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AINSLIE GORE 
 
3. >i U v.; 
 
AINSLIE GORE 
 
 A SKETCH FROM LIFE 
 MAJOR GAMBIER-PARRY 
 
 AUTHOR OF "annals OF AN ETON HOUSE" 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 ' ' Tary no longer ; toward thyn heritage 
 
 Haste on thy way, and be of right good chere. 
 Go ech day onward on thy pilgrimage ; 
 
 Thynk how short time thou shalt abyde here." 
 
 Vox ultima crucis. John Lydgate, 7370-1447 (?). 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SMITH, ELDER ^ CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1914 
 
 [All rights reserved] 
 

 .'^»fi 
 
 ••;f:-!Li ^pVst 
 
 Printed by Ballantynb, Hanson &* Co. 
 at the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh 
 
TO 
 
 THE PEOPLE OF 
 DENTON 
 
 WHO KNEW HIM AND LOVED HIM 
 I DEDICATE THESE PAGES 
 
 5 2 3 'J 5 5 
 
I 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. Preliminaries i 
 
 II. His Home, Forbears, and Boyhood . 21 
 
 III. Eton Days 66 
 
 IV. Father and Son 114 
 
 V. Abroad and at Home . . . .156 
 
 VI. Some Soldiering, and other Things . 187 
 
 VII. The Summons 240 
 
 VIII. Eastward 262 
 
 IX. The End of the Journey . . . 288 
 
AINSLIE GORE 
 
 A SKETCH FROM LIFE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PRELIMINARIES 
 
 This is what lies upon the table at the moment 
 — a bundle of letters, some scraps of paper with 
 notes of conversations and other data in my 
 own handwriting, and a common, penny ac- 
 count book with a green paper cover and mock 
 white stitching in imitation of a ledger. This 
 last has obviously never been put to the pur- 
 pose for which it had been originally designed, 
 but used as a diary, the various entries show- 
 ing that they had been made in pencil during a 
 few short weeks. The writing is a good deal 
 rubbed ; the corners and edges are stained and 
 worn ; and the book itself shows signs of 
 having been much crumpled, as if carried for 
 long in some one's pocket. 
 
 Up to last night these letters and papers had 
 
 A 
 
2 ^'^^^ '^-^^^A^NSLIE GORE 
 
 /^ ? ^*' r"* v' *'/'■» •^• 
 
 fie^'iyift^ for years locked in a drawer, tied 
 up with a narrow strip of buckskin that had 
 once been pipe-clayed but had long since turned 
 yellow. The whole collection amounted to 
 very little, and there was something almost 
 forlorn about its appearance. Yet it was all 
 there was to go by — all from which a record 
 might be compiled of a short life, and what 
 had once been a close, personal intercourse. 
 
 Could anything be done? That is what I 
 had asked myself before, and what I asked my- 
 self again now. Memory would come to my 
 help and fill some gaps. These notes that I 
 had made years ago might bring other matters 
 back to mind. And then again, there were 
 those still living who had witnessed the whole 
 life and who would be able to recall much — 
 tell me of what was said and what was thought ; 
 recount for me episodes to do with earlier days ; 
 and set me right where I was wrong. A few 
 of the older friends of the family could certainly 
 be relied upon ; but the quarter where I felt I 
 could get more what I wanted than elsewhere 
 was among the villagers in his own home. 
 They knew him and had in many a case loved 
 him, and among the inhabitants of the place, 
 therefore — from the tenant of the largest farm 
 to the poorest labourer on the land — help woyld 
 
PRELIMINARIES 3 
 
 be forthcoming, and in such ways I might be 
 able to make up for the slenderness of these 
 remains. It was worth an effort. 
 
 I had often cast a glance at the bundle, but, 
 for many a year, had never undone the tie till 
 last night. Why should I .^^ I knew exactly 
 what lay there, or thought I did — even to 
 knowing some of the letters and the rest by 
 heart. He was my friend — my one, great, 
 intimate friend ; and so it was that I had rarely 
 even looked at the outside of the drawer with- 
 out momentarily realising what lay there. 
 
 I knew that this packet of letters was safe 
 where it was, and also that the small locked 
 drawer of the piece of Chippendale, with its 
 beautiful inlay and characteristic brass handles, 
 standing in the corner of my room, held many 
 precious things besides — that, in fact, that par- 
 ticular drawer was as my holy of holies — the 
 contents a kind of epitome of a life — and there- 
 fore to be approached in a becoming spirit, and 
 not when one was short of a job on a wet day. 
 To fumble in it in that way would, to my mind, 
 be tantamount to sacrilege. One must be quite 
 alone when handling such things, and absolutely 
 safe from interruption — at least, such was my 
 feeling. 
 
 Thus it was only last night, late, when the 
 
4 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 rest of the household had retired to bed, that, 
 the spirit moving me, I took a candle, and sat 
 down on a low rush chair and turned the lock. 
 Then I realised in a moment that I was quite 
 wrong. The scent of the drawer — that indefin- 
 able scent that all old drawers and their contents 
 acquire as a matter of certainty in course of 
 years — was familiar enough ; but memory had 
 played me false, and instead of knowing the 
 many things that met my eye, I found I had 
 quite forgotten some of them were there at all. 
 Here, for instance, was a string of black and 
 gold Venetian beads, wrapped carefully in 
 tissue paper. These, of course, had their story. 
 Then, close to a long envelope containing three 
 commissions signed by the greatest of all 
 Queens, was an ordinary pill-box, and inside 
 this a bullet, with a mark upon it as though it 
 had struck something and smashed it. A date 
 had been scratched in the lead on one side ; 
 and this is quite sufficient about that. Next 
 to it was a number of regimental buttons 
 strung on a leather bootlace and now much 
 tarnished, and near them an envelope with 
 this upon it, under a star in red chalk : — " A 
 piece of our old Regimental Colour that was 
 carried at the Alma, especially, and all through 
 the Crimea, as well as the Indian Mutiny. 
 
PRELIMINARIES 5 
 
 N.B. Over a thousand men are said to have 
 fallen beneath the Colours of which this scrap 
 is a part." 
 
 A single brass spur ; the mute of a violin ; 
 a carefully folded piece of music paper, with a 
 tune — an old, forgotten, Irish folk-song, scrib- 
 bled down originally in pencil by this friend of 
 mine as he listened to it sung on the rain- 
 drenched slopes of Bochragh, and subsequently 
 beautifully harmonised — came next, together 
 with a small flat case, lined with crimson satin 
 and containing three medals and clasps, with 
 coloured ribbons. 
 
 These last, again, might pass ; but lying 
 close by, was a dog's collar, with the name 
 ** Murphy " thereon, together with a cotton 
 handkerchief with a blue border. Such things 
 told much, and were accordingly folded away 
 carefully again in a corner. A small cigar-box 
 held a wonderful assortment of relics — a salmon 
 fly ; an empty cartridge from a sporting rifle ; 
 a leather watch chain with a rusty steel swivel ; 
 a small silver flask bearing the names of two 
 campaigns engraved on one side ; a photograph 
 of a mother and a child in a battered, leather 
 case ; and a prayer-book much stained by salt 
 water. Each of course had its story, though 
 such need not concern us here. 
 
6 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 The bundle of letters and papers now in 
 front of me was on quite a different plane. 
 They had lain right at the back of the drawer, 
 together with the battered, green, penny ac- 
 count book ; and beneath them was a copy of 
 the New Testament in French, bound in red 
 morocco, and with the name of a dead sister 
 on the fly-leaf. 
 
 It had seemed to me, formerly, to be fitting 
 that these should lie together, and it seems so 
 still — the one with the name of a sister I had 
 passionately loved in her own handwriting, and 
 this packet — these meagre details of a close 
 and intimate friendship — docketed by myself 
 simply with his name — Ainslie Gore. 
 
 The night was young when I removed the 
 packet to the table, undid the tie, and began 
 scanning one letter after another. With the 
 exception of five that I knew lay together 
 somewhere here, all were addressed to myself, 
 and some dated back to the days of our boy- 
 hood. We had been neighbours in the 
 country ; we were sent to our first school to- 
 gether ; had gone on to Eton together later ; 
 and finally joined the same Regiment, and 
 lived the full life that young soldiers do, seeing 
 many things, doing many more, and dreaming 
 many dreams ; the road of life lying broad and 
 
PRELIMINARIES 7 
 
 open in front, in the blaze of the glad sun, 
 with nothing apparently to check the swing of 
 the march to the goal and the blue hills. 
 
 I only picked out a sentence or two in many 
 of the letters, passing some over unopened, or 
 with merely a glance at the date and the head- 
 ing. Then came one or two that were scanned 
 more closely before being returned to their 
 envelopes, the hand unconsciously quickening 
 as the next and then the next were referred to. 
 
 The wording of most of them was familiar 
 enough ; so also the subjects touched upon. 
 Memory had at least not played one false here. 
 The very hours of which many of these letters 
 spoke returned vividly to mind as I read : I 
 was back again in **the singing season," when 
 the days rang from morn till eve with boyish 
 laughter and each successive summer was a 
 twelvemonth long — back, too, to the days when 
 boyhood was left finally behind, when outlook 
 began to grow more serious and ideas more 
 definite. 
 
 The convictions and principles that had ruled 
 this life had remained much the same through- 
 out. Subjected from time to time to fresh 
 influences they had necessarily been, the world 
 being no place in which to walk about with a 
 cut and dried formula in the pocket. New 
 
8 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 impressions had necessarily come with the 
 years, and new estimates had been quietly 
 made, character being built up and strengthened 
 by such means, and growing always, with him, 
 to fairer proportions. 
 
 He was never one to accept what he met 
 with on trust. Rather was his habit of mind 
 to analyse everything, and thus when some 
 new principle, or what struck him as being 
 possibly essential, came within his range, he, 
 so to speak, took it and flung it on the counter 
 to see what ring it had, or whether it would 
 ring at all. Once satisfied on such score, he 
 was singularly tenacious of change ; but it must 
 be confessed that the standard to which he 
 habitually subjected matters was a high one, 
 and that the rules governing his actions — and 
 even at times, as I thought, too rigidly — were 
 no ordinary ones. 
 
 Such habits he had no doubt originally 
 acquired in his home. His home was his 
 standard, and I have certainly never met one 
 in whom home influences remained so green, 
 and throughout the term of life that was granted 
 him. It was not so much in the direction of 
 the things he had lisped in early childhood or 
 had been told by his father and mother, but 
 was more to be sought in the whole atmosphere 
 
PRELIMINARIES 9 
 
 of his bringing up — the exceeding beauty of 
 his surroundings, indoors and out ; the examples 
 he had always before him ; the refining influ- 
 ences he was continually imbibing, and in his 
 earlier days quite unconsciously. 
 
 To beauty in its countless forms he was 
 ever peculiarly susceptible, especially beauty 
 in nature. He lived an outdoor life, and thus 
 grew up familiar with all things to do with the 
 land, from where to look for the signs of the 
 first awakening of spring, to what snipe and 
 wild duck would be about when the seasons 
 of the year had nearly run their course, when 
 skies were dark with snow, and northerly winds 
 blew keen. I often used to think that beauty 
 in some form was a necessity to him. It was 
 not only out of doors that he looked for it and 
 took his fill ; it was the same at all times, no 
 matter where he might be or what engaged 
 upon. Thus, quite apart from the material 
 things that met his eye, he sought for it, accord- 
 ing to his mood at the moment and as if hungry 
 and in need of food. 
 
 Now and again he would spend whole hours 
 absorbed in the sonnets of Shakespeare, read- 
 ing them till he had many a one by heart — 
 among his favourite poems in Shelley, Keats, 
 or Wordsworth, or in studying closely such 
 
10 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 works as The Ring and the Book, and In 
 Memoriam. He would get up after that, 
 thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and walk 
 out oblivious of anyone in the room at the time ; 
 and on reaching outdoor air, would sometimes 
 throw his head up, looking at the sky, as if he 
 sought answer there to some question that 
 puzzled him. 
 
 Of the poets he was never tired; but I always 
 thought that of the many influences that went 
 to mould him, music was answerable for as 
 much as any. For the piano he had a natural 
 facility, being also gifted with an exceptionally 
 beautiful touch. He always spoke of Beethoven 
 with awe. He played Chopin well. He was 
 fond of Schumann. Mendelssohn, so far as the 
 piano was concerned, possessed few attractions 
 for him, and he left him generally alone. At 
 the same time he played light things and pretty 
 things by later-day composers, realising that if 
 others were to be interested and entertained, it 
 was necessary for him to cultivate a certain 
 catholicity of taste. 
 
 When alone by himself, and if anyone chanced 
 to pass the library where the largest piano dwelt, 
 they would hear him as often as not playing 
 Bach ; the great Master always standing to 
 him in the light of a king. I remember inter- 
 
PRELIMINARIES ii 
 
 rupting him one day when so engaged and 
 when I had waited long for him to join me in 
 an expedition to our stream, the May fly being 
 then on the water and trout rising freely. He 
 would not be enticed away and did not stop, 
 but went on steadily from the prelude he was 
 studying to the end of the fugue. Then he 
 jumped up, exclaiming—** Here! this is selfish!" 
 his eyes quite dark in colour and his face full 
 of light. His was a tall lissom figure, and he 
 walked with slinging gait, and the next moment 
 we were striding out together to see if we 
 could land some of those fish. 
 
 ** I don't know what it is about music," he 
 said, his arm in mine, and his head bent slightly 
 towards me — '* or if you would understand me. 
 At times I am afraid of it. It sets me on fire, 
 and I feel as if I daren't go near it. I know, 
 too, that it makes a fool of me now and then, 
 and am jolly well ashamed of it. But some- 
 times, and when listening to something exactly 
 in tune with the moment, I can tell you this — 
 given the right tune, perhaps at the wrong 
 time, I firmly believe that music could lead me 
 to the devil.*' 
 
 Shortly after that he made several beautiful 
 casts right under the hanging branches of some 
 willows and against the wind, hooked the best 
 
12 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 ^ 
 
 fish of the evening, and landed it, with a joy- 
 ousness that might have made a stranger write 
 him down as first and before all a sportsman, 
 perhaps as a fisherman and nothing else. 
 
 Yet, in reality, there were as few limits to 
 his pursuits as there were to his interests, though 
 it is right to add that one among these last 
 invariably stood out prominently from the rest. 
 I have said that his home was the standard by 
 which he judged most things ; it was also his 
 passion, and for it no sacrifice could ever be 
 too great. His love for it influenced his life, 
 and to a large extent governed and controlled 
 his actions as he grew up. 
 
 And if, in his sensitive way, he shrunk from 
 logical conclusions, and thrust from him all 
 thought to do with the future here, so far as it 
 might concern himself, he knew .that, humanly 
 speaking, his beautiful home would one day be 
 his ; that to him would fall the care of it, with all 
 the responsibilities and obligations that owner- 
 ship entailed ; and, what was of even greater 
 importance in his eyes, the maintenance of the 
 traditions of his race. Of these last he was 
 rightly jealous, pride of family being very strong 
 in him, and the honour of his class more precious 
 than all possible possessions put together. He 
 was well born, and showed this at all points ; 
 
PRELIMINARIES 13 
 
 there was every prospect of his being fairly well 
 off, and, knowing this, he was at all times 
 open-handed to a fault. Possessed of such 
 traditions, given to all manly exercises and out- 
 door pursuits, favoured as he was by birth, and 
 graced with good looks and a winning manner, 
 he stood always for what he was — as good an 
 example as might be found of what an English 
 gentleman might be. 
 
 Faults, of course, he had. He was some- 
 what quick tempered, impetuous, and given to 
 be over critical ; and he certainly never suffered 
 fools gladly. He would often fire up when 
 things annoyed him, especially where he fancied 
 the actions of others were wanting in charity 
 or were unjust. And if such faults as these 
 were in many instances the common failings of 
 youth, there were signs later on in his short 
 life of his getting the better of them. 
 
 Where wrong was done to himself he could 
 forgive at once ; but he could not altogether 
 forget at the same time, and in this he differed 
 little from the remainder of mankind. With a 
 temperament such as his, he could not fail to 
 be somewhat sensitive. Possibly he liked to 
 be liked, though he never showed the slightest 
 trace of any craving for popularity, and indeed 
 always condemned anything of the kind. He 
 
14 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 never strove to put himself in the forefront, 
 and he was always unduly modest — a failing 
 more than a fault, and that in his case added a 
 certain charm to his character. 
 
 Looking back now, it seems impossible to 
 judge him by any ordinary standard. He was 
 too many-sided. The calling he chose might 
 have seemed to some likely to prove quite 
 foreign to his disposition ; yet he had from the 
 first refused to hear of any other, finally throw- 
 ing his whole heart into it and being marked 
 by those who watched him as one certain to 
 rise to the top. In the same way, his dreamy, 
 Celtic temperament, tinged as it was by a 
 certain melancholy and a besetting love of soli- 
 tude — his love of music and his poetic tenden- 
 cies — might have created a doubt about his 
 being at heart a sportsman ; yet besides a 
 natural aptitude for games of all kinds — and 
 he seemed to revel in the joys of them all alike 
 — he was a first-class horseman and rider to 
 hounds, and excelled as a shot ; often mention- 
 ing, with a merry laugh, that he was duly 
 *' blooded " out cubbing in charge of the coach- 
 man, when seven years of age — and when he 
 brought home a pad in his pocket to the sub- 
 sequent annoyance of the household — and fur- 
 thermore that he shot his first rabbit when nine. 
 
PRELIMINARIES 15 
 
 There were many references to such things 
 in these earlier letters, and also to those others 
 outlined here ; but I found myself passing most 
 of them by after a while, and looking for some- 
 thing else. I came upon what I wanted at 
 last — five letters and the small book, tied to- 
 gether separately with a piece of crimson silk. 
 
 One was in a girlish hand and quite short 
 and unimportant — a mere line of thanks for 
 something that had been forgotten, and ending 
 — ** I am commanded by father and mother (!) 
 to ask you to come and shoot, over Slapton's, 
 on Thursday, and to sleep the night ; and I 
 am to say that they will be so pleased if you 
 can manage it." 
 
 Those referred to here were my own parents, 
 and the writer of this apparently innocent letter 
 was the sister just spoken of. Perhaps he had 
 read into it something not visible to others. I 
 think so, for he had prized the note sufficiently 
 to take it to India with him a few days after it 
 was written. The others lying with it, were 
 one from his father and another 'from his 
 mother, with two from myself. The whole 
 came into my possession, with the small account 
 book, in the course of my duties, and I was 
 subsequently allowed to retain them all. 
 
 1 only glanced at a few more after that : the 
 
i6 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 light of the lamp was growing dim, and my 
 candles had nearly burnt themselves out. The 
 last I opened ran to two sheets. It was mostly 
 on a subject that always interested him, and 
 ended thus : "My own feeling in regard to 
 such a speculation as this, is that if the world 
 were just, men would oftener pass for what 
 they are. As it is, the world not for the most 
 part being so, appearances and possessions, 
 place and the purse, go frequently to form the 
 verdict. You know what I have always said, 
 and I hold by it. A man is great by what he 
 is, not by what he does, much less by what he 
 has. It seems to me, therefore, that we human 
 beings, apart from the opinions of our fellows, 
 ought always to strive to be, rather than to 
 appear to strut the stage, saying, ' See what a 
 fine figure I cut — look this way, please, all of 
 you ! ' That's what that means. You know 
 what Tennyson says in Love thou thy Land: I 
 often repeat the lines to myself — 
 
 Nor toil for title, place, or touch 
 
 Of pension, neither count on praise : 
 It grows to guerdon after-days : 
 
 Nor deal in watch-words over much. 
 
 That's about it, 1 think. Be yourself, and let 
 the rest slide. But I am getting prosy : it is 
 late, and I must stop. Good-bye. A,G." 
 
PRELIMINARIES 17 
 
 The last words brought the fact home to 
 myself. It was late ; or rather, dawn was at 
 hand and another day would be shortly break- 
 ing. The letters had all been numbered, when 
 they were first put into the drawer years ago, 
 and they were all in their proper sequence now. 
 The few remaining papers I scarcely looked 
 at ; but tied the whole up again, and then sat 
 down with them in front of me, to lose myself 
 for half an hour in thought. 
 
 I had not expected, when I opened the 
 drawer some hours before, that the old 
 memories would return with such vividness. 
 I thought I knew, and all too well, the salient 
 points in the story of this life, and so I did. 
 But scanning these letters rapidly, one after 
 the other, had made me realise that earlier 
 impressions had in reality become dim by lapse 
 of time : the past stood out once more before 
 me with almost painful clearness : the familiar, 
 loose-knit figure — the striking, thoughtful face 
 — even the sound of the voice, seemed to return, 
 as though this one intimate friend were again 
 close to me in this room of mine. 
 
 I went to the nearest window, drew up the 
 blind and threw up the sash. In the intense 
 stillness that reigns so often in the hour when 
 dawn silently makes way for daybreak, the 
 
i8 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 whole picture came back to mind, and the old 
 questions that had battled for answer surged 
 up anew to meet the same relentless silence 
 as before. Sorrow had passed away : time's 
 good hand had seen to that. One no longer 
 mourned, though memories were green as ever. 
 Some day the reason would appear, and as 
 certainly as the light of the sun that would 
 presently shoot up above the blue hills and 
 the dark majestic forms of the great trees, 
 and sweep all shadows from the sky. There 
 could be no doubt whatever about that, and I 
 remembered well his firm convictions on such 
 points. 
 
 Meanwhile, what of this short life, these 
 letters, these papers, and the rest ? Did no 
 message lie here? No life ever born into 
 the world is without its office, and no one dies 
 to himself. One of the most appalling facts 
 of existence is, on the contrary, that our acts 
 and their results run on and live ; the great 
 consolation being that they are not, perhaps, 
 all bad, and that good in some form, and more 
 often than some think, comes out of ill. 
 
 There were riddles here in plenty, as else- 
 where, and I remembered his saying to me 
 once — " Nothing from which humanity suffers 
 is without Divine significance. I know it to 
 
PRELIMINARIES 19 
 
 be desperately hard to understand ; but some- 
 how or other I feel it to be true. Don't 
 you see, my dear fellow, that otherwise life 
 would often be a tragedy in one act and 
 nothing more, there being an end to us all 
 at the fall of the curtain. There can't be 
 a God in heaven and that ! It would mean 
 waste ; and I have never been able to find 
 indisputable evidence of waste anywhere. 
 
 *' Of course we ask questions," he went on — 
 " we are meant to. Progress is impossible 
 without inquiry ; and life means progress, mind 
 you — the very antithesis of death. Of course 
 it may be little use to expect answer always ; 
 but that doesn't mean that we are not to go 
 on asking and making inquiries to the utmost 
 possible length. Depend upon it, we shall 
 get an answer of some sort, either individually 
 or collectively, and humanity will have pro- 
 gressed another width of a hair. 
 
 " What I hate most is the chap who chucks 
 and won't go on — ^just jacks up, you know, 
 and swears all the conditions on this side the 
 line are hopeless. That must be wrong, 
 mustn't it — and principally for the reason that 
 life is no funeral procession ; life leads to life, 
 not death!" 
 
 I seemed to hear the words again quite 
 
20 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 distinctly. Perhaps I was overwrought after 
 the night hours and all that the reopening 
 of these letters and the rest had meant to me. 
 ** Life leads to life, not death," I kept repeating 
 to myself; finally exclaiming, as if in acquies- 
 cence — " Yes, that's quite true ! " 
 
 A white light was showing in the sky over 
 the Cotswolds, and at the same moment the 
 rooks began to talk to one another in the 
 neighbouring elms. It was the middle of May, 
 and the young birds were no longer roosting 
 in the nests. The sun would rise in another 
 ten minutes. The airs of daybreak were be- 
 ginning to move, bearing with them the scents 
 of the dawn. It was nearly four o'clock. 
 
 The papers were carefully returned to the 
 drawer after that ; and as I crossed the hall, 
 the glass in the upper part of the great oriel 
 window there glowed like a thousand jewels, 
 for the rim of the sun showed over the hills. 
 
 ** Yes," I said to myself — ** I will try, even 
 though I fail in my drawing to give any beauty 
 of line." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 
 
 Denton Manor, the family home, where 
 Ainslie Gore was born on the 25th of October 
 1872, stands on the slopes of the Cotswold 
 Hills, facing west and commanding a wide 
 view of the Severn vale — undulating lands, 
 great woods, and broad fields, bordered for the 
 most part by magnificently timbered hedge- 
 rows, lying spread out below like a map of 
 many colours. Nor is this all. On the farther 
 side of the great river itself, the line of Dene 
 Forest is often clearly visible from the front 
 of the house, with the Welsh mountains now 
 and again beyond that, especially when the 
 warm rains that sweep up Bristol Channel 
 have washed the air crystal clear in spring- 
 time. 
 
 On such days, it is even possible to count 
 the trees in the clump on the summit of May 
 Hill, set there originally, men say, as service- 
 able landmarks for bargemen whose lot it was, 
 
22 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 and is, to navigate the wide Severn estuary. 
 There are shallow, fixed sands there, like the 
 Great Noose just below Newnham, and many 
 miles, too, of dangerous shifting banks, spread 
 east of this and stretching from off Frampton 
 to Purton Passage farther south — ay, and 
 always with the treacherous tides about them, 
 to make matters still more hazardous ; these 
 last racing on always, with their voices not 
 those of the sea though they come with the 
 cry of all the gulls — racing on still, with 
 the solemn herons above them, to start the 
 roaring bore on its impetuous journey far 
 inland. 
 
 You can see these sands plainly from Denton, 
 though some way off, and watch the tides 
 slowly covering and laying them bare again — 
 in the glint of the summer sun, or in the moon- 
 light of frosty, winter nights. The Manor 
 House stands high, in a park of some three 
 hundred acres, and is to be seen itself from all 
 the country round. Immediately about it are 
 gardens of great beauty, with fine oak and elm 
 timber on every hand, and with cedars nigh 
 two centuries in age to give shade upon its 
 level lawns. The date of the house, which is 
 of old red brick, is late Elizabethan ; and this 
 is confirmed, not only by its obvious character. 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 23 
 
 but also by this inscription, now almost obliter- 
 ated, over its entrance door — 
 
 Blefs this house ere y® be gone, 
 And God will bless y® passing on. 
 1599. GRG. 
 
 The initials are those of the Gore who estab- 
 lished his family here in the first instance, and 
 whose body rests in front of the altar in the 
 village church, the ivy-clad tower of which is 
 visible from the windows, standing amidst tall 
 elms and a few scattered cottages with stone 
 walls and stone-tiled roofs, grey in colour and 
 beautiful to look upon. 
 
 The full name of this member of the family 
 was Giles Roger Gore. He lived to be old, 
 his age being given on his tomb as 72, and 
 the date of his death as 1651. He must have 
 seen and heard of strange doings in his lifetime, 
 being already nine years of age when the 
 Spanish Armada was swept from the seas, and 
 surviving Charles I by two years. And if 
 there are few records of him in the old Manor 
 House that he certainly built beyond a fine 
 portrait by Van Dyck, this at least is established 
 — that he fought for the King in the great 
 Civil War. He is known without doubt to 
 have been at Lansdown and Roundway Down, 
 
24 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 when Waller was defeated ; to have witnessed 
 the fall of Bristol ; to have seen the King 
 master over all the south-west country saving 
 Plymouth. He was with the King when he 
 stopped to lay siege to Gloucester and fortune 
 began from that hour to desert the Royal cause. 
 He saw the siege raised, and was crippled 
 for life by wounds received just afterwards at 
 Newbury. 
 
 There is also told of him this, that is signifi- 
 cant of the spirit of the man. He took his 
 eldest son with him to the war, though then 
 but seventeen years of age ; and when the 
 youth was discovered stark and stiff upon the 
 field, where he himself lay sorely wounded, he 
 is said to have exclaimed to those who came to 
 tell him of his loss — ** Had I ten instead of two, 
 and God so willed, they should e'en die for his 
 Majesty as this our gallant Amos hath ! " 
 
 The Gores of those days were staunch, loyal 
 folk, recking nothing, so long as they might do 
 what seemed to them to be their duty ; caring 
 little for hard knocks, and ready to deal them 
 in return with interest where the Country's 
 welfare was at stake. Such were evidently 
 common characteristics among these men, and 
 continued so to be among their descendants 
 right on through the centuries. 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 25 
 
 Thus some went out into the world in search 
 of adventure, or obeyed the call to arms, while 
 others remained on their estates at Denton, 
 experiencing all the ups and downs that marked 
 the eighteenth century for those on the land, 
 whether owners, farmers, or labourers. Many 
 documents, still extant among the family papers, 
 show these things plainly, and especially, too, 
 how money was lavished in improving the 
 property, and the active personal interest that 
 was taken in farming when it came to be the 
 reigning taste of the day. The head of the 
 family for the time being seems generally to 
 have regarded his home as his first care, and 
 to have trained his sons to so regard it when 
 their turn came — that is, when these sons did 
 not chance to be fighting for their Country far 
 afield. The family papers leave no room for 
 doubt on that score. 
 
 And so it comes about that there are ample 
 records here — old stained and faded letters, 
 together with contemporary diaries, later jot- 
 tings and the rest — detailing how this and that 
 one took part in the French and American wars 
 of 1775-83, and how others fought and bled 
 and gave their lives, right through the long 
 years 1793-18 15, when all Europe was in arms 
 
26 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 and the figure of Napoleon overshadowed the 
 world. 
 
