Читать книгу The Romance of a Pro-Consul - James Milne - Страница 23

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One to whom the beyond is near, who has the kindled vision, probably best sees the life he has lived, in the beginnings—child, boy, and youth. There are no smudges on that mirror.

The stage of being which we call childhood had an endless charm for Sir George Grey, and often that drew him back to his own early years. The little child, a bundle of prattling innocence, still on the banks of the world's highway, like a daisy nodding into the flying stream, was in his sight almost a divinity. Here was the most beautiful, the most perfect manifestation of the Creator; an atmosphere where the wisest felt themselves the babes.

'You are the one Englishman living,' Olive Schreiner, when in England, wrote to Sir George before calling upon him, 'of whom I should like to say that I had shaken his hand.'

But it would not, she continued, be the first time they had met, for, during his rule of Cape Colony, he had visited the mission station where her parents dwelt. She thought this was while Prince Alfred was on his tour in South Africa; anyhow, when she was an infant, a few months old, ailing, hardly expected to live. The Governor took her in his arms, saying, as her mother related to her, 'Poor little baby! is it so ill?'

'When the other children teased me,'—Olive Schreiner had her triumph from the incident—'I could say to them, "Ah, but you were not held in the arms of Sir George Grey;" and that was safe to bring about an increased respect on their part towards me.'

Taking his walks in Kensington Gardens, Sir George would make friendships among the small people whose nursery coaches are there the swell of a thoroughfare. On the second occasion of meeting he might be expected, with a fine show of mystery, to produce a toy from his pocket. 'It's so easy,' he remarked, 'to convert these gardens into a fairy-land for some child whose name you only know because the nurse told it you.' Then, a favourite would not be met one day, or the next, and Sir George would feel a blank in his walk.

At his own fireside, a girlie with rosy, dimpled cheeks, straightway made him her subject, by the simple trust with which she took his out- stretched hand, cuddled on to his knee, and sat enthroned. She confirmed a victory, that he regarded as all his, in a most faithful treatment of tea-cakes, protesting at every mouthful, 'Oh, no, I sha'n't be ill; I won't be ill!'

It had been the same when Sir George was among the Aborigines of Australia, for the children promptly made friends with him. The grown natives, never having seen a white before, had sense to be scared. Their bairns merely had intuition, and it took them to Sir George's side, which, again, brought in the parents.

Studying a portrait of his own father he mused: 'The child that has never known both parents, must be conscious of having missed part of its inheritance in the world.' He had been thus robbed, a few days before his birth, by the slaughter at Badajoz, where Colonel Grey fell, a gallant soldier, scarce past thirty.

To a problem which the youngest child carries lightly, Sir George had given much thought, namely, 'Of what does human life consist? what are its elements?' Thereon he had the deliverance:

'Quite early in my own life, I formed the opinion that we had neglected to consider an element of existence; that besides the solids and the fluids there was ether. It seemed to me that ether played a very important part, alike in the creation and the maintenance of life. That was the everlasting ingredient, the something which never perished, but went on and on, the soul in the body of flesh and blood. Brought into contact with various eminent men, I was happily able to discuss such vital questions with them.'

Sir George's mother first set him thinking, and he had a recollection of learning the Lord's Prayer from her. Indeed, his earliest mental problem arose from the opening words, 'Our Father, which art in Heaven.'

'I took the "which art in" to be all one word, and puzzled over its possible meaning. The circumstance was a light to the obstacles that beset a child's mind, and a lamp to parents in training that mind. Never was there a mother more fitted than mine, for the glorious responsibilities of motherhood. Very highly educated, she added Latin to her other accomplishments, in order that she might teach the language to me. She had married a second time, and my step-father, a wise and large- hearted man, one of the best men I have ever known, also bestowed much care on my upbringing.'

As a little fellow he had lived a good deal in London with relations, a family of whom had a house near Hyde Park. He could call up, from the farthest caverns of his memory, a Sunday forenoon on which he was carried off to church, because there was nobody at home, except the servants, to look after him.

'What West End church it may have been I cannot tell,' Sir George said, 'but I imagine the one the household usually attended. The other detail that a fire burned in our pew, did impress itself definitely upon my mind. I was at least big enough to lift a poker, and what must I do but seize that instrument, and set to scraping the fire, to the confusion of those with me. Perhaps the idea of a fire in a church pew may be deemed curious at this date, so much later. But why not? It was really a great boon to those worshippers whom delicacy of health might otherwise have kept at home. For, of course, there was then no better means of warming a church.

