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STRENUOUS IDLENESS

Having done with tutors and preceptors, Melgund had the world before him, but to one in his position the exact road to travel was not immediately clear. He was destined for the Army, but the Army in the late 'Sixties was not a profession to absorb all the energies of a young man gifted with perfect health, untiring vitality, and a desperate love of enterprise. His education had been drawn less from books than from life, and his taste was more for action than for argument, for adventure of the body rather than of the mind. He could concentrate fiercely on what had captured his interest, and he was prepared to run any risk; indeed, the greater the risk in any business the more ardently he followed it. Supremely honest with himself and with all men, he had the courage which is a matter of instinct and inclination rather than of duty, and he pursued the "bright eyes of danger" for their own sake. Such a one must make a cast in many directions before he finds his true line. Life seems very good to him, and he warms both hands joyfully at its fire. It was this abounding appetite and unquenchable high spirits that marked him out from the other young men of his year who came down from Cambridge. He had no trace of laziness or indifference in his composition, but time must elapse before the flow of energy could be effectively canalized.

In the spring of 1867 he was gazetted to the Scots Guards (then called the Scots Fusilier Guards). It was rather a dead time in the Army, those years between the Crimean War and the Cardwell reforms, and it was hard for Melgund to acquire much interest in home soldiering in London, or at Aldershot or Windsor, though many of his Eton and Cambridge friends were in the Guards or the Household Cavalry. But there were interesting links with the past. He notes in his journal in July 1868 that he dined with the old Field-Marshal, Sir Alexander Woodford: "He is really a wonderful old man: he told me all about the ball at the Duchess of Richmond's at Brussels, just before Waterloo, and says he remembers four Highlanders of the 42nd being brought into the ballroom and dancing a reel, and that three of them were killed next day at Quatre Bras. Sir Alexander himself left the Duchess's ball post-haste for the field, and remained four days campaigning in his dancing pumps. He commanded a battalion of the Coldstream at Waterloo, and he looks as fit as a fiddle now."

Melgund found the routine of duty with his regiment at the Tower, Chelsea, or Wellington Barracks too monotonous for an active man, and the journal contains few professional incidents beyond the "review" held in Windsor Park in June 1869 for the Khedive of Egypt. He had never in his life a taste for gambling, and play in the Guards in those days was high, for he records that a poverty-stricken friend of his lost £3000 in one night, and that bets of £5000 and £7000 would be laid on a rubber of whist. Nor did orgies of meat and drink amuse him, as when sixty gentlemen in barracks consumed at dinner one hundred bottles of champagne in addition to other wine. He tells his mother darkly that the woods at Minto will have to be cut down to pay his mess bills.

The boredom of his profession did not prevent him from enjoying a variety of social life. Old letters which have been preserved are full of chaff and gossip--stories of boxing and fencing at Angelo's, boisterous evenings at "Billy Shaw's" or "Evans'," and now and then a stately function such as the Queen's Ball on July 2, 1868, after which, in company with Lord Lansdowne and Lord Charles Beresford, and with the help of the Fitzwilliams' terriers he indulged in a cat hunt--a picture for the historical artist of three future most eminenl servants of the Crown, all in gala clothes, whooping and careering among the sober shades of Berkeley Square. He describes a breakfast at the Palace in the following to which he went in "a blue evening coat and brass buttons with a thistle on them, light trousers and a white waistcoat, being the costume the Prince of Wales wished people to wear." In his letters to his mother, delightful letters full of badinage and affection, he tells of the pretty girls he met, and the races he rode, and the utter ennui of the hours spent on duty. Here is an extract: "I was driven over (to Ascot) every day on some kind friend's drag, which, as I daresay you know, is a vehicle drawn by four horses, which generally have never been together before, and driven by an individual who considers himself a coachman, but is without any idea of holding horses together. The smashes in the first day's racing were really without end--my coachman drove me over an iron railing, luckily without upsetting me, and on the way home, though quite unable to drive myself, I had to take the reins and stop the horses by main force . . . One coach which left barracks arrived on the course with no leaders, and another with its roof bathed in blood, which, the driver said, was owing to the horses having been all over the top of the coach." Those were lighthearted days, as witness the bitter complaint of his brother Hugh: "The Oxford and Cambridge match commenced yesterday at Lord's. I met Berty in the Pavilion of the M.C.C., a place set apart specially for members, neither of us being members. The brute had the impudence to try and have me turned out as a nonmember! . . . I must say Berty is devoid of all principle."

The serious business of those years was horses. Melgund kept up his rowing and running for some time after leaving Cambridge, but it was in riding that he found his true interest. Whenever he could get leave from his regiment he was off hunting or steeplechasing. In 1868 we find him riding "The Begum" second in the race for the Household Brigade Cup, and winning the Hunters' Handicap at Aylesbury on "Darkness." In October of that year he paid his first visit to Limber Magna the home of his friend Mr. John Maunsell Richardson, and so began that association with Lincolnshire which was to be one of the happiest episodes of his life. "Cat" Richardson had been one of the old group at French's, and the friendship which Melgund began at Cambridge ended only with his death. No greater gentleman-rider lived during the last half-century than the man who won the Grand National on "Disturbance" in 1873, and on "Reugny" in 1874. A visitor to his Cambridge rooms once asked for a book to pass the time of waiting, and was told by his servant that Mr. Richardson did not possess a book of any sort; but so strong was the "Cat's" character that he could shut himself up and read for a solid year in order to pass his examinations.