 It seems to have been a point of honour with 
 them to go where blows were being struck. 
 Their Country was, to them, their Country. 
 They were content to till its soil, to live always 
 in the home, to work for the common weal ; 
 but if a call came for them from other fields, 
 they realised the larger claim and went out 
 sword in hand to strike a blow for the Country's 
 sake ; and, though they did not grasp this fully 
 in the earlier days, to add a brick to the build- 
 ing of an Empire over Seas. There were wild 
 ones among them of course, and certainly one 
 who brought the family to the verge of ruin ; 
 but the wildness of this one's life set a limit to 
 his days, and by much subsequent self-denial 
 and strenuous work on the part of his successors, 
 Denton was put upon its feet again. 
 
 The Gores, then, were plain English squires, 
 fit representatives of a class that was for long 
 regarded as England's backbone ; men who 
 lived among their people and knew them, being 
 loved by them in turn ; whose aim was peace 
 and happiness in life, but whose sons were 
 always at the call of their Country, either on 
 sea or land, to the uttermost ends of the world. 
 Tradition was very strong among these men^ 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 27 
 
 and had been handed down through generations; 
 and those who lived around them, whether in 
 cottage or farmhouse, were no less jealous that 
 such traditions should be preserved. These 
 last liked to see those on whose land they lived, 
 occupying the shoes of their forbears in what 
 they judged to be a fitting manner — with open- 
 handedness and hospitality, living and letting 
 live, just to all men alike, doing their duty as 
 English gentlemen, without fear, and with 
 honour always first. 
 
 A marked personal pride belonged to many 
 of these people of the land. They equally had 
 their traditions, and such were bound up in many 
 an instance with those of **the family," as they 
 usually designated their neighbours living up at 
 the big house. Few things they enjoyed more 
 than being able to show their knowledge in 
 such connection, and for a visitor to make a 
 mistake was almost certainly to be corrected 
 in some such way as this ; ** No, zir ; beggin' 
 your pardon. 'Twer' hisn's gran'fayther as 
 builded they Almshouses. Mine did used to 
 work for un, so mi old fayther 'ould tell ; an' he 
 did often say as he see'd un, times, when er 
 was a-layin' of it out. Hisn's son wer' this here 
 Mr. John, an' it wus he as did found the loaf 
 and blanket charity. Ah! — the times me an' 
 
28 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 mi old missus 'a blessed he 'ould take some 
 reckonin', I judges ; an' that's truth." 
 
 Such folk as these knew the family's genea- 
 logy to a nicety, and if not personally cognisant 
 of facts to do with earlier days, would add the 
 inevitable, ** so I've hear'd tell" in broadest 
 Gloucestershire. And wonderful, too, were 
 the stories they could recount about various 
 members of the same — their feats of strength 
 and horsemanship especially. They liked to 
 see a bit of dare-devil in that class ; admired 
 pluck and fearlessness; and "didn't hold wi' 
 'oomanness in men at all, at all." Thus they 
 would relate, with many a grin, how ** this 
 un went out to the wars an' never come 'ome," 
 or how ** that un for a wager did take un's 
 horse over the upright park palin's, that un 
 did" ; how "ourn bells was rung for this un's 
 wedding," *or " Tom wer' tolled two hours 
 long, when that un wer' took back." Such 
 items were, to their minds, nothing less than 
 the most important part of the history of the 
 place, and fit to be preserved accordingly. 
 
 Of all the stories, however, there was one 
 that went the rounds continually, and does so 
 still, though in somewhat altered fashion. It 
 had to do with the first of the Gores, and 
 ran in this way, in Willum, the cobbler's word- 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 29 
 
 ing: **You must know as un had a famous 
 horse, an' as the Lysett o' that day, whose 
 property did run wi' hisn's, and do so yet — 
 wull, he had jus' such another. An' nothin' 
 'ouldn't suit 'em but er must wager one agin 
 another for a hunderd pound, an' as to which 
 on 'em 'ould zwim furthest out in Severn when 
 tide wus high. So down 'em goes to banks 
 wer' it be two mile across — yonder, by Kingston 
 Pill, aboove the Royal Drift — an' sets to a- 
 zwimming for arl as 'em wus worth. 'Twus 
 but a risky job, as it most ways be wher' 
 Severn do have his say. An' it wer' Roger's 
 horse as won, he did, for t'other did zwim 
 an' zwim till un was drounded. 
 
 ** But when Roger — as I makes so bold as 
 to call un — wull, when Roger did come ashore 
 wi' hisn's — an' blow'd proper, they tells as he 
 wus, both man an' horse — he says, when he 
 looks at un — ' Never another day's work shall 
 ye do. Ye shall be turned out for the rest 
 o' yer days in the leer^ paddock, ye shall, 
 and yer shoes shall hang on church door,' he 
 says. An' if yer misdoubts what I do tell 
 ye, step over to church yonder, an' look inside 
 porch wi' yer own eyen ; an' ther' behind 
 
 ^ Empty or vacant: a good example of a Saxon word still 
 in use in the county. 
 
30 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 a bit o' wire nettin' an' set in iron frame, 
 like, be half one o* hisn's shoes and the whole 
 of another : both of 'em be fore shoes, what 
 be lef . That's they, right eno' — yas — yas — 
 an' what I been a-tellin' on yer be just Bible's 
 truth : an' he hitched 'em ther' hisself, he did 
 — on thic ther' door, as everyun do know." 
 
 The doings of the family in the big house 
 remained, in this way, subjects of perennial 
 interest among those who lived and worked 
 on the estate, whether such belong to tradition, 
 fell within living memory, or were matters of 
 to-day. Between them, in the course of genera- 
 tions, had sprung up a personal relationship 
 that made for happiness, that scouted strangers 
 talking with glib tongues, and resented outside 
 interference. 
 
 These people of the land, as always, were 
 very critical ; but here, as elsewhere through- 
 out the Country, the verdict they passed was 
 based on knowledge gathered at first hand, 
 whether among this class or that — farmer or 
 working hand, vicar or schoolmaster, the keeper 
 of the village shop or the landlord of the 
 village inn, the blacksmith that shod the Squire's 
 horses or the bargemen that landed him his 
 coal from the other side of Severn. Each 
 one brought his quota of the things he knew. 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 31 
 
 Those they criticised among themselves were 
 always before them in one way and another : 
 they lived their lives hard by one another ; 
 they passed each other continually in the lanes 
 and the fields, going about their daily duties ; 
 and between them there was always therefore 
 something of a common outlook. 
 
 Then again, at Denton, as in countless other 
 places, there was continuity. The farms had 
 passed from father to son for generations, being 
 reckoned as good as freeholds by those who 
 tilled them ; the cottagers called their houses 
 their homes, and were always ready to tell 
 you, moreover, that ''they and their'n had 
 lived ther' year on year, they had." The 
 very names of these people were a distinct 
 part of the parish, and to look through the 
 registers, right back to the seventeenth century, 
 was to meet with Tratmans and Gydes, Rutters 
 and Alliffs, Webbs and Parsloes and the rest — 
 the names being often spelt in all kinds of 
 strange ways, even where brothers were con- 
 cerned — and always, whether in case of births 
 or marriages or deaths, with those others 
 scattered over the pages — the names of these 
 Gores of many generations. 
 
 All classes, then, were continually together 
 here in the affairs of every day ; and there 
 
32 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 was unity and much of happiness. The re- 
 joicings at a birth, the feastings at a wedding, 
 the mourning at the close of a life, were shared, 
 in great measure, by all these folk alike, though 
 tradition has it, further, that few things moved 
 this village community more at any time than 
 the birth of a son and heir to the estates. 
 
 Certainly, when Ainslie was born, this last 
 was more than ever the case. Denton had 
 long stood without a direct heir, and Rupert 
 Gore and his wife — Edith, daughter of Sir 
 Alwyn Ward in the same county — were ap- 
 proaching middle age when he appeared. 
 The Squire himself had seen something of 
 active service in the Crimea, and on hearing 
 that a son and heir was his, exclaimed in 
 his jovial manner — ** And on Balaclava day, 
 too! That's just first-rate, and will mark the 
 boy himself for a certainty." After which he 
 relapsed for a while into reminiscences to do 
 with events of long ago, and then went off 
 in some haste to find the leader of the bell- 
 ringers, that the peal in the belfry down at 
 the church might carry the news all over the 
 parish. 
 
 It was a still, golden, autumn day without a 
 breath of wind stirring, so the sound of the 
 merry peal was heard afar, and that night the 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 33 
 
 subject was the talk in nearly every house in 
 the place. Of course there were the time- 
 honoured feastings, according to custom ; the 
 cider horn being passed round freely, and there 
 being much rejoicing. But the feeling went a 
 good deal farther than this with the majority 
 at Denton, and as the boy grew up, and came 
 to be referred to as — '* That be Mr. Ainslie, our 
 young Squire" — there were some, and more 
 especially the head keeper, Giles Merrett, the 
 old coachman, William Welfare, and such like, 
 who fancied that, out of doors at least, they 
 were entitled to have a hand in his bringing 
 up, just as there were others *'who kep' an 
 eye on him, unbeknownst" lest harm befell 
 him. 
 
 Among the farmers and the majority of 
 the cottagers, it was much the same. The 
 one who would some day be their Squire was 
 regarded here as almost common property ; 
 and while he rode his pony with the Berkeley 
 hounds till it was blown, or appeared round 
 the corner of a covert stalking rabbits on a 
 summer evening, there were many who con- 
 sidered his credit as bound up with their own, 
 and took note of him as he grew up with an 
 ever-increasing interest. 
 
 J\nd while the inhabitants of the place and 
 
 c 
 
34 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 the more prominent among the dependents up 
 at the house, talked and acted in these ways, 
 the boy, Ainslie, himself grew up in an atmos- 
 phere that was fitted above all others to qualify 
 him for his position in life. He knew every 
 yard of the estate before he had been long in 
 his teens, and had come by this knowledge, 
 and much else, out hunting. He had picked 
 up something about the crops in the fields — 
 how and when they were sown, grew up, and 
 were harvested — and had learnt this when shoot- 
 ing over the manor. He had come to know 
 the points to look for in sheep and stock, just 
 as he had in the case of a horse, having gathered 
 these things in chats with stockmen or from 
 the kindly words of the farmers. He had 
 learnt at the same time the elements of wood- 
 craft — how trees were planted, oaks stripped, 
 the numerous uses to which ash poles could be 
 put, the value of larch in and out of ground, 
 how ash stood in comparison with oak — the 
 head woodman who had served the family from 
 boyhood delighting to answer his questions 
 when he came upon the men in the depths of 
 the woods in the winter season. 
 
 All these things, and many a score of others, 
 he was gathering always, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, as he roamed about in his holidays a^ 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 35 
 
 a boy ; just as, when he came to be a little 
 older, he learnt something of the outlook of 
 those who lived their lives here, who worked 
 here and had worked here always — their idio- 
 syncrasies, their characters that were so difficult 
 to comprehend, the hardships that were an 
 inseparable part of their existence, their daily 
 round of toil in all weathers, the narrow margin 
 that lay at all times between such labouring 
 folk and want. 
 
 Then again, while all here did not regard 
 him from the same point of view — such being 
 an impossibility anywhere — he learnt to give 
 and take, to understand that all could not think 
 alike, — that because such an one was an awk- 
 ward customer, or an idler worth no wage at 
 all ; because this one had become soured by 
 misfortune, or that one had strange ideas in 
 his head — there was no reason for him to give 
 them the cold shoulder. There were men of 
 all sorts here, as elsewhere, and women too ; 
 and with many there was another side to the 
 one they often showed, and which seemed to 
 declare that to understand it all a lifetime 
 would be required, if even the rudiments of 
 this lesson could be learnt in that. 
 
 There was only one way in which it could 
 be attempted, and this was by walking the 
 
36 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 land, mixing with the fathers and the mothers, 
 and growing up with the children of the same. 
 Only by such means could the necessary know- 
 ledge be imbibed, by which acts might be 
 governed in the future that lay ahead ; only by 
 acquiring these things, here and now, could 
 just opinions be formed in later years, as if by 
 instinct, when difficulties arose. 
 
 There were secrets here that money could 
 never buy, and that were so subtle in their 
 character that even those who held the key to 
 them rarely realised their value when they 
 brought them out for use. They were a part 
 of the life, as the air was the life of the fields. 
 These things, hidden away in tradition, could 
 not be defined or analysed ; but behind them 
 for prize, to those who had studied and had 
 come to know, there lay ahead again this — the 
 confidence, the trust, even, it may be, the love, 
 that the people of the land know how to give, 
 and always in a way that is their own. 
 
 And if I, who write, know well that in the 
 case of Ainslie Gore the conditions of his up- 
 bringing were just these from the very first, it 
 is also impossible to omit a reference to those 
 other influences that were always at work in his 
 home. He was destined to be an only child, 
 and therefore to miss much, no less than to be 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 37 
 
 open to much more. But he was blessed with 
 wise parents, and of these it is necessary to say 
 a word. 
 
 His mother was of saintly character, but 
 wholly free from those weaknesses that are 
 sometimes found in such. Her religion was 
 the chief fact in regard to her, and to be even 
 a short time in her company was to feel this 
 without doubt at all. Yet it was never in the 
 forefront. You could see something of it in 
 her beautiful face ; it was reflected in her actions 
 and her daily life ; it came out in quiet moments ; 
 and the poor, to whose homes she went in their 
 hours of trouble, knew it well, and grew in 
 many a case to lean on her. 
 
 At the same time she was never anything 
 but her natural self. She loved life for its 
 opportunities : she was wise : she could enter 
 into the interests of all about her : she had the 
 keenest sense of fun ; she loved to see manli- 
 ness in men, to hear of their doings, their work, 
 their sports, their games ; but there ever shone 
 out in her the characteristics that mark woman- 
 liness at its purest and best, and thus her 
 influence was very wide. I knew her well, 
 from boyhood onwards, and I never failed to 
 realise that there was no one, outside my own 
 home, to whom I could go for opinion and 
 
38 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 advice with greater certainty of help than to 
 her. She would listen, ask a few questions in 
 a gentle, affectionate way, and then tell you 
 what she felt. Her advice was not always 
 palatable ; but in the end there was never any 
 doubt about the wisdom of her conclusions. 
 Behind her natural gentleness there was 
 strength, and if you felt sometimes, in youthful 
 days, that her reproof was hard — the more so, 
 perhaps, as it came from her — it somehow 
 spurred you to get back into her good graces, 
 to see that smile on her face again, and to 
 realise anew as you grew older that here was 
 one who carried into her daily, busy life the 
 reflection of the principles to which she clung — 
 who showed what capacity for loving might 
 really mean in woman, and that made of Denton 
 the home and the place that it was. 
 
 The people of the parish naturally loved her 
 deeply. She was their friend ; not as the lady 
 bountiful — there was nothing whatever of that 
 about her, though there was no limit to her 
 generosity. She understood them, and each 
 one knew that they could come to her on all 
 occasions and that she, of a certainty, would 
 understand. 
 
 An old inhabitant described her once to me 
 exactly : it was Susan Mantel, who kept a little 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 39 
 
 sweet-shop, and also sold string and tallow 
 candles. She knew the talk of the place to a 
 nicety, and gathered many things, standing 
 behind her tiny counter, in her black, frilled 
 cap, red shawl, and blue cotton apron. 
 
 "Ah," she said, " ther' be our Squire's 
 good lady, now : she don't never pry. She do 
 come in, an' sets down, an' just be one o' our 
 sel', like, and no odds what caddie anyun be 
 in. And I reckons as I seen it, like a-this — 
 and times, when trouble been a-gate — the room 
 wer' lit, like, when she come in, and darker a 
 sight when she been gone ! " 
 
 Rupert Gore, on the other hand, was typical 
 of what a Squire might be. The eldest of three 
 sons, he had succeeded his father at Denton 
 when thirty-six years of age, and when he 
 shortly afterwards married. By way of keeping 
 touch with something of soldiering he joined 
 the County yeomanry, taking with him to the 
 ranks some half-dozen of his tenants or their 
 sons. He was fond of horses, and was known 
 as one of the best men to hounds in the Berkeley 
 field. Love of sport was born in him. He 
 was a first-class shot, and in his younger days 
 was never happier than when out by himself on 
 his wide, exposed lands along the banks of the 
 great tidal river — waiting, perhaps, knee-deep 
 
40 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 in flood water, for a flight of duck at cockshut ; 
 following up the reens and tramping the marshy- 
 grounds for a chance at a snipe, or listening for 
 the drumming of their wings ; trying to get 
 the better of a flock of green plover, or watch- 
 ing for the coming of the wild geese at the 
 close of September. 
 
 It was a flat, lonely country down there, 
 with something almost weird about it — where 
 cattle, and now and then great flocks of 
 sheep, gained subsistence, and across which 
 fierce, angry winds swept in winter-time, 
 coming up with the whole drift of the Bristol 
 Channel behind them and laden heavily with 
 snow. No weather was ever known to stop 
 Rupert Gore : he was hard as a chip of oak, 
 caring nothing for exposure, but rather revelling 
 in it, and telling many stories of what he had 
 heard and seen and felt, down there on those 
 wind-swept grass grounds when most men 
 were glad to be in shelter. 
 
 Yet while he was all this, Rupert Gore was 
 something far more. It was said of him after- 
 wards that he never neglected a duty. On 
 county business he was here, there, and every- 
 where, passing from this matter to that, till 
 some would say that he seemed almost to have 
 the faculty of being in two places at once. He 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 41 
 
 was by nature a hard worker, and he was an 
 early riser. When even the smallest detail 
 called for attention on his estate, he went and 
 inquired, and saw for himself, either alone or in 
 company with the agent or the steward. Then 
 he formed his own opinion without hesitation, 
 and acted on it. 
 
 No doubt he made mistakes at times ; but 
 his tenants always said that he *' erred with 
 honesty, and that there was no more doubt 
 of his acting justly and honourably than there 
 could ever be of his open-handedness." They 
 one and all believed in him ; they liked him ; 
 they knew that **he knew a thing or two"; 
 and they were content, therefore, to leave the 
 settlement of any difficulty or trifling dispute 
 to him. They welcomed him on their farms, 
 with that smile they knew well on his round, 
 good-humoured face — ready for a chat or a 
 stroll across the fields with them ; taking as 
 much interest in their crops as if they were his 
 own, feeling a stroke of ill-luck no less keenly 
 than themselves, and bearing their losses 
 always in his mind. 
 
 Then, too, they liked to see him out in the 
 wind and the weather — far off, perhaps, against 
 the sky-line — passing time of day with the 
 men at plough, or on his way to pay the 
 
42 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 shepherd a visit, when the snow was on the 
 ground and the man was often working night 
 and day in lambing time. Such men, for their 
 part, welcomed him no less heartily than their 
 employers, knowing well enough that when 
 times were hard he seldom went about empty- 
 handed. The very dogs greeted him in the 
 folds, just as the cottage women knew the wave 
 of his hand as he went by and the sound of 
 his cheery voice. The children racing out of 
 school one and all smiled at him. He could 
 address nearly all of them by name, and was 
 in the habit of stopping and having a word or 
 two with them when he met them in the lanes. 
 This hard-bitten-looking man loved a child, so 
 much so that it was commonly believed he 
 would have given his life for one at any time ; 
 and of course by that freemasonry that is a 
 part of child nature, and also of some dumb 
 animals, these children were no less aware 
 of it unconsciously themselves, losing their 
 shyness when in his company. 
 
 ** It be a sight o' pity as he haven't got a 
 dozen of his own in place of one," remarked 
 Lawrence Allen to me on one occasion : he 
 held the Compass furlong, a small farm on 
 which he was always ready to show you where 
 a hare lay — '* a"sight o' pity, it be. But there," 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 43 
 
 he added, his big, red face expanding into an 
 even broader smile than usual — *' but there, I'll 
 tell ye what. There be folks as says as it do 
 take a lifetime to make a farmer. I knows as 
 it doesn't! No lifetime'll do it. Bless the 
 life on yer, it have got to be bred in him afore 
 he starts. And if that be so, how long be it 
 a-goin' to take to make a Squire ? Can yer 
 tell me that ? O' course yer can't. Ther' he 
 goes, over yonder, see, in his breeches and 
 gaiters and his spud stick. An' there be folk 
 as thinks as they can buy that ! They bain't 
 so far out, may be, wi' the breechin' ; but all 
 the gold on earth'll never find t'other, or 
 replace un when er's gone ! " And he turned 
 from the gate on which he had been leaning, 
 without another word. 
 
 The origin of my being so much at Denton 
 and Ainslie with me in my home, especially 
 in our early boyhood, may, I think, be un- 
 doubtedly traced to the mutual wish of our 
 elders. Our homes were but three miles apart, 
 the two properties marching together for a 
 considerable distance. We were born in the 
 same year, and as I was brotherless and pos- 
 sessed an only sister somewhat younger than 
 
44 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 myself, no doubt the parents on both sides — 
 very old friends as they were — considered it 
 advisable that their two boys should play and 
 get about together. 
 
 And there was certainly no mistake, as time 
 went on, about the play and the getting about. 
 The ideas governing the actions of our respec- 
 tive parents appear to have been that, within 
 reason, we were to be allowed as much latitude 
 as possible, and by this means learn how to 
 stand on our own feet and to walk on our own 
 toes. They may have also had it in their 
 minds that a special Providence habitually waits 
 on all boyish escapades, enabling them to grow 
 up, in spite of themselves, fairly complete in 
 the matter of limbs and with both eyes. It is 
 certainly well that they held such beliefs in 
 our case. 
 
 Looking back now, I feel that we must have 
 stretched the patience of that good Providence 
 to its utmost, as we certainly did that of those 
 excellent souls who were set over us, and often, 
 it must be owned, to breaking-point. We lived 
 a life of adventure, more especially in the 
 holidays after our first entry at a private school. 
 Whether Ainslie was staying with me, or I 
 with him, there were ponies to ride and fish to 
 be caught, guns to become acquainted with, and 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 45 
 
 games of all sorts to be played. And while, 
 apparently, we were allowed to do just as we 
 liked, and there were those always ready to 
 teach us the rudiments of these various accom- 
 plishments, from gamekeepers and coachmen, 
 to butlers and those patient footmen who were 
 had out to bowl to us in a blazing July sun, it 
 is only quite in later years that I have become 
 convinced that there was method in it all — 
 that these good people at our elbows must have 
 all the while been receiving implicit directions 
 as to the course they were to follow under 
 certain circumstances. 
 
 Otherwise, it does not at once become 
 apparent why it was that when we had made 
 our way to old Giles Merrett's house in the 
 woods and asked for our guns, that he was 
 on those occasions generally not to be found 
 by his wife ; or if we caught him, that he had, 
 by some unaccountable mischance, lost the key 
 of the gun cupboard. In the search that 
 followed, whether for Giles himself or for the 
 key, we joined with ardour. But for some 
 reason not at all strange then, that search 
 proved generally quite fruitless, and we had to 
 return from whence we came unarmed. Now 
 I come to think of it, there were many episodes 
 of the kind, though they were always quite 
 
46 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 natural to us then, if they were also attended 
 with a passing disappointment that left us for 
 the time a little glum. 
 
 But even with the best will in the world, 
 there was no safeguarding us at all points. 
 It would be difficult to say which was the 
 ringleader ; but I am inclined to think that 
 Ainslie was, though at times the blame was 
 certainly visited on me. There was no limit 
 to our energy ; all days were long, though 
 none too long for all we wished to do. The 
 land all round, and for a considerable distance, 
 belonged to our respective parents, and those 
 living on either property were almost to a 
 man our friends. 
 
 And here again it was very remarkable 
 how these friends came on the scene at moments 
 when we were walking into jeopardy. I cannot 
 conceive how this could have been otherwise 
 than planned, and by the same heads and. hands 
 as in the case of the guns, the ponies, and 
 the rest. As we became a little older and 
 reached twelve and thirteen, we naturally began 
 to kick against outside interference and in ways 
 that sometimes led to words with our good 
 friends aforesaid. 
 
 We had, I suppose, begun to feel our strength 
 in more directions than one. We had lived 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 47 
 
 an outdoor life and picked up many things, 
 fancying we knew a lot ; we were growing 
 fast and our muscles were beginning to harden ; 
 and in Ainslie's case, Mrs. Jinks, the Denton 
 housekeeper — the personification of good- 
 nature, with whom we often wrestled — was 
 not far wrong when she averred that he was 
 **just a little Arab, and muscle all over, so 
 that there was no holding of him." He was 
 strong in all ways, and muscularly so especially. 
 There were few trees he could not climb : 
 he could jump a sheep hurdle easily, and, 
 later on, clear many of the gates upon the 
 place : he could run down village boys older 
 than himself when he judged they were where 
 they had no right to be, and tackle them ; 
 and all games came to him easily. 
 
 Then again, while such things added to 
 his popularity, he was of singularly attractive 
 appearance and manner, even as a small boy ; 
 and Susan Mantel of the little shop would often 
 remark — **Ah; ther' be our young Squire, 
 now. Look at un. Sunny, bain't he ? Why, 
 hisn's face be his fortune ; anyun can see a-that 
 — anyun ! " 
 
 I think old Susan was right. Lissom, active, 
 full of life and "go," built as straight as a line, 
 with fair hair and laughing grey eyes, and 
 
48 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 declaring his breeding at all points, he was 
 a boy that would take anyone's fancy in a 
 moment, and win his way to their hearts no 
 less quickly. 
 
 It would, perhaps, be idle here to deal at 
 any length with our boyish doings and hair- 
 breadth escapes ; but one or two at least must 
 be referred to, for they illustrate Ainslie's charac- 
 ter. Water has always an attraction for boys, 
 and it had long been our desire to get afloat 
 on that innocent-looking Severn estuary — here 
 some two miles in breadth, and with all those 
 sands far out as further attractions. The river 
 had never been placed out of bounds — if indeed 
 we recognised the term at all — and possibly 
 because there were no boats down there of 
 any kind, or so much even as a Severn punt 
 with cocked-up stern and bows. Then, too, 
 when the tide was out, a wide expanse of mud 
 fringed the shore, and there was at those hours 
 no getting to the water. 
 
 We had often asked John Gratian, the land- 
 lord of the Gore Arms, who, in his own ketch, 
 the Mayflower, had navigated these very waters 
 for years and knew more about them therefore 
 than any other man in Denton parish — we had 
 often asked him about his past experiences, 
 and had stood open-mouthed when he recounted 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS; AND BOYHOOD 49 
 
 for our benefit his wonderful escapes from being 
 cast away on those treacherous Severn banks. 
 We had even asked him once concerning the 
 possibility of our going afloat ourselves, if boat 
 could be found, when he answered us without 
 more ado in this fashion — 
 
 " Now look ye here ; minds as you boys 
 never thinks of doin' the likes. And minds — 
 for you to do that and for me to get wind on 
 it, be for me to go straight up to Squire and 
 tell un as the best thing as he can do, if it 
 be his meanin' to let the likes of boys o' your 
 age to go meddlin' wi' Severn, be for him 
 to step down to parson and tell un to offer 
 prayers for the two of you in church when 
 Sunday comes, for nothin' else '11 save ye!" 
 
 On that occasion we were certainly impressed ; 
 and no doubt John meant us so to be. But 
 chancing, some ten days later, to be down 
 along the river banks, I remember we were 
 as much startled to find a solitary boat lying 
 there, as Crusoe must have been when he first 
 detected the footsteps of the man Friday in 
 the sands. The effect on us both was the 
 same : we had never seen boat there before, 
 and the sudden appearance of this craft filled 
 us with a kind of fear. She was just a large- 
 sized dinghy, recently tarred, had a white streak 
 
50 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 below the gunwale, and was fixed to the shore 
 by a chain painter and a long rope. 
 
 It was the time of spring tides and a bright 
 and sunny day. Green ripples kissed the 
 boat's sides ; there was not more than four 
 inches of water beneath the keel at the stern ; 
 and she was only just aground at the bows. 
 Of course we were not long before we were 
 inside that boat. We had approached with 
 caution, doubting if anyone was on board, and 
 finding no one, shortly began meddling with 
 matters we had better have left alone. First, 
 we separated the painter from the rope ; then 
 we got her more afloat ; and after that the tide 
 took charge. 
 
 I can remember now with what rapidity the 
 shores appeared to recede from us, and also 
 the exclamations that escaped us when we 
 found that the pair of oars the boat contained 
 were securely padlocked to the after thwart. 
 Ainslie was quite calm and began whistling a 
 favourite tune, posing rather as captain of the 
 craft, and expressing the opinion that very 
 likely the current that had taken us out would 
 work in a circle and take us back again. But 
 the flat shore receded farther and farther from 
 us, and it shortly became evident that we were 
 outward bound. 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 51 
 
 On realising this, the first thing that Ainslie 
 ordered was for one of the bottom boards to 
 be lifted. With this we tried to paddle, and at 
 least to keep the boat's head pointing one way. 
 Needless to say our efforts were quite fruitless, 
 and we followed such course as the tide per- 
 mitted, broadside on. As the stream took us 
 farther, our pace naturally increased ; but now 
 and again as we sped on we noticed that the 
 water gradually grew deeper, though we knew 
 enough to realise that the short ripple farther 
 out meant shallows, and that these, the variable 
 sands off Frampton Pill, were so-called quick- 
 sands. 
 
 I do not think our situation troubled us in 
 the least. Ainslie, for his part, appeared to be 
 thoroughly enjoying it, and kept singing to 
 himself as he looked down over the gunwale, 
 or cast his eyes westward to where crowds 
 of gulls were already settling on the point 
 of Frampton sands. Far off beyond these, 
 a ketch had dropped anchor in the variable 
 channel running between them and the Noose, 
 with other craft far beyond that and over to- 
 wards Brims. We made amazing way when 
 the currents carried us into the main channel 
 itself, and we must certainly have come a good 
 deal more than a mile and a half when all of 
 
52 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 a sudden the boat checked and swung round, 
 as if some invisible hand had caught and was 
 holding her. 
 
