Читать книгу Forty Years of 'Spy' - Leslie Ward - Страница 5

My father is represented with Millais on the left hand top of the cartoon. 1865.

My mother is represented in the centre of the trio of representative lady painters at the lower left hand corner.

We loved the Crystal Palace none the less for our misadventure, and the happiest day of the year, to me at least, was my mother's birthday, on the first of June, when we annually hired a private omnibus, packed a delicious lunch, and drove to the Palace, where we visited our favourite amusements, or rambled in the spacious grounds. Sims Reeves, Carlotta Patti, Grisi, Adelina Patti, sang there to distinguished audiences. Blondin astonished us with remarkable feats, and Stead, the "Perfect Cure," aroused our laughter with his eccentric dancing. A great source of attraction to me were the life-like models of fierce-looking African tribes, standing spear and shield in hand, in the doorways of their kralls. A pictorial description of how the Victoria Cross was won was another fascination, for in those days I had all the small boy's love of battle. When we were at home I loved to go to Regent's Park to see the panorama of the earthquake at Lisbon, and I would gaze enthralled at the scene, which was as actual to me as the "Battle of Prague," a piece played by our governess upon the piano, a descriptive affair full of musical fireworks, the thundering of cavalry and the rattle of shots.

On Sundays we were accustomed to walk to St. Mark's, St. John's Wood, to hear the Rev. J. M. Bellew, whose sermons to children were famous. We had to walk, I remember, a considerable distance to the church. I can't recall ever being bored by him. He was a very remarkable man, and his manner took enormously with children; he had a magnificent head and silvery curls, which made a picturesque frame to his face, and offered an effective contrast to his grey eyes. This, combined with a very powerful sweep of chin, an expressive mouth, wide as orators' mouths usually are, and an attractive voice, made him a very fascinating personality. He taught elocution to Fechter, the great actor, and afterwards—when he had retired from the Protestant Church and become a Roman Catholic—he gave superb readings of Shakespeare. At all these readings, as at his sermons, an old lady, whose infatuation for Bellew was well known, was always a conspicuous member of the audience; for no matter what part of the country he was to be heard, she would appear in a front seat with a wreath of white roses upon her head. Bellew never became acquainted with her beyond acknowledging her presence by raising his hat.

I used to take Latin lessons with Evelyn and Harold Bellew (afterwards known as Kyrle Bellew, the actor). Sometimes I stayed with them at Riverside House at Maidenhead where their father, being very fond of children, frequently gave parties, and I remember his entertaining us. Here Mr. Bellew nearly blew off his arm in letting off fireworks from the island. In those days there were few trees on this island, and it was an ideal place for a display, though this affair nearly ended disastrously.

The advantage of "archæological research" was very early impressed upon me by my father, and I was taken to see all that was interesting and instructive. We used to go for walks together, and as we went he would tell me histories of the buildings we passed, and on my return journey I was supposed to remember and repeat all he had said.

"Come now," he would say, pausing in Whitehall. "What happened there?"

"Oh—er——" I would reply nervously. "Oliver Cromwell had his head cut off—and said, 'Remember'!"

I used to dread these walks together, much as I loved him, and I was so nervous I never ceased to answer unsatisfactorily; so my father, over-looking the possibility of my lack of interest in his observations, and the fact that life was a spectacle to me, for what I saw interested me far more than what I heard, decided I needed the rousing influence of school life, and after a little preparation, sent me to Chase's School at Salt Hill.

Salt Hill was so called from the ceremony of collecting salt in very ancient days by monks as a toll; and in later times by the Eton boys, who collected not "salt"—but money, to form a purse for the captain of the school on commencing his University studies at King's College, Cambridge. Soon after sunrise on the morning of "Montem," as it was called, the Eton boys, dressed in a variety of quaint or amusing costumes, started from the college to extort contributions from all they came across. "They roved as far as Staines Bridge, Hounslow, and Maidenhead, and when 'salt' or money had been collected, the contributors would be presented with a ticket inscribed with the words, 'Nos pro lege,' which he would fix in his hat, or in some conspicuous part of his dress, and thus secure exemption from all future calls upon his good nature and his purse."

"Montem" is now a matter of history, and was discontinued in 1846, when the Queen turned a deaf ear to her "faithful subjects'" petition for its survival.

Amongst my school friends at Salt Hill, Wentworth Hope-Johnstone stands out as an attractive figure, as does that of Mark Wood (now Colonel Lockwood, M.P.). The former became in later life one of the first gentlemen riders of the day. At school he was always upon a horse if he could get one, and he would arrange plays and battle pieces in which we, his schoolfellows, were relegated to the inferior position of the army, while he was aide-de-camp, or figured as the equestrian hero performing marvellous feats of horsemanship. He became a steeple-chase rider, and coming to my studio many years after, I remember him telling me with the greatest satisfaction that he had never yet had an accident—ominously enough, for within the week he fell from his horse and sustained severe injuries.

I did not stay long at my school at Salt Hill, for the school was broken up owing to the ill-health of the principal. My preparation thus coming to an end rather too soon, I was sent to Eton much earlier than I otherwise should have been, and my pleasant childhood days began to merge into the wider sphere of a big school and all its unknown possibilities.