CHAPTER V
THE REAL BEGINNING
And now behold me at the age of forty-two on the threshold of a new life. Already I could count four separate stages of an objectless career hopelessly leading nowhere, for even my sea-life, though I did manage to pass for chief mate at twenty-two, offered me no prospects save that of a drudge, a servant of servants at wretchedly inadequate pay. For it was a very dark hour for ships’ officers. We walked the docks and thronged the shipping offices looking for berths and as often as not were driven to sea before the mast because we could not get berths as officers. And when we did the pay was such as seems incredible to-day. I have been offered (this was in 1881) £5 per month as chief mate of a 3000-ton tramp bound to the Baltic, and would have gladly accepted it but that a gentleman by the name of Gustave Shlum forestalled me. Eventually I did get a berth as chief officer of a brig sailing for the east coast of Africa at £5 15s. per month, but then I had to sign an agreement to be responsible for all cargo short delivered. And I worked harder than anybody else on board except the splendid bos’un—carpenter—second mate, who was a Russian Finn and was priceless—I have never seen so good a man except once and he was filling a similar position and hailed from the same place, Helsingfors.
Still, as a dear friend, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, once told me, it was all experience, and now I was to enjoy the ripened fruit of it, although the marvel was that these soul-withering years that the locust had eaten had not destroyed all memory of those exciting days. It had not in the least, and I looked forward calmly and confidently, without the least doubt of my ability to “make good,” even though I was beginning at the very beginning and that too at a time of life when most men are fixed for life. My new appointment was on the staff of the Morning Leader, and my duty was to write three one-column articles a week on nautical topics, my salary being £104 per annum. True I had an empty home and a wife and four children dependent upon me, but I was used to the burden, and, moreover, I could earn my salary by about two hours’ work three times a week, never having the slightest difficulty in finding topics, and able to work anywhere.
But best of all, I could fulfil lecture engagements without asking leave of anybody, which I felt might be a great boon in the near future when such engagements began to pour in. And another thing, I found work at very remunerative rates flowing in upon me, so that I was soon able to ask and receive better prices. Also, accumulating a little store of money I was able to repay debts that my creditors had long before wiped off their books as hopeless. So that, taking it by and large, as we used to say, I commenced my lecturing career under the fairest auspices and set off for the north to fulfil my first two engagements under the Lecture Agency without any but the most pleasurable anticipations.
A couple of days before starting I received a very stiff and formal invitation to accept the hospitality of a member of the Society for which I was to lecture. It was simply signed “Wm. Lowrie,” and gave me not the slightest intimation as to who the writer might be. But I was in a most responsive mood, open to every kindly influence, and I wrote accepting gratefully. And it was with a sense of real grateful surprise that I found my host, a grave dignified man about twenty years my senior, with shipmaster writ large all over him, awaiting my arrival with a carriage. How we knew each other I cannot tell, that has always been one of the mysteries to me, the numbers of times I have been met by entire strangers who have picked me out from among a crowd of passengers—but I know that in five minutes we were close friends.
I found to my amazement that I was the guest of one of the classic figures of the old sailing-ship days. A man who had served his time in the Arctic whalers out of Peterhead, had been officer in such historic clippers as the Marco Polo, the Schomberg, James Baines and Redjacket and also in the ship about which Dickens turned the vials of his just wrath on the War Office authorities of the day for the callous way in which they destroyed the lives of time-expired soldiers from India on the passage home and on landing. She will remain evermore infamous in history as the Great Tasmania, though Dickens expressly exempts from his censure her crew.
Only an old sailor could understand my delight at meeting such a man, who was withal so modest and kind. The only drawback I felt was in what I considered the over-emphasis of his praise for what I had written about the sea. But then seamen are all prone to overrate the value of matter written about the life they know by men who have lived that life. Their appreciation is in just proportion to their scorn of the many modern writers who on the strength of a broken apprenticeship or a homeward passage round Cape Horn thenceforth pose as nautical experts and complacently allow themselves to be called Captain This or That when they do not know enough seamanship to cross a royal yard.