 We had run on to a mud ledge, Ainslie's 
 first remark being — *'Come on; let's bathe!" 
 The mud bank was, for mud, sound enough ; 
 but on reaching the smooth inviting sands 
 themselves, he was very soon up to his knees. 
 Bathe, however, he would, on gaining firmer 
 ground, while I remained in the boat, that, by 
 degrees, fell slowly over on her side. There 
 was a mile of sand bare in no time, and the 
 cry of many gulls came from far and near. 
 The sun was sinking slowly into mist after a 
 brilliant May day, but it of course never struck 
 us that this very certainly meant fog. ** The 
 tide will turn, later on," remarked Ainslie — 
 ** and take us back again ; it will be all right ! " 
 He was full of confidence and was putting on 
 his clothes, after finding a stretch of harder 
 ground where he could run for half a mile and 
 dry himself. 
 
 Everything out here was on a large scale. 
 There was space on these sands and on the 
 wide, eddying waters — the very voices of the 
 gulls, far and near, declared it : there was space 
 in the cloudless sky overhead that was now 
 rapidly losing its blueness ; and there was 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 53 
 
 space, again, on the long sweep of level shore 
 over towards the Tumps and the great marshes 
 below Denton. Only one item in it all was 
 small, and small to minuteness — our two selves, 
 and our newly tarred dinghy lying on its 
 side some hundreds of yards now from any 
 water. 
 
 Ainslie kept singing his favourite tunes. I 
 never saw him happier. The sands were dry- 
 ing, and we began amusing ourselves, after 
 the inconsequent fashion of boys, in searching 
 for things that the tide might possibly have 
 left behind. The light of the sun was slowly 
 waning ; and presently, on looking up, I re- 
 member remarking to Ainslie that the shore 
 had disappeared from view. 
 
 ** By Jove ; so it has," he said — *' it's only 
 a fog, what larks ! Yes," he continued, a few 
 moments later, when we were following our 
 own footsteps back towards the boat — **yes, I 
 expect they'll have a job to find us ; but John 
 will guess it, and he knows everything." 
 
 At that moment, and a little later when it 
 became dark, with the haze of fog overhead 
 lit by the rising moon, we certainly found 
 comfort in what we felt to be John Gratian's 
 omniscience ; and as Ainslie now remarked — 
 ** he had been often castaway and all the rest ; 
 
54 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 but he had never seemed to come to grief 
 entirely." ** Of course there'll be trouble over 
 this," he added presently — ** and I am sorry. 
 It can't be helped. It is all my fault, because, 
 you see, you are staying with me." 
 
 The logic might perhaps have been difficult 
 for others to follow, but I understood his mean- 
 ing, while I sat on the gunwale of the boat, 
 feeling bitterly cold and wondering if we were 
 to be there all night, or whether this last of 
 many escapades meant drowning ere the morn- 
 ing. The fog, shortly after that, shut down 
 on us somewhat thicker, and a light air sprung 
 up from the east. There was intense silence 
 everywhere ; the gulls had gone to bed, and 
 the water had receded far away. 
 
 ** Listen, and count," said Ainslie, suddenly. 
 ** Did you hear that ? Why, that's our church 
 clock at home, striking ten." 
 
 How long after that it was before help came 
 neither of us knew, for we were both asleep 
 when rough hands shook us into consciousness. 
 Two figures with lanterns stood over us ; and 
 one was swearing loudly, till stopped by John 
 Gratian's voice, crying — *' Dry up, I tell yer ; 
 bain't there been trouble enough over this job 
 a'ready ? Bain't the good Squire's lady pretty 
 well frightened into fits ; and the Squire hisself 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 55 
 
 gone up and all over to make a search inland ? 
 Bain't that enough, wi'out your a-temptin' th' 
 Almighty with all your gaff? Well, then, dry 
 up and leave the lads to me ! " 
 
 What happened then I do not quite know. 
 I learnt afterwards that the dinghy had be- 
 longed to the ketch we had seen, and that the 
 owner had come ashore to interview Gratian 
 about coals. On returning to the banks he 
 had found his boat gone, and being unable to 
 see anything of her anywhere, had made his 
 way back to the Gore Arms to acquaint honest 
 John of the fact. It was not till later that 
 news reached them of our disappearance, when 
 John had put two and two together without 
 more ado, and subsequently, by his close know- 
 ledge of Severn tides and currents, had hit off 
 our whereabouts exactly. 
 
 But one matter in that night's adventure 
 will always remain with me, and this has to 
 do with what happened on our reaching land 
 again. The fact that there were rarely any 
 boats down there had thrown the Squire off 
 the scent ; but he had stopped to ask news of 
 Gratian when driving back through the village, 
 and learnt from others where his friend had 
 gone. 
 
 It was already past eleven o'clock when the 
 
56 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 Squire turned his horse to drive at once as far 
 as wheels would take him, and from there to 
 find his way on foot to the shore above the 
 Tumps. He was standing there alone when 
 we came ashore in the silvery fog and the 
 glint of the moon on the rippling water. He 
 never said anything, beyond — ** Come on, both 
 of you, as quick as you can ; " Ainslie putting 
 in, in penitent fashion — *' It was my fault, 
 father ; it was all my fault." 
 
 Then there was silence. We had half a 
 mile to tramp to reach the trap, and during the 
 whole of the time the Squire never uttered a 
 word. *' If he had only spoken," said Ainslie 
 to me, long afterwards, " it wouldn't have hurt 
 so much ; " and I remember that I felt the 
 same myself It might have been unpleasant 
 to receive the reprimand he, above all others, 
 could administer when he felt wrong had been 
 done, though with never a bad word inter- 
 mixed. But in this case he was absolutely 
 silent — both then and afterwards — and I am 
 convinced of this, that this very silence on 
 his part went deeper home in my case, and I 
 believe in Ainslie's also, than any punishment 
 we in after days received as schoolboys. 
 
 I was driven home early the next morning 
 by our intimate friend, William Welfare, the 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS; AND BOYHOOD 57 
 
 Gores' head coachman. He pulled a long face 
 when I came out to the door, and then whis- 
 pered as we started — '* Oh dear — oh dear : 
 got into a mess this time, then, eh ? And this 
 note, look ye, have got to go with you, look. 
 Dear — dear ; well, there ; you an' Master 
 Ainslie is just a pair, to be sure." 
 
 For some time after that Ainslie and I did 
 not see quite so much of one another. The 
 Squire adopted the plan of taking Ainslie 
 about himself wherever he went at Denton, and 
 thus began the training that shall be referred 
 to later on. It was, however, somewhat un- 
 fortunate that during the very first week of 
 their closer intercourse an event should have 
 occurred nearly costing Ainslie his life. 
 
 Some alterations were being carried out at 
 the Gore Arms ; the parlour being enlarged 
 and two bedrooms added above, much to John 
 Gratian's satisfaction. Something had gone 
 wrong at the top of the new gable, and the 
 Squire turned to Ainslie and said — ** Here ; 
 you can put that right. Run up that ladder, 
 only take care what you are about." 
 
 It was a good height up, and having attended 
 to the point, Ainslie stepped back, calling — 
 "Is that right, father?" The next moment 
 he was in the air. He had trodden on a false 
 
58 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 board at the top of the scaffolding, then in 
 course of being taken down. There was no 
 time even for an exclamation. Ainslie turned 
 two complete somersaults, and just before 
 reaching the flagstones of the yard, shot out 
 one arm and caught a rope-end, dropping on 
 to his feet and then falling backwards into 
 Gratian's arms. 
 
 ** Well ! " exclaimed the honest John, who 
 had turned crimson in the face — *' there's odds 
 in boys, or I'm very much mistook! " 
 
 The Squire remained fixed to the spot where 
 he was standing, and was for the moment 
 speechless. But he quickly recovered himself, 
 and with the air of one — so Ainslie said — to 
 whom some personal injury had been done, 
 remarked — ** If you go on like this, my dear 
 boy, you will run through all your lives before 
 we can stop you : even a cat has only 
 nine." 
 
 To which Ainslie, when he had recovered 
 from his giddiness, replied — ** It was a funny 
 thing, father ; but you and Gratian looked as 
 if you were standing upside down ! " 
 
 ** I don't wonder at it, I'm sure," returned 
 the Squire ; adding with a smile that looked 
 half guilty, half shy — ** I think, on the whole, 
 we had better say nothing about it to anyone : 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 59 
 
 your mother might wonder where it was all 
 going to stop." 
 
 Personally, I fancy that Ainslie must have 
 expended all his so-called lives before he reached 
 sixteen, the loss of his ninth being the nearest 
 total loss of all. I was not actually present 
 on this occasion, and the story shall presently 
 be told. 
 
 We were about together again when the 
 next summer holidays came round, having then 
 left our first school for good, with Eton for 
 both of us in the near future. At home and 
 at school Ainslie had latterly been developing 
 his taste for music, and, possibly owing to his 
 being now left more alone than heretofore, his 
 liking also for reading. He was often strum- 
 ming on the piano when I rode my pony over 
 to Denton, and occasionally, when he could not 
 at first be found, he was eventually discovered 
 curled in a big arm-chair and immersed in a 
 book in the great library. 
 
 When disturbed in this way he did not at once 
 rouse himself, appearing as if his mind was still 
 occupied by what he had been either reading or 
 trying to play. The house was large, and he 
 was often very solitary ; the lives of his parents 
 being so full that weeks would sometimes go 
 by without anyone coming to stay at Denton. 
 
6o AINSLIE GORE 
 
 Personally, I think that to this must be largely 
 attributed much of the dreaminess there was 
 afterwards about him, his intense reserve and 
 love of solitude. He never lost any of his boyish 
 gaiety and love of life — indeed, he never lost 
 a particle of these or of his geniality, his ready 
 manner and large-heartedness, to the end of his 
 days ; but gradually, and from this time on- 
 wards, I realise now that a certain seriousness 
 began slowly to declare itself in him, till it grew 
 to be a definite part of his character. 
 
 Such traits made no sort of difference to his 
 natural liking for an outdoor life, its sports and 
 games and touch with nature. He might lose 
 himself in a book, or in reading through some 
 new thing that his mother — herself an excellent 
 pianist — had recently discovered. But in the 
 next instant he would bang the lid of the piano 
 or fling down his book, and be climbing the 
 hill in the park or threading the rides of the 
 woods, to see if he could find Giles Merrett or 
 any of his under men. 
 
 It was no doubt on one of these strolls by 
 himself in the heart of the woods that he 
 marked a wood-pigeon's nest in an elder bush. 
 There had been an outcry against these birds, 
 and as to reach the nest in this case was 
 impossible, he quickly devised some other 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 6i 
 
 means of attack. At that time, I recall, we 
 were spending, quite unknown to our elders, all 
 our spare cash in pistols and gunpowder, casting 
 our own bullets with lead we stripped from the 
 house gutters on the roof. It was a July day 
 when Ainslie ensconced himself beneath the 
 shade of that elder bush, vowing that he would 
 remain there till dark, and intent, as Merrett 
 subsequently remarked when he heard the 
 story — '' on blowing the old bird down, nest 
 and eggs and all — an* a very good job if he 
 had, for them cushats be nothin' less than pests, 
 they be, and eats a power of our pheasants' 
 feed of a mornin', that 'em do." 
 
 The day was a sultry one, and the watch 
 was long. By way of passing time, Ainslie 
 had begun playing with the pistol, when, as 
 he afterwards described it to me, ** the beastly 
 thing suddenly went off, the bullet going 
 straight through the brim of my hat in front 
 of my forehead. I can tell you," he added, 
 "that when I could see, I got up and left 
 that pigeon's nest to itself, feeling cold all 
 over. Of course what you say is quite true. 
 They might have taken days to find the 
 body ; and when they did they would have 
 found it stark, with a pistol in its hand. 
 Nice business!" 
 
62 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 ''They would have brought it in as suicide 
 for a certainty," I remarked. 
 
 ** Yes," he returned, with a loud laugh — 
 
 " A dozen men sat on his corpse, 
 
 To find out how he died — 
 And they buried Ben in the four cross-roads 
 With a stake in his inside." 
 
 I think he said his father had latterly been 
 reading Hood's poems to him, and that he had 
 committed some of these to memory. 
 
 The following month we left for Eton, at- 
 tended by our respective fathers — both old 
 Etonians, who appeared to regard the occasion 
 as one for much hilarity and many reminiscences. 
 
 As for ourselves, we knew that an immense 
 world was about to open before us and that of 
 this we were to form a part, and I think we 
 were immeasurably proud of the fact. Look- 
 ing back now, we seem on that day to have 
 passed one of those milestones in life that we 
 all do from time to time, and that make us feel 
 suddenly older. We were not yet quite four- 
 teen, but we were already, in outlook, older by 
 a year than we had been when we left our 
 private school two months before. Childhood 
 was left finally behind, and boyhood had come 
 to occupy its place, with an increasing liking 
 for wildly foolish boyish escapades of all kinds, 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 63 
 
 though these now took on a different colour and 
 were marked by different characteristics. 
 
 There was at no time any sign on AinsHe's 
 part of loss of the love of adventure, more 
 especially where a spice of danger was discern- 
 ible. Whether at school or at home he was 
 always ready for anything, remaining quick 
 and alert on all occasions, and throwing his 
 whole heart into everything he found to do. 
 But at the same time the dreaminess that I 
 had latterly remarked in him seemed now to 
 become more noticeable. He slowly developed 
 a keen love of the beautiful : his liking for 
 music, that was afterwards so much a part of 
 him, became a passion ; he took more and 
 more to reading whenever he could get the 
 time ; and by degrees became in many ways 
 an idealist, just as, later, he also grew to be, 
 and remained always, something of a mystic. 
 This development went on in him, I think, 
 very slowly at first ; but the quiet and beauty 
 of his home, as also, in some ways, his Eton 
 life, served now to accentuate it. 
 
 He was already a boy of exceptional ability. 
 His school work had from the first come easily 
 to him ; and on entering Eton, he was placed 
 as high as was then possible — taking, as we 
 say, Remove. At the outset, the throb of the 
 
64 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 new life here puzzled him : there was so much 
 to do ; so little time to do it in. The very 
 rush of the day's work — an hour here, another 
 there, with the games, the cooking one's own 
 tea and breakfast, all the quaint observances, 
 sandwiched in between ; the fagging and the 
 strange phraseology of the place ; the rule of 
 boy over boy ; the incessant call to be up and 
 doing something all day long, in this place of 
 beautiful buildings set amidst still more beauti- 
 ful surroundings — all this, no doubt, bewildered 
 him, as it had done countless others, and at 
 first he liked to get away alone along the banks 
 of the river in the Playing Fields, where they 
 were deserted at this football season of the 
 year. 
 
 The phase with him did not last long. A 
 wise enactment allowed a new boy to wander 
 much as he liked for the first fortnight, that 
 he might find his way about ere the fagging 
 and the rest began. But many days before 
 this short period had expired, Ainslie had 
 already been caught by the countless eddies of 
 this great stream of young life, and carried 
 bodily out into its midst. More than that : he 
 quickly discerned the meaning of what he saw 
 around him, and threw his whole heart and 
 soul into the affairs of every day. 
 
HIS HOME, FORBEARS, AND BOYHOOD 65 
 
 The whole atmosphere and surroundings of 
 this wonderful place appealed to him ; and 
 Eton, exercising her countless fascinations, 
 took him by the hand and made of him one 
 of her true sons. He knew it, and often after- 
 wards referred to it. The stream would flow 
 on, at ever-increasing pace — there would come 
 the banks and the shallows and the shifting 
 sands ; but here was good outfit to be had for 
 each one's craft. And more — there reigned 
 also a great spirit in this place, and to all who 
 came it was bequeathed, that they might, so 
 choosing, carry it with them out into the wide 
 estuary and the full flood, for their voyage on 
 a limitless sea. 
 
 £ 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ETON DAYS 
 
 We were resting on Sheep's Bridge when he 
 said it — one summer Sunday evening, when 
 the life of the greatest of Schools was in full 
 swing and the summer half at its zenith. 
 Sunday necessarily always brought a pause in 
 those activities of the week that seemed to us 
 then to be nothing less than the contests of 
 giants, fit to move whole worlds. To some 
 minds possibly they appear so still ; but how- 
 ever this may be, Sunday afforded an interval 
 for thought, if also for much gossip — as to 
 who, for instance, would get his colours for 
 Lord's, who fill the last remaining thwart in 
 the Eight for Henley ; what House had the 
 best chance of winning the House Cup or the 
 House Fours, and who were the likeliest to 
 carry off the Sculling or the Pulling and the 
 rest of the many great events. 
 
 These were the things that really mattered 
 to the majority in that busy world ; and if 
 training and practice were suspended one day 
 
 66 
 
ETON DAYS 67 
 
 in seven, it was only fitting, in the leisure 
 hours thus afforded, that such matters should 
 be discussed and estimates revised. On the 
 morrow the contests would reopen and the 
 play of energies be renewed — the whole wide 
 stream of life, with its chances and infinite 
 possibilities, being laid out and burnished 
 anew : for the moment, all the boats of many 
 forms were locked in the Brocas sheds, and a 
 hushed stillness reigned in our historic Playing 
 Fields. 
 
 We had been discussing many such things 
 as we strolled, and were at the moment lean- 
 ing over the old, worn stone-coping of the 
 bridge, watching the clear brown water from 
 Fellows' Pond as it trickled over the stone 
 ledge below and found its way in many 
 rivulets to the wide and silent river in the 
 fuller light beyond the trees. Trees, indeed, 
 stood on all hands. Huge elms met high 
 above our heads : away to the left, three 
 broad avenues separated Upper — from Middle 
 Club, and in the opposite direction, some 
 dozen giants, two or more centuries in age, 
 brought the pageant to an end — standing as 
 great sentinels on the margin of Aquatics and 
 Upper Sixpenny, or over against the famous 
 Wall, casting now their faint shadows on the 
 
68 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 soft, short turf as the long summer day drew 
 slowly to a close. 
 
 ** Yes," he said — ** I have quite made up my 
 mind to be a soldier. The Army is the place. 
 There is nothing like it, as you say — nothing ! 
 Perhaps the love of it is born in us. We have 
 been soldiers for generations, just like your 
 people. My father was a soldier, you know, 
 and so was my grandfather — the one fought in 
 the Crimea and the other in the Peninsula. 
 But it goes back much further than that, for 
 among the portraits at home there are many 
 more, especially one of a fair-haired fellow who 
 looks not much older than us, and who fell at 
 Newbury, fighting for the King. It must have 
 been painted, they say, very shortly before his 
 death. He is attractive enough in his gay 
 clothes, I can tell you ; with his fair locks on 
 his shoulders and his dark eyes full of fun. 
 But of course you know the picture — I forgot. 
 Doesn't his face take you ? It does me. And 
 I often stop and look at it, and feel that I envy 
 him awfully. Shouldn't I just about have 
 liked to have lived then ! " 
 
 His voice, even at that date, was singularly 
 musical and of low tone, and as he dilated in 
 boyish fashion and we discussed the course in 
 life we would mutually take, it seemed to grow 
 
ETON DAYS 69 
 
 in richness, the tinkle of the stream below 
 filling in the pause between the sentences. 
 He was habitually possessed, as I have said, 
 of a certain seriousness even in his boyhood, 
 though the real depth of this was seldom 
 shown, save to his intimates. Thus it was 
 that the majority never suspected any trait of 
 the kind. He might be all that some said he 
 was — reserved, modest, retiring, thoughtful ; 
 but he hid such things successfully away, and 
 what those about him saw was one possessed 
 of intense joyousness of life — who was vigour 
 personified, and who regarded all things from 
 a sunny outlook. 
 
 The bells in Lupton's Tower had chimed 
 the hour and then struck eight on one of 
 deeper tone ere we moved away that evening 
 from the bridge — the ancient brick walls ahead 
 of us glowing blood-red in the level rays of the 
 sun, the golden light scintillating in the lat- 
 tice of many a window. Silence had already 
 settled on those Playing Fields of wondrous 
 beauty by the time we turned into the cool 
 cloisters and emerged into School Yard, our 
 conversation still running on the same theme 
 — this line we were to take in life, this pledge 
 that we had given each other to follow the 
 
70 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 calling of our respective forbears, lead where 
 it might. 
 
 The weighty decision we had come to ap- 
 peared in some mysterious way to have sud- 
 denly deepened our outlook on life : the world 
 for us had altered from that moment. We 
 were to be together, right through — to serve 
 the greatest of Queens living up in the Castle 
 that dominated the whole peaceful valley, 
 and if need be lay down our lives for her and 
 for the Country. It was all very romantic ; 
 but all, to us, in our boyish fancies, very real. 
 
 At this time he and I were just sixteen, an 
 age when scales are apt to fall from boyish 
 eyes and foothold to be looked for with increas- 
 ing earnestness. The future occasionally pre- 
 sents itself at such an hour with startling 
 suddenness, as something to be reckoned with 
 and definitely faced. It had done so now 
 with us. Previous to this its claims had been 
 few, and there was something wholly intangible 
 about it : it lay outside our province altogether, 
 and need not concern us seriously in any way. 
 But now, many roads had begun to show them- 
 selves, leading away into the distance, and from 
 these came the sound of many voices calling 
 always — " Come along ! " 
 
 In the babel of sound it is not easy to decide 
 
ETON DAYS 71 
 
 which of all these voices is to be listened to. 
 Fear moreover has its place. Up to this, cer- 
 tainties had been the lot of nearly the whole 
 company : out there, uncertainty had now be- 
 come apparent. And from the distance had 
 come also this strange call ringing in the ears 
 — the call of the world as the call of the wild ; 
 this appeal to the instincts ; this claim upon 
 the next batch of young lives that shall fight 
 and struggle, and love and pray, carrying on 
 the work of the world till the next call comes 
 and a long sleep closes wistful eyes. Uncon- 
 sciously the great appeal continues always to 
 exert its influence; consciously it accepts neither 
 hesitation nor denial ; and thus it comes about 
 that the children of men obey the summons, 
 and step out into life as soldiers in the army 
 of God. 
 
 From that day forward our decision was 
 never altogether absent from our minds. Not 
 that we often spoke of it or put our thoughts 
 into words, but we certainly set our course with 
 the aims we had in view. I remember, for 
 instance, that we agreed together never, either 
 at school or in the holidays, to shun exposure 
 to weather, but rather to invite it, wet or shine, 
 night or day. So also with bodily exertion — 
 the harder the work, the more readily we were 
 
72 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 to engage in it. If any of those about us 
 appeared to hang back we were to spring 
 forward without hesitation, and the more risky 
 the job the better. What we had to do was to 
 make ourselves physically fit by every means 
 in our power, and at the same time learn how 
 to take the lead. And over and above this, we 
 were to try to acquire the habit of bearing pain 
 without flinching, to cultivate the spirit of en- 
 durance, to be chivalrous on all occasions, to 
 show least what we felt most. The day would 
 come when a claim would be made on us ; we 
 must get into training therefore and be pre- 
 pared. 
 
 Thus, while we laid down for ourselves a 
 rule of life, and our boyish fancies continued to 
 conjure up a multitude of things that came 
 more and more to be stern realities to us, a 
 number of ideals were also always before our 
 minds. And especially was this so in Ainslie's 
 case. All through his life it was only necessary 
 for him to espouse a cause, for that cause to 
 become idealised. He would weave about it 
 all manner of fancies, and clothe it in garments 
 of colours unknown to human eyes ; and when, 
 in his imagination, it had become transfigured 
 — often to a degree that he never appeared to 
 realise — he, metaphorically speaking, set this 
 
ETON DAYS 73 
 
 idol of his creation on a pedestal and gave 
 himself to it heart and soul. 
 
 It was the same with him in more serious 
 matters. His faith, his standard of morals — 
 of cleanness, truth and honesty — his idea of 
 what a man should be at all points and in all 
 ways, his sense of duty — of what was right and, 
 above all, what was just ; all these were to him 
 the essentials of existence. In defence of them 
 he must be prepared to fight and to give his all, 
 if called upon so to do ; and in each case the 
 level of his keen desires stood far higher than 
 that which human fallibility makes ordinarily 
 possible. 
 
 Nor was it by any means different in the cur- 
 rent of his school life. No matter whether it 
 was an eleven in which he had won a place, 
 a society to which he had been elected, the 
 House whereat he boarded, this School of which 
 he was a member — these were all alike either 
 the best, or to become the best so far as he 
 could help in his small way to make them. 
 They were first and before all his, and they 
 invariably stood in his mind as so many symbols. 
 
 Thus behind the elevens to which he be- 
 longed or those contests in which he con- 
 tinually took part, he had visions of fights of 
 sterner kind that would some day come for 
 
74 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 him in other fields ; and this great School that 
 he so passionately loved, never failed to present 
 to his mind the counterpart of that life in the 
 wider world that would shortly open for him 
 and for each and all in this great company. 
 
 The past history of the place was to him 
 therefore an inspiration and was constantly in 
 his mind. He re-peopled it with the great of 
 bygone times, conjuring up anew the forms 
 of leaders in the field, statesmen and divines — 
 of poets, writers and musicians, no less than 
 that host of humbler men, '' the unknown 
 great," as he habitually called them, who had 
 trod these very flagstones, whose voices had 
 echoed here, and who had then gone out and 
 tried to make some corner of the world a 
 better, happier place, so long as life were 
 granted them. 
 
 The very beauty of its setting appealed to 
 him to an almost measureless extent ; and its 
 spirit — the spirit of Eton — however undefin- 
 able, was to him a priceless heritage, to be 
 fostered and safeguarded by each and all ; not 
 as a matter of mere sentiment, but as some- 
 thing rarely found elsewhere, and that was 
 limitless for good the world over. He could 
 not shut his eyes to the darker faults he saw 
 about him. But if such were part of an in- 
 
ETON DAYS 75 
 
 explicable whole, he never failed to try to 
 stamp them out wherever met with. To him 
 good and evil necessarily had place here as in 
 the world outside. But with the intensity of 
 faith that was his, he never ceased to believe 
 that purity would declare herself as the hand- 
 maid of the one, and that beauty was there to 
 redeem and to clothe the other anew. Thus 
 of the ultimate triumph of good he never 
 entertained a doubt. 
 
 '* My dear fellow," he would say, with that 
 sunny smile of his — his eyes growing darker 
 as he spoke — ** don't you see that good is 
 bound to win because it is so infinitely the 
 more powerful of the two ? To doubt that, 
 for an instant, seems to me to try to make out 
 that Almighty God is less powerful than the 
 Author of all Evil. There are plenty of 
 things outside to shame us, and there are 
 plenty here to show that we are no better than 
 others and have no right to pretend to be so. 
 But no one is going to make me doubt that 
 the influences we have about us in this place 
 are not going to assert themselves and make 
 for a wider, purer regeneration. I tell you it 
 is impossible ! There are black sheep among 
 us, of course. It could not be otherwise with 
 a thousand of us packed together here. But 
 
76 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 just think how much blacker the blackest 
 would in all likelihood have been if he had 
 never been here at all ! " 
 
 The ultimate victory of any cause he had at 
 heart seemed sometimes to mean everything 
 to him ; but in the athletic contests of the day, 
 victory — the mere fact of winning — did not 
 appear ever to appeal to him in the way that 
 it did to most. If success in a great annual 
 match meant further honour for his School, or 
 securing a challenge cup meant the same for 
 his already famous House, it stood to reason 
 that they must be won. But I think, as a 
 rule, he derived his chief pleasure from the 
 actual contest rather than from the, possibly, 
 victorious outcome. He trained his House 
 elevens for success, and to the very utmost 
 of his power ; but he also taught them first 
 to play the game, and to accept defeat with 
 dignity. ** Play for your side," he would say 
 — '' don't play for yourself — that's poor form ; 
 and if we are beaten, take the licking with a 
 good grace, and say nothing." 
 
 He always carried into every contest, no 
 matter what it was, a firm belief in his own 
 side. That he was often beaten, goes without 
 saying. But when his idol on such occasions 
 necessarily came tumbling to the ground with 
 
ETON DAYS 77 
 
 a run and he reaped the fruits of all idealists, 
 he might look grave, or even break into a 
 laugh ; but he at once set his idol up again on 
 a firmer and higher pedestal, and marched on, 
 head up as before. 
 
 At the date when he and I, on that summer 
 Sunday evening, laid down the course we 
 would mutually take in life, we were entering 
 upon the period when athletic honours in school 
 life are reaped to the full if reaped at all. In 
 his first summer half he had chosen the river 
 and showed signs of becoming a wet-bob ; but 
 unlike many another boy who, once on the 
 river, is content to drift along with the stream 
 and often in aimless fashion, he altered his 
 course before the half had run out. 
 
 The river had appealed to him in the first 
 instance by its beauty — its whispering willows, 
 its nodding rushes that the circling eddies 
 played with all day long, the wealth of flowers 
 along the banks, with the great, historic Castle 
 in the sunlight backing in the whole. This 
 river, with its clear depths and its placid stream 
 that never varied very greatly throughout the 
 heart of the year, differed altogether from 
 the river of his home. He had never seen 
 
78 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 anything like it before. Here there was the 
 beauty of a pretty face. Away in the west, 
 the river was stern and sombre of aspect, with 
 a strength underlying it that took no denial 
 and that punished tricks, that linked hands 
 directly with the mighty tides, and spoke in 
 deep notes with the voice of a man. 
 