At first Melgund went to Limber principally for the hunting, which to him and the "Cat" meant conjugating all the moods and tenses of that verb. On off days there was racing, which consisted in riding one of the Limber stable chasers, or getting a mount wherever one was available, no matter whether bad or good, for the possibility of broken bones was not considered. The fascination of the Limber life decided Melgund to send in his papers. Brother officers like "Bar" Campbell and Lord Abinger begged him not to "make a damned fool of himself," and assumed that there was some woman at the bottom of it, and that he wanted to get married. Nothing was further from his mind. Melgund was very susceptible to a pretty face if possessed by what he termed "a good sort"; and he would spend a whole evening in the society of a favourite partner. In those stiff days of etiquette his behaviour horrified the chaperones; when taken to task for his conduct in making a lady conspicuous he would laughingly declare that he was "a friend of the family"; and next day she would be forgotten in the excitement of those breathless matches round the Limber race-course, schooling the best blood on the turf over hurdles. He sought a life which would give outlet to his restless energies, and he believed he had found it in that career of peripatetic jockeydom of which Richardson was already a brilliant exponent. Throughout that spring he was posting about to race meetings all over the country, having adopted the serious business of a gentleman jockey.

II

Melgund's racing life began when he settled at Limber with the Richardsons in 1870, and practically closed in '76 with his mishap at the Grand National, though he continued to ride occasionally for some time. The four years in the Lincolnshire country house form a curious and strenuous interlude in a life which never lacked variety. To begin with, when the "Cat" was still at the height of his racing success, Melgund toured the land, riding whenever he could get a mount, but chiefly at north-country meetings, so that Mr. John Corlett, of pious memory, was moved to observe in the Sporting Times that "Mr. Roly has taken to riding like the devil." After the "Cat" gave up riding in 1874 Melgund rode almost entirely for the Limber stables, Lord Downe, Captain Machell, and Sir J. Astley being among the owners who had their horses trained there. The whole episode was characteristic of his serious simplicity in the pursuits which attracted him. Whatever he did he was determined to do in a workmanlike way: he hated the slipshod amateur, and had no love for half-heartedness in any walk of life, since it seemed to him that if a thing was worth doing at all it was worth doing well. It may be hard to explain why an education in horses is also an education in human nature, but it is the truth; and those years of mixing with all classes on a common ground were for him an invaluable training in the understanding and management of men. He was quite aware that many people looked askance at the jockey, but he was never prepared to accept conventional views for which he saw no valid defence. He writes to his mother: "I could not help smiling at your remarks on my 'jockeyship.' I believe the word 'jockey' conveys some horrible meaning to non-racing people. As long as one rides badly and sticks to country races I suppose it does not matter how much one rides; but directly one rides in the great races one is considered a jockey, which is a dreadful thing! My reasons against riding are that it takes too much time and is certainly not a thing to make a career of. Otherwise it is the finest game I know, requiring more head and more energy than other games. No doubt there is much blackguardism connected with it, but I should like to know one single profession in which there is not blackguardism. Certainly politics will not bear looking into." This was written when he had turned his back upon steeple-chasing, but there were still longing looks behind, and years after, when Viceroy of India, he told Francis Grenfell with a sigh that he wished he had been a trainer.

But the Limber days were marred by no looking before or after. He had found a task which absorbed all his energies, and he was supremely happy. The four years were spent in a discipline almost as rigid as that of a religious order. Old Mrs. Maunsell, Mr. Richardson's grandmother, used to say, "I pity the girls when he looks at them with those beautiful eyes of his." But the handsome young man cared only for horses. There were neighbours of the hard-riding persuasion, like the Yarboroughs and the Listowels, and the Rev. H. G. Southwell, who was Mr. Richardson's stepfather, and with whom Melgund formed an enduring friendship. On Sundays church was attended with exemplary regularity. Visitors came occasionally, famous racing men like Captain Machell and Captain "Bay" Middleton, and old Cambridge friends like Cecil Legard, now a sporting parson, and Aberdour and Wodehouse. But the party as a rule consisted of Melgund, the "Cat," his brother and sister, a very happy and well-agreed quartette. Miss Richardson in her biography of her brother has drawn a charming picture of the life: the long days in the open, the hungry party at dinner living over again the day's run, the sleepy evenings thereafter, each nodding in his chair. Nobody played cards or gambled; "drinks would come in, but they would go out again untasted night after night, for there were no drinkers." The "Cat" and Melgund did not smoke: never was seen a more blameless and healthy existence. But high spirits and hard conditions were sometimes too much for decorum and there would be bear fights, when the panes in the book-cases would be shattered and good dress-coats rent from collar to tail.

