The Romance of a Pro-Consul Part 2

The other boys left the animal to stare at what they felt to be a greater curiosity.

'Oh, yes,' Sir George addressed them, as they formed a half-circle before him, 'what I have told you is quite true. But if you will listen, I'll relate the whole story, and then you can decide for yourselves.'

He began the tale, the amused incredulity of the boys quickly vanished, and he never had a more attentive audience. When he had finished, his auditors raised their hats and caps with a hearty and convinced 'Thank you, sir.'

He gravely saluted them, as was his custom towards young and old, high and low, and then he fell a-dreaming. He was out walking in the pleasant English woods with Whately, learning from him the manner in which the ancient Britons lived, and how they dug for pig-nuts; or Whately rubbed dry sticks against each other, the primeval manner of making fire. More, he concentrated, with a gla.s.s, the rays of the sun upon a handful of dry twigs, which at the bidding went ablaze. Still another picture!

'While I was at Cheltenham, Whately was courting a connexion of mine, who later became his wife. She put me through my tasks, and Whately would help her in that, I sitting between them. Did ever a boy at his lessons occupy a seat of such influence? I suppose I could have commanded my own terms in reference to them, and perhaps I did. They were most pleasant for all concerned. My education altogether, as a boy, was not very systematic, but it was broad and useful.'

Finally to Sandhurst, where Sir George did so well that the authorities had quite a special word for him; and where one of the teachers, a Scotsman, gave him Bacon to read.

With his military studies he combined others, working even to elucidate the Surrey remains of the Romans, whose glamour as rulers. .h.i.t him.

IV SAXON AND CELT

Ireland, which has sent so many of her own sons across the sea, was to exercise a real influence upon the going of Sir George Grey.

He was, perhaps, in a special degree, kindly of thought and act towards Irishmen, fancying that as a race they had suffered, and liking their humour, buoyant against all odds. Several Irish political prisoners were released, after serving long sentences, and Sir George read an account, given by one of them, of the gaol experiences. Herein, complaint was made--of the distress caused by the flash-flash of the turn-key's lantern, into the cells, all through the night. He went his rounds, and as he came to a cell door he flared his lantern inward by its little opening, making sure of the inmate. It was to the mind and nerves, what a red-hot wire would have been, driven into the body.

Next morning Sir George said, 'I could not sleep for thinking of that light, jab-jabbing the poor fellow in his cell. Nay, it appeared to be in my own bedroom, searching for my face and challenging me, "Are you there?

Ha, ha, are you there?" What an eerie torture, to a slumbering soul, in that recurrent flame from the prison darkness! The thing stings and shocks me.'

It gnawed. His heart was full, and perhaps also his mind with the idea, 'Is it ours to impale the soul as well as the body of a fellow-creature?

Surely that is reserved for a higher tribunal!'

The up-come of Ireland would provoke a story affecting Sir George Grey in a family sense. An ancestor, Ram by name, of his step-father had figured in a somewhat sudden meeting with Dean Swift. This was Sir George's telling of it:

Dean Swift, in a modest phaeton, happened to be jogging past Gorey, the residence of Ram. At that moment, out of the gate drove the more imposing carriage of the latter, and there was a collision. The Dean and his phaeton were thrown into the ditch, but neither, by good luck, suffered hurt. Instead of uttering words, which even the cloth might not have suppressed in some, the witty Dean shot these lines at Ram's apologetic confusion:

Here's Ireland's pride and England's glory Upset by the great Ram of Gorey.

The Ireland, to which Sir George's military duties introduced him, might have driven laughter from all but Irishmen. Turmoil and discontent gripped the land; naked want was among the people.

The green island smiled winsomely in the Atlantic, only to belie itself as an abode of happiness. Its plaintive atmosphere wisped round Sir George Grey, as a mist enwraps two walkers on a Scottish hill-side, sending them silent. He was young, sensitive, sympathetic, and environment moulded him, as already it had done in the larger island, also with its suffering ma.s.ses. Sir George had extracts of memory which afforded a vivid idea of Ireland in the early Thirties.

'I was'--he picked out this incident--'a guest at a dinner where I heard the toast "The Protestant King and confusion to Roman Catholicism." Just reflect on what that meant! Think of the injustice, the intolerance, the lack of ordinary human feeling thus put into a sentiment! A Roman Catholic gentleman was present, and, knowing what was coming, he good- naturedly rose and left the room, observing that he would join the ladies. Yes, that was an Irish gentleman!

'Again, my heart was wrung at what I witnessed, while in command of a party of soldiers, under orders to protect a t.i.the-collecting expedition.

To me it appeared wrong, shameful, un-Christian, that money for a Church which preached the love of G.o.d and His Son towards mankind, should be wrung from the people by armed soldiers. More, it seemed to me nothing less than blasphemy, a mockery of all true religion, and I thought it terrible to have to bear a part in the business.'