 The pretty face had conquered Ainslie at 
 the outset ; but it failed to hold him, however 
 great its charms might be to a nature such as 
 his. At first he was enthusiastic. " The river," 
 he would exclaim — ** the river is splendid ! 
 They say it's the cradle here of the finest 
 oarsmen in England, you know, and therefore 
 in the world. Just think of that ! " 
 
 Then slowly there came a change, and at 
 the same time an inner appeal for a wider field 
 for his energies. Paddling up and down this 
 stream, with no prospect of a place in the 
 Boats for a year or two, failed to satisfy him. 
 Contemplation, when tucked in under the pol- 
 lards while the hours ran by, or lying in 
 the sun beneath a hedge of willow herb and 
 purple loosestrife six feet high, had much that 
 was congenial to him, just as the beauty of 
 this pretty face made mute appeal to his heart. 
 But there was the other side in him that claimed 
 no less a hearing, and that was destined to 
 
ETON DAYS 79 
 
 speak out more strongly with the coming of 
 the years, when the man of action should have 
 sprung to life. 
 
 In his home he had always been an enthusi- 
 astic cricketer, taking his part with the village 
 team in many a funny match, in which the 
 originality of some of the members' favourite 
 strokes was only surpassed by the witticisms 
 and general hilarity of the company. He ar- 
 rived in my room one day during the latter 
 part of our first summer half with a new ball in 
 his hand, and asked me to come with him to 
 Sixpenny. Then he habitually went to Upper 
 Club to watch the great School matches, taking 
 note of everything he saw, his whole being 
 rising to a pitch of enthusiasm at the skill of 
 a bowler, a dash in of cover-point and a pretty 
 piece of fielding, a hit that took the ball clear 
 out of the ground. 
 
 There was beauty, even greater beauty, here 
 — in these great round-topped trees, with their 
 purple shadows and broad spaces of reflected 
 sunlight, the level turf, the old red walls and 
 the sound of the bells. It was different alto- 
 gether from what that other had afforded and 
 that was still visible with silvery gleam beneath 
 the trees, and it told him a different story. 
 The pretty face had had to make way for 
 
8o AINSLIE GORE 
 
 something more stately and of deeper import. 
 There was more of continual vigour here : the 
 whole air was filled with the sound of bat and 
 ball, shrill cries and boyish voices, and was 
 redolent of life and utmost joy of living. And 
 thus by slow degrees, other arms wound their 
 way about him, and this other, statelier beauty 
 led him by the hand. The Brocas saw him 
 no more, and at the same time a new bowler 
 was discovered in Sixpenny. 
 
 He never forsook his first love altogether. 
 He always took part in his Form's sweepstakes, 
 and certainly on one occasion won them in 
 company with another. He even in later years 
 raised a dry-bob Four in his House to compete 
 in the bumping races, and as he said — "just 
 for the sport of the thing." ** No idea of 
 getting to the top of the river need trouble 
 us," he added. ** The fun will be to row against 
 these wet-bobs, even though we get a good 
 ducking, probably have to stand some chaff, 
 and no doubt come in a good last. Anyway, 
 we must have a try, and the river is always 
 lovely ! " 
 
 It was never his way to do things by halves, 
 and he threw himself more and more into 
 cricket throughout his Eton life, winning in 
 the end those colours that were, to many here, 
 
ETON DAYS 8i 
 
 more than any title, rank or decoration in the 
 world. And after his manner he also built up 
 in his own mind all kinds of mystical ideas 
 about this greatest of games, till it became in 
 a way one of his standards. Cricket, to him, 
 stood for a claim for straightness of conduct on 
 all occasions, just as a straight bat was of its 
 essence. ** A fellow has got to abide by the 
 rules," he would say, ** stand his ground and 
 defend his own wicket ; and what is more, he 
 has also to abide by his sentence from the 
 other end, whatever it be, just in the same way 
 that he has by his own actions in a wider field 
 if he makes a fool of himself, or by his word 
 if he has once said dixi!'' And then again, 
 over and above all this, he always believed that 
 cricket had played no mean part in making a 
 Nation, and here the history of this game was 
 to him nothing less than a romance. 
 
 It is not my intention to set out in this place 
 his doings either as a field, a bat or a bowler. 
 He had his successes in playing for his School, 
 at Lord's and Winchester and elsewhere ; but 
 such things are written in other books, and do 
 not loom so large now for us in these later 
 days. One thing, however, in connection with 
 his getting his colours shall be mentioned, 
 because it shows how his actions sometimes 
 
 F 
 
82 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 ^ 
 
 caused him to be misunderstood by those who 
 did not know him well. 
 
 To be given your colours for the Eleven, or, 
 as the custom was in those days, to be told 
 "you might get your colours," was to run 
 down town and to appear in them an hour 
 later, no less than to order *' flannels " at your 
 tailor's to be put in hand at once. But Ainslie 
 never did anything quite like ordinary people, 
 the result being that he was still wearing his 
 twenty-two colours the next day, and his tailor 
 had come to the conclusion that he had lost his 
 custom. 
 
 To be guilty of action of the kind in such a 
 company as this was to run the risk of hostile 
 criticism, and some were not behindhand in 
 putting Ainslie's remissness down to swagger, 
 further uncomplimentary remarks being added 
 at the same time. He was, of course, wholly 
 innocent of all the things attributed to him, 
 and when several of his friends pointed out 
 that his forgetfulness might be taken as an 
 insult, he ran at once to the Captain's House 
 and apologised to him profusely. 
 
 The matter was, I know, a genuine distress 
 to him, though what he had done, or forgotten 
 to do, exactly reflected his character. To his 
 mind, had he given the point any thought 
 
ETON DAYS 83 
 
 whatever, haste to appear in new colours, even 
 if these were the first in the School, would not 
 have appealed in any way : he had won his 
 place in the Eleven, and would appear as he 
 should in the next match a few days hence : 
 that, to his thinking, was quite sufficient. It 
 was always the same with him. When he had 
 done anything and earned the plaudits of his 
 fellows, his first desire was to escape from 
 notice as quickly as he could. To pose, or to 
 play to the gallery, would have been an im- 
 possibility with him : he was at all points essen- 
 tially a gentleman, and would consequently have 
 dubbed such doings as so much snobbishness. 
 
 In the half succeeding that in which he be- 
 came a member of the Eleven, he won his 
 colours for the Field and the Oppidan Wall. 
 Football, especially the Field game, suited him 
 even better than cricket : he loved the actual 
 combat, the fever of the fight, and the test of 
 physical strength. No prettier game was ever 
 devised for boys than Eton football. It is 
 very quick and calls for agility of foot, great 
 activity, plenty of dash and pluck, together 
 with full command of temper and rapid decision 
 at every moment. Ainslie excelled in it for 
 many reasons, and being a first-rate runner his 
 place was generally corner. 
 
84 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 Character declares itself in all games, and 
 Ainslie's came out here. His play was at all 
 times without trace of jealousy, and showed 
 how fully aware he was that individual promi- 
 nence and success were of less value to a side 
 than unselfish combination. Whether in the 
 Field, or in House games in South Meadow — 
 where he trained us carefully as Captain — he 
 threw himself heart and soul into the crisis of 
 the moment, and I can hear his ringing voice 
 still, and see his tall, lissom figure — capless, 
 breathless and mud-bespattered — often leading 
 us to victory when defeat seemed perilously 
 imminent. 
 
 But there was another direction in which at 
 this time he also began to make his mark. 
 His successes in the field of athletics had 
 necessarily led to his being elected to Pop — 
 the august assembly that has for generations 
 represented in its select and limited company 
 the ^lite and most distinguished in the School. 
 He was ever independent in his opinions and 
 actions, and if this led, as has been shown, to 
 his being sometimes misunderstood outside, 
 and often through his own fault, it was no less 
 so within the doors of the Eton Society. There 
 was a certain quiet detachment about him that 
 provoked criticism in other natures. He did 
 
ETON DAYS 85 
 
 not hesitate to say what he meant on all occa- 
 sions — not in any spirit of wrong-headedness, 
 much less of bumptiousness, but because he 
 had formed those opinions to the best of his 
 ability and was resolved to stand by them. At 
 all times he had the strongest sense of justice, 
 and in the event of a course taken by another 
 being obviously wrong he spoke out totally 
 regardless of the cost, and no matter who his 
 opponent might be. It was always the same 
 with him, even in his younger days, and I re- 
 member two small incidents of the kind occur- 
 ring when he had been at the School no more 
 than a year. 
 
 As a Lower Boy he had stood at the head 
 of Remove, his name being the second to be 
 called at Absence. It was thus necessary for 
 him to be extremely punctual. On arriving in 
 School Yard one day he found his name had 
 been passed, and that the Lower Master was 
 already some dozen down the list. At the 
 second calling over came the question, before 
 the inevitable poena — ** Why were you not 
 here?" "Because you began calling before 
 the time, Sir." ''Impertinence!" exclaimed 
 the Master, warmly. " I beg your pardon. 
 Sir ; the clock had not struck when you 
 began," returned Ainslie again, looking up with 
 
86 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 that irresistible smile of his as a boy. The 
 statement was so absolutely honest that the 
 Master was defeated — ** You may go," he said, 
 with scant grace. 
 
 The other incident had to do with our dear 
 old Tutor. Ainslie was never an adept at 
 Latin prose writing ; he never mastered the 
 knack of it, and as it was a test subject in all 
 examinations, it was necessary that he should 
 pay especial attention to it. I forget now what 
 the point was ; but our Tutor became quite 
 cross with him at what he called his ** extra- 
 ordinary denseness." Ainslie, who had been 
 resting his forehead on the palm of one hand, 
 with the fingers in his hair, looked up and 
 asked — *' Why are you cross with me. Sir ? I 
 can assure you I am trying my very best." 
 
 Our Tutor recalled the incident in conversa- 
 tion with me many years afterwards, and added 
 — ** I learnt a lesson then that I never forgot. 
 The boy's face was enough, without his words. 
 I felt ashamed of myself. But there was 
 always something remarkable about Gore, and 
 towards the close of that wonderfully successful 
 career of his at the School, it often seemed to 
 me that a mysterious influence for good flowed 
 from his every act." 
 
 Though the Eton Society, better known as 
 
ETON DAYS 87 
 
 Pop, is in a way a club, it is primarily a 
 debating society, at least two Prime Ministers 
 having made their first flights in oratory there 
 as boys, and many a score of distinguished 
 names appearing on the records of its pro- 
 ceedings. To become a member is to inherit 
 no ordinary traditions ; and since Pop is also 
 a kind of court of reference and holds cer- 
 tain disciplinary powers, these elected few have 
 a very definite position in the School. 
 
 The tone and atmosphere of its rooms 
 naturally varied according to our leaders at 
 the moment. Members came and went in 
 quick succession, as this great stream of young 
 life launched its members out into the breezy 
 tide- way. Eton is always marked by a ready 
 wit, and a no less ready power of repartee. 
 There was plenty of such in Pop, and if, out- 
 side, its members walked with dignity more or 
 less assumed, these historic little rooms were 
 often the scene of uproarious mirth, together 
 with much banter, when boyish spirits asserted 
 themselves and a staid decorum was judged to 
 be no longer supportable. 
 
 But while such conditions undoubtedly ruled 
 from time to time, and even Pop bowed to the 
 powers that were and followed the reigning 
 spirits of the day, debates were nevertheless 
 
88 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 often conducted with due formality, the manners 
 and customs of another place being followed 
 somewhat closely. To look through the 
 volumes of its proceedings now, especially 
 where great names figure — the speeches being 
 recorded in the handwriting of the speakers 
 — is to be struck by the level often reached 
 in these debates of bygone days. The 
 opinions that some held then may be the 
 very opposite of those advanced in public 
 now ; but the ability exhibited in their pre- 
 sentment does not differ as greatly as many 
 might suppose. 
 
 The members were by no means only 
 athletes ; there were also scholars and students 
 of many subjects, whose hearts were far from 
 games. Apart from the wit, the fun and the 
 merry laughter that marked so many of our 
 days, dialectics formed the common atmos- 
 phere of these rooms, considerable heat being 
 often engendered when the members took 
 sides and the current topics of the day were 
 discussed. In the case of formal debates, 
 speeches were often prepared with great care, 
 and delivered to an attentive audience. Apt 
 quotations, especially from the classics, were re- 
 ceived with a smile of approval ; and if cheers 
 greeted the close of a popular speaker s perora- 
 
ETON DAYS 89 
 
 tion, opinions at variance with the accepted 
 traditions of the School always raised a storm 
 of interruption. 
 
 No doubt our proceedings were often marked 
 by boyish exuberance of spirits, no less than 
 by that cocksureness that was a part of all of 
 us when in our 'teens. It would have been 
 strange had this not been so. Youth, with 
 gay heart, always knows better than the man ; 
 and the middle-aged may be dismissed, by way 
 of compliment, as ** has beens," or even some- 
 thing still less graceful. That no doubt, for all 
 reasons, is as it should be. At the same time, 
 looking back now, I am unable to recall any 
 of that disagreeable form of cocksureness in 
 Ainslie Gore that we have all known. His 
 opinions were never lightly surrendered. It 
 used indeed to be said of him at this time that 
 if he once got an idea in his head, he would 
 stick to it, right or wrong. That was going 
 much too far. He was difficult to move and 
 could not be driven ; but he was at all times 
 open to conviction, and there was never any 
 trace of bumptiousness in the way he advanced 
 his theories or drove home his points. I often 
 used to think that he regarded a debate or an 
 argument much as he did a game, and that he 
 carried it on for its own sake, though always 
 
90 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 deprecating descent into mere contentious talk : 
 of that he had a horror. 
 
 Occasions of course arose here when the 
 questions before us were taken very seriously 
 — comically so considering we were all boys. 
 Nothing moved us more than any attack upon 
 our existing institutions. We were for the 
 most part strong Tories and staunch upholders 
 of things as they were. And it was just here 
 that Ainslie sometimes came into conflict with 
 the majority. He was a reformer, and was 
 therefore a firebrand to some, and he had 
 little respect for anything that, to his think- 
 ing, had had its day and was obsolete. 
 
 No one ever loved this great School more 
 than he ; no one respected its past history 
 more deeply ; no boy in the place would have 
 fought more valiantly in defence of a custom 
 where he felt that it was really beneficial ; and 
 no one, assuredly, realised more fully that hands 
 were not to be lightly laid on this place of 
 countless memories. But where, in this re- 
 public of boys, he fancied he discerned what 
 was undesirable — no longer suited to the day 
 that had come, or in conformity with the 
 world outside — then he sprang forward and 
 spoke his mind, though the whole School 
 should be ao^ainst him. 
 
ETON DAYS 91 
 
 Such characteristics were naturally more 
 noticeable in Pop than elsewhere, and it was 
 here that he had to do battle in support of 
 his ideals. When he felt anything keenly he 
 habitually spoke with much vehemence and 
 made use of many gestures ; but when — 
 especially in the earlier days of his member- 
 ship — he was received with marked opposition 
 and the ordinary courtesies of debate were 
 thrown to the winds, he never lost control of 
 himself or showed the slightest signs of temper 
 in the retorts he made. Nor was there ever 
 anything overbearing in his manner. That 
 the opinions he was advancing might leave 
 him in the minority of one when put to the 
 vote, did not concern him. He was not going 
 to give way when he felt he was right, unless 
 a better man than he was there to convince 
 him that he was wrong. Then, he was open to 
 conviction and gave way with excellent grace. 
 With him tenacity of purpose was a thing to 
 be cultivated ; but such should never be carried 
 to the point where due reverence for the 
 opinions of others was excluded. And he 
 certainly grew to feel this more and more 
 in subsequent years, when the atmosphere of 
 radiant confidence was exchanged for a sterner 
 
92 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 reality, and impulsive adolescence was checked 
 at the touch of the world. 
 
 Opposition, then, he occasionally met with 
 here ; but many will agree that the unfailing 
 good-humour and charm of manner with which 
 he habitually faced that opposition, won the 
 ever-increasing respect of those from whom he 
 differed most, and the affection of many who 
 could not altogether agree with him. I shall 
 never forget one occasion when he rose to 
 wind up a debate on a question to do with the 
 better maintenance of discipline in Houses as 
 carried out by the boys themselves, and the 
 changes that were desirable in furtherance of 
 the same. He won some round to his point 
 of view before he had done, and the debate 
 was adjourned instead of being brought to a 
 conclusion. 
 
 The room had been in an uproar ; and when, 
 in the course of his remarks, he had made 
 reflections upon the want of tone in certain 
 quarters, every member appeared to be inter- 
 rupting him at once. He remained standing, 
 with a grave, thoughtful look on his face, wait- 
 ing patiently for silence to be restored. 
 
 *' I am sorry," he said, at last, in a voice 
 that seemed to have fallen to an even lower 
 tone than usual — " I am sorry if the reforms 
 
ETON DAYS 93 
 
 I am myself anxious to see carried out do not 
 commend themselves to many of you. Yet 
 I do not believe that any member here present, 
 and however deeply he may be opposed to 
 me, will question my motives or doubt the 
 deep love I have for all our institutions. These 
 last belong to a past that we revere. For the 
 time they are in our keeping. They reflect 
 the deeds and opinions of others who were in 
 all likelihood better men than ourselves. But 
 conditions have changed and there is a demand 
 for something different, as there must always 
 be. Are we going to stultify ourselves by 
 making no move where we see that reform is 
 needed — and, as I believe, urgently needed ? 
 Are we going to confess our own impotence 
 by failing to rise to a call that some at least 
 here believe to be a very real one ? If so, 
 how may we hope to reconcile our want of 
 initiative with the actions of those of whom I 
 have just spoken and who worked to make 
 this place what it has ultimately become. 
 Many of you may think of the individual rights 
 pertaining to your several high positions in the 
 School ; but I trust you will pardon the 
 temerity of one of the younger members of 
 this assembly, if I ask you whether you are 
 going to think of your rights and forget your 
 
94 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 duties ? I tell you, Gentlemen, that nothing 
 stands firm that stands on rights alone — no- 
 thing can ever so stand ! Our several Houses 
 are but part of a greater whole. If the tone 
 of any of them falls from what it should be, is 
 there anyone here prepared to deny that the 
 School itself can hope to escape infection ? 
 Once again, I tell you that that cannot be so, 
 and that we ourselves shall have to bear the 
 blame ! " 
 
 '' We may not agree with all Gore says," 
 remarked one of a group of boys, strolling out 
 of the yard into the roadway, with their hands 
 in their pockets ; ** but from fighting him one 
 somehow or other gets to love him, and his 
 opinions don't seem to matter a bit." 
 
 ** I know exactly what you mean," agreed 
 another. " I expect he'll be Prime Minister 
 one day, won't he ? " 
 
 ** Bless your life, no ! " interjected a third 
 — "don't you know he's going for a soldier? 
 He is always dreaming of it, I tell you." 
 
 **Ainslie — ? Food for powder — ? Save us!" 
 
 The very idea seemed to take the last 
 speaker quite aback 
 
 During his last year and a half at the School 
 
ETON DAYS 95 
 
 he gradually rose to a position that can have 
 been reached by few. He had a hand in 
 everything, from cricket and football and fives, 
 to the Volunteers in which he rose to be a 
 sergeant, and the Beagles of which he was a 
 whip and at one time acted as Master during 
 the latter's illness. He was known to all. The 
 small boys looked at him with awe : those a 
 little older were flattered when he noticed them : 
 his contemporaries were proud to be included 
 in the circle of his friends. Not that he was 
 the least exclusive. Among his friends and 
 acquaintances boys were to be found of per- 
 fectly different natures and every standard of 
 ability. The very diversity of his tastes com- 
 pelled him to be cosmopolitan in such direc- 
 tions. He was large-hearted and unwittingly 
 attracted others to himself, and thus he was 
 able to find what he wanted in each in turn, 
 being amused by some and gathering sympathy 
 from others. 
 
 He could, at this time, meet many of those 
 with whom he was thrown on their own ground, 
 no matter what their interests and pursuits 
 might be. He became one of the greatest 
 athletes in the School ; but he was an athlete 
 in spite of himself. He could play all games 
 just a little better than the majority. He ran 
 
96 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 so well that he won the School Mile and the 
 Steeplechase, and he habitually threw such 
 vigour into all he did that it was not pleasant, 
 for instance, to oppose him in a run down at 
 football. He would rush down the ground 
 then, with the ball close between his feet — 
 calling to his side with clear, ringing voice to 
 back up and come on — and finally break out 
 into a shout of boisterous merriment when he 
 had carried it between the posts and not seldom 
 the discomfited goalkeeper with it. He ap- 
 peared to be muscle all over ; every muscle 
 seemed on such occasions to be working, and 
 very hard some of us found them when we did 
 not happen to be playing on his side. 
 
 I have said that he was a great athlete. He 
 was something more, and I always thought he 
 showed this in a marked way on the day he 
 won the School Steeplechase — the blue ribbon 
 of all our athletic events. The morning was 
 wet and the ground was heavy, the course 
 being from the Sanatorium field to Eton Wick, 
 then to the Butts, on to the second railway 
 bridge, across by Willow Brook, to the time- 
 honoured School Jump over Chalvey — a dis- 
 tance of about three miles. 
 
 Some of us accompanied the runners in the 
 race that day, cutting across from point to 
 
ETON DAYS 97 
 
 point. Five boys were more or less together 
 in the leading group when the last fence was 
 cleared, one of whom was Ainslie. The School 
 Jump lay two hundred yards ahead, with the 
 winning-post some thirty yards beyond it. A 
 vast concourse of boys there thronged both 
 banks of the stream, and shouts were already 
 being raised for this or that favourite. 
 
 Two of the five had fallen back half-way 
 across the last field, and Ainslie was only three 
 yards behind the leader. They reached School 
 Jump together, and scrambled out of the water 
 together, amidst the deafening shouts of the on- 
 lookers. They were neck and neck for the first 
 ten of those crucial thirty yards : then Ainslie 
 shot ahead and won by only a short distance. It 
 had been one of the finest races that had ever 
 been run over the course, and he had fairly 
 won it ; but the very first thing he did^ — and he 
 was a year and more younger than the boy he 
 had just beaten — was to go and look for this 
 last in the cheering crowd, out of breath as 
 he was, and say to him, quickly — ** It was as 
 much your race as mine, really." Then he 
 escaped as soon as he could, and we returned 
 to my Dame's together. 
 
 The day happened to be a half-holiday, and 
 I found him in his room that afternoon, absorbed 
 
 G 
 
98 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 in a volume of the Elizabethan poets, as if still 
 wishing to keep out of the way. 
 
 He looked up when I entered, and said as 
 he rose from his chair and began pacing the 
 floor — " Here ; read that — read that ! Isn't it 
 fine?" Then he repeated the first two and 
 last two lines from a stanza of a lyric of 
 Shirley — 
 
 *' The garlands wither on your brow. 
 
 Then boast no more your mighty deeds ! 
 
 Only the actions of the just 
 
 Smell sweet and blossom in their dust. 
 
 Or this," he continued, snatching the book 
 from my hand — ** this Integer Vitce of Thomas 
 Campion. Here it is, look — 
 
 " The man of life upright, 
 
 Whose guiltless heart is free 
 From all dishonest deeds. 
 Or thought of vanity ..." 
 
 The poetry he had been reading seemed to 
 have set his mind on fire, and presently when 
 I put the book down, he burst out with — 
 
 *'Come on; let's go up to St. George's. 
 There is plenty of time ; the service isn't till 
 four. It will cool us down." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later we were entering 
 the Chapel from the cloisters. It had been our 
 
ETON DAYS 99 
 
 habit during all our Eton days to go there on 
 short after fours from time to time. For one 
 
 thing, the organist, Sir , was an intimate 
 
 friend of Ainslie's, taking great interest in his 
 love for music, and indeed, I believe, being 
 never absent from the School concerts when 
 Ainslie was playing or singing at those popular 
 entertainments. It was through this friend that 
 Ainslie's love of Bach had originated, and there 
 was little doubt what the closing voluntary 
 would be when he was up in the organ-loft. 
 
 We had only to take our stand at the narrow 
 doorway opening on to the flight of stone steps 
 in the wall leading up into this last, and our 
 place for the service was assured. The old 
 man merely gave us a nod as he unlocked the 
 door that day, taking it for granted what we 
 were there for. 
 
 There were sometimes one and sometimes 
 two assistants present, to pull out the stops and 
 learn what they might, by watching the doings 
 of one who was said then to be the finest 
 accompanist of the Psalms ever known. 
 Ainslie would take his place either at the 
 back of the player, or at the small kneeling- 
 desk on the left, looking down on to the floor 
 of the Chapel — the banners of the Knights 
 of the Garter just above his head, the in- 
 
100 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 tense silence only broken by a deep-toned 
 bell, apparently far away ; by the footsteps 
 of those few who attended the service as they 
 passed up the nave, or the careless shutting 
 of a door. 
 
 In the enclosed choir itself, the silence was 
 the silence of the grave, the dim religious light 
 being that of many candles ; the thousand 
 brasses that covered the back of the old oak 
 stalls catching a gleam now and again, and al- 
 ways with those emblazoned Knights' banners 
 overhead to tell their story. There is no 
 place quite like that in the world, and it was 
 never without its effect upon us as boys, speak- 
 ing to Ainslie especially, I think, by reason of 
 the beautiful refinement on every hand, the 
 subdued colouring and general richness, and 
 the wide space of National history that is there 
 enshrined. 
 
 The Psalms for the day included the 78th, 
 and Ainslie's face was lit with delight when 
 
 Sir never missed an opportunity, verse by 
 
 verse, and a whole volume of sound went 
 travelling along the groined roof to find echo 
 in a hundred arches. I saw the old man bend 
 down to the boy from his seat as the Grace 
 was being said, and fancied I heard Ainslie 
 whisper — ''Yes, play the great G minor,'' 
 
ETON DAVS'"' roi 
 
 The next moment the servicter ' was dver' arid' 
 the subject of the fugue broke the silence : — 
 
 
 
 h— 1— H— 1 fH I I I I II I 
 
 He scarcely spoke all the way home that 
 day ; but I could hear him humming the sub- 
 ject again and again to himself as we walked 
 back in the drizzle and the dusk that November 
 afternoon. At last he exclaimed, in boyish 
 fashion — " That kind of thing will give us a 
 leg up when the great day comes ; you mark 
 my words ! Of course the recollection of that 
 Chapel we shall carry to the end of our lives — 
 it is heavenly. But I was thinking of the 
 music : what couldn't one do to such sounds 
 as those ! " 
 
 He appeared to have quite forgotten that he 
 had that day won the oldest and greatest of 
 all the athletic events of the School, and never 
 even referred to it. But as we turned down 
 Keate's Lane, I heard one small boy say to 
 another — ** Look, there goes Ainslie." 
 
 Everyone knew him ; yet it is given to few 
 
102 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 t<3 be known by their Christian names alone, 
 and throughout a School of a thousand boys. 
 
 The days of youth were drawing to an 
 end, and the summer half had come round for 
 the last time for both of us. Three months 
 hence would see us boys no longer in the true 
 sense : the gay life of this place, with its colour 
 and its song, would be at an end : Eton would 
 have left its ineffaceable impress upon us, and we 
 should have to go out, to begin at the bottom 
 again, to clamber if we might in search always 
 of those ideals that the majority have glimmer 
 of, and that lie in the mists of the blue hills, 
 or away in the depths of purer heavens over- 
 head. 
 
 No doubts as to the margin of time that 
 would be ours had, so far, ever crossed the 
 mind. Life was assured — long life ; and all 
 things were attainable. It was only necessary 
 to step out to the sound of the drum, and there 
 would follow victory ; to be followed in the 
 end, of course, by peace. That last came for 
 all : for the moment there was life, with eyes 
 still undimmed, heart whole, strength that 
 knew not tiredness, and soul unstained. 
 
 Ainslie's position in the School equalled if 
 
ETON DAYS 103 
 
 it did not excel that of anyone here by reason 
 of the record that lay behind. He also stood 
 high in school work, and in his last half was 
 one of the ten Oppidans in Sixth Form. His 
 attainments were above the average, and the 
 work he turned out was always good ; but I 
 question whether a classical curriculum was the 
 one best suited to him. His tastes lay primarily 
 in English Literature. He was fond of history 
 and studied that of other countries besides his 
 own. Military history had especial attractions 
 for him, as has been said, and often in winter 
 evenings when we should, perhaps, have been 
 otherwise occupied, we would fight the battles 
 of the Peninsular War over again, and he 
 would sometimes repeat by heart Napier's 
 famous page on the close of the great day of 
 Albuera. 
 
 The Life of the Duke of Wellington and 
 the story of Waterloo also engaged us, though, 
 for many reasons, the History of the Crimean 
 War was our greatest favourite. Kinglake's 
 first volumes had appeared, and we read and 
 re-read these, together with a much worn copy 
 of Russell's Letters, He would often lament 
 the fact that our proper studies were for the 
 most part wholly classical. ** I love Horace," 
 he would say — " and also Virgil, and you and 
 
104 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 I can follow with delight many a page in 
 Thucydides, and laugh at the wit in the Plays, 
 All the same, I do wish we had more of what 
 is called elsewhere the Modern Side, and that 
 they would occasionally teach us something 
 different and let these verses and iambics drop 
 out a bit." 
 
 He certainly always tried to remedy such 
 conditions in his own case, and spent all the 
 time he could snatch in reading the standard 
 works of his own Country, both in the House 
 library and also during the holidays. His 
 memory was a very retentive one. He had no 
 difficulty in learning by heart, and when once 
 he had made a passage his own — or any lines 
 that took his fancy — he never forgot them. 
 
 His favourites among the poets were Milton, 
 Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Brown- 
 ing, with others of his own day, and he loved the 
 sonnets and the lyrics of writers of earlier times 
 and could repeat many of them. By this means 
 he was often ready with a quotation that exactly 
 fitted what he was talking about at the moment. 
 Being no prig he seldom indulged in this habit 
 unless alone with a personal friend ; but now 
 and then he would repeat a verse or two of 
 Hood's Faithless Nelly Gray, Thackeray's 
 Chronicle of the Drum, or some remark of 
 
ETON DAYS 105 
 
 Sam Weller's or of Mr. Pickwick's, going into 
 shouts of laughter at the thoughts they brought 
 to his mind, and making others laugh by his 
 mimicry. 
 
