The Days Before Yesterday | Page 5

of Ottawa--The "roaring game"--Skating--An ice-palace-- A ball on
skates--Difficulties of translating the Bible into Eskimo--The building
of the snow hut--The snow hut in use--Sir John Macdonald--Some
personal traits--The Canadian Parliament buildings--Monsieur
l'Orateur--A quaint oration--The "Pages' Parliament"--An all-night
sitting--The "Arctic Cremorne"--A curious Lisbon custom--The Balkan
"souvenir-hunters"--Personal inspection of Canadian convents--Some
incidents--The unwelcome novice--The Montreal Carnival--The
Ice-castle--The Skating Carnival--A stupendous toboggan slide--The
pioneer of "ski" in Canada--The old-fashioned raquettes--A Canadian
Spring--Wonders of the Dominion

CHAPTER X
Calcutta--Hooghly pilots--Government House--A Durbar--The sulky
Rajah--The customary formalities--An ingenious interpreter--The
sailing clippers in the Hooghly--Calcutta Cathedral--A succulent
banquet--The mistaken Minister--The "Gordons"--Barrackpore--A
Swiss Family Robinson aerial house--The child and the elephants-- The
merry midshipmen--Some of their escapades--A huge haul of

fishes--Queen Victoria and Hindustani--The Hills--The Manipur
outbreak--A riding tour--A wise old Anglo-Indian--Incidents--The
fidelity of native servants--A novel printing-press--Lucknow--The loss
of an illusion

CHAPTER XI
Matters left untold--The results of improved communications--My
father's journey to Naples--Modern stereotyped uniformity--Changes in
customs--The faithful family retainer--Some details--Samuel Pepys'
stupendous banquets--Persistence of idea--Ceremonial
incense--Patriarchal family life--The barn dances--My father's
habits--My mother--A son's tribute--Autumn days--Conclusion

THE DAYS BEFORE YESTERDAY

CHAPTER I
Early days--The passage of many terrors--Crocodiles, grizzlies and
hunchbacks--An adventurous journey and its reward--The famous
spring in South Audley Street--Climbing chimney-sweeps--The story
of Mrs. Montagu's son--The sweeps' carnival--Disraeli--Lord John
Russell--A child's ideas about the Whigs--The Earl of Aberdeen-- "Old
Brown Bread"--Sir Edwin Landseer, a great family friend--A live lion
at a tea-party--Landseer as an artist--Some of his vagaries--His frescoes
at Ardverikie--His latter days--A devoted friend--His last Academy
picture.
I was born the thirteenth child of a family of fourteen, on the thirteenth
day of the month, and I have for many years resided at No. 13 in a
certain street in Westminster. In spite of the popular prejudice attached
to this numeral, I am not conscious of having derived any particular
ill-fortune from my accidental association with it.

Owing to my sequence in the family procession, I found myself on my
entry into the world already equipped with seven sisters and four
surviving brothers. I was also in the unusual position of being born an
uncle, finding myself furnished with four ready- made nephews--the
present Lord Durham, his two brothers, Mr. Frederick Lambton and
Admiral-of-the-Fleet Sir Hedworth Meux, and the late Lord Lichfield.
Looking down the long vista of sixty years with eyes that have already
lost their keen vision, the most vivid impression that remains of my
early childhood is the nightly ordeal of the journey down "The Passage
of Many Terrors" in our Irish home. It had been decreed that, as I had
reached the mature age of six, I was quite old enough to come
downstairs in the evening by myself without the escort of a maid, but
no one seemed to realise what this entailed on the small boy
immediately concerned. The house had evidently been built by some
malevolent architect with the sole object of terrifying little boys. Never,
surely, had such a prodigious length of twisting, winding passages and
such a superfluity of staircases been crammed into one building, and as
in the early "sixties" electric light had not been thought of, and there
was no gas in the house, these endless passages were only sparingly lit
with dim colza-oil lamps. From his nursery the little boy had to make
his way alone through a passage and up some steps. These were
brightly lit, and concealed no terrors. The staircase that had to be
negotiated was also reassuringly bright, but at its base came the
"Terrible Passage." It was interminably long, and only lit by an oil
lamp at its far end. Almost at once a long corridor running at right
angles to the main one, and plunged in total darkness, had to be crossed.
This was an awful place, for under a marble slab in its dim recesses a
stuffed crocodile reposed. Of course in the daytime the crocodile
PRETENDED to be very dead, but every one knew that as soon as it
grew dark, the crocodile came to life again, and padded noiselessly
about the passage on its scaly paws seeking for its prey, with its great
cruel jaws snapping, its fierce teeth gleaming, and its horny tail lashing
savagely from side to side. It was also a matter of common knowledge
that the favourite article of diet of crocodiles was a little boy with bare
legs in a white suit. Even should one be fortunate enough to escape the
crocodile's jaws, there were countless other terrors awaiting the

traveller down this awe-inspiring passage. A little farther on there was
a dark lobby, with cupboards surrounding it. Any one examining these
cupboards by daylight would have found that they contained innocuous
cricket-bats and stumps, croquet- mallets and balls, and sets of bowls.
But as soon as the shades of night fell, these harmless