One episode deserves recording. Melgund and Richardson had a friend, a lady, whom they used alternately TO pilot out hunting. They each urged her to buy a favourite hunter. One evening a demand was received for the horse to be sent on trial, and an argument arose as to which horse should be sent. So serious became the dispute that their friends declared that the only way to settle the business was to fight it out. "Accordingly the combatants stripped to the waist and in a neighbouring wood had six rounds of the best. Both were severely punished; but Richardson, who was the bigger man of the two, remained the victor. Peter Flower was Melgund's second, Hugh Lowther* acted for the 'Cat,' and Colonel Machell witnessed this desperate and absurd encounter. An hour later the combatants, with their wounds bandaged, met at dinner on the best of terms, drank each other's health, and spent a merry evening."

* Now Earl of Lonsdale.

A chronicle of old races is apt to make dull reading for the uninitiated, but some of Melgund's performances must be noted. In 1874, when Richardson won the Grand National for the second time, Melgund was fourth on "Defence." The same year he won the French Grand National at Auteuil on his own Limber mare "Miss Hungerford," being the only gentleman rider in the race with seventeen professional starters. Melgund rode the Liverpool course altogether nine times, and competed four times in the Grand National. The Limber stable began the year 1875 very well at the Lincoln Spring Meeting: the five horses competing all won in the hands of "Mr. Rolly." He rode "Miss Hungerford" in the Grand National: "I always think she would have won," he wrote afterwards to Finch Mason, "if I had not been knocked over the second time round. I was quite by myself on the left-hand side of the course to keep out of the crowd, and an Irish jockey on 'Sailor' deliberately jumped into my quarters."

In the Grand National of 1876 he very nearly came by his end. He was riding "Zero," a Limber bay with magnificent shoulders, much fancied by the public. Here is his own account: "The horse was going splendidly and coming to Valentine's Brook I got a real good steadier at him--'Shifnal' and 'Jackal' were leading, and I was next to them. 'Zero' got the fence exactly in his stride and never touched it, and, as far as I know, tumbled head over heels on landing.* I jumped the fence almost touching the left-hand flag. I got up directly and found tom Cannon standing by me, who walked back to the weighing room with me. On our way we heard that Joe Cannon had won on 'Royal,' at which I was very pleased, for besides his fine horsemanship he was an excellent fellow." Melgund thought he had only lacerated internally a large muscle, but Sir James Paget, who was telegraphed for, confirmed the view of the other doctors that he had literally broken his neck. "You are one of those extraordinary people," said the great surgeon afterwards, "who have broken their necks and recovered. Your backbone should be very valuable." Melgund offered to leave it to him in his will. "Oh," said Sir James, "I shall be dead long before you, but the College of Surgeons will be very glad to have it." After being practically a cripple for months Melgund consulted Mr, Wharton Hood, the bone-setter, who advised exercise, and his own will power and the coming of the hunting season revived him. "I rode 'Weathercock' at Sandown Park in November, which I ought never to have done as I was still weak and ill and in pain from the fall in March, and tumbled head over heels at the fence going down the hill, 'Zero,' strange to say, falling by my side with Marcus Beresford on him." It was a crazy escapade, but a miraculous proof of nerve.

* Mr. John Osborne maintained that the horse put his foot, on landing, inttt an under-drain, which for some obscure reason had been overlooked by the authorities of the course.

Though this incident may be said to have ended Melgund's career as a jockey his interest in sport and horses never abated. At the farewell banquet given in his honour by the Turf Club at Calcutta at the close of his term of office as Viceroy he breathed again the atmosphere of comradeship among racing men, and in returning thanks for the toast of his health he said:--

"I cannot tell you how touched I am-I can find no other expression-by your invitation to this great gathering. I cannot but feel that it is your welcome and your farewell to a fellow-sportsman--that I am not here to-night as Viceroy, soldier, or statesman

"Mr. Rolly"

but--may I say so?-as the 'Mr. Rolly' of old days. I do not regret my racing days, gentlemen; very far from it. I learned a great deal from them which has been useful to me in later life. I mixed with all classes of men, I believe I got much insight into human character. You may think it strange, but I never used to bet, though I was on intimate terms with the ring--and as far as riding went I became absolutely callous as to public opinion. If I won, there was often no name good enough for me, and when I got beaten on the favourite it was Mr. Rolly, of course, who threw the race away.

"But talking of a jockey's popularity I must tell you a story which I am sure will appeal to the heart of gentlemen riders, and teach them not to be over sanguine even on the best of mounts. I was once riding in the big steeplechase at Croydon, which in those days was second only to the Grand National in importance. I had won several races on the horse I was riding, and we thought if he did well at Croydon he ought to have a chance for the Liverpool. He was very heavily backed, but he was an uncertain horse; one could never quite depend on his trying. However, the money was piled on, and it was considered that, if he was going well at the brook, opposite the Stand, the second time round, he could be relied upon, and if I thought it all right I was to make a signal on jumping the water and further sums were to be dashed down in the ring. When we got to the brook the horse was going splendidly, raced up to it, jumped it magnificently, couldn't have been running better. I made the signal and on went the money. But after the brook we had to turn away from the crowd, and he put his ears back and never tried another yard--never went into his bridle again. I was not popular that time when I rode back to weigh in! . . .

