The Making of a Novelist | Page 8

being
repaired, and when everybody concerned was working for the bare life.
It had not then been finally established that hope was over, and
everybody was inspired with an almost superhuman vigour. The
correspondent, who was a mighty person in his own esteem, sent his
card to the manager, who sent him back a sufficiently courteous

message, saying how busy he was and asking to be excused for an hour
or two.
'Take back that card,' said the special (I was a witness of the scene),
'say that I represent' (he named one of the most influential of the
London dailies), 'and that I insist upon an interview.'
This time a sufficiently discourteous message came back; and the
mighty personage, after loafing about for an hour or two, retired and
wrote an article in which he described the people of the Black Country
as savages, and revived a foolish old libel or two which at one time had
currency concerning them. The old nonsense about the champagne was
there, for one thing. I know the Black Country miners pretty well--I
ought to do so, at least, for I was born in the thick of them and watched
their ways from childhood to manhood--and I never knew a working
miner who had so much as heard of champagne. Now and then a
prosperous 'butty' (Anglicè, chartermaster) may have tried a bottle; but
the working collier's beverage is 'pit beer.' The popular recipe for this
drink is to 'chuck three grains of malt into the cut, and drink as much as
ye like of it.'
I remember the story of one wine party which met at the Scott's Arms
at Barr. I dare say Mr. Henry Irving knows the house, for he is
President of the Literary Society there. The tale was told me by the
landlord. Three chartermasters sat at a table in the bar, and old
Pountney overheard their whispered talk.
'Didst iver drink port, Jim?'
'No; what is it?'
'Why, port--port wine; it's a stuff as the gentlefolks is fond on.'
'I reckon it'll be main expensive, then.'
'Oh, we can stand it amongst the three on us. Got any port wine,
landlord?'

'Yes, some of the finest in the county.'
'What's it run to?'
'Seven-and-six a bottle.'
'They figured it out,' the landlord told me, 'with a bit of a stump of an
ode pencil on the top o' the table, and when they'd made up their minds
as siven and sixpence was half a crown apiece amongst the three on 'em
they ordered a bottle. I sent my man down the cellar for it, and I went
out to look at my pigs. When I come back again there they was sittin'
wry-mouthed an' looking at one another, wi' some muddy-lookin' stuff
in the glasses afore 'em. "Gentlemen," I says, "ye don't seem to like
your liquor." "Like it!" says one on 'em; "if this is the stuff the
gentlefolks drinkin', the gentlefolks is welcome to it for we." I turns to
my man, and "Bill," says I, "where did ye get this bottle o' port from?"
"Why," he says, "I got it from the fust bin on the left-hand side." "Why,
you cussid ode idiot," I says, "you've browt 'em mushroom ketchup!"'

III
It was on May 25, 1865, that I enlisted in her Majesty's Fourth Royal
Irish Dragoon Guards. I was just past my eighteenth birthday, and, for
reasons not worth specifying nowadays, the world had come to an end.
Civil life afforded no appropriate means of exit from this mortal stage,
and I was in a condition (theoretically) to march with pleasure against a
savage foe. I was ignorant of these little matters, and was not aware of
the fact that the Fourth Royal Irish was mainly a stay-at-home
regiment.
My ardour for the military life was cooled pretty early. I dare say that
things have mended somewhat in the last seven-and-twenty years; but
my experience was in the main a record of petty tyrannies and
oppressions, at the memory of some of which my blood boils even unto
this day. There is a comic side to everything, however, and I can laugh
over a good many of my own experiences. I had a dinner engagement

that day with a friend in the Haymarket, and finding myself a little too
early for it, I stood to watch the fountains playing in Trafalgar Square.
My mind was in a state of moody grandeur, which is both comic and
affecting to recall at this distance of time. I was quite a misunderstood
young person, and was determined to be revenged for it, on all and
sundry, myself included. The blue-coated brass-buttoned old spider
who came to weave his web around me had no need to be elaborate. I