I spent a most enjoyable three days in Newcastle for the lectures were a great success, and my life in my host’s delightful company full of such a pleasure as I have never experienced before. For in addition to his great eminence in the world I knew so well, he was kindness and considerateness itself and never once forgot to make my welfare his first thought. I regret to cease talking about him, but must remember the claims of others, so I will only add here that our friendship lasted as long as he lived, about ten years. He left between £30,000 and £40,000, practically the whole of which has gone to the benefit of seamen.
Now I have no knowledge of the means used by the Lecture Agency to spread the fame of a lecturer and get him engagements, I only know that after my performances at Newcastle and Shields engagements began to pour in, some to my amazement and secret pride from the great classic Public Schools. These engagements did not come singly either. For instance, I received in one bunch bookings for eight different institutes around Birmingham, all of which were within a short distance, under half an hour’s journey from the centre of the City. I afterwards learned that it was the highly commendable practice of the secretaries of these institutes to meet and arrange their lecture dates so that a lecturer could go from one to the other on successive nights, thus giving him the minimum of travel and expense and enabling him to take lower fees with no monetary disadvantage to himself. Unhappily that good practice has come to an end for nearly all the institutes are no more, at least so I was told by the secretary of one who claimed to be the last survivor.
Speaking of Birmingham, an experience befell me there which is one of the most salient memories of that interesting time. It also shows how little I yet knew of what I may call the intricacies of railway travel in my own country. I was booked to lecture at the Birmingham Town Hall (I had never yet been to the City) at 7 p.m. one Sunday, and chose the L. and N.W. I did not trouble to look at the G.W. time-tables or I might have found, as I did recently, an incomparably better and quicker train with a luncheon car attached. However, I joined the train at Willesden at about 10 a.m. and giving a porter my bag asked him to put me in the Birmingham portion of the train, although I did not then know that any part of the train went anywhere else.
I found a comfortable seat, and when the train stopped at Rugby I went to the refreshment room and bought a penny loaf, bread having been omitted from the nose-bag I carried as suspecting no food arrangements. I rejoined the train, lunched comfortably, and went to sleep afterwards, waking up to find the train passing through Rugeley. Now my scanty geographical knowledge of England told me that something was wrong, an idea which was confirmed when the train drew up at Stafford. Alighting in great trepidation, I sought an official who told me that the next train back to Birmingham was due to arrive there at 8 p.m.—it was then 2 p.m.—but he added abstractedly, “It generally don’t get there much afore half-past.” And my lecture was at 7!
I am fairly well able to keep my head under any circumstances, but I confess that I was really daunted now. Thirty miles from Birmingham on a Sunday afternoon. I thought of a bike, madness! Taxis had not been thought of yet, and a special train was out of the question. So I sat down and allowed my mind to rest awhile—that is I didn’t think of anything for a few minutes. But a genial porter came along who must have seen a certain woe-begone look in my face, for he accosted me with a cheery “What’s up, governor?”
I immediately poured my sad story into his ears as plainly as possible. When I had finished he smiled brightly and said:
“You see our stationmaster, governor; he’ll put you right, you see if he don’t. Fine old cock our stationmaster is.”
I confess that I did not feel hopeful, but the man’s manner was infectious and, moreover, I was ready, like a drowning man, to catch at any straw. So I begged him to lead me to the stationmaster. That worthy was one of the jolliest-looking old men I have ever seen, and his very appearance was comforting. He heard me tell my tale, then said cheerfully:
“You’re all right, young man; Sunday is the very best day for getting anywhere, although the time-table knows nothing about that. I’ve got no less than four theatrical specials coming through this afternoon, any one of which would drop you at Brum. I’ll stop the first one for you and you’ll get to New Street about 3.30. How will that suit you?”