Yet, as ever among Celts, these shadows had edges of the lightsome. The t.i.the-gatherers would be out to distrain in a particular parish, and find loads of the humble chattels, which they meant to seize, already carted over the boundary into the next parish. That, Sir George explained, was a familiar trick to play upon the t.i.the-gatherer, who could not budge beyond the phrasing of his warrant. It was a beating of the parish bounds, such as he could not always be prepared for. The peasants would stand in sanctuary, with quick, mocking tongues, pointing the finger of scorn. It was trying work for the soldiers of the people, since they had to forget that relations.h.i.+p.

On such an affair Sir George, then a subaltern, made a report to his commanding officer, and it went wider than routine. He offered a frank account of the events attending the t.i.the-collecting, including the att.i.tude of the peasantry, and the lessons that occurred to himself.

These, the commanding officer did not desire, and he returned the report to the writer, desiring it to be made formal. 'Sir,' was the subaltern's reply, 'I have stated just what happened, and I should wish, with your permission, to abide by my report.' He awaited results with a mixed interest, but the farther history of that temerarious despatch he never learned. It may, or may not, have reached all concerned.

Of the Irish race Sir George conceived the warmest opinion, holding them to be the owners of many virtues. Especially they were brotherly of nature, truly generous of heart, and chivalrous of action. He had one proof of the last quality in a curious falling-in with some Mayo smugglers. What better evidence of the innate chivalry of a race, than to find them instinctively expect it in a stranger?

'There were,' he narrated, 'very stringent regulations in Ireland, in regard to the illicit distilling of spirits. It was another disagreeable duty for soldiers that they had to accompany revenue officers in the search for stills. Now, I was very fond of shooting, and when the opportunity arose I would start off with my gun. The country folk might always be applied to for information as to the spots most likely to furnish a shot. They were perfect hosts to the Saxon as an individual, though otherwise to the Saxon engine of government.

'Being abroad one day with my gun, I noticed a group of peasants at work in a field. Anxious for their counsel towards a bag, I jumped the wall into the field where they were. What was my astonishment to discover that I was in the midst of an illicit still! You can imagine my position! I, an officer holding the King's commission, had, as a private person, become aware of an offence against the law. My worry was so keen, over the awkward relations.h.i.+p in which I stood towards the party, that I expressed it.

'"It is," I said, "frequently my duty to protect preventive men, and if that duty were ever to bring me this way, you would feel that I had informed upon you." "No, no," was the answer in chorus, "you only protect the excise men, that forming part of your duty; you are not an informer but a protector, and we know you won't tell." They were good enough to emphasise this vote of confidence with an invitation that I should try their poteen. Naturally I declined, but in a manner, I hope, calculated not to wound their feelings.'

This demeanour Sir George Grey carried into his office as a centurion of soldiers, at a date when the lash still plied viciously in the British army. He sat on a court-martial which had to try a private soldier for habitual drunkenness. As the youngest officer present, he was the first to be asked what the sentence ought to be. He suggested a light punishment, one that was not perhaps in harmony with ideas then prevalent as to the best manner of preserving military discipline. To him flogging was abhorrent, and entertaining that view, he had fallen into debate with brother officers. The sentence which he proposed caused a roar of laughter among some of the members of the court-martial. 'Gentlemen,'

interjected the general at the head of the table, 'mercy is a very becoming characteristic of youth, and I do not understand this laughter.'

That cut it short.

Daniel O'Connell was at the height of his influence in Ireland, and Sir George could look back on the military duties which once or twice brought him into the precincts of the Tribune.

'Agitate, agitate, agitate,' a sympathetic Viceroy had written to O'Connell, upon the subject of Catholic emanc.i.p.ation, and an official stir followed. The Marquis of Anglesey, who led the cavalry at Waterloo, and lost a leg there, had not hesitated to utter his mind about Ireland.

O'Connell unthinkingly read the letter at a meeting, and the Viceroy found himself in trouble with his Government. That was within Sir George's memory; but take, as touching O'Connell more intimately, an election meeting at Limerick, where the regiment was paraded to keep order.

'With a bitter satire, O'Connell introduced into his speech,' said Sir George, 'the story of the siege of Limerick. He eloquently told how the women of Limerick beat back the soldiers of William III. This was his shrewd method of getting at us soldiers, and he implied that, if necessary, the women of Limerick could beat back the soldiers of another English king. All we could do was to stand there, stiff as starch, while the stings fell from his caustic tongue. O'Connell was a splendid speaker, and he had a most inviting presence, an attractive personality altogether. Looking at him, you decided, "That's a capital fellow, a merry fellow to be with; why, I should like to be a friend of his!"'

