1906] The Lame Foxes of Bramham 127 



confidence that he has received indirect overtures recently from O'Brien 

 who, he says, seems more in accord than anyone else with his policy, 

 Redmond and Dillon having coalesced. Also Dunraven has made 

 him advances, and yesterday he had met Sir Anthony Macdonnell, and 

 talked with him on the most friendly terms. It was their first meeting 

 since George left the Irish Office. All this encourages him to take a 

 line of his own about Ireland. He means to strike in early in the new 

 Parliament, making religious education his special subject. ' I am 

 much mixed up,' he said, ' with High Church people, through Sibell 

 and others, and take an interest in it, though not much myself of a 

 believer. Opportunities of attacking the Government are sure to come.' 

 He fears Hugh Cecil will not be able to get into this Parliament, and 

 he expects trouble for the party. Chamberlain is to lead the Opposi- 

 tion till Balfour gets a seat, and he should not be surprised if he got 

 them into difficulties. Chamberlain, though the public does not know 

 it, is becoming senile, and talks inordinately. George is looking the 

 picture of health, having put himself on a regime of meat and drink. 

 We touched upon old times and my campaign in Ireland, and I told 

 him how nearly I had won the campaign against Balfour in 1888 while 

 I was in prison. At my trial in the Four Courts, eleven out of the 

 twelve jurymen were for me; had I secured the twelfth I should have 

 won my case, had I won my case I should have won the Deptford 

 election, and had I won the Deptford election I should have upset 

 Balfour, his coercion policy being so distasteful to his party. George 

 agreed that it was so, and that it was a touch and go moment. He 

 and Balfour had always considered the decision in the Four Courts as 

 the first solid foundation of their policy under the Crimes Act. Every- 

 body connected with it on the Government side had been rewarded. 



" 2&th Feb. — I see Dick Fox of Bramham is dead. I first made 

 acquaintance with him and his brother George on my seventeenth 

 birthday, when, with my own brother Francis, we ascended Monte 

 Rosa. We were a young party, two of us being eighteen, one seven- 

 teen, and one sixteen. We did the ascent to the top and back to the 

 Rifrelburg in twelve hours. On our way down, while climbing along 

 the narrow snow ridges between the two summits, Dick, who was 

 just in front of me, slipped. He had hurt his foot the day before, 

 but had concealed the fact from his elder brother that he was lame 

 until we had well started. We were too young and careless to have 

 ourselves bound together with ropes, which were not so generally used 

 then as now; and away Dick slid, followed by a guide who, in trying 

 to catch him, lost footing too. It looked like inevitable death for both 

 of them to me, who was immediately behind them. It happened, how- 

 ever, that just where the slope down which they were hurried was 

 turning over to a sheer precipice of several thousand feet, the snow be- 