Well, I’ll leave it to you. I am glad to say that I tipped that good porter a florin in my gratitude, and according to promise found myself going up Corporation Street at half-past three. But when at about 6.40 I made my way to Chamberlain Square and saw it black with people all making their way to the magnificent classical building in the centre, I fell a-trembling to think that I might have disappointed that vast crowd. In fact I had hardly recovered myself when the time came for me to go on the platform. But the sight I then saw steadied me. The vast building was crowded to its utmost capacity and I looked upon a veritable sea of heads. The platform and orchestra were also crowded, only leaving a small oblong for me.
After the singing of a hymn and the reading of some notices I was introduced and the volume of cheering that greeted me brought a big lump into my throat, for I was totally unprepared for it as well as unused to such a greeting. My subject was “Romance and Reality at Sea,” and I can say without boasting that not even the great Birmingham orator could have held that audience better. I had been told to cease at the hour, and obedient to instructions I did so, telling the audience why. A mighty shout went up of “Go on, go on,” so I went on for another half-hour, receiving such an ovation as I closed that I was fairly stupefied. Many hundreds of lectures have I enjoyed since then and have received as much appreciation as any man ought to have, but that night in Brum overtops them all. And I was within an ace of missing it altogether!
While I am on this topic I will say that in the fairly long time, about fifteen years, that I have been lecturing I cannot say that I have ever lost an appointment by the fault of the railway. I have been late certainly, but on the one occasion when I missed my engagement altogether it was entirely my own fault. No, many are the grievances that lecturers have, and hold legitimately, against the railway companies, but losing engagements by reason of railway unpunctuality is not one of them. I may as well say here that it always has seemed to me little short of an outrage that lecturers, who yearly spend enormous sums in railway travelling, should have no concession whatever made to them, while golfers and commercial travellers are allowed to travel at such greatly reduced rates. Perhaps the most galling thing of all is to take a ticket on Saturday for some distant place for which the ordinary fare is high and because you must return the same night be compelled to pay the full ordinary fare, while an ordinary week-end ticket will be less than half the money. Or to book at the same time as a golfer, pay nearly double the fare he does and go and return in the same compartment. Not only so, but the train will stop at an unscheduled station for him while the lecturer may plead for the same privilege in vain.
In order to have my growl upon a particular instance, I should like to state that once having a lecture at New Barnet and the time of its close not allowing me to catch the 9.50 at Finsbury Park, I, holding a first-class season ticket between London and Melbourn, Cambs, where I lived, applied to the High Gods at King’s Cross for permission to have that particular train stopped at New Barnet to allow me to get home that night. I felt the more emboldened to ask this concession because express trains were being continually stopped at Knebworth for golfers and at Foxton for one gentleman who lived near the station. My application was curtly refused without reason assigned. Yet only three days afterwards I received from King’s Cross a touting letter stating that as they had noticed that I was billed to lecture in Sheffield on a certain date, they begged to call my attention to the advantages of travelling by their line and would gladly book me a third- or first-class seat, whichever I preferred.
I hope I did justice to the matter in my reply to that letter, but as I had no reply from them I am not sure. One more anecdote of a similar nature and I leave the subject for the time. I once booked on a Monday two first-class return tickets to the Hague and round Belgium and Holland for the following Saturday. Ultra-honest, I enclosed a cheque for the full amount post-dated for Friday. I received the usual post-card acknowledgment and dismissed the matter from my mind. On arriving at Liverpool Street, fifteen minutes before the departure of the train at 8 p.m., and applying for my tickets I was told that they could not be issued without present payment and that my post-dated cheque had been returned. It had not, and I have never since seen it, but the salient fact was that I had not sufficient cash with me to meet this large item and I had to give up my journey.
Since then I have never sent any money upon booking seats in a train and I rejoice to say that the mutual confidence has never been abused, the results have always been entirely satisfactory, which is in startling contrast to continental practice, where no seat will be booked for you unless you pay your fare at the time. But a truce to railway matters for a time, although as they form so large a portion of a lecturer’s experiences I make no apology for alluding to them at such length.