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GOING back a little in time,
some account must be given of a day never to be forgotten by those who took
part in it;— that of the Royal Review of the Scottish Volunteers in 1881,
twenty-one years after the first great gathering a Scotland before the
Queen. The contrast was extraordinary. The Volunteers were there in greater
numbers than in 1860, there being no fewer than 40,624, of all ranks
present. But oh! how different was the scene. The Queen, with that kindly
consideration which she always showed, chose an afternoon hour for the
Review. She had been informed that the arrival of the troops was so arranged
that the parade could be held before luncheon, but she preferred to hold it
later, saying that she had been distressed to know that a few weeks before,
at the English Review in Windsor Park, several men had been smitten by
sunstroke, the day being so hot! Most unfortunately her very kindness led to
her Volunteers being exposed to a very different evil from that which she
dreaded. Up to two o'clock the weather, though gloomy, was not wet, and had
the Review been held before noon, it would have been finished before the
storm burst. As it was, broke out with fury about half an hour before the
time appointed. No ordinary words can describe that downpour. It was one of
those occasions when the all is not in drops, but in streams. I have often
described it by saying that the water came down like "pipe stems." There had
been nothing seen in the Queen's Park to compare with it within the memory
of man, and the parade ground became a sea of mud before the march past
began. About thirty paces from Her Majesty's carriage the troops marched
through a running stream high up over the ankles, which had the curling
wavelets on the surface that one sees in a swift-flowing millrace. So
frightful was the soaking power, that long before a third of the battalions
had passed the royal standard, the vast crowd on the hill surged down for
home, and it was with great difficulty that they were held back by cavalry,
while the Volunteers dribbled through the space between the Palace garden
wall and the crowd from the hill, making their way in twos and threes
through the lane kept by the troopers, and doubling up into position as they
reached the open part of the Park. One good came out of this evil. It was a
very crucial test of discipline, and that so many thousand men, soaked to
the skin, were successfully kept in hand, recovered from the break-in up of
their ranks, and marched past successfully, and were afterwards earned to
their homes, many of them having to travel hundreds of miles in their
drenched clothing, without there being any serious failure in good conduct,
led many military men to form a much higher opinion of the capacity for
discipline of the Volunteer than they had ever entertained before. There
were, if was
VOLUNTEER REVIEW, 18S1
reported, two hundred deaths
traceable to what was gone through on that day, and I know myself a
gentleman who contracted evil in consequence, which has at times troubled
him up to this hour, after more than thirty years have passed away.
The matter has also its
amusing side. A friend of my own, who was a strict teetotaller both before
and after, told me that on the Review day, on getting home, he had a big
rummer of hot grog, a thing he had never touched before, tie did not tell me
whether he enjoyed it. Probably not, but he benefited, on his own
confession. Another amusing incident occurred to the Queen herself. Her
trusty servant, John Brown, whenever he saw the rain streaming down, raided
the quarters of the maids of honour and the ladies' maids of the royal
party, and carried off an armful of umbrellas, to the number, it was said,
of thirteen. He took them with him in the rumble of the Queen's carriage,
and whenever the pelting of the storm caused an umbrella to leak, he handed
a dry one over the back of the carriage. I have no doubt the whole thirteen
were used, and that he wished he had brought more. What the maids of honour
and the other maids said to one another, and said to John Brown, history
does not relate.
The name of William Chambers
will ever be remembered with gratitude for the noble work he did in
restoring the interior of the Cathedral of St. Giles, from the discreatable
partitioning to which it was subjected in a period when taste in relation to
buildings was at its lowest ebb. We are told of the great Dr. Johnson, that
when he was brought to St. Giles', after it had been divided into sections,
he said: "Let me see this which was once a church." The restoration was in
every respect worthy of the ancient structure. Unlike what was done to
destroy the character of the outside by facing it up with polished stone,
the old walls were restored from their daubings with plaster to their
impressive ruggedness, nothing being done within to mar the massive
simplicity which is its best feature as the central church of Scotland, a
land of a strong and rugged race—a feature which may well be preserved in
Scotland's old buildings, having as they certainly have, a dignity of their
own. They cannot be improved by covering them up either inside or outside
with uncalled-for elegances, unsuitable to their character. The 'tasty'
enrichment of the modern decorator is out of place. Those who were present
in St. Giles at the ceremonial, on the occasion of King George's visit, for
installation of the Order of the Hustle, when the beautiful new chapel was
used for the first time, must have felt that the great church, in all its
simplicity, was in its place as suitable for a solemn Scottish act of
worship on a State occasion as was Westminster Abbey in its place for a
royal coronation. Indeed, it may be said to have been a finer sight, there
being no great wooden galleries, as were necessary in the Abbey. We owe it
to Dr. Chambers, not only that the restoration was made, but also, and quite
as much, that it was done without any serious tampering with the building as
it stood in the days of John Knox. And all recognise with thankfulness the
admirable work of Sir Robert Lorimer in the new chapel of the Order of the
Thistle—a gem indeed. |