"And so, in the ups and downs of racing, I learned to keep my head, to sit still, to watch what other jockeys were doing, and to be a good judge of pace. The orders I liked best were 'Get off well' and 'Wait in front.'

"I suppose no one here is old enough to remember poor George Ede, who rode under the name of Mr. Edwards, one of the finest horsemen the world has ever seen. He won the Grand National on 'The Lamb,' and was afterwards killed, riding a horse called 'Chippenham,' in the Sefton Handicap at Liverpool, and a poem dedicated to him was published in Bailey's Magazine. If you will allow me I will quote two verses. To my mind they are very fine lines, expressive of what a really good rider should be:--

"'A horseman's gifts: the perfect hand And graceful seat of confidence; The head to reckon and command When danger stills the coward's sense;

"'The nerve unshaken by mischance, The care unlessened by success, And modest bearing to enhance The natural charm of manliness.'"

"You have surrounded me with the old atmosphere again and have got me to talk racing. You have brought back to me happy old memories and stories which I could go on telling by the hour. Seriously, the lessons of the turf need not be thrown away in after life. The lines to George Ede, and the old racing instruction ' Wait in front,' mean much in this world's struggles. Don't force the pace, lie up with your field, keep a winning place, watch your opportunity, and when the moment comes go in and win."

III

Had young officers in those days been encouraged to see something of foreign wars, as they were under a later regime, it is likely that Melgund would not have left the Guards, and that there would have been no turf career for Mr. Rolly. That he was still eager for service of a more active kind than Windsor and Aldershot afforded, and that he was not wholly content with a life of hunting and racing is shown by two wild adventures abroad which he managed to interpolate between his riding engagements. The first was his visit to Paris during the Commune. When the Franco-German War broke out in 1870 he was shooting grouse at Minto. A month later his journal records the death of his friend Colonel Pemberton, who, while acting as Times correspondent with the Prussians, fell at Sedan. "I am awfully sorry. I saw him just before he started, and afterwards laughed at his being cut up when he wished us good-bye, as I thought he had no chance of being shot. I had wanted to go with him, and he had promised to do all he could for me, but I gave it up for many reasons--chiefly from being hard-up, and also from not being able to speak German. He was a very clever fellow, and the news of his death has made me melancholy." But next year his chance came. In January 1871 Paris surrendered after a four months' siege, but the treaty of peace which followed did not end the war, and for months France was torn with internal strife. The Communists took possession of the capital, and it was only after a nine weeks' siege and much bitter fighting that the French National Army forced an entry and suppressed the revolt. It was known in London on 22nd May that French troops from Versailles had broken through the defences on the St. Cloud side, but that the Communists were still resisting fiercely at many points inside the city. That evening Melgund, with his brothers Hugh and Fitzwilliam, and his friend Captain Hartopp, left England to endeavour to make their way into Paris.

The adventure is described in Melgund's journal, and more fully in a letter which Hugh Elliot published in the Scotsman on 1st June of that year. The party arrived at St. Denis on the morning of 23rd May, where they found that all communications with Paris were cut. They took a cab to St. Germains, which was under French control where they hoped to find General Galliffet, as they had an introduction to an officer on his staff. But Gaihffet had left, so they decided to go on to Versailles. Before they left St. Germains they had seen that firing continued at Montmartre and in the neighbourhood of the Arc de Triomphe, and next morning they heard that Paris was in flames. At Versailles they called on the British Ambassador, Lord Lyons, who discouraged their project, but ultimately gave them a letter to the Prefect of Paris, asking for a laissez passer into the city. Thus equipped, they drove without difficulty through the gate at Sèvres, though the sentry warned them that it would be hard to get out again. They found rooms in an hotel in the Faubourg St. Honorûe, almost opposite the British Embassy, where a barricade had been erected which was defended by a band of Communists headed by a woman. Having deposited their luggage and ordered dinner for seven o'clock, the four sallied forth to see the sights.

For what followed I quote from Hugh's letter:--

"After passing a very large barricade at the entrance to the Rue de Rivoli we made our way into the Gardens of the Tuileries. The whole of the street seemed to be on fire: as far as we could see it was a continuous mass of smoke and flames. Almost immediately we were impressed to work at the pumps, which we did very readily, not knowing what was to come. Partly by cajoling, partly by arguing, we managed to escape after half an hour's labour, hoping to return to our dinner. As ill-luck would have it, while crossing the Place de la Concorde on the way home, we were seized by another large guard of soldiers, and in spite of all our expostulations were carried off to quench the same fire, only from a different side. I believe the building burning was that of the Administration de Finance, and occupied a large space in the Rue de Rivoli. . . . Sentinels were placed at the ends of all the streets so as to prevent the possibility of our escape. We were then ordered to pass buckets down the street to fill the pump. After working hard at this for some time our new taskmasters came up to ask for six volunteers to man the pump. One of us volunteered, and as we did not wish to separate we all declared our readiness to go to the pump in a body. However, as the wall was beginning to bulge out and a certain stack of chimneys to look remarkably off the perpendicular, I could not in my heart help thinking that the French might have shown some higher spirit of hospitality than to permit four out of six of the men sent to the front to be foreigners. Our work now became really very disagreeable. Our pump was placed exactly under the wall, the fall of which appeared imminent; the chimney too tottered just over our heads. After we had laboured for about half an hour, part of the wall fell in with a crash, though not near enough to injure us.