The Irish peasant then, and of subsequent black years, was to Sir George a figure of pathos hard to match in history. When in England, just after his work as Pro-Consul had closed, he drew that figure, and its seeming doom, in tender words. Nay, he was feeling for all men so placed that no ray of hope dawned upon them from the cradle to the grave. The Irish peasant could not press his children to his breast, with the knowledge of being able to leave them the very humblest heritage won from his toil.

Fathers and children, they could merely hope to obtain the temporary use of a spot of land on which to exercise their industry.

And what was the reward of all this labour? Hardly enough could be retained, from the proceeds, to procure the meanest food, the most ragged of clothes. Denied all power of legislation, and of considering and providing for his own necessities, as a citizen, the Irish peasant had lost the citizen's faculty, had become paralysed. He succ.u.mbed, almost without a struggle, to the fate brought him by famine, bred of evil days.

He died on the mountain glens, along the sea coast, in the fields, in his cabin, after shutting the door. He died of starvation, though sometimes food was near, for he had even lost the hunger sense of the wild beast.

It was a keen project with Sir George, in his last years, to re-issue from London his proposals on the problem of Ireland. He had not lost belief in the pamphlet, as a channel for spreading ideas. He liked it, as he liked a well-thumbed book which, being opened at a page, so remained, instead of shutting with a snap. And of his venture, which never came off, he meditated, 'Might it not do good? They don't seem, even now, to understand all these matters--the real human nature of them. You hear talk of politics when it isn't politics at all, but men and women and children. Proceed on that principle and difficulties will quickly disappear.' He sought to brush aside any veil of words, of terms, which might confuse and darken problems.

His study-story of some Irish estate, granted by Queen Elizabeth to an English n.o.bleman, showed how language might determine history. He noted there, a force at work that tended to cloud the mind and influence the imagination, in considering such affairs. The estate was called 'a princely property,' and the new holder was the 'aristocratic owner of the soil.' He had 'extensive lands in England;' perhaps he had 'the most beautiful demesne' and 'the finest mansion' in that country. If the Elizabethan landlord, planted in Ireland, drove along the high road, he was described as the 'n.o.ble occupant of the carriage.' Did he spend, on the improvement of his property, a little of the wealth won by the toil, privation, and suffering of others, why, he was credited with 'unbounded liberality.'

So, down the centuries, the effect being that sympathy was involuntarily drawn to all this rank, wealth, and ease. Similarly, by an unconscious process of mind, there disappeared from the public eye the gaunt faces, the bent bodies, of those who gave to rank the means of wealth and ease.

Contemplating the plight, to which the people of Ireland had fallen in his soldiering days, Sir George Grey exclaimed, 'What intellect and power were lost to the nation! What must have been the yearnings and agonies undergone by many n.o.ble minds, feeling capable of great things, perhaps even of rescuing their country from the misery in which it was sunk!'

Remove such people to a new atmosphere in the Colonies, where their natural attainments could have just scope, and behold a fairy change!

They would yield leaders of citizens.h.i.+p, men capable of shaping nations and legislatures, the laws of which the Old World would be glad to copy.

Sir George could place the fruit of history, what had come about, in the remote basket of his hopes.

From it there dated a reminiscence of Sir Hussey Vivian, his Commander- in-Chief in Dublin. Sir Hussey, who, with his dragoons, covered Moore's retreat on Corunna, knew Sir George's father in the Spanish Peninsula.

Viewing the troublous Irish times, he had ordered that military officers should wear their uniform, whether on duty or not. Handsome, genial, popular with everybody, a born soldier; this was Sir George's appreciation of the man with whom he had the following adventure:

'Accompanied by a brother officer I was strolling along in Dublin, neither of us in uniform, notwithstanding Sir Hussey's order. We were walking arm in arm when, on turning a corner, we espied him and his staff. What was to be done? We did not relish the notion of being caught in mufti, and looked round for a door of escape. There was none, except flight, and we took to our heels.

'The same night we each had a message from Sir Hussey, begging us to call upon him at eleven o'clock next morning. We knew what that meant. Sir Hussey had been too quick for our flight. A trifle shamefaced, we duly presented ourselves at his quarters, and he talked to us for being abroad in plain clothes.

'Our aspect of penitence won upon Sir Hussey. "If you had not bolted," he added after the lecture, "I'm not sure that I should have felt it necessary to summon you before me. But, frankly, I could not stand the notion that any of my officers should run away from me." There the matter amiably closed, and it was not till afterwards that I had an idea, which might have appealed to Sir Hussey's gift of humour.

'I should have advanced to him the plea that, at least, we ran away alone, not in better company. A twinkle would have shone in his eyes, for he eloped with the young lady who became his wife. He got her out of her home at Bath, through a window, and they were happy ever after.' To end a day happily was a maxim with Sir George, since it meant wisdom for the morrow.