'The house of another London relative was in Lombard Street, looking on to Old Change Alley, and there, likewise, I was a pet. A store of books filled one of the rooms, and it was my delight, having already learned to read, to pick out diverting volumes. There were accounts of the travels of Captain Cook and other explorers, and these quite caught my fancy. I felt I should like to travel, when I grew up, and this glimmering idea was advanced by the contemplation of a fruit stall that did business in Change Alley. I marvelled from whence came the oranges and bananas, and I whispered to myself, "I'll go where they grow."

Some afternoon, Sir George journeyed down to Lombard Street, in order to revisit his ancient shrine. He returned triumphant with the news, 'Would you believe it? I have found many of those old books just where they were, so very long ago. Dear me! the discovery almost took my breath away, and a sort of lump was in my throat.' And the orange stall? Aye, even it lingered; at least there was still a stall in Change Alley. London had not rolled over it.

The romance of war descended to Sir George Grey on his mother's side, as well as from his father. She was daughter to a military officer, whose exploit at the siege of Gibraltar she recited to her boy. It was that of a derring-do soldier.

He happened to be on leave, from his duties at the fortress, when the famous siege began. He hurried to the neighbourhood, laid hold of a boat, and actually rowed through the Spanish fleet. The British garrison gave him a tremendous reception, and the officers marked his feat by the gift of a gold snuff-box. He was thrice welcome: for himself, for the coolness with which he had broken the blockade, and for the news he brought from the outside.

The precious snuff-box descended to Sir George Grey, an heirloom that suggested an adventure of his own. He was sent to a school at Guildford in Surrey, and he ran away from it. He found the teaching all towards the classics, making for Oxford or Cambridge, and afterwards for a learned profession. His real nature, as modelled chiefly by his mother, was in the direction of public service, with, he hoped, some stir in it. The escape from the school he always related, as if the pages of Robert Louis Stevenson were open in his hand at the flight of Alan Breck among the heather.

'I was determined to get home and tell my folks what I wanted to do. Moreover, the walled playgrounds, the being shut in from nature, the walking in line at exercise—these things were insupportable to me. It was like keeping a boy's spirit and imagination in prison, instead of allowing them free communion with the world around. Farther, I was angry at boys having been put over me, for their knowledge of classics, who were perfectly ignorant of the higher branches of knowledge at which I had been working. "Clever but idle" was usually the character I got at school. They didn't understand me, for I studied one subject while they wanted to test me by others.

'Well, accompanied by a boy friend, I climbed over the wall of the school at Guildford, and made for home. My step-father's place was at Bodiam, about twelve miles from Hastings, and between Bodiam and my London relatives I had lived before going to Guildford. But at this time, if my memory does not mislead me, the family were at Eastbourne. In that case my destination would have been Eastbourne, and I know the route taken was by Brighton. We had left as darkness was falling, and I'm afraid we hadn't much money for the journey. That scarcely mattered, however, since we were walking, therefore having no outlay unless for food. We slept a night under the cliffs at Brighton, and I don't doubt we slept very soundly. Boys do, anywhere. People were kind to us, and when asked, we made no secret of the fact that we were fleeing from school.

'It had been arranged, between my companion and myself, that I should take him into our house. At Eastbourne, which we reached sorely tired, our insurgent spirits somewhat calmed, we had quite a lively reception. There appeared to be, on the part of the younger members of the family, a fear lest we should be instantly executed. Nothing so dreadful happened. The other boy was put into communication with his friends, and I had a long holiday. By and by, under the charge of a friend, I returned to Guildford to make explanation and excuse. That done, I went visiting more relations at Cheltenham—I had a lot altogether, you see!—and there I was brought under the influence of Whately, later the renowned Archbishop of Dublin.'

The boyish spirit kept alive in Sir George, and in that respect he had a surpassing encounter. He spent holiday hours in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, near which he resided after leaving St. James's. There was hardly an animal, or bird, that he could not instruct you upon; but his delight was to watch the streams of happy visitors. As he sat thus of an afternoon, half a dozen boys gathered round a specimen from animal-land placed near by.

Boys have few doubts, but these lads had theirs as to the identity of the beast. They noticed Sir George, and a delegate approached him with the request, 'Please, sir, can you tell us the name of this creature?' He turned in the direction indicated, and found, strangely enough, that the specimen was one which he had sent home from the far south, during his naturalist's work there. He named it, and the lad followed up, 'Where did it come from?'; getting the answer.

Next, 'Who killed it?' A pucker gathered upon Sir George's face, and he hesitated, arguing with himself, 'If I tell them, they'll think me an impostor, and even discount the information I have given them.'

But the inquisitor waited, and Sir George could do no better than

'Frankly, you know, I believe I killed it myself.'

'Here, you fellows!' the merry voice rang out; 'he says he killed the beast! Did you ever?'

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 glass, 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 hit him.