The same evening I received information from an official source that a man answering to my description of Miste had taken a ticket at Waterloo station for Southampton. The temptation was again too strong for one who had been brought up in an atmosphere and culture of sport. I set off by the mail train for Southampton, and amused myself by studying the faces of the passengers on the Jersey and Cherbourg boats. There was no sailing for Havre that night. At Radley's Hotel, where I had secured a room, I learnt that an old gentleman and lady with their daughter had arrived by the earlier train, and no one else. At the railway station I could hear of none answering to my description.
If Charles Miste had entered the train at Waterloo station, he had disappeared in his shadowy way en route.
During the stirring months of the close of 1870, men awoke each morning with a certain glad expectancy. For myself--even in my declining years--the stir of events in the outer world and near at home is preferable to a life of that monotony which I am sure ages quickly those that live it. Circumstances over which I exercised but a nominal control--a description of human life it appears to me--had thrown my lot into close connection with France, that "light-hearted heroine of tragic story"; and at this time I watched with even a greater eagerness than other Englishmen the grim tragedy slowly working to its close in Paris.
It makes an old man of me to think that some of those who watched the stupendous events of '70 are now getting almost too old to preserve the keenest remembrance of their emotions, while many of the actors on that great stage have passed beyond earthly shame or glory. Keen enough is my own memory of the thrill with which I opened my newspaper, morning after morning, and read that Paris still held out.
Before quitting London, I had heard that the French had recaptured the small town of Le Bourget, in the neighborhood of Paris, and were holding it successfully against the Prussian attack. Telegraphic communication with Paris itself had long been suspended, and we, watchers on the hither side, only heard vague rumours of the doings within the ramparts. It appeared that each day saw an advance in the organisation of the defence. The distribution of food was now carried out with more system, and the defenders of the capital were confident alike of being able to repel assault and withstand a siege.