 He always possessed the keenest sense of 
 fun, gathering amusement everywhere and 
 seeing the funny side in everything that crossed 
 his path. At the same time he would occa- 
 sionally pass from grave to gay in a moment, 
 as if the serious side that was always a part of 
 him had got the upper hand. Certainly during 
 our last half he often struck me as graver than 
 he had been, though ready as ever to join in 
 any fun that was to the fore. For the rest, his 
 position now entailed much responsibility and 
 a good deal of power, and I know that he 
 felt this, and that it was necessary for him to 
 study his actions very closely. It did not weigh 
 on him. He acted no part. He was just him- 
 self at all times, and never anything but per- 
 fectly natural. But he measured his words 
 more carefully, became far more moderate in 
 the opinions he advanced in Pop, and without 
 knowing it acquired a certain dignity. He had 
 in fact gone to the top. Unconsciously he set 
 a standard, and, as is always the case with 
 leaders of men, he had the power of bringing 
 out the very best in his subordinates. 
 
io6 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 Yet in this School, renowned for turning out 
 leaders, I do not think he ever realised that 
 he was now actually a leader himself, much less 
 what a leader he was. His numberless suc- 
 cesses had left him the most simple-minded 
 being amongst us. It was characteristic of 
 him, for instance, that though one or two cups 
 necessarily stood on his mantelpiece, none of 
 his many colours adorned the walls of his room. 
 He disliked show of any kind, and also con- 
 demned all forms of adulation. Feelings of 
 all sorts, however genuine, were to be re- 
 strained. What mattered first of all to him 
 was the honour of his School : his own personal 
 doings were insignificant in his eyes, and were 
 certainly not to be talked about. He went 
 his way among us quite unspoilt, and in that 
 expressive phrase of Tacitus, " enjoyed the 
 felicity of success with fortitude." 
 
 During the five and a half years that he 
 had spent here, he had, of course, gradually 
 developed in mind and character very greatly ; 
 but he had also, by the strenuousness of his 
 athletic training, brought his body to perfection. 
 Physically he would have been dubbed by his 
 schoolfellows **a fine specimen." And so he 
 was. He was of large frame, though loose 
 knit. He stood now a little under six foot 
 
ETON DAYS 107 
 
 in height, and held his head high and some- 
 what back as he passed along at a slinging 
 walk. In a sense he was certainly good- 
 looking ; but it was his whole carriage, apart 
 from his fine features, his ruddy, sun-tanned 
 complexion, fair hair and laughing, grey eyes, 
 that captivated us — masters and boys alike. 
 
 Our Tutor just hit it off, I think, in a letter 
 to me afterwards — long afterwards — and which 
 I have kept with a few others : — 
 
 ** I used sometimes to think of him in my 
 own mind as a kind of Charmides," he writes. 
 " Even we Masters seemed, in Plato's phrase, 
 * to be enamoured of him.' But I must give 
 you the whole passage, though no doubt you 
 remember it. Here it is, in Jowett's words, 
 not mine — * That grown men like ourselves 
 should have been affected in this way is not 
 surprising, but I observed that there was the 
 same feeling among the boys : all of them, 
 down to the very least child, turned and looked 
 at him as if he had been a statue.' Isn't that 
 true, now ? — dear fellow that he always was ! " 
 
 There is never an hour to spare in an Eton 
 summer half. Life runs at full tide. The 
 Fourth of June, the Winchester match, Henley, 
 
io8 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 I 
 
 Lord's, Bisley are the chief milestones ; and* i 
 in between them, every furlong is marked bywl 
 some event — the pageantry of the Boats, the 
 Sculling, the Pulling, Trial Eights, the House 
 Fours, and many another contest on the river ; 
 and in the Playing Fields, the weekly School 
 matches, the strenuous doings of all the Clubs, 
 with the House Cup again to finish up the 
 whole. With the work of the School — that 
 curious collection of snippets and short hours 
 — all these must be carried on as well. There 
 must be no pause. Everything must be fitted 
 in to a nicety, and on all sides it is ordained 
 that there shall be never-ending competition. 
 
 Young hearts beat high, and the warm blood 
 of youth rushes up and is full of hope. It 
 is only the ne'er-do-weels that are without 
 aim here. Even the smallest of the company 
 is possessed of some minute ideal when the 
 days are long, just as those who are older 
 have theirs when the margin ahead grows 
 short. To be one of eight ; to be one of 
 eleven, and this in a company of a thousand ! 
 The odds against full success are heavy. 
 But the atmosphere here is full of radiant 
 confidence, and young minds sail in on the 
 top of the tide with the sweet fresh breeze 
 behind them, knowing nothing of haphazard, 
 
ETON DAYS 109 
 
 and caring less, may be, as to who shall be 
 crowned as king of them all. Let there be 
 a good fight for place and an honourable one, 
 and then the world here shall crown whom 
 it will, if now and again with the same 
 clumsiness and apparent irresponsibility that 
 the world outside too often shows. 
 
 There had been nothing haphazard in Ainslie 
 Gore's crowning, and he had certainly not 
 come to his own by chance. A natural aptitude 
 had helped him very largely, and nature had 
 favoured him in many ways ; yet it was mainly 
 by his own personality that he had really won 
 the position he now occupied, and stood as 
 one of the half-dozen real leaders in the place. 
 The sense of responsibility was putting finish- 
 ing touches to his youthful character all through 
 this last half. This was still the growing time ; 
 the full flowering would come anon, and how 
 fair that would be, those picked men who stood 
 over us liked among themselves to contemplate. 
 
 "He is certainly not afraid of anything or 
 anybody," said one of these last in my hearing, 
 watching him batting steadily in Upper Club 
 in a match against the M.C.C. 
 
 " Afraid ? — I should just think not ! Do you 
 remember the story that went the rounds last 
 football half of how he tackled Rogers, who 
 
no AINSLIE GORE 
 
 was then at his Dame's and in the Eight. He 
 had been told that Rogers wore shin pads, or 
 whatever they are called — ^just fancy ! Well, 
 Gore went up to him and said — 'We don't 
 come here to save our shins but to fight for 
 the House, and Til swear you shan't play for 
 us again if I hear of you wearing things like 
 that in any game in the place.' " 
 
 "Ah, but that was nothing to the way in 
 which he took that unfortunate decision of our 
 colleague, Arkwright," returned another Master, 
 sitting in the next chair. ** That struck me as 
 grand, for it amounted to hideous provocation. 
 Weren't you there? Well, Gore had set his 
 heart on winning the Cup once more for his 
 Dame's before he left, and they were a long 
 way the best eleven. Someone got in the way, 
 they said, and Arkwright didn't see it, and 
 gave a goal after Leslie had touched the ball 
 with his hands. It was quite wrong, as every- 
 body at that end of the ground agreed : the 
 other side were actually standing still, so sure 
 of it were they. A more mortifying thing 
 could not have happened ; and time was called 
 before the position could be retrieved. The 
 others kept kicking it out. But I never saw 
 a finer test of character in my life. Gore never 
 said a word. He bore the test well, and his 
 
ETON DAYS iii 
 
 eleven followed his example. The fickle god- 
 dess had deserted them. Laudo manentem : si 
 celeres quatit pennas . . . We all know the 
 stanza." 
 
 **Yes," said another — ** I remember. But 
 those House matches are always the most ex- 
 citing sport in the world ; the spirit of rivalry 
 runs higher then than in any other contest of 
 the year." 
 
 " There goes another four ! " exclaimed the 
 previous speaker — *'and very nearly into Fel- 
 lows' Pond." There was clapping of hands 
 all round the ground. " I hope he'll do that 
 next week : it will be his last match there. 
 Leaving — yes." 
 
 ** More's the pity ; but he'll go to the top 
 wherever he is," remarked the other. ''He's 
 bound to succeed with a character like his." 
 
 The following week Ainslie contributed his 
 share at Lord's in winning the match against 
 Harrow, his last hit for his School, a very fine 
 one to square leg, striking the walls of the 
 racket courts. Three weeks later — the day 
 before the half ended — he had the further satis- 
 faction of winning the House Cup for his 
 Dame's, and mainly by his bowling. I believe 
 that gave him as much pleasure as anything. 
 
 We walked home that evening, taking our 
 
112 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 way through the cloisters, as we had done a 
 thousand times in the past five years. I do 
 not think it struck either of us that it was the 
 last time we should do so. As we crossed 
 School Yard, I remember saying something 
 about this final success for him. He only 
 looked towards me and smiled, saying nothing. 
 But I fancy the remark set his mind running 
 on the past, and that he was tracing back his 
 career. 
 
 Only those who have loved Eton know what 
 it is to leave Eton. And if this means that 
 all know because all have love, there are de- 
 grees here as elsewhere. For an affectionate, 
 warm-hearted disposition such as Ainslie's, the 
 close of his Eton days was nothing less than 
 a matter of poignant grief. Close intercourse 
 with him had already taught me to divine his 
 thoughts with tolerable accuracy, and being 
 conscious now of what was making him so 
 silent, I ventured some further remark about 
 his career and what he had to look back upon. 
 I do not think he would have allowed anyone 
 else to say as much ; but he took it from me 
 in the way it was meant. 
 
 *' Don't let's talk more of that," he said, 
 nudging me with his elbow, after his manner, 
 and turning to look up at the great clock in 
 
ETON DAYS 113 
 
 Lupton's Tower, whose golden figures were 
 catching the last of the sunlight — ** don't let's 
 talk of that ! " Then he added, half to himself, 
 as we went out on to the open road from under 
 the archway : "In less than twelve hours I 
 shall be nobody." 
 
 H 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 FATHER AND SON 
 
 AiNSLiE Gore's education during those five and 
 a half happy years at Eton had not been con- 
 fined to what books might give, but as with 
 other boys in other schools the world over, 
 had been gathered all the while from many 
 sources. His Eton training had taught him, 
 for instance, what it was to exercise authority 
 among his fellows, and through this he had 
 learnt the meaning of a greater self-control. It 
 had shown him, no less, the pitfalls lying open 
 for all leaders, and at the same time how, by 
 his own individual actions, he might pass these 
 by in safety. Of responsibility, and what that 
 might often entail, he had seen much; and 
 above all, had come to him what honour really 
 meant — the points of conduct that it held up to 
 view ; the common path it never failed to show, 
 no matter what the calling in the wider world— 
 the sacrifice that it at any moment might lay 
 claim to. These and many another lesson he 
 had learnt, and the invisible hand of his alma 
 
FATHER AND SON 115 
 
 mater here had taken pains to graft each into 
 his heart and soul. 
 
 And while he was thus perfecting his equip- 
 ment, often unconsciously, for eight months 
 out of every twelve, a further education of 
 quite another order was progressing no less 
 strenuously elsewhere. Each was in reality 
 the complement of the other, and each was 
 equally designed to fit him for the place he 
 would ultimately occupy in life. In other 
 words, while Eton was busy turning him out 
 as one of her true sons, his father in his home, 
 with characteristic far-sightedness, was teach- 
 ing him all the hidden secrets of the land and 
 the wider responsibilities that would some day 
 come for him. 
 
 Such things might, as in that other case, be 
 gatherable from books, and only gatherable 
 there ; but there were countless others also that 
 no printed book could ever teach. Contact 
 with them from the earliest days, followed 
 always by closer insight as the years ran on, 
 was the only way in which they could become 
 part of a man's own self. The air of the fields, 
 the winds that came out of the heavens, the 
 voices to be heard in the great woods, scarcely 
 audible or altogether inarticulate as they might 
 be, were the sources from which they would 
 
ii6 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 ultimately spring. There were untold mysteries 
 here, some of which no one could hope to 
 fathom altogether ; yet at the same time there 
 were others lying within each man's grasp — 
 that the land itself would yield, and the folk 
 living on the land would give up, to those who 
 came with open heart to learn. 
 
 I have no doubt whatever in my own mind 
 that the Squire realised all this to the full. He 
 told me as much later on in my life, and more- 
 over I recall many a walk with him and Ainslie 
 when he happened to be engaged upon estate 
 matters, and the pains he took to answer our 
 questions. He would always encourage us to 
 come, wherever he might be going, and seemed 
 to delight in having us with him ; and he never 
 sought to improve the occasion for our special 
 benefit. 
 
 Sometimes he would impart his information 
 in the form of a joke, and at others ask us 
 what we thought concerning some point that 
 was under discussion between him and his 
 estate steward. 
 
 ** Now then, you two boys," he would say — 
 " what are we to do about this ? Purcell says 
 he must have this big cow-ground divided into 
 three fields for convenience of pasturage ; where 
 are the fences to run ; and where are the 
 
FATHER AND SON 117 
 
 gates and the watering-places to be ? Not quite 
 so easy to say, is it ? " Then he would add : 
 ** Yes, that would do, or wouldn't do," generally 
 ending up in a way that showed that in his 
 own mind he had grasped the position ex- 
 actly. 
 
 In the first instance, his motive in all this 
 had no doubt been to make an end of some 
 of our boyish doings. They were becoming 
 dangerous, and more than once had nearly 
 brought disaster. But after a while he appeared 
 to grow more and more anxious to put as 
 much practical knowledge in Ainslie's way as 
 was possible, and to teach him the things he 
 ought certainly to know. This only son of 
 his would one day succeed him, and would 
 then have to face difficulties that confronted 
 him now continually himself, and in ways that 
 they had never done before. 
 
 The outlook on the land was changing, and 
 there were ample signs that dark days lay 
 ahead for all out here. Prices were falling 
 more and more rapidly ; competition grew 
 yearly more acute ; and it looked as if the 
 farmer was going to be undercut in every 
 quarter. Even the seasons seemed to be 
 against him, and in the wind and the rain 
 and the rotting crops, sounds were to be 
 
ii8 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 heard to which the countryside had long been 
 strange. 
 
 Men of all classes were growing increasingly- 
 anxious, and were asking themselves what was 
 coming next. Good gold was sunk in this 
 soil, and the rains were washing it away 
 beyond recovery. There were many here of 
 strength and skill and long experience who 
 went toiling on in the old spirit — was their 
 field of labour to become the playground of 
 forces that they could not comprehend ? They 
 might well ask ; there was room for some 
 bewilderment in all they saw about them. They 
 were men for the most part of grand heart ; 
 but such conditions as these were enough to 
 break the stoutest. Some might stand against 
 the adverse flood for a time, being financially 
 stronger ; but there were others, in plenty, 
 who had their all laid out in this very soil, 
 and who, by hook or crook, were just keeping 
 their lips above the water. Were these to go 
 under altogether, as scores were doing else- 
 where, and in this very County ? 
 
 All alike were threatened. The fight had 
 begun some years before ; it was evidently 
 to be a stiff one. There were three partners 
 in all that had to be done in these fields. 
 Were they going to stand together, or go 
 
FATHER AND SON 119 
 
 apart ? Everything must ultimately depend on 
 that. Some would fall, as in other fights, and 
 their places be no longer known — their very 
 names blotted out ; others must obviously be 
 crippled for life, and none could hope to come 
 out quite unscathed. 
 
 The war must be fought through, somehow — 
 that was very certain. And these men against 
 whom it was primarily waged were just the 
 class to fight it. In the case of two of the 
 partners out of the three, their whole lives 
 were a fight when viewed from their separate 
 standpoints. The third must come to their 
 aid still further, make even more strenuous 
 sacrifice than hitherto, and help to fight the 
 battle that way. All were agreed on that 
 point. Taken together and regarded imparti- 
 ally this partnership that could not be dissolved, 
 was not, apparently, to be brought to ruin and 
 crushed without an honest struggle. There 
 was fight in these men. 
 
 But however this might be, here was stern 
 reality that had to be met. Old systems must 
 go to the wall; old tools that had had their 
 day must be cast on the scrap-heap ; brains 
 must work where hands had done the most 
 before ; the economist and the scientist must 
 be called in to aid ; the State must no longer 
 
120 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 ignore the oldest of its industries ; there must 
 be a further general lowering of rent, and 
 relief in other forms ; more capital must some- 
 how be procured. Such were the cries to be 
 heard on all sides at this date. 
 
 No one who walked the land, then, is likely 
 to forget those years, or the picture that they 
 left upon the mind. For the rest, there stood 
 out this — not in all quarters, but in many — 
 a lasting example of British stubbornness. 
 There were few signs anywhere of giv- 
 ing in. 
 
 Among those out here was one class 
 especially with whom hope was a main factor 
 always. In these fields, under this open sky, 
 was never any certainty — never could be. 
 They had followed a calling that had been 
 bred in them for generations. They were 
 accustomed to chuck their money into the soil 
 and hope to Heaven for a yield. They left 
 their capital to walk over the pastures as 
 stock, or to feed in the folds as sheep, and 
 hoped that with due care on their part, the 
 elements would suffer all those mouths to get 
 their fill. They laid out their money in newest 
 machinery, and hoped by these means to 
 reduce expenditure. And then they looked 
 to the markets, and hoped again for a margin 
 
FATHER AND SON 121 
 
 there, that should leave them and theirs at 
 least a living. They wanted all their hope 
 now. They were attacked on all sides ; but 
 in the majority of instances, the same qualities 
 never seemed to fail them, proving once more 
 the old truth, that hope will stay by a man 
 when he has nothing else. 
 
 Just here, on these two adjacent properties, 
 no real tragedies occurred — no auction or 
 selling up, with the turning of the back on 
 what had been the home for years — and 
 perhaps for a good reason. The strain re- 
 mained, year in year out, perilously near the 
 breaking-point for some ; yet these men never 
 seemed to know when they were beaten. 
 ** The next season would put matters right " ; 
 the next season was wet again. ** Lost the main 
 of our hay, and very unfort'nate, too ; but keep 
 be plentiful on the lower meadows, and should 
 it come a fairly open winter we shall carry 
 through " ; that winter there was not a reen 
 on the meadows that was not frozen hard. 
 *' Got a nice piece of wheat in the furlong — 
 nice length of straw to it and a fine head, if 
 we can get it in " ; there came one August 
 night a storm that left that crop, by morning, 
 as though a steam-roller had been over it. 
 Such were the remarks, and too often the 
 
122 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 outcome, in this corner of England. I can 
 but write the things I know. 
 
 There was little change as the time went 
 on ; and what there was seemed always for 
 the worse, as the seventies' ran out and the 
 eighties' brought no relief whatever. With 
 the price of wheat at fifty shillings — or ** stand- 
 ing in the fifties'," as they called it here — there 
 had been a chance ; but now it had long left 
 the fifties' for the forties', and in '83 had bid 
 these last a final good-bye. Even the thirties' 
 did not hold for long ; and then followed the 
 twenties', with scarcely a break for years. 
 Barley and oats told a no better tale, till at 
 length it became well-nigh impossible to culti- 
 vate the ground and make a profit. 
 
 High farming, some said, might do better; 
 but where was high farming when it touched 
 these clays ; and where was the money ? The 
 cry became general for cheaper methods. The 
 land should go down to grass, and the plough 
 should be left to rust behind the barn or under 
 the hedge, its day being, seemingly, for the 
 most part done. The labour bill must be 
 reduced, and rents still further ; there must be 
 relief in rates. There was no living like this ! 
 In some cases these men were growing angry ; 
 in others bitter. But still, until ruin, out and 
 
FATHER AND SON 123 
 
 out, stared them in the face, and credit at last 
 became exhausted, grumble, and grumble loudly 
 as many did, the vast majority went doggedly 
 on — and always without losing hope. 
 
 Such a picture is not easily forgotten. 
 There is, in truth, good reason for remember- 
 ing it, and first because, in other form, it is still 
 before the eyes. The Gores of Denton, like 
 many another family, were dependent upon 
 the land for the greater part of their income. 
 The estate, with those wide stretches down by 
 the Severn, the marsh lands, and the great 
 woods that reached up the hills behind the 
 park, comprised altogether over 5000 acres, 
 some of the land being very good and very 
 little of it poor. Much of the pasturage was 
 fairly rich, and if some of the ploughing was 
 stiff soil, it suited wheat well, and on the lighter 
 lands grew some useful roots, while there was 
 no want of good orcharding on any of the 
 holdings. If a man could farm at a profit 
 anywhere, he could do so here, more especially 
 when the lowness of the rents was considered. 
 And when bad times came he knew, moreover, 
 where to look for some relief. 
 
 ** Ther' bain't an ordinary held o' market 
 
124 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 days— leastways, where I do 'tend myself — 
 wher' that ain't general knowledge," remarked 
 Farmer Drew, when this last point was re- 
 ferred to at the table of **The Top Boot" one 
 Saturday. He had farmed under the Gores, 
 as he termed it, all his life, and his father 
 before him ; and what was more, he had a 
 stalwart son who looked to follow him, " when 
 the time did come for him to put his spoon 
 in the wall hisself."^ He was one of the old- 
 fashioned sort ; wore box-cloth leggings with 
 brass buttons, and his hair was white and 
 somewhat long beneath his broad-brimmed, 
 black felt hat. 
 
 ''And that be just wher' it do come in," he 
 continued. ** They be gentlemen, every smite 
 of 'em, and been so always. You'll never see 
 a Gore profit by another's downfall : he'd a 
 long sight sooner be loser hisself. There be 
 the custom of the County, as we all do know ; 
 but, our way, ther' be, further, the custom of 
 the estate, and that don't never change a lot 
 wi' us. Ther' be only one thing as you've got 
 to minds — go honest, and yer safe to be treated 
 fair ; try it on, and you be done. And I do 
 most cheerful maintain, that on our Squire's 
 estate, a man as farms as un should — ah, and 
 
 ^ To die. 
 
FATHER AND SON 125 
 
 in the times as have come about us now — can 
 go on farmln,' and get the lend of a helpin' 
 hand — ay, and not be chucked out, like a so 
 much must-cake, when every drop have been 
 wrung through the hairs." ^ 
 
 Farmer Drew sat at the head of the board 
 and was looked up to ; and as he talked, 
 tabbering his knuckles on the table, the com- 
 pany in his neighbourhood silently assented, 
 nodding their heads at the close of the old 
 man's remarks. 
 
 " Bringing his son up in the way he should 
 go, bain't he?'' asked a farmer from a neigh- 
 bouring estate. ** Pity as more doesn't do it. 
 Times be nashun bad, and if the young folks 
 of their class don't scawt about and larn as 
 they should, wher' be we goin' to be ? " 
 
 ** That's right enough," returned Farmer 
 Drew ; "and that be just what our Squire be 
 doin'. I've eyed 'em a good bit of late, on my 
 place and about. Seems to be always together, 
 these days. And the lad's a-shapin' remarkable 
 well, I can tell ye." 
 
 ** And can't he ride, too, and handle a 
 gun nice? "put in another. *' I see'd un out 
 
 * " Must," or " mast," is the apple-cake after the crushed fruit 
 from the cider mill has been wrung through cloths made of 
 horsehair. 
 
126 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 t'other day with his Lordship, a-goin' like 
 smoke, and as straight as you like. Take 
 summut to stop he when he come to be a bit 
 older, I reckons. Wonderful steady lad, they 
 says, and pleasant ways wi' un." 
 
 "That's so," returned Drew again — ** feature 
 his father remarkable, he do ; and I ain't no 
 chancer^ when I says as our Squire means to 
 do all as is in his power to interest un in things 
 as he'll be handlin' when un's turn comes. 
 Nothin' dilladerry about our Squire, I can tell 
 ye ; and if this here lad, Mr. Ainslie, goes for a 
 bit o' soldiering, as they says he be, he'll do no 
 more than hisn's father a-done, and I his gran'- 
 father a-done afore he, for that matter. It 
 never served either o' they any harm, so far as 
 I can hear say ; and like enough he'll come 
 back all the better for it. Does all folks good 
 to see a bit o' life, afore they comes to settle 
 down." 
 
 Farmer Drew's remarks were only those to 
 be heard at any time at Denton. The people 
 of the Manor had rejoiced at this boy's birth, 
 and watched him as he grew. They were 
 watching him still, and even closer than they 
 had done before, now that he was growing tall 
 and filling out. Many had already heard ofj 
 
 1 A teller of untruths, or one given to exaggerate. 
 
FATHER AND SON 127 
 
 the mark he was making at his school, and 
 were proud of it, especially when they could 
 read his name '' on the paper " ; or were told 
 **as he'd been playin' in a girt match in 
 Lunnun's town, wi' a sight of folks a-lookin 
 on, so as they was black as flies upon the turf ; 
 and set round in thousands upon thousands, 
 they did," according to Susan Mantel's version 
 of the matter. 
 
 Among the young men and the boys, such 
 doings gave him a place at once, and when he 
 came home for the summer holidays and 
 attended church, many were watching for him 
 to enter with the rest of the choir, as was his 
 custom. He had always sung in the choir, 
 from the time he could read the Psalms, and 
 continued to do so now. He attended the 
 practices regularly at the village school ; and 
 often when the evening service on Sundays 
 was over, would take the organist's place and 
 play the concluding voluntary, while the church 
 slowly emptied and Josiah the sexton put the 
 candles out, one by one, and always with his 
 finger and thumb. 
 
 The instrument was a beautiful one, and 
 Ainslie would throw his whole self into what 
 he was playing, either by heart or out of his 
 head, till he seemed to lose all count of time. 
 
128 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 and Dick Bond, the blower, " reckoned as the 
 young Squire was ther' to make game on 
 un." 
 
 On such occasions, this worthy would come 
 out of the organ chamber when silence had at 
 length fallen on the church, making much 
 parade of mopping his face with a large red 
 handkerchief. Ainslie would take stock of him 
 and smile, saying : " Blown, Dick ? Well, 
 come and blow for me to-morrow and we'll 
 make it right." 
 
 To which Dick, one of the Manor gardeners, 
 who lived rent free through filling this office, 
 would reply : *' Well, ther' ; you do give it un 
 smartish, to be sure ! For my part, 'wever, I 
 do favour our Mr. Tracker ; he hain't so 
 des'pert random." Dick was a privileged 
 person, and had blown the organ for forty 
 years. 
 
 But it was among the members of the cricket 
 club that Ainslie was looked upon as a real 
 king. Twice a week he was down there in 
 the evening to coach the players at the net, 
 going without his dinner and taking as much 
 pains with the boys as the professionals did 
 with him at Eton. Often, too, before a match, 
 he might be seen trimming up the ground with 
 a machine, or pulling the roller for the greater 
 
FATHER AND SON 129 
 
 part of the morning. ** There is nothing on 
 this earth so funny as village cricket," he would 
 say — " I simply love it." 
 
 Of course the club was very proud of their 
 captain, and took care to tell those who came 
 to play against them what they might expect. 
 "But see here," Bill Terrett, the second 
 captain, would remark — ** he hain't one to take 
 unfair advantage o' we. Like enough he'll 
 pertend as he's watty -handed ^ for the day, or 
 put hisself in wi' the tail. .But see here again 
 — yer'll never bowl un out when he minds to 
 be once in — can't do it myself, wi'out it be now 
 and again upon times." Bill bowled underhand 
 at an amazing pace, delivering the ball when 
 both his feet were off the ground. 
 
 " And like enough, you'll see un lift the 
 barl right aboove the trees, yonder," added 
 another — ** and then anyun's got to foot it as 
 be in wi' un. He won't have no bounds here. 
 * Let's run 'em arl out,' he says ; * ther' be 
 more sport in it.' And then away goes a slog 
 for six, and he do call — 'Hern Bill — hern! ' same 
 as it wus last Sat'day, till Bill, ther', did pitch 
 down right head foremost, poor wratch ! " 
 
 It was considered advisable to inspire the 
 other side with fear, so far as might be possible 
 
 ^ Left-handed. 
 
 I 
 
130 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 at Denton ; or as Sam Cook, a shepherd of 
 comical appearance and possessed of one eye, 
 would remark with a grin, before the play 
 began — ** Twas but only right and fair to give 
 'em an item of what they wus to see, arter a 
 start wer' made." 
 
 Nor was it very different when the long 
 winter evenings came. There must be con- 
 certs, and what these people liked best of all — 
 '' summut of actin'." And when nothing of this 
 sort was going on, Ainslie turned the school 
 into a kind of working-men's club, where there 
 were newspapers, a bagatelle board, and other 
 games to be played, with a bright wood fire on 
 the hearth, and he himself there — often enough 
 after a long and wet day with the hounds — to 
 give all comers a welcome. 
 
 In what he did in these various directions, 
 he acted on the principle that as many as 
 possible should join in and take their part. If 
 a boy developed a good voice, he saw to it that 
 he joined the choir ; if man or boy had a taste 
 for cricket or football, let him join the clubs; 
 and let those who could find the time, come 
 and look on and mix with the rest. '' Never 
 mind the feeling of shyness : come forward and 
 sing a song and lend a hand in this village 
 entertainment, and make the evening happier, 
 
 « 
 
FATHER AND SON 131 
 
 and yourself at the same time." That was 
 what he preached. 
 
 ** What we have got to do," he said to me 
 once, "is to break down the stupid ideas that 
 are coming in, that for Mrs. Brown to be over 
 friendly with her neighbour Mrs. Jones, is for 
 Mrs. Brown to imperil her position. There is 
 only one way to do it, and that is to get folk to 
 mix together by every possible means. We were 
 never meant to stand apart from one another, 
 no matter who we are — with this class thinking 
 themselves ever so much better than that, and 
 being quite nervous of even rubbing elbows. 
 Was there ever such snobbishness, when you 
 come to think of it ? No man need ever lose 
 a fraction of his position by anything of the 
 kind, unless he is a born fool. What we have 
 to do is to get to know each other better, and 
 we can only do that by seeing more of each 
 other." 
 
