a grouse or blackcock, which, with
a few other birds dear to the heart of the
sportsman, and a few scattered sheep, were,
as far as I could see, the sole denizens of this
vast expanse of hill and dale, though I believe
there are a few scattered shepherds' huts con-



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TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND. 289

cealed somewhere among the hills. The sole
specimen of the human race that I saw in this
land of solitude was one of these tenders of
sheep. He was seated by the side of a running



>l



brook, the charms of which he ignored as he
consoled himself in his solitude by a ** wee
drap" from a black bottle, which must have
been a welcome companion in these dreary
wastes.



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290 FLYING VISITS.

The stranger is somewhat puzzled by the
sight of little circular waDed-in enclosures
dotted every here and there, and it is said
that a facetious native informed an inquisitive
English tourist that these hills were the chief
Scottish golf-links, and that the enclosures he
saw were the " putting-holes." Whether the
tourist believed this explanation tradition
sayeth not. As a matter of fact, these myste-
rious enclosures are *'bughts," which, being
translated, means sheep-pens.

How often one hear§ the name of Scotland
coupled with the word shooting; and yet.



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TRAVELLING IN SCOTLAND. 291

Strange to say, during the month or more I
spent in Scotland I did not hear the report
of a gun until just
before I crossed
the border home-
war d-bound,
when, as the train
was urging on its
wild career
through lovely
Annandale, I
caught sight of
a shooting-party
close by the rail-
way line, of which
I had just time to
make a hurried
sketch before the
iron horse had

carried me out of eyesight. I add also a
note of a buxom Scotch fishwife, ever a
welcome sight in the " Land o' Cakes."



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^







THE END.



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