"From that moment it was almost impossible to get the men to pass up buckets to the pump, and I saw one of my brothers carrying the empty pails for many yards before he was relieved by the next man in the chain, so much they dreaded approaching the fire. When the pumping seemed to be coming to a standstill, as for a few minutes we had suspended our efforts, the people commenced to cry out 'Les Anglais! Les Anglais!' so we had to begin again. We were highly consoled, too, by hearing a voice from a safe position behind exclaim, 'Courage! c'est pour la France que nous travaillons!'

"As may be believed, we took the first opportunity of sneaking to the rear, as the salvation of France was not of very great importance to us. It was now very late at night, and the sentinels having apparently been withdrawn from one of the streets, we crept down the side of the houses, and were already congratulating ourselves on our luck, when a loud 'Qui vive?' was heard from under the shadow of the big barricade in the Rivoli. The answer not being satisfactory the sentinel advanced upon us at the double, and looked as if he were going to demolish us on the spot He threatened to shoot us if we did not retire, which accordingly we did, feeling very uncomfortable till we had got round the first corner.

"Tired as we were, there was nothing for it but to return to the pumps; and certainly the sight of the great conflagration was not a thing to be lost For some distance the street looked like a furnace the flames leaping high above the buildings; Occasionally there was a crash as some chimney or roof fell to the ground; and in the distance we heard the perpetual banging of cannon as the troops advanced upon the retreating Communists. A sight not to be missed, and, I hope, never to be repeated. Looking about me I noticed one of the soldiers bandaging a poor cat that had been injured by the fire, and it appeared strange to me at the time that men who were acting hourly with such marvellous brutality to their fellowmen should thus occupy themselves about an animal. We were now entirely in the clutches of the Pompiers, who each had a very tall brass helmet and wore a loose pair of brown holland trousers. These men stood over us, did no work, and whilst we were streaming with perspiration, contented themselves with shouting at intervals, 'Pompez donc, Messieurs! Pompez donc!'"

Their release came about 3 a.m. "We should never have got back at all," writes Melgund, "had it not been for a good-natured Breton soldier who talked a little English, despised the French, and managed to get us past all the sentries." After eight hours' work at the pumps the party of four regained their hotel in safety. They found that the front of the house opposite had been shot away by a shell, and the gutters were full of blood, but the hotel was not damaged.

They spent the next three days in Paris, for it was hopeless to think of getting out. "Paris," says the journal, "is quite the most insecure place I ever was in. The shells are not at all the most dangerous part of it; the soldiers and people are so excited that they don't care whom they arrest, or what they do." On the Saturday they secured a pass from the Embassy, and, carrying a dummy dispatch to Lord Granville, they finally, and none too easily, managed to depart by the Clichy gate. Although armed with their pass, they were held up for some time at the gate: Melgund at length produced his visiting card, which so impressed the sentry that he exclaimed, "Ah! Monsieur est Vicomte! Passez donc." At St. Denis the Germans were very civil to them, and their passes from Count Bernstorff, the German Ambassador in London, enabled them to go wherever they liked. They finally arrived home on Sunday, 28th May, after a remarkable five days' interlude in a London season.

The second adventure began in the August of 1874, when Melgund went out to the headquarters of the Carlist Army in North Spain. Fred Burnaby, who had been there as a special correspondent, had drawn glowing pictures of the Carlist spirit, and when Sir Algernon Borthwick asked Melgund to act as correspondent to the Morning Post he determined to try his luck. He left London on the 8th August, the farewells of his friends being coupled with "What a fool you are; you're sure to be shot." Of his experiences in Spain Melgund wrote a long and fascinating account which can only be briefly summarized here. He went first to Bayonne, where he fell in with a young French soldier, the Vicomte de Baume, and with him crossed the frontier and adopted the boina, a cap like a Kilmarnock bonnet, which was the Carlist headgear. They made their way to Tolosa, visited the Carlist arms factory, and then proceeded to the Quartier Royal, where they had an interview with Don Carlos, with whom they were not greatly impressed. Their next stage was General Dorregarray's headquarters at Estella, which was within reasonable distance of the front line. Melgund liked the Carlist officers, some of whom wore swords which came from Nathan, the London costumier. He has left an amusing description of his stay there, his earnest and fruitless efforts to see a battle, and the extreme boredom of the life in a baking little Spanish town where food and drink were vile, and the only relaxation was a bathe in the river or a game of billiards. On 30th August the journal records the movement of troops, and constant rumours that an attack was about to take place. The night was made hideous by artillery rattling over the street, every bugler was blowing his heart out, the dogs were howling, and sleep was impossible. The ritual of the extreme Catholic legitimists seemed strange to his Scottish soul. "I got up and went on to the balcony and saw the Host carried past, a ceremony which, when it takes place in the middle of the night, has to me something uncanny about it. I do not know why. In the daytime it may seem an absurd performance, but at night, when one hears the tinkling of the little bell and notes the superstitious awe which surrounds the procession, and remembers that it may mean a battle in the morning, it is apt to impress one more than at other times." No battle, however, came his way, and ne returned home in September much struck by the enthusiasm which had produced 80,000 men for the Carlist Army in two years, but seeing very little future for the cause. He records his gratitude to the officers for their courtesy and hospitality, and considers that their treatment of prisoners was exceptionally humane--a tribute which assuredly could not be paid to their opponents.