 He certainly practised what he preached. 
 He was welcomed by the poorest family in the 
 place, and felt at home among them. He could 
 go and sit in the parlour of his father's largest 
 tenant, and be no less at home with him and 
 the members of his family. He could go out 
 in the fields, and the men would receive him 
 there with a smile, knowing well that he could 
 
132 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 follow their calling and talk their tongue, young 
 though he was. He was not yet nineteen and 
 still at Eton ; but he was already possessed of 
 tact and judgment in a marked degree, as well 
 as a certain quiet dignity of manner that was no 
 less friendly because it never invited familiarity. 
 
 He did not minimise the difficulties he met 
 with in carrying out his various schemes for the 
 happiness and welfare of the place. He knew 
 that such must be, and constantly went to the 
 Squire for advice. 
 
 ** Making mistakes, are you? " — this last would 
 say with a laugh — '* Well ; who doesn't that has 
 ever tried to do anything worth doing, I should 
 like to know ? And if they say they haven't 
 in their time, let them come out here and try 
 it. What you have got to remember is that, 
 to start with, you know nothing whatever about 
 the inner lives of any of these people ; and 
 that if you, placed as you are, live to be a 
 hundred, you will die knowing precious little 
 then ! Making mistakes ? — of course you are. 
 You think you have offended Smith, and you 
 are quite sure you have rubbed Tom's nose 
 unwittingly across his face. So much the 
 better. You won't do it again, and Tom 
 and Smith will make it up. 
 
 " The more mistakes you make in learning 
 
FATHER AND SON 133 
 
 the language here, the better for you. There 
 is not one man in a hundred can go out into 
 the fields and talk to those he meets there, 
 without putting his foot in it and making an 
 idiot of himself to a certainty. I've done it a 
 thousand times ; and come away, after showing 
 my own ignorance, feeling precious foolish, I 
 can tell you. And what you have to do, my 
 dear boy, is to do the same. You'll learn it 
 all in time, right enough : I am not afraid of 
 that ! " The Squire took a long draw at his 
 pipe and chuckled to himself. He and Ainslie 
 were sitting together for half an hour before 
 going to bed, according to their invariable 
 custom. 
 
 The talk between them on these occasions 
 often ranged over a variety of subjects ; and 
 the Squire being one of those who appear to 
 be constitutionally unable to take anything 
 greatly to heart or very seriously, and certainly 
 not at eleven o'clock at night, father and son 
 could often be heard laughing together over 
 their reminiscences. 
 
 Living as close as I did, it was seldom that I 
 stayed at Denton when there was a large house 
 party. My parents would dine there and also 
 my sister and myself ; or I might be asked to 
 fill a place when an extra gun was wanted now 
 
134 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 and then. Otherwise my visits were generally- 
 confined to periods when father and mother 
 and son were there alone, and I thus came in 
 for many of those talks to which I have referred, 
 apart from what Ainslie sometimes told me of 
 them. 
 
 A mutual trust and confidence existed be- 
 tween the Squire and Ainslie that was delight- 
 ful to witness. To me, they often appeared to 
 be something more than father and son, their 
 intercourse being more that of two close, per- 
 sonal friends who hid nothing from each other, 
 reserved though they both were in their several 
 ways and differing greatly as they did in 
 temperament. Of the two, Ainslie perhaps 
 possessed the better brains, as he certainly 
 also found some of his pleasures in directions 
 that to his father were strange. But the 
 Squire, while above the average in general 
 capacity, possessed what was no less valuable 
 to him in his position — a shrewd common sense 
 that was the outcome of a long experience and 
 the sterling qualities that were his by birth. 
 
 It would have been difficult to say which had 
 the greater affection for the other ; and if their 
 love differed in kind, as it naturally would, it 
 was never questioned because so perfectly 
 understood between the two. On the Squire's 
 
FATHER AND SON 135 
 
 free days at home, and when Ainslle was there 
 for his holidays, they were more and more 
 together on the estate in these difficult years — 
 discussing the new buildings necessitated by 
 the times, the repairs and alterations to cottages, 
 and all the hundred and one details that are 
 for ever wanting attention on the land. Few 
 things had ever escaped this Squire, and no- 
 thing did so now. He was here and there on 
 his estate as occasion required, ready always 
 with a helping hand and a quiet word of en- 
 couragement ; and with him, when at home, 
 was always his son. 
 
 They seemed to have become inseparable. 
 It was not only on the farm lands, or the land 
 the Squire kept in hand himself, that they were 
 often to be seen ; it was no uncommon thing for 
 them to be out in the woods together as the 
 seasons came round, arranging for new planting 
 in company with the steward, or visiting this 
 or that quarter that was due for its yield of 
 timber or coppice wood, and when the Squire, 
 armed with a pot of white paint, never failed 
 to give his son a lesson in tree-marking — 
 which to spare and which to take, and the 
 reasons for doing both. They liked, too, in 
 their strolls together to watch this or that act 
 of husbandry — hedging and ditching, thatching 
 
136 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 and the work of the latest machine — ^just as 
 they were to be seen with the keepers and 
 a friend or two, walking the stubbles and the 
 roots when September came, or disappearing 
 down the village lane on a wet and misty- 
 morning for a meet of the hounds in the 
 vale. 
 
 And always on their return, from walk or 
 shoot or hunt, it was their common practice to 
 seek out that other one who made up the 
 home — the lady with the beautiful face, as I 
 came to think of her — Ainslie's mother ; tell 
 her what they had been doing and ask her 
 what she thought, either sitting together in the 
 garden in the last of the sunlight, or in front of 
 the wide hearth and the wood fire in the great 
 library, when winter winds were whistling out- 
 side, and the long night had shut down on the 
 world. 
 
 " What we have got to do," said the Squire 
 once, when I was returning with him and Ainslie 
 from a visit to an outlying part of the estate — 
 **what we have got to do is to stand by the 
 farmers. I know things are going from bad 
 to worse on the one side, and that outlay is in- 
 creasing on the other. More and more land 
 is going down to grass every year, and that 
 often means that I have got to pay for the 
 
FATHER AND SON 137 
 
 seed. And a pretty figure It comes to, draining, 
 pit digging and all. Then they find they have 
 no straw for thatching, or can't spare the little 
 they have, the price being yos. a ton now. So 
 each one must have a French barn. I will 
 show you the bills for these things this evening, 
 Ainslie, on Bettle's farm alone — barn £147 — 
 the finest In the County; grass seed £116; 
 draining further bank field £S^. Might just 
 as well buy the land over again ! " The Squire 
 seemed amused at the idea. 
 
 " But it is getting almost too much of a joke, 
 though, Isn't It?" he continued — ''especially 
 when our low rents have had to bear fifteen 
 and twenty per cent, rebates for years, and 
 with twenty-five, for certain, this year. Can't 
 be helped — can't be helped ! Must fight It out 
 together somehow. There must come a change, 
 If we can only live to see It." Then, as though 
 wishing to leave the subject, he took Ainslie 
 by the arm, saying — *' Come along ; let's go 
 and look at the horses. May as well do so as 
 long as we have any ; seems as if the stables 
 were going to be clean emptied before long, 
 with you and I running with the hounds ! " 
 And once again the squire broke into a laugh. 
 
 Economies were being practised at Denton 
 in many directions, and matters looked Into in 
 
138 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 ways that they had never been before. ** People 
 always begin with their gardeners, when they 
 want to economise," remarked the Squire 
 one evening, when we were sitting together. 
 ** Seems to me fairer to begin with the horses. 
 Very hard to throw these poor fellows out of 
 work; besides, the gardens give no end of 
 pleasure to the village folk in summer time, 
 when they are open to them on Sundays. Next 
 season I have made up my mind to come down 
 to one horse I can hunt, with a pair for your 
 mother s driving work. Welfare won't like it 
 much! It isn't as if it was going to be for 
 ever, though. Times have been bad before, 
 and they'll improve again. It's all nonsense 
 thinking otherwise." 
 
 ** I shan't want a horse at all next season," 
 said Ainslie — ** You see, if I leave at the end of 
 the summer half, I must go and work and get 
 ready for my exam." 
 
 *' Nonsense, my dear boy," returned the 
 Squire — ** nonsense ! Part with Alice Grey ? — 
 never ! Why, she cut out the work for the lot 
 of us last Tuesday, and carried you well. To 
 me it was a pretty sight. Might as well ask 
 me to part with Dan, there." Hearing his 
 name the dog got up, and went first to one 
 and then to the other, and then lay down again 
 
FATHER AND SON 139 
 
 with a sigh. ''He's part of the family; and 
 so is the mare in a way. She has carried you 
 for five years now. Sell her ? — not I ! Grass, 
 perhaps, in a year or two, and take it easy for 
 the rest of her days. Can't take money for 
 a favourite — much less shoot my old friends 
 when I've done with them. Ah ! — Alice Grey : 
 whatever happens, she will never die in debt, 
 as they say of a good horse at plough." 
 
 ** No," said Ainslie — ''that she certainly will 
 never do." He was leaning forward and strok- 
 ing Dan, who had curled himself up in front 
 of the fire. " Nor this one," he added. Then 
 he asked — " With us, I suppose, it is generally 
 our own fault if we do, isn't it ? " 
 
 ** Generally, perhaps; not always," returned 
 the Squire. " A good many things may bring 
 it on a man ; but I always think the hardest 
 case is where it is shot on to him by his prede- 
 cessors. Just look at the Oakleys of Stock- 
 well. His father was reckoned a shrewd man ; 
 but when he died, it was found that he had 
 setded ever so many annuities on the property, 
 with the result that the present man, John 
 Oakley, has a job to keep his head above 
 water. People may say what they like about 
 his father being only able to judge of things as 
 he found them, and that it was impossible for 
 
140 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 him to have foreseen what we are in for now. 
 I don't quite agree. He had lived long enough 
 on the land to know that there is never any 
 certainty here, in our climate. For owners, 
 no prizes and continual outgoings, letting alone 
 increasing taxation ; and for the farmers, fall- 
 ing markets and such things as bad seasons. 
 The very uncertainty of it all should have 
 been a warning to him, it seems to me. Never 
 put a penny on the property, my dear boy — 
 never! You don't want to have a millstone 
 slung round your neck, and you have no right 
 to leave one for the necks of other people. 
 No property out here can stand such things in 
 these days. And the worst of it is that others 
 often feel the weight who are in no way re- 
 sponsible. 
 
 " Look at the Oakleys again. John is one 
 of the best-hearted fellows in the County. He 
 is sticking it out as well as he can, poor chap ; 
 but with all the will in the world, he can't help 
 his tenants, and they are going under. He 
 simply lives to fight debt — debt, too, that he 
 never created : that's what he does. So much 
 of his land lies wet, you see, especially on his 
 meadows by the river. I don't expect you 
 know them, though you must have crossed 
 them out hunting without being aware of it. 
 
FATHER AND SON 141 
 
 Yes — over towards Bullpits, before you come 
 to the Horseshoe bend : near there. Well, 
 any rise in the river, and those meadows are 
 waterlogged, and then the tide does the rest." 
 
 "The last season must have been a bad one 
 for them, I should think," said Ainslie. 
 
 *' Awful," returned the Squire — "One of 
 the wettest years we have known for a long 
 while. Just look at ourselves. The hay lay 
 out till it was black and rotten, and I know 
 that ever so many acres of it were carted up 
 here to be used as thatching for the wood- 
 stacks. Some of it was not off the ground till 
 after you went back in September, and some 
 was still lying out in October. That was what 
 we had here, and a dead loss ; but farther up, 
 when the rains began and the river rose, the 
 men up that way were not troubled much with 
 the carting ; the tide did it for them, and away 
 went the lot to sea." 
 
 The Squire could not refrain from a low 
 laugh to himself even at that. It was his way 
 of taking things. He did not laugh because 
 he was without feeling and sympathy. No 
 man ever had warmer heart. Nor was there 
 anything of the empty laugh denoting the 
 vacant mind in this habit of his. There was 
 nothing of vacancy or nervousness about this 
 
 <* 
 
142 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 Squire. He had a supreme horror of the man 
 who whined, that was all ; and the sight of an 
 individual given to self-pity was the one thing 
 that ever made him really angry. 
 
 ** For goodness sake, you two boys," he 
 would say — ** never whine and never cry out. 
 Drop it : it shows want of fight and is con- 
 temptible ! " He certainly acted up to the 
 standard himself, and when the outlook for 
 him and others grew worse — when further 
 economies had to be practised, and the open 
 hospitality at Denton had to be almost entirely 
 given up — he retained all his joviality, and 
 took in good heart the troubles and losses that 
 had emptied his stables and closed the greater 
 part of his house. 
 
 ** I believe my father would continue to 
 accept things, outwardly, in the way he does," 
 said Ainslie to me once — "if he and my 
 mother were reduced to one room, and every 
 tenant gave notice. But I know the other 
 side, and how he feels it ; and I begin to 
 wonder whether I ought to go into the Army 
 at all ; whether my place is not here, fighting 
 to keep the home together as he is doing, 
 and helping him all I know. Denton comes 
 first and before life itself with me ; in fact 
 the rest, no matter what it may be, is nowhere. 
 
FATHER AND SON 143 
 
 And then, of late, a horrible idea has come 
 into my mind that he and my mother are 
 pinching themselves in my interests eventually. 
 He talks of doing away with the one horse 
 he has left for his hunting, and keeping one 
 other and a pony for my mother to get about 
 with. We used to have ten. Between them, 
 too, they have dismantled part of the rooms 
 and shut up half the place, as well as reduced 
 the establishment, though outside, and in 
 County matters, they go on working harder 
 than ever. And the worst part of the business 
 is that they are growing old and are doing 
 without things they have been accustomed to 
 all their lives. In fact, I believe the changes 
 up here are greater than in any farm-house on 
 the place. What do you think I ought to do ? " 
 
 ** Stick to your guns," broke in a cheery, well- 
 known voice from the doorway — " I don't know 
 what you two boys were talking about; but 
 I couldn't help hearing the last question, and 
 my answer to that is — when in doubt, do 
 that!" 
 
 It happened that one day, shortly after this, 
 the Squire and I were alone together. Ainslie 
 had been due to stay with us for the inside 
 of the week, being now almost as much with 
 us as I had been hitherto at Denton. But 
 
144 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 on the very day we had expected him he sent 
 a note to say he must give up the visit. 
 ** Please tell your sister how sorry I am," he 
 had added at the end. The remark made 
 me smile. I don't think he would have written 
 that unless he had been very hurried. 
 
 The Squire was coming out of the front 
 door, when I rode over two days later. ** Just 
 the boy I wanted to see," he exclaimed — '* Dear 
 me — I'm afraid there is no one handy to take 
 your horse round for you. Take him round 
 yourself, like a good fellow. You'll find old 
 Welfare there. Ainslie has ridden his mare 
 over to Stockwell. I'll tell you all about it 
 in a minute : you'll find me in my room." 
 
 **Come along in, and sit yourself down," 
 he said, when I entered. It was almost im- 
 possible for a face like his to look grave ; but 
 on this occasion his expression was certainly 
 graver than I had ever seen it. '* I am sorry 
 to say Ainslie has dropped into rather a sad 
 affair over at Oakley's. I wouldn't have had 
 it happen for worlds. What his mother and 
 I always say we have to do is to make his 
 life as bright as we can. The days are de- 
 pressing enough for all of us ; but they must 
 not be made so for boys of your age, where 
 we can help it. I know Ainslie's mind is always 
 
FATHER AND SON 145 
 
 dwelling- on such things, and in his imaginative 
 way he thinks that Denton — which he loves 
 better than his life, thank heaven ! — is going 
 to come clattering down with a run, with family 
 bankruptcy to follow. We are not nearly done 
 yet, though, and are good for a considerable 
 number more rounds ! But what we have got 
 to do" — and the Squire dropped his voice — 
 ** is to think, first, of the dear boy himself — must 
 think of him at our age, of course, and bolster 
 him up for what he will have to face, when the 
 time arrives for him to stand here alone. 
 
 '' Just fancy — the other day he even hinted 
 at not going into the Army, and doubted if 
 he ought. Such nonsense ! Why, all Gores, or 
 nearlyallofthem, have always been soldiers; and 
 after ten or twelve years' service, he will make 
 all the better squire, depend upon it. There 
 are few finer schools than a good regiment. 
 
 ''Well, but I was going to tell you. It 
 happened on the night before last. He has 
 not told me a lot about it himself, and it is 
 just as well he shouldn't talk of it. The truth 
 is, I have seen very little of him, for he was 
 away early yesterday, and went off in the same 
 way to-day : he had to give evidence this 
 morning. However, I happened to meet Jim, 
 Nat Organ's brother, yesterday evening. He 
 
 K 
 
146 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 lives over that way, you know, and he told me 
 all about it. It was a horrible affair ; but 
 Ainslie came out of it splendidly. I knew he 
 would, if it came to a pinch at any time. His 
 pluck is first class ; and at his age, when he 
 might be expected to lose his head, he just 
 gets as cool as you like." 
 
 ** He never loses his head at Eton," I put 
 in — "and we always say there, that the worse 
 things are, the more he's to the fore." 
 
 " I can quite believe that. But I must tell 
 you," continued the Squire. ** On Friday the 
 hounds met at Stowell Crossroads, and had a 
 very poor day, till the scent improved with a 
 change of wind in the afternoon. They found 
 in Ackerman's Holt, and ran from there to 
 Hinksham woods. There they must have 
 changed, for they were out as soon as in, and 
 had a splendid five-mile point, right away to 
 the turn of the Horseshoe on Oakley's property 
 at Stockwell Court. Ainslie saw the whole of 
 it on the grey — trust him — and he told me that 
 it was just four o'clock when, in the end, they 
 marked the fox to the ground. He had eleven 
 miles to go in the dark, to get home from 
 there, with a cold rain falling and a fog 
 creeping up all over those meadows, so he 
 gruelled his horse at Oakley's before starting. 
 
FATHER AND SON 147 
 
 *' I dare say you know things have been 
 going badly in that part, and that John Oakley 
 is put to it to carry on. Bad job for him, and 
 his tenants too. Ever so many are all behind 
 with their rents, and two more farms have 
 recently been thrown on his hands. He has 
 done his level best and can't do more, and the 
 farmers know it. And they all know this, too, 
 that in these days it is no use trying to farm 
 under a poor landlord. They want his capital. 
 
 ** Well, this is what I gathered from Jim 
 Organ, and I give it you pretty well in his 
 own words. It was a wet, dark night and 
 foggy, as I say ; and it seems that when Ainslie 
 was jogging down one of those lanes, that he 
 suddenly heard the sound of a shot in a dilapi- 
 dated barn close to the road ; and at the same 
 time someone coming towards him at a run. 
 It was the local shepherd, who called out — 
 
 ***Hulloa, Mister! Don't know whom you 
 be ; but come on, there's trouble agate here. I 
 knows as sure as eggs is eggs what's come 
 about — that's the maister, and he've done it 
 at last, spite of arl my watchin'. Been wrong 
 in his yod ; or goin' so, 'wever. The times have 
 upset un; but come you on, and lend a hand, 
 whoever you meut be.' 
 
 ** Ainslie, it seems," added the Squire at this 
 
148 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 point, **was off his horse in a moment, and 
 throwing the bridle over a gate post, followed 
 the man at once. There is no reason to go into 
 details ; but they found the poor fellow in the 
 barn, dead as a nail. Of course the shot had 
 brought others to the spot, and one ran up to 
 the house to break what had happened to the 
 wife. But I must continue the story as Jim 
 Organ told it me. 
 
 *'*She did turn wonderful comicaP for a 
 bit,' he said, in the usual quaint way of his 
 kind. * She'd been half dunny afore, wi' arl 
 the trouble as had come about. The man wus 
 broke. Kept a-fighting on, yer know. Pinned 
 hisn's faith to the hay, like ; and when that 
 wer' car'd away by flood water, 't wer' arl 
 over wi' un. Turned strange, he did ; and the 
 shepherd ther', what found un, did warn the 
 missus how it 'ould be. And kep' watch over 
 un, he had, hisself, same as if er'd been one of 
 un's own yeo. Says he been a wonderfu' good 
 maister to he, strugglin' man though er had 
 come to be of late. Ther' wus' them as 
 threatened to sell un up ; and that broke un 
 — 'twus the last straw, for he wer' honest and 
 hardworkin', and wi' a fam'ly of sex at home. 
 
 ** * Us never knew'd, just then, who 'twus as 
 
 ' Light-headed, 
 
FATHER AND SON 149 
 
 broughted the body in wi' shepherd — a thing 
 as they shouldn't a-done, seemin'ly. Arl as 
 us could see wus as he wore a red coat and 
 white breech, and as un had been wi' th' ounds, 
 and as un wus quite young. O' course I knows 
 right enough now ; but un's shot up a lot, wi' 
 a fine frame and look to un, since I a-seen un 
 last. 
 
 *' * And then us wus all in a caddie, yer see, 
 wi' the wailin', and wi' nought but the light of 
 a couple o' candles, and wi' a cold wet mizzle 
 a-fallin' through the fog. The childern was 
 packed off, and ther' wus only the por ooman 
 herself, left along o' the lot of us, inside and 
 outside door. 
 
 ***She stood ther', wi' the corner of her 
 kerchief tight between her teeth, and her eyen 
 arl of a zwim. She wer growin quieter, 
 yer see ; and presently she got her tongue, and 
 cries out quite loud — ** Can't no un say a bit of 
 a prayer ? " she says. 
 
 " ' Then the youngster, as wus among us, 
 just says — ** Kneel down," he did ; and we did 
 all obey un, inside and outside th' entrance 
 door, for, seemin'ly, he did take charge o' the 
 whole lot on us as wus ther' — same as if he'd 
 been parson hisself. 
 
 ** * And what 'er did say wer' summut arter 
 
I50 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 this manner, for I reckons I've hear'd it up at 
 Church, times. It wer' this — as the merciful 
 One 'ould look upon our 'firmities, and for the 
 glory o' Hisn's name turn from all o' we, arl 
 them evils as we deserved, and 'ould grant 
 that in arl our'n troubles we meut put our 
 whole trust and confidence in Hisn's mercy, 
 and serve Un evermore in holiness and pure- 
 ness o' livin'. Then un did start *' Our Fadyr 
 that art in Heaven, halloed be Thy Name"; 
 and some on us did join in, and some on us 
 lacked courage, and turned off, like. And then 
 ther' wus quiet ; and Mrs. Hunlo did run 
 in, out o' breath, and took the widow away 
 upstairs, she did, and bided wi' her for the 
 night. 
 
 *^ ' The youngster just looks up, arter that, 
 and says as it weren't no use us a-bidin' ther' 
 no longer. So someun brought un hisn's hat, 
 and another un hisn's horse, as he'd been 
 a-walkin' up and down to kep the chill out of 
 un. And just then he turns towards the light, 
 and says quite low, like a real gen'leman — 
 ** Good-night to you all." 
 
 *' * I sees who 'twus then, in a jiffy. I knew'd 
 un. He wus off arter that to see Squire 
 Oakley up at the Court ; and I says to them 
 as wus round — ** I knows who the young hunter 
 
FATHER AND SON 151 
 
 be, right enough. Why, that be Squire Gore's 
 son, o' Denton Manor." 
 
 '' * And shepherd he turns round, and says — 
 ** Hunter, or no hunter, he taken charge o' we, 
 mysterus fashion enough ; and I reckons he be 
 fit for parson, from what I can judge." And 
 at that, I just answers un, and says — *' He do 
 feature his mother, that way, wi'out a doubt, 
 for I've alius heard tell as she be saint." ' 
 
 *' Well, that is what happened," resumed the 
 Squire; *'and what I would not have had 
 happen to Ainslie, for all the world. He did 
 not get back here till after midnight, and was 
 off again the next morning, to see if he could 
 do anything to help ; and to-day, to give his 
 evidence before the Coroner." 
 
 The Squire's story was ended, and he rose 
 from his chair and walked towards the window. 
 In the silence that followed for a few minutes, 
 my mind naturally turned to Ainslie, and the 
 ordeal that such an experience must have 
 meant to a nature like his. But when we met, 
 two days later, all he said was — ** I would rather 
 have told you myself, though I don't care to 
 speak of it again. For the widow the position 
 is terrible ; but just think of the agony of mind 
 of that man before he came to do such a thing 
 as that." 
 
152 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 Of course, after the manner of villagers, who 
 learn things by means concerning which the 
 rest of us know nothing, the whole story was 
 soon all over Denton, and more especially the 
 part that Ainslie had played. By the morbid- 
 minded — and these numbered many — the fact 
 that he had been mixed up in such a thing of 
 horror was regarded as giving him additional 
 importance. By the young men and boys he 
 was worshipped more than ever, and from a 
 healthy standpoint. But down at the little 
 shop, standing with bare, folded arms behind 
 her narrow counter, and drawing in her breath 
 as she spoke, Susan Mantel summed it up this 
 way — '' Staunch — staunch ; same as Gores have 
 alius been — same as he'll be, whether his life 
 be long or short — you mark me ! " 
 
 Ainslie was given his first commission in 
 the spring of the following year, being gazetted 
 to his County Militia while still at Eton. His 
 father wished him to enter the Regular Service 
 in this way, and for what appeared to him to 
 be good reasons. 
 
 "Of course," he said, "Ainslie can pass any 
 examination he likes, and probably come out 
 high on the list ; but what I want him to do is 
 
FATHER AND SON 153 
 
 to mix with the young fellows of his own 
 County, and for the older lot to get to know 
 him. The regiment is a very good one, and 
 there is scarcely an officer who does not hail 
 from one or the other of the families round 
 about. That is as it should be ; and moreover 
 the commissioned ranks are a bit full and it 
 has been a job to get him a place." 
 
 The Squire's decision meant that we were to 
 see less of each other for a time. It had been 
 decided that I was to enter the Army through 
 Sandhurst, so when once we had left Eton we 
 met comparatively seldom, though we always 
 kept touch by letter. 
 
 We had both learnt a little of our drill as 
 Volunteers, and had also studied the Red Book 
 and fathomed the mysteries of the elementary 
 portions of the same. But Ainslie decided 
 later on that it would be well if he attended the 
 School of Instruction at Wellington Barracks. 
 He never did anything by halves, and was as 
 keen about this as he had been about all the 
 games. To perfect himself in drill was to 
 perfect himself for all those duties that he 
 would eventually discharge, and that were 
 surrounded in his mind with a mystical halo of 
 their own. 
 
 And here a somewhat amusing incident 
 
154 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 occurred, that brought to mind the expression 
 he had used on our last evening together at 
 Eton. Application had been made for him to 
 attend the course at Wellington Barracks ; but 
 through some mistake he had received no in- 
 structions up to within two days of the date 
 when the class would open. He therefore 
 went up to London, and the following morn- 
 ing attended at the barracks to make in- 
 quiry. 
 
 On the parade at the moment, a battalion of 
 the Guards was being drilled by their Sergeant- 
 major, and looking on was the Colonel com- 
 manding the School. 
 
 ** Oh ; so you want to attend the next class, 
 do you ? " said this last, when Ainslie had an 
 opportunity of going up to him. " Then why 
 the dickens haven't you brought your orders ? 
 What's the use of expecting me to know any- 
 thing about them? It's a War Office matter, 
 not mine, and you had better go and find out. 
 We begin to-morrow. What's your name? 
 Gore, is it ? Well, I know nothing about it ; 
 and I think you are too late. But stay a 
 minute : do you know anything of your drill ? 
 Oh! — a little. We'll soon see. Put your 
 umbrella down against the guard-room ; never 
 mind about a rifle ; and fall in in the leading 
 
FATHER AND SON 155 
 
 company of this battalion : we will soon see 
 what you know." 
 
 The ordeal was no light one ; but in frock- 
 coat and tall hat, and rifle-less, Ainslie, who a 
 few weeks before had been the centre of interest 
 to a crowd of many thousands at Lord's, fell 
 into his place as number three in the front rank, 
 and was drilled for upwards of an hour on 
 Wellington Barracks' square. He came out of 
 it well and was ordered to join the School, and 
 when he told me the story he added — 
 
 " I really did feel nobody, then, I can tell 
 you ; and moreover I had the fun, when we 
 were standing at ease, of watching a goat slowly 
 nibbling off the tassel on my new umbrella ! " 
 
 The Squire laughed heartily when told the 
 story. ** Capital ! " he said to me. ** Do you sup- 
 pose that Colonel did not know him? Of 
 
 course he did : he was an Eton fellow himself, 
 as most of them are there, and was probably at 
 Lord's for the match. Snubbed him hand- 
 somely, and then fell him in in the ranks ! 
 Well — well ; that's where the training comes 
 in and the swagger is taken out of a boy. Not 
 that Ainslie ever had a grain in his whole body: 
 it is only those who can do nothing at all who 
 swagger a lot." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ABROAD AND AT HOME 
 
 I WISH I had kept more of his letters : those in 
 this bundle seem so very few. The best con- 
 solation is that the earlier ones might not have 
 interested many, the letters of our teens being 
 generally hurried productions, written as if 
 under protest, to satisfy the recipients that we 
 are alive and then to be destroyed. 
 
 For the most part, Ainslie's no doubt con- 
 formed to the general rule ; but I can recall 
 others that contained much of his individual 
 self, being wholly unstudied and with the 
 thoughts of the moment jotted down as they 
 came uppermost. A few of these remain ; the 
 loss of those others I deplore. They would 
 have told so much more of him than I can hope 
 to do, boys like men showing their true selves 
 in their written, even more than in their spoken 
 words, however much they may try, on occa- 
 sions, to put their very best into both. Truth 
 always springs to the fore and declares itself, 
 
 here as elsewhere ; and if in this lies a con- 
 
 156 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 157 
 
 venience to others, there is also in it, occasion- 
 ally, something of inconvenience to ourselves. 
 Lit era script a manet. 
 
