Among the domestic incidents of the New Year was the opening of our village drill-hall, to be available to "all denominations" for recreational purposes. Hitherto the "Churches" had run their {259} own halls on more or less exclusive lines; but in the new one the Protestant lion was to lie down, so to speak, with the Catholic lamb (or _vice versa_!) and all was to be harmony and peace. I inaugurated the new era by a lantern-lecture on "Unknown Brazil," which a kindly newspaper report described as "brimful of information and sparkling with anecdote and humour!" It was anyhow a successful start and the hall proved a really valuable addition to our village assets. I was unable to attend the next lecture--a most interesting illustrated history of the old Fort--being called south to attend the funeral of the Bishop of Galloway, an old and faithful friend of our house, with whom I had been intimate for close on forty years. The funeral procession, with crucifix and choir, vested clergy and mitred prelates, passing through the streets of Dumfries thronged with silent mourners, was one of the most remarkable spectacles I ever witnessed in Scotland. Bishop Turner had long been on terms of close friendship with the Bute family; but Bute and his brothers, being all abroad, were represented by their brother-in-law Colin MacRae. I went south from Dumfries, having some business with Cardinal Bourne, who talked, _inter alia_, of the chapel (St. Andrew's) in his cathedral which was being adorned at Bute's expense, and of the question whether the numerous texts should be in Latin or English. I was all for Latin in the metropolitan cathedral of the Empire, the resort of worshippers of every tongue and every nation. His Eminence, however, favoured English, and I (like Mr. Alfred Jingle) "did not presume to dictate."[14] I was elected this {260} week a member of the Oxford and Cambridge Club, of which the big, quiet, and well-furnished library was to me the chief attraction. The Protestant drum had been, I was assured, if not beaten, at least discreetly tapped, by a small clique of members in connection with my candidature--a curious fact in what somebody describes as "the so-called twentieth century"; but a gracefully-worded telegram from my proposer and seconder[15] informed me that the plot (if there ever was one, which I rather doubted) had failed. I went to Arundel for the Lourdes festival, always kept solemnly there; found the kind Duke and Duchess encircled, as usual, by a cloud of youthful Maxwells, and heard Bernard Vaughan (just returned from the U.S.A.) preach eloquently on "The claims of the Church" with a distinctly American accent, and, later on, regale us in the smoking-room with a choice collection of American chestnuts!