IV

The engagements of "Mr. Rolly" and the escapades abroad did not fill up the whole of those years, for there were many weeks in London, and long visits to his Border home. We hear of him in the summer of 1871, when he had just returned from the Commune, borrowing his brother Arthur's wig and gown and going to hear the Tichborne trial, feeling very nervous lest he should be offered a brief. One of his main interests--for though he had left the Guards he had not ceased to be a soldier--was the formation of a Border Mounted Volunteer Corps. The subject seems to have been first raised at the Caledonian Hunt Dinner in October 1871, and presently an offer to raise such a corps was made to the Secretary of State for War signed by most of the Roxburghshire gentry. Such was the origin of the Border Mounted Rifles, into which Melgund flung all his energies. It was recruited from the lairds and farmers, most of them zealous followers of the Duke of Buccleuch's hounds, and Melgund was given the first command, which he held for nearly twenty years. The history of its honourable existence, till it was killed by agricultural depression, may be read in General Sir James Grierson's Records of the Scottish Volunteer Force, 1859-1908.* It began in February 1872 as the "1st Roxburgh Mounted Rifles," and in January 1880 became the "Border Mounted Rifles," with a uniform of slate grey, grey helmets with silver star, and the Elliot motto: "Wha daur meddle wi' me?" It speedily won fame in marksmanship, and in 1884 its team was first and fifth, and in 1885 first and second in the Loyd-Lindsay competition at Wimbledon. Melgund was very proud of his corps, and a firm believer in mounted infantry, the value of which he expounded later in speeches and review articles. He was somewhat of a pioneer in his views, which did not become accepted doctrine till the end of the century and the South African War.

* Edinburgh: W. Blaekwood and Sons, 1909.

The work with the Border Mounted Rifles satisfied one side of Melgund's mind, but he was always on the lookout for other interests, and especially for that disciplined and continuous work which is involved in the term "service." In November 1873 he had a chance of standing for Parliament for North Lincolnshire in the Liberal interest, and at first, under Lord Yarborough's persuasion, he agreed. But presently, after reflection, he withdrew, having come to the conclusion that the House of Commons would not suit either his tastes or his talents. There is a small bundle of political notes extant, which he had prepared for his guidance in the event of a contest--modest little proposals on such matters as land, tenant right, education, and the suffrage, which enable one to realize that sober and conservative creed which was the elder Liberalism. The journal is full of entries which show how much his mind was beginning to hanker for full occupation. Opinions on war and foreign affairs gathered from any one in authority are carefully set down. In the autumn of 1876 Sir Garnet Wolseley stayed at Minto, and showed a flattering interest in the Border Rifles. "He said one thing which seems to me very evident," the journal records, "but which a great many honest people would not admit, viz., that the press (speaking of correspondents with an army) has become a power which a man should try to manage for himself; that it is an influence which one cannot deny, and therefore should try to make one's own."

This question of the press was one which touched Melgund closely, for at the moment it was only as a correspondent that he had a chance of seeing something of war. When the Russo-Turkish War broke out in 1877 he was permitted to go to Turkey as a representative of the Morning Post. He set forth in April, speeded by a letter To Lincolnshire friend, the Rev. H. G. Southwell, who kept for his use a fund of bracing wisdom and a special Din of champagne. "I am really pleased," he wrote, "to hear you are gomg to do something worthy of last. I cannot but think it is a pitiful ambition to have no higher aspiration than to win a steeplechase. . . . I hope you will take the Bible, Robertson's (of Brighton) Sermons, and Gibbon's Rome with you. The first contains the truest account of life; the second does one good, as you know; and the third will show you the origin of the Turkish Empire, and prepare the way for all its modern history."