 Ainslie went to Germany for some months 
 shortly after he left Eton, establishing himself 
 at Leipzig, and living there alone during that 
 winter and until the time arrived for him to 
 return for his Militia training in the spring. 
 His object in doing this was primarily to learn 
 the language, but largely also to study music. 
 
 ** I have been out here for over two months 
 now," he wrote to me at this time, ** and 
 live in the funniest house you ever saw. No. 8 
 Post Strasse. There is no other lodger, or 
 is there room for one, and I am looked after 
 by a homely old Frau and her daughter — also 
 apparently by the police, who have bagged my 
 passport and say I shall have it back if I am 
 a good boy, and come and tell them when I 
 am leaving. I occupy the upper floor. There 
 is a corner for me in my sitting-room, but the 
 rest is taken up by a piano, a stove, and a 
 shrank to hold my clothes. I get to my 
 diminutive bedroom from this by a glass door. 
 The ceilings of both are very low. Every- 
 thing is very low, except the roof, which is 
 high and very steep ; and possibly if you were 
 in the street at this moment, and I was to 
 
158 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 open one of the two small windows, I could 
 shake hands with you without difficulty. You 
 would not like the street just now, for two feet 
 of snow lies there, and opening the windows is 
 not exactly easy, as they are double, to keep 
 out the cold. 
 
 " Of course I am much alone ; but, as you 
 know, that has no terrors for me. I work hard, 
 walk harder, when the snow permits, and do 
 a deal of listening to music. Haussman, of 
 the Conservatorium, is very good to me, and 
 so is Doctor Peschel, to whom I go daily for 
 German lessons. The first is a refined, delicate- 
 looking man who reads Dickens in German, 
 and asks me how to pronounce the names of 
 our friends of the Pickwick Club. The Herr 
 Doctor is a man of vigour and few illusions, 
 and is local correspondent of The Times, 
 
 ** But just think, dear boy — I am only about 
 four hundred yards from the church where the 
 supremely great John Sebastian was organist, 
 and actually go and hear the organ he played 
 on and look up at the seat where he sat ! I 
 think he will always loom as large as any man 
 in my eyes, and because of the good he has 
 done to the souls of innumerable men — and 
 must go on doing, for that matter, the most 
 flawless creations in all higher forms of art 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 159 
 
 being granted, like those souls I speak of, 
 something of immortality. Fancy being able 
 to do that and to acquire that, all of a go ! I 
 don't mean, so much, the merely immortal 
 reputation, but the other thing. 
 
 "So, you see, what with the links with 
 Bach, the music at the Gewandhaus, the 
 operas at the theatre — entrance, one mark — 
 and walking miles over the great battlefield 
 of 181 3, the various points of which I have 
 fairly mastered, I am tolerably well set up. 
 But my English books are few — worse luck ! 
 The chief among them is Bacon's Advancement 
 of Learning, which I hate, but which I have 
 to swallow with a number of others for the 
 English Literature part of my exam. In the 
 German tongue, I try to read Goethe, whom I 
 love, and also Schiller, whom I reverence. 
 
 ** I wonder what sport you are having at 
 home, and whether you are giving your sister 
 the lead you should, or whether she is leading 
 you as she shouldn't. I was quite right, you 
 see, when I said I should not want a horse 
 this season. But, dear me — how I should like 
 a gallop ! Mind you tell me, when you write, 
 how you find my people. Just slip over there, 
 like a good chap, and have a look at them. 
 They both write cheerily ; but then you know 
 
i6o AINSLIE GORE 
 
 they are not to be trusted, where their two 
 dear old selves are concerned. 
 
 ** Only one thing more ; and don't tell any- 
 body — I like these Germans enormously. And 
 you should just see their troops, their officers 
 especially. The whole thing is so thorough 
 and so professional, and also, where training 
 is concerned, so desperately severe. It is all 
 very well our talking as we do of things 
 * made in Germany.' I only wish we had 
 the secret of the way many things in this 
 country are made, and not by men's hands 
 alone. Perhaps, however, they wish they had 
 some of our secrets, too — our system of 
 athletics, for instance. I feel sure they do : 
 so it's * honours easy ' ! Good-bye. A. G." 
 
 I have only two other letters of his belonging 
 to this period, the first being dated in March 
 of the following year, and running thus : — 
 
 ** The snow has all gone, and things are 
 looking up a bit. One of the big Generals of 
 the place lives opposite, and it appears to be 
 his right to have a regimental band to play to 
 him in the morning, now and again. Peschel 
 doesn't see much of me then ! It is too splendid 
 to miss. There were sixty-three in the band 
 I counted the other day — they belonged to the 
 109th, a Saxon Rifle Regiment. To listen to 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME i6i 
 
 them is to feel that every man among them is 
 really a musician, and plays his best because 
 he loves it, as well as, what is more, because 
 he understands it. I mean, he is not a 
 machine, blowing with all the force of its lungs 
 at a bombardon, and for its own individual 
 glory, but a fellow who is intent on perfecting 
 the general effect to the very utmost of his 
 power, if also at the same time living in some 
 dread of the conductor's spectacles ! 
 
 ** A really good, soldiers' band always gets 
 inside me, and turns me inside out. You 
 should hear these fellows, for instance, playing 
 the Preislied in the Meister singer. You know 
 the solemnity of parts of that, and also the 
 sadness — at least, I think you do, and will 
 understand what I mean by this last. 
 
 **The best music of the best of such bands 
 has always, to me, this kind of refrain behind 
 it. At the back of even the gaiety, there is 
 something else — the other side — even though 
 the tunes be jigs that make men feel inclined 
 to dance. In the very volume of sound, the 
 full tone, the carefully measured crescendo that 
 ends with the silvery clash of the cymbals, 
 there are strength and beauty, and also some- 
 thing stirring ; and thus, such music, by these 
 uniformed men, speaks to me always of that 
 
 L 
 
i62 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 other side to which I have referred, and that 
 is nothing less than the history that is embodied 
 in a regiment's name — its titles, its marchings 
 over half the globe, the names emblazoned 
 on its consecrated colours, the roll of those 
 who lived their day in its ranks and laid down 
 their lives in its track. 
 
 ** Just take this one — the 109th. They went 
 to France for the great war of '70-71. They 
 stood three battalions strong, with, shall we 
 say, something over eighty officers. I know 
 some of the officers of the regiment now, and 
 these have told me that when the regiment 
 returned in the winter of '72, and marched once 
 more through these streets, only four of the 
 officers who went out two years before were 
 present on parade. 
 
 *' That is the past, and that other side I 
 speak of, and which is embodied, as I say, in this 
 living thing — this regiment, with its gay clothes 
 and gay tunes ; that has its story writ in history, 
 and looks with some steadfastness, amidst the 
 laughter and the cheers, to make its sacrifices 
 yet again in time to come ; to add another 
 page to its records ; to put up yet another 
 monument to its slain. That is what soldiers' 
 bands always bring back to me ; and as I 
 listen I dream dreams of things of which you 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 163 
 
 and I know nothing yet — of that other side, 
 that you and I will some day know. 
 
 *' The snow here has all gone, and spring 
 is coming. I picked the first cowslip in the 
 so-called forest yesterday. There is a shallow 
 stream there, but no trout! It is only a big 
 wood, and, as the ground is flat, it is featureless, 
 like the rest of the country round here. But 
 it all seems wonderfully familiar, with its oaks 
 and ash and the golden-green catkins on the 
 hazel, just as they are at home at this moment. 
 
 ** Nature is always beautiful, even in this 
 uninteresting country, with its miles of un- 
 dulating, unenclosed land, its straight, strategic 
 roads, and ugly-coloured soil. There is nothing 
 grand, of course, in any of it, if I except 
 space and distance, two conditions that, to me, 
 have always something grand about them, land 
 or sea — immeasurably grand if one looks sky- 
 wards, night or day. 
 
 *' But, all the same, it is not the grand that one 
 often wants ; and it is not always the grand 
 in which one finds the greatest beauty. It is 
 in the small things and the simple things that 
 I, for one, find what I require most ; and 
 beauty, in some form, is what we all look for, 
 sooner or later. Indeed, I go further than that, 
 and say that we were purposely so constituted 
 
i64 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 as not to be able to live without it. It lies in 
 our roadway at every yard, though we walk 
 blind and may never see it. It is scattered all 
 about our world with an infinitely wise prodi- 
 gality, that we may meet with it when we most 
 want it, that we may make it our own in the 
 glad days as in those of Sturm und Drang, 
 
 '' But I must stop. You will think me grow- 
 ing too serious, and so I am ; and you may 
 think that I have been too much alone, and I 
 have not. What is solitude to one is not so 
 to another, and if I am alone, I have never 
 yet known what it is to be lonely. Still, no 
 doubt, it is long since I had a good laugh, and 
 should like one with you, just as I should like 
 many other things with you. It won't be long 
 now, though, and I don't think I have wasted 
 my time. If there is anyone about you who 
 gives me a thought now and then, give them 
 my remembrance and say I often think of 
 them. Yours ever, A. G." 
 
 His last letter to me from Leipzig was 
 written a few days before leaving, and ran 
 thus : — 
 
 " I am packing up — that is, not merely putting 
 clothes and boots and books — and — and — and 
 music — into a box, but also saying good-bye 
 to those I have come to know and to like here, 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 165 
 
 for I still like these Germans and admire them 
 more and more. They are not us, necessarily ; 
 but they are very great ! The police have 
 been duly called upon by me, and seem to 
 think, after looking up the matter, that there 
 is nothing particular against me, and that I 
 may therefore have my passport the day after 
 to-morrow. It is just in these directions that 
 they are so unlike us. There is no real liberty 
 or freedom, it seems to me, and a man may 
 not even put a brass plate on his own door 
 without the leave of these same armed police. 
 It is all militarism and order, swords and 
 uniforms ; everyone salutes everyone else, and 
 even the scavengers take off their hats to one 
 another. It is all right for them, with a possible 
 enemy just across half a dozen borders : but it 
 would not do in our old country, where every- 
 one shoulders along, doing and saying pretty 
 much what he likes, and where stoical, unarmed 
 bobbies smile their good-natured smiles at the 
 crowd. 
 
 ** I have just been looking at the dates. 
 Are you aware that in little more than a year 
 we may be in touch with the real thing ? 
 First, comes this training in May. Then 
 follows a spell of work — and some cricket. 
 In the winter, more work — and perhaps some 
 
i66 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 hunting. Then the training again ; then this 
 exam. . . . and then . . . well ; you and I will 
 be launched, with our names in the Gazette^ 
 and our dies cast. I think you may be a week 
 or two behind me, only however to pass me 
 afterwards. 
 
 ** If my father manages what he believes he 
 will, there will be no doubt about the regiment 
 for us both. When my father takes a thing 
 up, he generally runs it through. Of course, 
 in working for us, he has his service behind 
 him; but he also has, as they say, 'such a 
 way with him.' It is not many who could 
 resist his face, could they ? — it's so good- 
 humoured, so honest and open. You would 
 wager any man with a face like that was 
 true as steel ; and if, as I have often thought, 
 there is a certain shyness in his manner, it is 
 the diffidence of a real gentleman, and that 
 pays ! 
 
 " If I leave here on Tuesday, I shall be in 
 London on Thursday morning, and at Denton 
 the same evening. You should be home by 
 now, so I will come over on the chance of 
 seeing you on Friday afternoon. Will you 
 please tell somebody that I have been paying 
 especial attention to Chopin, and for very good 
 reasons. I can't play him a bit, and come 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 167 
 
 the most awful howlers over the Impromptu, 
 Op. 29, and a good many more things besides. 
 
 *' The truth is, dear boy, I came from the 
 company of a lot of mediocrities into the 
 presence of a world of professionals. I was 
 even fool enough to think, once, that I could 
 play a little. I find now that I cannot play 
 at all, so mind neither you nor anybody else 
 asks me — and certainly not in a formal way 
 and on a formal occasion. Our music used 
 to be great fun, when we strummed and sang 
 and lolled about. I should like to go back 
 to that. There is a time-worn adage dealing 
 with such desires ; you know it, so I won't 
 quote it. 
 
 ** I can't write to-day. How could anybody 
 when they are packing up ; when the room 
 that has contained them is in disorder, with 
 large gaps in it, due in this case to the absence 
 of my piano that is being at this moment 
 engineered down the narrow staircase by five 
 experts and out into the street? Presently 
 it will be going up the street, like the remains 
 of a departed friend, though, my dear fellow, 
 not with prayers and chants, crosses and 
 candles, but with the echo of Himmels and 
 Wetters and the strangest imprecations, from 
 the throats of those whose whole lives are 
 
i68 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 spent in moving heavy pianos up and down 
 impossible stairways, and in and out of all the 
 houses of this exceedingly musical town. See 
 you soon ! Good-bye. A. G." 
 
 I knew about the time to expect him on 
 that Friday afternoon, and went half a mile 
 through our woods to meet him. He soon 
 appeared, at the other end of a grass ride, 
 sitting slackly in his saddle and whistling a 
 tune to himself. He had not altered a bit 
 in the six months since we last met. There 
 was the same outward cheeriness about him ; 
 the same deep tone in his voice, and laugh 
 in his clear, grey eyes. 
 
 ** How beautiful it all is!" he exclaimed, 
 after an informal greeting between us. '' The 
 wild daffers are out in the hedges on our side, 
 and here are all these masses of primroses 
 making their appearance, with the palm at its 
 very best on the black sallies. You can't 
 think how it strikes one, after foreign parts 
 and life in a great big town. The birds were 
 singing this morning soon after five, and that 
 got me up, and I have been out ever since. 
 How is your sister ; and how are your people ? 
 All well — that's good." 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 169 
 
 Half an hour later we had had tea, and we 
 three younger ones went off to amuse ourselves. 
 The last half hour of sunlight was flooding 
 the room to which we went through three 
 large windows. At one end there was an 
 exceptionally wide sofa covered with red chintz 
 of bold design, and on this my sister flung 
 herself, while Ainslie finished telling me some- 
 thing about the look of the German soldiers 
 that he had begun as we entered. 
 
 The room is just as it was then, and I 
 can see my sister lying back on that sofa 
 now, with her hands folded behind her masses 
 of dark brown hair, and Raeburn's portrait of 
 her grandmother hanging just above her. She 
 was dressed, that day, in some light material 
 of a pale yellow colour that set off her tall, 
 slim figure to perfection ; she being then not 
 quite eighteen, and certainly very beautiful. 
 
 Presently she got up from the sofa as if 
 something had occurred to her ; went quietly 
 across the room, opened a piano at the farther 
 end, and then went as quietly back to her 
 place again. Ainslie half turned his head and 
 smiled, bringing what he was saying to an end. 
 
 '* I didn't mean to stop you," came a voice 
 from the sofa. ** I was only getting things ready. 
 Play us both something — do." 
 
170 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 ** For heaven's sake, not yet," returned 
 Ainslie. ** And if I must — let's all play, and 
 let's all sing, and let's all do just exactly what we 
 used to do. Formality spoils half the music." 
 
 '* That's quite true," returned my sister ; 
 *'but why consider it formal? Surely two 
 people in a room can't make it that, or one 
 added to them at a piano make up a formal 
 concert. Besides, isn't this just the time for 
 music ? Look, the sun is going down, and it 
 is all peace outside." She had raised herself 
 on the pillows and had dropped her arms on 
 her knees. What a picture she made then ! 
 
 The appeal and the picture together were 
 too much for Ainslie, and he went across the 
 room and sat down. I do not remember what 
 he played, but it was exactly what was wanted 
 at the moment. He kept the pedal down till 
 sound had died away, and sat as if listening 
 intently. "There is nothing to beat a Broad- 
 wood grand like this, after all. This bass is 
 magnificent," he said. 
 
 " Sing something," came from the sofa again, 
 the speaker having thrown herself back on the 
 pillows, with her head turned to the nearest 
 window that she might watch the sky. 
 
 Ainslie laughed at the request. ** I assure 
 you I can neither play nor sing," he said. 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 171 
 
 ** Oh, sing something," I put in, going over 
 towards a corner of the room behind him. ** It 
 doesn't matter what it is." 
 
 Ainslie smiled and struck a chord or two. 
 Then he began and, after playing a few bars, 
 stopped. " That's the piano part — I can't call 
 it the accompaniment," he said. "Just listen 
 to it. Of course it is part of a complete whole ; 
 but to me it is more beautiful than the air 
 or even the words, and I play it often for 
 itself." 
 
 " I am not able to judge till I hear them : 
 I will make up my mind when I do," said my 
 sister, softly, a smile crossing her face. 
 
 ** Will you ? Very well — listen, then," said 
 Ainslie, and without adding more began the 
 accompaniment over again. It was Edward 
 Grieg's Ich liebe Dicky and the song runs in 
 my head whenever I recall that spring evening. 
 
 Du mein Gedanke, du mein Sein und Werden ! 
 Du meines Herzens erste Seligkeit ! 
 Ich liebe dich wie nichts auf dieser Erden, 
 Ich liebe dich, ich liebe dich, ich liebe dich 
 In Zeit und Ewigkeit, in Zeit und Ewigkeit. 
 
 Ich denke dein, kann stets nur deiner denken, 
 Nur deinem Glucke ist mein Herz geweiht, 
 Wie Gott auch mag des Lebens Shicksal lenken, . 
 Ich liebe dich, ich liebe dich, ich liebe dich 
 In Zeit und Ewigkeit, in Zeit und Ewigkeit. 
 
172 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 Once again the pedal was left down, and 
 silence slowly fell upon the room. I turned 
 to look at my sister, and fancied there was a 
 colour in her cheeks that had not been there 
 before. The last of the daylight was waning, 
 and perhaps I could not see plainly. 
 
 ** Here ; I must be going ! " exclaimed 
 Ainslie, quite suddenly, jumping up from the 
 piano. " It is getting dark." 
 
 "How German you are ! " came the voice 
 once again from the sofa. 
 
 The Militia training passed off without in- 
 cident. Ainslie quickly won his way with his 
 brother officers, many of whom had known him 
 before ; the seniors nodding their heads to one 
 another and remarking — " He'll do." 
 
 Then he returned to Denton for the summer, 
 to work at his various subjects, to help his 
 father and mother in many ways, and to play 
 cricket with his village club. 
 
 ** Ther'll be doin's now, I can see, plain," 
 remarked Bill Terret. ** I could find of it as 
 soon as ever the young Squire come home. 
 Ther's to be a match agin Blifford, come 
 Sat'day ; and I've been a-axin* he whether 
 he'd judge it well for I to take to round-arm. 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 173 
 
 * No-a, no-a,' says he — ' you kep on wi' yer 
 under-hand : you does quite sufficient execu- 
 tion with that as 'tis.' " 
 
 ** Wull," returned Sam Cook, the shepherd, 
 " I reckons he be about right ther', an' as it 
 'ould be a'most a pity to make a change till 
 us sees how things goes on." 
 
 I was away at Sandhurst during those 
 months, the only letter of his that I kept being 
 this : — 
 
 '* Everything much as usual here. My 
 mother always busy over a thousand different 
 things, and working with positively amazing 
 energy at each in turn. Her influence is won- 
 derful, and the village folk appear to worship 
 her more than ever. As to my father — he 
 continues all his County work, and, what with 
 that and the estate, seems never to have a 
 moment till the evening ; and even then he 
 is often writing letters or trying to do accounts, 
 when he ought to be in bed. I think the 
 condition of things on the land tries him ; but 
 ne never lets it out, except sometimes to de- 
 plore the changes. 
 
 '' ' Half the pleasure of country life is gone, 
 or going,' he said to me last night, 'and it is 
 all becoming so different to what it was. Not 
 so long ago they wanted me to come forward 
 
174 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 as one of these new County Councillors. Of 
 course I said I had no objection, though I 
 didn't believe the County work was going to 
 be better done than it had been. But when 
 they told me I must go round and ask people 
 for their votes, in order to get this precious C.C. 
 honour, I simply said that nothing would in- 
 duce me to. If people liked to vote for me — 
 very well ; but I wasn't going begging to their 
 doors after helping in the work for nearly 
 thirty years. Anyway, they made me a County 
 Alderman in the end, so there was no need of 
 my going round, cap in hand. I hope every- 
 body will be impressed ! ' Can't you imagine 
 him saying that, and his amusement at the 
 whole thing ? 
 
 "You know we have given up preserving, 
 and are turning out no pheasants this year. I 
 doubt which is most melancholy — Giles Merrett, 
 when he looks at his coops stored in the sheds, 
 or old Welfare, when he pokes his nose into 
 his empty stalls and boxes. My father also 
 intends to get our third man a place and leave 
 Giles with only one under him. Of course it 
 is all part of the general come-down; but 
 neither the farmers nor the men like it. The 
 first say that the pheasants never did them any 
 real harm ; and do less, now that the land round 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 175 
 
 the coverts is nearly all down to grass. They 
 also declare that, in the keepers, they have 
 staunch supporters in preventing trespass — a 
 matter of some importance with the orcharding 
 everywhere and people, in these days, claiming 
 rights of way where they have no right to be. 
 As for the men on the place, these dislike it 
 even more than the others. Our days in the 
 coverts were holidays for them, with good 
 money added, a good feed, plenty of cider, a 
 trifle to be picked up for carrying cartridges, 
 and what is dearer than anything in their eyes 
 — a rabbit to be taken home at the end of the 
 day. So we are all the poorer, one way and 
 another, and likely to become still more so. 
 
 "Trappers are everywhere now, and hares 
 are pretty well exterminated. I think the last 
 is certainly a pity ; and it seems to me very 
 poor form, all things considered. But it is no 
 use dwelling on such things. Even you and I 
 can remember when a farmer was glad to leave 
 a bit of hand-reap stubble down the length of 
 a wheat field, and where we could certainly 
 find birds in September. We have come to 
 days now when there is not only no hand reap, 
 but precious little stubble of any kind. What 
 there is, is shaven close to the ground. But 
 what's the use of talking about it ; you know it 
 
176 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 all just as well as I do, and as my father says 
 — * It can't be helped, and we have got to 
 accept it.' Depend upon it, it is harder for 
 him than for us. 
 
 **But here is something brighter than all 
 this. A great event has happened in our 
 family. My father's youngest brother — my 
 uncle John — was married last year, and he has 
 just had a son born to him, and I am to be 
 godfather ! My old father is delighted, and 
 says — * Ah, John ought to have married long 
 ago, since Robert never has, and never will 
 now. I hope he will have a lot more : Gores, 
 like other things we know of, aren't half thick 
 enough on the ground — not half!' 
 
 ** I am getting through a lot of work. My 
 father suggests a tutor : but I can see my way 
 to doing without, so say it is quite unnecessary. 
 Why add to expense, where one can help it ? 
 I say — we beat Blifford the other day by an 
 innings and two runs. I went out for four, a 
 beast of a ball hitting me in the forehead and 
 then taking my bails. The ground wants a 
 little attention and I must be at it with a roller ; 
 but a really bad ground equalises all players, 
 and that is where the beauty of it comes in — 
 and the fun. 
 
 ** There was certainly fun in this case. The 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 177 
 
 scorer, old Jimmy, was puzzled how to enter 
 such a thing as my dismissal. Of course Bill 
 came to his assistance, with — * Bowled horf the 
 heye, o' course ; what more could anyun want 
 to zee on scorin' sheet?' Jimmy screwed up 
 his lips over his toothless gums, and still re- 
 mained in doubt. We got it all right after a 
 bit! Good-bye. — Yours ever, A. G." 
 
 There seems to have been little to mark the 
 rest of that year or the earlier part of the next, 
 so far as I can gather from other people, or 
 recollect myself. I can recall many a day's 
 shooting that September, when the Squire and 
 Ainslie and I were out together over the 
 Denton estate, the Squire leaving it to us, 
 now, to do the outside of the beats, and taking 
 short cuts himself. It was not a country suit- 
 able for driving, and we always walked the 
 birds, and sometimes took out a brace of 
 pointers. 
 
 I believe the Squire enjoyed those days as 
 much as any in the year, especially as he could 
 now no longer face the flats by the Severn, 
 when north-easterly winds brought the snipe 
 and there was a rim of ice along the reens. 
 Such things as wading in the shallows when 
 days were at their shortest — waiting in the 
 chilly dusk for the whistle of a mallard's wing 
 
 M 
 
178 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 at cockshut — were not for him ; but at the 
 same time he would often give us the most 
 minute directions concerning the best course 
 to follow, if bent upon such things ourselves, 
 taking stock as he spoke of the direction of 
 the wind, and looking up to see whether the 
 sky held rain or snow. 
 
 He always contended that true sport was 
 never a soft job, and seemed to think that it 
 would lose all source of enjoyment as well as 
 training if it became so. He had contempt for 
 luxury and every form of self-indulgence, and I 
 remember his saying to Ainslie — '* I know, you 
 as my son will never give way to anything of 
 that kind, and that you hate the effeminacy of 
 it as much as I do. But mind both of you 
 always set your face against it — you will grow 
 up all the better men if you do." 
 
 We were sitting in a row, at the moment, on 
 a gate that Merrett had unhung and laid in the 
 tussocky grass on the sunny side of a hedge, 
 sharing a bit of bread and meat with the men 
 during the half-hour we gave ourselves in the 
 September days I speak of. The wide vale 
 lay spread out below, with the Forest hills all 
 blue to the west, and the sands of the Severn 
 showing that the tide there was at dead low 
 water. Ainslie was often very silent at such 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 179 
 
 moments. He seemed to be taking stock of 
 different points in the landscape, chewing a dry 
 bent between his teeth ; occasionally looking 
 up at ''the domes of marble" in the high 
 heavens, and no doubt thinking many things. 
 
 Alice Grey was still to the fore when that 
 winter came, and with her, and many mounts 
 he was offered, Ainslie saw some of the best 
 days of the season. He had a good eye for 
 country, with beautiful hands on a horse and a 
 picture of a seat, and thus many were glad 
 to get him to ride a young one for them and 
 asked him to dine and sleep at their houses for 
 the purpose. It was so in my father's case, 
 and Ainslie accordingly often spent a night at 
 my home whether I was there or not, all of us 
 being equally fond of him. 
 
 Nor was it different elsewhere. He was 
 accepted wherever he went and in whatever 
 company he found himself, and I remember a 
 very prominent personage in our County say- 
 ing of him once in my hearing — *' I can't 
 explain it exactly ; but there is coming about 
 in young Ainslie Gore a kind of irresistible 
 attraction. If he was my son I should feel 
 that his universal popularity would prove to be 
 one of his greatest dangers in life." 
 
 All I can say myself is, that if there was a 
 
i8o AINSLIE GORE 
 
 snare here, Ainslie certainly went scatheless, 
 for he was totally unaware of the fact him- 
 self. 
 
 The Squire gave up hunting about this 
 time, and talking of it some years later said 
 to me — *' I might have come down to the 
 proverbial old gentleman's cob ; but you know 
 there was not much fun in that. So I just 
 decided to have done with it altogether, and 
 hung up my crops behind the door. Kept 
 up my subscriptions to the various funds, of 
 course ; had to do that for the credit of the 
 place and Ainslie's sake, leaving him to take 
 what change he liked out of it." 
 
 There was something inspiring in the way 
 that Squire Gore faced the growing difficulties 
 and all he was trying to do. He had once 
 wanted for nothing : he was now only able 
 to maintain himself at Denton by his income 
 from invested funds. For many a year, in 
 former times, he had known what it was to be 
 pocket-easy — to be able to give away liberally ; 
 to fill his house at all seasons ; to do this and 
 to do that, without troubling himself about the 
 cost. But the estate was now showing a heavy 
 balance on the wrong side annually, and he 
 was therefore using all his endeavours to cur- 
 tail expenditure, and also to do what he had 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME i8i 
 
 never done before — to keep private accounts in 
 detail, a task that puzzled him much. 
 
 His neighbours in the County watched him 
 with a smile of admiration, guessing also, 
 perhaps, what he and his wife had partly in 
 view in denying themselves as they were 
 doing. Many of the tenants expressed regret, 
 and then turned and looked at their own 
 pockets and their several farms : at the same 
 time they did not like to see a lowering of the 
 standard of living in the case of their landlord ; 
 it reflected in a way upon themselves. 
 
 The labouring men, for their part, frequently 
 compared notes over their ale, contrasting the 
 present with the past, up at the Manor. The 
 vein of their talk had often something of 
 melancholy in it, and having expressed their 
 feelings and their regard for the Squire and his 
 good lady on such occasions — as they sat, 
 perhaps, and talked in the taproom of the 
 Gore Arms — usually brought their proceedings 
 to an end after a prolonged silence, by plac- 
 ing a considerable share of the blame on the 
 wrong shoulders. 
 
 Possibly Susan Mantel put it best into words, 
 a good deal of gossip passing over that narrow 
 counter of hers in the course of a year — " For 
 my part," she said, to her opposite neighbour, 
 
i82 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 Mrs. Tull — "it do seem as if one class wus 
 going up in spite o' the times, and t'other 
 class wus coming down 'cause o' the times. 
 'Tis queer ; and if I can't seem to get beyond 
 it, somehows, I can yet tell ye this, Mrs. Tull, 
 as Gores ain't soon darnted — no, that them 
 bain't ! Neither th' old Squire nor his good 
 lady do give away less than they did used, in 
 parish and about ; but Squire be far-sighted, 
 an' his son be jus' everythin' to un. Zeed 'em 
 pass last night, I did ; a-goin' by with the 
 young un on the old un's arm, and I says to 
 myself, Mrs. Tull, I says — it be there lies the 
 secret, I says ; and time do creep on for us 
 arl." 
 