Whether or not he was accompanied by these aids to reflection, Melgund had a strenuous and varied summer. "You may or may not be surprised to hear," he writes to his mother, "that I am on the point of leaving my native country. I shall probably start for Constantinople at the beginning of the week after next, viz., about the 1st May. I am by way of going as correspondent to the Morning Post with the Turkish Army, but by the present understanding I am only making use of the Post in order to give me a position of some sort, and can please myself about writing to them. Besides this there is a chance of my getting something to do which will suit me much better--something for the Intelligence Department. I went to-day to see Colonel Home, the head of the Department. He seems a capital fellow, and he wants me to go to a place on the Black Sea a little north of Varna to find out all I can about the country there and to let him know about it, which he says would be most useful to them, as they are thoroughly acquainted with all the country that lies directly between the Danube and Constantinople, whereas the piece of country they want me to go to they know nothing of. I shall probably do this, but I should think it would be in the shape of a separate expedition, and that after that I should be attached to some staff. Uncle Henry * seems to think I shall go with every advantage, and that I am sure to get on like a house on fire; in fact, I am delighted with it all."

* Sir Henry Elliot, P.C., K.C.B., Ambassador at Constantinople.

The journal describes the itinerary. On 2nd May he wrote:--

"Arrived in Venice about 8 p.m. this evening. Lovely view of the Alps this morning after leaving Turin: made out Monte Rosa and the Lyskamm distinctly and got a glimpse of the Matterhorn. I love the mountains, and this morning, when I first found myself among them before arriving at Turin, it gave me an indescribable feeling of excitement. I suppose it is the recollection of the adventures I have had amongst them, and when I look back now I look upon them and the guides as old friends. There is no better man than a good Swiss guide, and Peter Bohren and Melchior Anderegg and the Lancriers keep jumping up in my memory.

"I am delighted with the first appearance of Venice; it seems to me enchanting, and makes me wish to live here, and, like all places of the sort, makes one wish for some one else to see it with. However, that is all the twaddle of one's existence--the realities are the thing after all."

Melgund was in close touch with the Intelligence Department at the War Office, and was associated with Colonel Lennox, the British Military Attache at Cairo. In Constantinople he was impressed, like other people, by the scandals of the Turkish Government. Thence he went to Adrianople, Rustchuk, and Turtukai, meeting Osman Pasha. He then joined Lennox at Shumla, where he had a chance of studying Turkish military arrangements.

The following are extracts from his letters to his mother:--

"May 28.--Got back here (Shumla) this morning after a most interesting expedition to Rustchuk and Turtukai. We spent the whole of Friday going over the forts there: pretty strong! The bombardment of the town was expected to begin at any moment, and we could see the Russian batteries on the opposite side from the Turkish forts above the town. We spent the evening at Mr. Reid's (the English Consul) house, where all the consuls were gathered together in a tolerable state of excitement. The extraordinary thing is that the Turks should have allowed the Russians to throw up these batteries under their very noses, occupying, as they do, much the stronger position. But they have done nothing to annoy them, and not a Turk dare show his face, and there were we, the General, the Chief of the Staff, and myself, all hiding behind trees, when really, looking at the positions of the two combatants, it is the Russians who should have been afraid of showing themselves!

"June 20th.--(Varna.) Lennox, Chermside, and I came on here from Rustchuk yesterday. I have seen an immense lot, and come in for all the fighting-- but before writing more I send you a copy of a letter which I got this morning from Sir Collingwood Dickson which I think will please you. Perhaps it is lucky that I should have had to report on the very line of road on which the Russians have since landed.

"'THERAPIA, June 28, 1877.

"'DEAR LORD MELGUND,--Mr. Layard is so very busy that he has not time to write to you himself, but he has requested me to thank you for your kind contributions to the public service in your reports on the Turkish Cavalry and Horse Artillery at Shumla, and in that lately received upon the road travelled by you between Rustchuk, Sistova, and Nicopoli. Both these reports were perused with much interest by the Ambassador and myself, and the latter I think so highly of that I requested Mr. Layard in sending it to mark that it should be forwarded to the Intelligence Department as an itinerary well worthy their attention.'

"On 26th June Lennox woke me up by telling me that the game had begun. I went out to the ridge of hills facing the Danube close to the Turkish batteries and stayed there till the firing was nearly over. The Russian practice was very good, shells pitching constantly on top of batteries and on the edge of infantry trenches.

"That evening I shall never forget. We went out to a cliff close to the town: the town itself is in a valley between a clock tower and the Fortress. All the Russian batteries were firing. I watched the flash from the Russian guns and took the time. While all this was going on there was the most magnificent sunset you ever saw! Try and imagine a dark stormy evening with a brilliant red sky, distant lightning, and the smoke from the guns rolling over the valley. It was a wonderful sight, and then, suddenly, a Russian signal blazed up, and another, and another; probably they had something to do with the crossing that took place early next morning.

"On the 27th we left Nicopoli for Sistova, and, on getting near, found that the Russians had crossed about 1 a.m. and were still crossing. Six battalions of Turks were entirely defeated this side. I could not, owing to the lie of the ground, see the exact spot where the Russians were crossing, but I saw their troops on this side, and the Turks in retreat. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the roads were crowded with people flying from the enemy--Turkish troops straggling for miles.

"The next day Lennox sent Chermside and me to Rustchuk to try to get some letters which were supposed to be lying at the Consulate. Rustchuk was terribly knocked about, and the Kanak, which had been turned into a hospital, was almost entirely burned out. How on earth they got any one out alive I can't make out. As it was, they got all their sick away, none being killed, though I believe seventeen were wounded, and the two men on duty at the door were killed.

"When Chermside and I arrived at the Consulate we naturally found it locked up, Mr. Reid (the Consul) having left when that part of the town became impossible to stay in: we went all round the house but failed to find any way into it. At last, by the help of a Turkish officer, I got over the garden wall and in at a back window into Mr. Reid's study, and from there into the room where the letters were supposed to be. At first I found nothing but a few old newspapers, and was going to give it up as a bad job when I happened to look into a cupboard full of all sorts of rubbish, and there, to my delight, I found all the letters. One of them, addressed to Lennox, was open, and Mr. Reid had written on the back of it "Torn open by a Russian shell." I believe the letters had rather a narrow squeak of being demolished. I got back again over the garden wall with my spoil, and we returned to Rustchuk. . . . I have just come back from an evening visit to Mrs. Nejib Pasha. She has nearly smoked and drunk me under the table. Before dinner she dosed me with vermouth, she sitting cross-legged on her divan, and after dinner primed me with bitters. . . .

"July 11th.--I arrived at Osmanbazar on the 13th. The town, being chiefly Bulgarian, was nearly deserted by the Turkish inhabitants, who had fled for fear of the Bulgarians, while the Bulgarians themselves were very much frightened of the few Turks who remained in the town, as they were armed to the teeth. Said Pasha was there, though he was to leave at once for Shumla. He appeared very nervous about the state of affairs, and much incensed at reports of atrocities by Bulgarians.

"I am afraid I shall not come home a great Turk! Unless Suliman's lately arrived force wins a great battle in front of Adrianople there is nothing on earth to prevent the Russians going to Constantinople, and it seems to me only natural that a victorious army, such as they are, will expect to enter the capital. I doubt the Czar, should he wish to do so, having the power to stop such an entrance, and still more doubt the wish or the power he may have, if once there, of ordering the army out again. We are too late to stop it now."

In July Melgund, whose health was suffering from the effects of the climate, was compelled to return home. With his Turkish journey closed the stage of his life when he was content to seize the interest of the flying hour, whether it came in the shape of sport or adventure. He had long been far from contentment, and Mr. Southwell, from his country rectory, made it his business to fan the dissatisfaction and urged a political career. "I do not see," he wrote in September 1877, "why you should hold, so to speak, an amphibious position. You say you cannot go in for politics, but can find work if the war continues. Now if you were a younger son I could understand your embracing war, but being the elder, and likely to be a permanent fixture, surely you must want work that does not depend on an 'if.' You have industry and pluck. Industry may not make you an orator, but it can make you a very tolerable speaker, and pluck will give you cheek in time. Life is short, and you will fritter it away, and will have nothing to do as you grow older but eat and sleep and be weary of life." The writer returned to the charge a month later, and besought his friend to "set his head for Parliament." "I hope to hear from henceforth that you are a changed man; that hunting, steeplechasing, and horses generally are regarded by you as instruments of recreation after severe work; in short, that you have woken from sleep and have put away childish things."

But the matter was more complex than the honest hunting parson realized. "You have a noble soul," he told Melgund, "one of the noblest, but a short-sighted, material-interest mind." In this last phrase Mr. Southwell's acumen failed him. It was precisely because he cared so little for worldly wisdom that Melgund's problem was hard. A man more worldly-wise would have used the advantages given him by his birth, connections, and wide popularity to build up one of those undistinguished parliamentary careers which are possible even for the dullest, and which lead so many mediocrities to high office. Being singularly honest with himself, he believed that he had no real talent for political life, and if he could not make a true success, he would not be content with a sham one. In life, as in sport, he insisted upon the first-rate. He believed--with justice--that he had a gift for soldiering, but he had dropped out of the running, and it was hard for one who was now half an amateur to make his way back to a professional career. The kind of work, such as imperial administration, which was to draw out all his qualities and combine the interests of both politics and the Army, was still only dimly realized. Honestly and rightly he sought at this stage the sphere in which he believed he could best be used--the business of war. By the close of 1977 his mind was set upon this path, and the "childish things" of Mr. Southwell's letter had been relegated to their proper place. But the decade of strenuous idleness had not been wasted. He had behind him a youth active and honourable, which is the best foundation for the structure of maturer years. In body he was hard-trained and untiring; his mind was fresh and vigorous, if still not fully developed; no cynicism or satiety weakened his ardour for life. He had made in his sporting career those close and enduring friendships which belong to no other human pursuit in the same degree.* From sport, too, he brought standards of a strict faithfulness and a scrupulous truth, and in mixing with men of all classes and types he had acquired a broad and genial humanity.

* We need not accept the explanation of this fact given by Harriet Lady Ashburnham to Lord Houghton: "If I were to begin life again," she said, "I should go on the Turf merely to get friends. They seem to me the only people who really hold together. I do not know why. It may be that each man knows something that would hang the other, but the effect is delightful and most peculiar."