 Mrs. Tull had come across to buy three- 
 pennyworth of dips. She wore a red and 
 black check shawl, and a black cap with a frill 
 to it. Her complexion was sallow and her 
 neck was extraordinarily thin, and she was 
 Susan's senior by some years. One of her 
 thin hands was holding the door-post as Susan 
 talked ; but when it came to her turn to put in 
 a word, the buffle in her breath,^ as they called 
 it here, prevented her saying much, and she 
 contented herself therefore with nodding her 
 head and repeating Susan's last words more 
 
 ^ A stammer. 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 183 
 
 than once, before picking her way homewards 
 across the muddy road — ** L-l-lies the secret ; 
 an' t-t-time do creep on — ah, well, to be 
 sure." 
 
 I cannot do better, I think, than give here 
 a part of one of the Squire's letters to his son, 
 though it belongs to a year or two later than 
 this, when Ainslie was many hundred miles 
 away. The last paragraphs run thus : — 
 
 ** I can assure you that there is no cause for 
 the least anxiety on your part ; and the very 
 last thing either your mother or I would dream 
 of doing would be to cut down your allowance. 
 How like you to think of that ! I want you, 
 on the contrary, to live in the way that you 
 should, as heir to this old home of our family 
 — keep a good horse and win the regimental 
 race ! I know what Denton is to you, and also 
 what you are to us. The old home will be 
 safe in your hands, and I can feel happy on 
 that score. I am trying my best to keep 
 everything up to such a standard, that when 
 a change comes you can let things lie down 
 for a year or two. 
 
 "One point, however, I am quite sure of, 
 and it is this — that if, in trying to tide the 
 tenants over these bad times by every means 
 possible, and doing all that I want to do besides. 
 
1 84 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 we are hit even harder than we are now, 
 nothing will ever make me go out of these 
 doors to let a stranger in. Rents may go 
 down, as they have already done in some 
 cases, from thirty shillings an acre to twelve 
 and sixpence — altogether insufficient to cover 
 the tithe, land tax, income duty, insurance and 
 repairs — or coppice wood may fall, as it has 
 now done with us, from twelve and fourteen 
 pounds an acre to three — but I mean to stick 
 it out, and so does your mother, if we have to 
 take to one of the attics and live on bread and 
 cheese. 
 
 *' I don't say this in any bragging spirit — I 
 hope I am not capable of that kind of form ; 
 but that is what I feel. A family property is 
 a trust, for the time being, of the man who 
 holds it, and the duty of people of our class 
 seems to me to be to continue to live among 
 their own folk, in the homes where their for- 
 bears have long carried on traditions — still 
 trying to do their best by those about them ; 
 fighting out all that comes, and that wz// come, 
 mind you, if I know anything of the times ; 
 and without a particle of hesitation, much less 
 fear — if, indeed, I care to use such a word as 
 that last at all. I must stop. I feel sure it 
 will be all right — indeed, my dear boy, I know 
 
ABROAD AND AT HOME 185 
 
 it will. — Ever your affectionate old father, 
 Rupert Gore." 
 
 There was nothing to mark the next few 
 months. With the spring came the Militia 
 training again for Ainslie, followed by a spell 
 at his books and the examination. A few 
 weeks later the news arrived that he had 
 passed, his name appearing with others in 
 alphabetical order, the examination not being 
 competitive at that date. 
 
 That same morning the Squire left for 
 London, saying to Ainslie, with a broad smile 
 on his good-humoured face as he wished him 
 good-bye on the front-door steps — " It won't 
 do for us to run any risks in a matter of this 
 kind. Of course there are many fine Regi- 
 ments in our Service ; but there can only be 
 one really for me — and you. So I must just 
 go up and see Sir Edward and one or two 
 more, and remind them of their promises. 
 And I shan't come back till I have squared 
 it for you both. Ah ; the Regiment ! — you 
 should have seen them move in the old days 
 — seen them move ! " Then he was gone ; 
 touching up the old horse and playing with 
 the lash of his whip, with Welfare wreathed in 
 smiles on the back seat of the dog-cart behind 
 him. 
 
i86 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 An official envelope made its appearance not 
 long afterwards and Ainslie found himself 
 gazetted to one of the most distinguished 
 Regiments of the British Army, being subse- 
 quently ordered to join the second battalion 
 of the same overseas. 
 
 The Squire was jubilant, and there was a 
 quiet delight in the eyes of his wife. The 
 break up that it meant in their small home 
 circle affected them in different ways ; but 
 numbers of the family had gone out from these 
 walls on similar errands, and this new recruit 
 was only one more added to a long list : it was 
 all quite natural and as it should be. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SOME SOLDIERING, AND OTHER THINGS 
 
 So we both stepped out into the world, and 
 sought in our several ways to become men. 
 
 Ainslie of course carried all his ideals with 
 him, like some stock-in-trade upon which he 
 had to maintain himself — so many warm- 
 blooded realities standing at his elbow ; not by 
 any means mere fantasies, but to become daily 
 more definite — to be attained, captured, made 
 his very own. And if his aims were high, he 
 sought to make the tools he worked with fit for 
 such purposes, just as he continued ever to 
 believe that all things he was brought into con- 
 tact with were capable of being made the best 
 of their kind, or at least in some way better 
 than they were. 
 
 ** I often think," he said to me once — **that 
 by the beauty given to us so freely on every 
 hand. Nature sets a standard for us who pose 
 as masters here. It is true that this beauty is 
 
 often hidden from us — that is, in the sense that 
 
 187 
 
i88 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 it demands search, not to mention many other 
 things besides. But there are two further 
 points to do with it that never fail to appeal to 
 me. The first is that in Nature's world beauty 
 is nearly always progressive — from the seed to 
 the flower and the fruit ; and the other, that it 
 increases the closer we come to it and the more 
 we strive to make it our own. 
 
 *' I believe it to be very much the same with 
 ourselves. Beauty in some form is implanted 
 in every one of us, and we are meant to search 
 for it, to bring it out, to use it and to perfect it. 
 You may call it my philosophy, if you like ; but 
 don't forget that all Nature is just the manifes- 
 tation of one great truth after another. And if 
 that is so, and purpose is inherent in the whole, 
 it seems to me pretty feeble for us men not to 
 realise the fact, instead of being content to sit 
 with folded hands or to trudge along with aim- 
 less feet. Depend upon it there must always 
 be continual progress and reform — progress 
 towards a more perfect beauty — the cleansing 
 of what is inherently false and wrong. And 
 hence there comes about this — that behind 
 beauty, in whatever form, there is the beckon- 
 ing finger ; the claim for distinct aim, even 
 though we catch at phantoms and be babies 
 crying for the moon ! " — and he broke into a 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 189 
 
 laugh as if to cover the seriousness he had 
 thrown into his sentences. 
 
 Certainly his aims lent immeasurable zest to 
 his life, giving him happiness of a kind not 
 often met with. As the years of manhood 
 opened, enthusiasms appeared to radiate from 
 him more and more. He seemed to find the 
 world a happy place ; and in one of his letters 
 I find him writing as to this — 
 
 " Life is the finest of all sports, if you come 
 to look at it closer. You have never to travel 
 far for opportunities and you can always hunt 
 them, not forgetting that they have a trick of 
 sometimes hunting you. And if that looks 
 enigmatical, it is not so much of an enigma as 
 it seems. You at least will not think that I 
 forget the serious side. I certainly do not ; 
 but I think that reference to it is best kept in 
 the background. By over-emphasis it is apt to 
 get blunted, and may easily turn to something 
 not quite so becoming. 
 
 *' It is precious difficult, I know, for some of 
 us to call always for the merry tune and to 
 drink deeply of the many wines of life : I often 
 find it so myself. But all the same, keep the 
 merry tune running in the head, and fill the 
 chalice with the richest to be purchased — ay, 
 and slap up to the brim ! Neither will ever 
 
190 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 mar or stain, and you will find happiness in 
 both — it will come to you from both sides, too, 
 the serious no less than the gay. 
 
 ** I came across this the other day, when 
 reading the life of Pasteur, and give it you in 
 English — ' Happy the man who carries within 
 himself a God, an ideal of beauty, and who 
 obeys it : the ideal of art, the ideal of science, 
 the ideal of Country, the ideal of Gospel virtues 
 — these are the living springs of great thoughts 
 and great deeds.' 
 
 " You and I are not likely to give the world 
 great thoughts or to be guilty of great actions, 
 the capacity to do either being the endowment 
 of the merest fraction of mankind. But that is 
 no reason why we should not possess our little 
 hopes and have our little aims, and be as happy 
 in their possession as the giants we read of, 
 hear of, and very rarely see. We can't be 
 great. We know that, right enough. Our 
 place is with the rank and file. But because 
 we are insignificant, there seems to me to be 
 all the more reason to begin with ourselves 
 and to furbish up the little talents that we have." 
 
 Ainslie was gazetted to the Regiment about 
 two months before me, and went through the 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 191 
 
 ordeal of joining it alone. '' You know when a 
 single hound is thrown out," he wrote to me, 
 shortly afterwards — **all the pack growl at him 
 as a stranger when he returns, and look as if 
 they'd eat him. Well, joining isn't quite as 
 bad as that, so far as I am able to judge, for 
 the fellows here are naturally rather a picked 
 lot and don't therefore either growl or look as 
 if they'd eat me. Indeed, some go out of their 
 way to give me a hint or two, and help me to 
 find my way about. I can see that I have got 
 it all to learn, and of course this first go off is 
 rather overpowering. For one thing, the last 
 joined are somewhat ignored ; and for the first 
 year or more their voices are not reckoned to 
 be heard in the mess-room. * Seen and not 
 heard ' is the rule ; and in this seeing on the 
 part of others lies the judging all the time, 
 while in the holding of your tongue we all know 
 there is virtue. 
 
 *' To become one of a great Regiment seems 
 to me like suddenly becoming a member of 
 a great family, and heir at once to all its 
 traditions. It is a new home, peopled by those 
 you have never seen before, and several among 
 whom are distinguished. To walk in therefore 
 at the front door — labelled, here, Officers' Mess 
 — simply, my dear fellow, makes one quake. 
 
192 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 But, after all, much depends upon oneself. If 
 you behave as you should, there is nothing 
 to be afraid of; if you are a fool, you will 
 be treated as such and deserve it. A fellow, 
 for instance, joined here last year, and strolling 
 into the Orderly Room where the Colonel 
 had just been dispensing justice, put out his 
 hand, saying — * How — do. Colonel ; think we've 
 met before.' So some of his brother subalterns 
 took him down to the back yard in his night 
 attire that evening, and having pointed out the 
 tap against the wall, ordered him to take his 
 seat there and turn it on. Served him right, 
 I think : too much side ! They say he is 
 becoming a first-rate fellow now, though he 
 did not surrender to the first tap. 
 
 ** Then again, if one is always having one's 
 measure taken by brother officers, you may 
 depend upon it you are being also pretty 
 closely fitted by the men — perhaps even more 
 closely. Sooner or later, I fancy, you will 
 stand out before them in just the clothes to 
 suit you, and no others. A fellow, here, said 
 to me the other day — ' You can't be too 
 particular about all you do before the men. 
 Remember, they are always watching you, 
 especially at first ; and what is more, they 
 are perpetually comparing notes. The result 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 193 
 
 is that they come to a decision about you at 
 once, and probably know more about you in 
 three days than you do about yourself.' 
 
 " I like that ; and though the verdict may 
 be very different to what we believe or think 
 it ought to be, it is certain to be fairly just. 
 We are always too jolly sure of our mental 
 estimate of ourselves. In this case, however, 
 we shall probably find out the truth of the 
 verdict passed upon us, when the supreme 
 hour arrives and there is a check instead of 
 a bound forward. Fail to win these fellows' 
 hearts, and they will fail you, and fail them- 
 selves through you — don't forget that : win their 
 hearts and their confidence at the same time, 
 and they will follow you to — well, blazes! 
 The real remedy, I think, is to be a gentleman 
 at all times ; and there is no surer judge of 
 a gentleman, especially if he is country-bred, 
 than Tommy, the gentleman, himself." 
 
 A long, v/hitewashed building in the full 
 blaze of a Southern sun, with three intermin- 
 able rows of windows all set deep in the wall 
 and all alike fitted with green jalousies. To 
 right and left and somewhat to the front, two 
 square blocks of similar design — these being 
 
 N 
 
194 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 known as the North and South Pavilions, or 
 Officers' Quarters, and the whole, as The South 
 Barracks. Set right in the centre of the long, 
 main block, and approached by a flight of ten 
 much-worn steps, is the principal entrance, 
 with other similar, though smaller, ones at the 
 extremities of this white, featureless erection 
 that remains much as when the Spaniards set 
 it up and the great fortress of Gibraltar was 
 theirs. 
 
 To one side of the main gateway stands 
 a sentry, under the shelter of his ** sentry's 
 umbrella," with his beat along the front trodden 
 smooth by unknown feet for untold years, and 
 having the whole wide parade to himself this 
 suffocating August day. No one who can 
 help it is moving anywhere : the pitiless sun 
 is too fierce and the time of day quite wrong. 
 Only those are abroad who have to be, and 
 even they are very few — this corporal of the 
 guard going his rounds with his relief of two 
 men ; this Spaniard on his mule, shuffling 
 along in the dust of the broad road skirting the 
 parade — his panniers filled with oranges, toma- 
 toes, bananas, and a green and a yellow melon 
 or two, his face burnt to dark copper, and his 
 eyes screwed up in the glare under his broad- 
 brimmed, black Spanish hat ; this scrap of a 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 195 
 
 boy bugler who comes out on to the flat at the 
 top of the central steps and wakes up the echoes 
 by sounding the quarter for defaulters, and 
 then disappears into the dark, cool shade to 
 repeat his call at the back of this great building. 
 
 The echo of the bugle notes are repeated 
 elsewhere and come back from far — *' Oh, 
 come to your mother, you poor little beggar ; 
 oh, come to your mother, dear boy." One 
 wonders, watching this child, if his notes should 
 carry to England, whether his own mother has 
 a thought for him there. This scrap would 
 scorn such sentiment, and possibly remark, 
 " Not much ! " if you asked him. 
 
 But meanwhile his music and that of others 
 at this hour find echo here from rocks burnt 
 dry as pumice, and hot, silent cliffs that never 
 cool at this season, rising high into the blue 
 heavens to a height of 1400 feet — right up in 
 some places from the level of an even bluer 
 sea. 
 
 Vegetation seems to be practically destroyed, 
 save for the palmettos, the taller palms, the 
 bella sombras and the pepper trees, the giant 
 poinsettia bushes, and the castor oil plants 
 with their shining leaves spread out flat in the 
 everlasting glare. There are no longer any 
 flowers — the hot rocks and the fierce sun alike 
 
196 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 have said their ** No." Four months ago there 
 were crimson Barbadoean aloes all along the 
 paths at the foot of the slopes, with beds of 
 pelargoniums, the many - coloured hibiscus, 
 white daturas, clambering purple bougainvillaea, 
 irises and arum lilies — even small patches of 
 green grass flecked with yellow stars. But 
 then the heat grew greater daily ; the air dried 
 up the scanty soil ; and the scorching sun 
 came over the heights above to glare at the 
 face of this great, giant Rock for ten to twelve 
 long hours daily, till at last it went behind the 
 purple hills across the bay and its glassy sea, 
 leaving men and plants alike flagging a little 
 more, waiting as best they might — for months 
 — for the long-delayed coming of the rains. 
 
 Ainslie and I were sitting in his quarters in 
 the South Pavilion, his single window looking 
 out towards the great barracks, with the steep 
 slope of the burnt-up Rock behind them — 
 dazzling white walls, grey barren rock, a sky 
 almost sapphire blue, a shade temperature of 
 anything over 95°, and the silence of afternoon 
 broken only by stray bugle calls and the eternal 
 buzzing of flies. 
 
 We had been nearly three years on the 
 Rock, with only one spell of leave in the time. 
 In a few months more the Regiment would be 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 197 
 
 going home, and we had been talking of that 
 and what these years had brought us, till at 
 length Ainslie had fallen asleep in his chair. 
 He had come off guard soon after six that 
 morning, which meant in this instance that he 
 had spent the night in his clothes and the 
 previous twenty-four hours in the ditch of the 
 fortress at the Waterport, finding what comfort 
 he might in a low, arched casemate, chiefly 
 occupied by an obsolete gun, and tenanted at 
 night by an innumerable company of rats. 
 
 He was lying back at the moment dressed 
 in a thin pair of white trousers and a white 
 silk shirt, open at the neck and turned up at 
 the sleeves. His legs were crossed, and one 
 arm had dropped, till the hand rested on the 
 cane matting on the floor. His face was no 
 longer that of a boy ; it had become stronger 
 and fuller of character. His frame showed 
 equal change. He had developed greatly. 
 The figure was as loose knit as formerly, but 
 it had become far more powerful, squarer, and 
 with every muscle perfectly attuned. 
 
 His appearance had always attracted atten- 
 tion ; few passed him now without looking 
 twice, for with manhood — early manhood 
 though it still was — had come increasing good 
 looks, a certain natural dignity of carriage, and 
 
198 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 a charm of manner that was little less than 
 captivating to people of all ages and both 
 sex. Everyone knew him here ; all liked him 
 for his simple ways, his geniality and good- 
 humoured readiness on all occasions ; and 
 many loved him, where traits of character had 
 been discerned that were shown to very few. 
 
 If anyone ever had chance of being spoilt 
 Ainslie Gore had here ; but his very natural- 
 ness seemed to be a bulwark against anything 
 of the kind, and in this brilliantly happy period 
 of his life he remained the simple-hearted being 
 of many talents, who lived his days in the sun- 
 shine, brimful of the joy of life, keen to excel 
 in all he undertook — first, in the case of his 
 profession, and then in all those many interests 
 which he either created for himself or with 
 which he had been naturally endowed. 
 
 Such a personality as his was certain to be 
 surrounded by temptations from which more 
 ordinary men are wholly free. He could, for 
 instance, do many things that others could 
 not, and do them very well, and for this reason 
 he was in some quarters courted and made 
 much of, as well as flattered not a little. At 
 first he never noticed it. As soon as he did, 
 he laughed at it all as a joke : the snare had 
 lost its power to harm him then. Had he, 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 199 
 
 however, been inclined to succumb to the 
 many dangers that waylaid him, there was an 
 all-sufficient antidote in the system existing in 
 his famous Regiment. He had joined with 
 what many might have thought the highest 
 of credentials, as a former member of the 
 Eton Eleven. But when the cricketing season 
 opened here, with the customary match of a 
 regimental team against the next twenty-two, 
 that new-comers might show their form, Ainslie 
 was relegated to the twenty-two, while I, a 
 poor performer, was placed for the nonce in 
 the eleven. 
 
 We never got him out that afternoon, on the 
 level stretch of sand and scanty turf lying 
 between the two seas at the North Front, 
 the match being long afterwards referred to 
 by reason of a remark he made. He was not 
 sent in to bat until several wickets had fallen, 
 and was perfectly well aware that he was on 
 his trial. There was a quiet smile on his face 
 when he reached the wicket that reminded me 
 of earlier days, and I felt confident therefore 
 what would come. He just looked round at 
 the field, and then in the same over, hit a six 
 and two fours in three consecutive balls from 
 the best regimental bowler. 
 
 " I'm awfully sorry," he said, when he had 
 
200 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 run the last out, and as if almost indignant — 
 " but I can't help it, if you will keep bowling 
 me half-volleys on my legs ! " Point heard it 
 and passed it on to his cover when **Over" 
 was called ; and so it went the round of the 
 field and some laughed. 
 
 Ainslie naturally always played for the 
 eleven after that, as everyone knew he would 
 from the first. H is being placed in the twenty- 
 two had possibly been meant as a reminder 
 that, here, everyone began at the bottom, 
 irrespective of his position elsewhere, and no 
 matter who he was or had been. No doubt 
 we grew in time quietly proud of some of his 
 performances with the bat ; but there was 
 rarely any applause or patting on the back 
 amongst us, the view taken being that the 
 individual worked for the credit of the whole, 
 and not for the eleven or the side only, but 
 more especially for the Regiment. The suc- 
 cess of the individual thus became, by general 
 consent, merged in the doings of the rest, just 
 as it might, for instance, when the matter in 
 hand would be very different — when honour 
 called for straightest leading, and tradition 
 claimed her final sacrifice. 
 
 Sport of all kinds was encouraged amongst 
 us, and in our Colonel at the time we had a 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 201 
 
 man who was well fitted to lead. He came 
 of a great family ; he had seen much service : 
 and now in these later years of his command 
 had set himself to make his battalion all that 
 it should be, from top to bottom. In this way, 
 and being unmarried, as in fact we all were 
 at this period, it was his custom to have his 
 younger officers much with him, and on Sunday 
 afternoons especially, two or three of us would 
 accompany him in a climb to the highest points 
 of the Rock, or go with him for a long walk 
 elsewhere. On parade he was severe ; but at 
 other times, while there was never any famili- 
 arity, he was, out of doors, just one of us, 
 joining the rest in everything. No truer, 
 cleaner-hearted man ever wore uniform, and he 
 made the Regiment, in one sense, what it was 
 — a happy family. 
 
 Being a wise man, our Colonel never showed 
 favouritism. He was very quick in forming 
 his opinions. For Ainslie he had a great 
 liking from the first, and also thought highly of 
 him, professionally. Years afterwards, he said 
 to me — " He was a dear good fellow and one 
 of the smartest officers I ever had, and I 
 always hoped to make him my adjutant. He 
 had brains, you see ; and his ultimate success 
 was certain — at least, I always thought so." 
 
202 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 When Ainslie first joined and came out to 
 the Rock, the hunting season was in full swing 
 with the Calpe hounds, and having been brought 
 up to such pursuit from childhood, he set to 
 work at once to find a horse. It was a point 
 of honour in the Regiment that all should hunt 
 when not on duty, and as the first and second 
 whips of the pack were two of our number we 
 generally mustered in great force. 
 
 The country was strange after the Berkeley 
 vale, whether in the Cork Woods or the 
 Alcadeza Crags. There was no fencing, and 
 crossing cultivated ground was strictly for- 
 bidden. But if much of it was impossible 
 riding, there was always a far better chance of 
 breaking neck and limbs than in any country 
 in England, and ample room for horsemanship 
 and daring in this jolly company of soldiers. 
 Mounted on ** General Prim " and properly 
 turned out, as most of us were, in a red coat, 
 Ainslie was rarely absent on the two days a 
 week that hounds were out. He rode quietly 
 and well, in a field that contained many good 
 men, and just before the season closed, was 
 fortunate one day in confirming the opinion 
 that some had formed of him. 
 
 It came about in this way. Tropical rain 
 had been falling, and the field had dwindled to 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 203 
 
 a score, when we found ourselves in a country 
 scarcely rideable for its steep crags and boulder- 
 strewn slopes. Ainslie had learnt something 
 of the science of hunting on the days when he 
 had handled the Eton beagles, and being totally 
 fearless, had on this occasion, and when hounds 
 were running, come down the well - known 
 Devil's Staircase in the Alcadezas, to find him- 
 self at the bottom alone with the hounds. For 
 a moment in the valley, they were at fault ; 
 but making a cast forward and hitting off the 
 line, Ainslie had already run into his fox when 
 the huntsman — as reckless a rider in this 
 country as might be seen — reached him, with 
 — " Well, well. Sir ! — wherever did yer learn 
 that, then ? " 
 
 Nobody said much to Ainslie at the time, 
 whatever they may have said among themselves. 
 The Master, who hailed from the Bicester 
 country, looked at him, and contented himself 
 for the moment with a grunt of approval ; but 
 when the next season opened, Ainslie was 
 charged with the important duties of earth- 
 stopper, an office in a country such as this 
 involving much work on non-hunting days. Of 
 course he threw his whole heart into it, that 
 the sport here might be improved ; and so 
 keen was he on many occasions that he was 
 
204 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 regarded by some as being almost as good as 
 a terrier in drawing a fox, his hands bearing 
 many scars in consequence. 
 
 It was no uncommon sight, when a gallop 
 had ended in a run to ground, and much 
 time had been expended with crowbar, pick 
 and shovel — instruments always brought into 
 the field by his assistant, ex-Gunner Jim — for 
 Ainslie to go half to ground himself, leaving 
 little showing but his boots. And on one 
 occasion, when the tongs were missing from 
 Jim's miscellaneous outfit, I well recollect his 
 being pulled out from a hole, bringing with 
 him, to the amusement of the field, the fox 
 himself gripped tightly by the cheeks. 
 
 Ainslie ran his horse that year in the regi- 
 mental steeplechase, but failed to win a place. 
 He had expected nothing else, ''General 
 Prim " having had a hard season and being 
 little better than a bag of bones. But that 
 race must be won, and the possibility of win- 
 ning it became from this time forward one of 
 the dearest wishes of his heart, no less than the 
 wish of his old father at home. 
 
 It was not a question of money and buying 
 the best horse, with somebody else to train it 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 205 
 
 and yet another to ride, the conditions being 
 that the horse entered should have been 
 regularly hunted by the owner during the 
 previous season, and be ridden in the race 
 either by the owner himself or a brother officer. 
 There were no stakes. The winner had his 
 name engraved on the cup, and the last man 
 in had to stand champagne at dinner to the 
 rest. 
 
 That summer Ainslie took short leave more 
 than once, and visited Tangier, trying horses 
 there with me on the sands at three o'clock in 
 the morning on one occasion, though without 
 purchasing. Then he went to Seville, and 
 finally finding what he wanted at Jerez, 
 christened his new mount **Jerezano." The 
 new horse was no beauty ; few of the Spanish 
 horses of that date being much to look at. He 
 could jump, and under Ainslie's tuition was 
 taught to jump better, his owner, moreover, 
 never sparing him when hunting began and 
 his duties as earth-stopper made heavy de- 
 mands upon his stud. I do not think the 
 desire to win the race had often been absent 
 from Ainslie's mind, when February came 
 round again and the Meeting was fixed for the 
 last three days of the month. He knew that 
 he would have two of the best jockeys in the 
 
2o6 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 Service against him, and that '* Jerezano" wai 
 not thought fast enough to win ; but if he was 
 beaten — well, so let it be : he would try again. 
 
 The course was laid out in the neighbour- 
 hood of Campamento, advantage being taken 
 of a stream at the bottom of a rocky gully for 
 the water jump, and the fences being either 
 built-up banks or constructed of telegraph poles 
 and hurdles interlaced with gorse. Ainslie had 
 two mounts on the first day and one on the 
 second, scoring one win. When the time 
 arrived for what was, to us, the principal 
 event on the card on the third day of the 
 Meeting, nineteen horses went to the post — a 
 crowd that was certain to be thinned at the 
 first four fences. 
 
 Ainslie's place was second from the left, if 
 I recollect rightly, for he remarked to me — 
 ** A poor place ; nine horses out of ten swerve 
 to the left, so we must look out." 
 
 The remark proved prophetic. At the very 
 first fence, his neighbour changed the spot 
 more than once at which he meant to take it, 
 necessarily communicating his indecision to his 
 horse and upsetting the field behind him. The 
 final result was that he cannoned into Ainslie 
 just as *' Jerezano " was landing, and threw both 
 horse and rider to the ground. Nor did mis- 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 207 
 
 fortune stop here, for in getting up '' Jerezano " 
 struck his rider in the face, cutting one lip 
 badly and knocking out a tooth, before making 
 off on his own account. 
 
 Ainslie was quickly on his feet, and his 
 horse as quickly caught by Jim the earth- 
 stopper, who, report said, had backed him 
 heavily. Once more in the saddle, his face 
 now smothered in blood, it looked for a mo- 
 ment as if all hope for him was at an end, 
 especially as the rest of the field were already 
 approaching the second fence ahead. But 
 calling "Let go!" Ainslie set out on his 
 stern chase, ** riding " — as Jim subsequently con- 
 tinued to repeat many times — ** that cool an 
 quiet like, an for all the world as if nothin' 
 hadn't happened to un, bless yer. Ther, I 
 knew'd he was a right un ; course I did ! " 
 
 Such a lead was not to be overhauled in a 
 minute ; but slowly and surely, Ainslie con- 
 tinued to creep up, till just after passing the 
 Stand for the first time, and amidst the re- 
 sounding cheers of the company, he reached 
 his horses. It was anybody's race after that, 
 five horses being still together at the last 
 fence but one. The favourite, ** Saracen," drew 
 out when this had been negotiated, with 
 '' Jerezano " lying just behind him. There was 
 
2o8 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 a fall in the ground all the way to the last 
 obstacle, and the rider of *' Saracen " con- 
 tinued to put on the pace, while **Jerezano" 
 was being obviously steadied by his jockey. 
 The two were not more than a length apart 
 when they landed into the straight. Then 
 Ainslie sat down and rode for all that he was 
 worth, the verdict of the judge a moment later 
 being — ** * Jerezano,* by half a length." 
 
 The win was popular, for all reasons ; and 
 one visitor who had come out to the Rock in 
 his yacht, and who was known on many a 
 course in England, was heard to remark after- 
 wards to his Excellency, the Governor — " I 
 have seldom seen anything prettier than the 
 way in which that boy, if I may call him so, 
 steadied his horse for the last fence — it was 
 the boy that won the race, not the horse ! " 
 
 But while such doings naturally brought him 
 into prominence in the society of the place and 
 he became well known among the officers of 
 the different corps of the Garrison, he had also 
 been, from the first, gradually acquiring a 
 position in the minds of the non-commissioned 
 officers and men of his own corps. To begin 
 with, when he joined he knew his drill perfectly, 
 and instead, therefore, of being two months on 
 the barrack square under the drill sergeant, 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 209 
 
 was dismissed the first day and put on the duty 
 roster. It is true that the senior Major, not 
 being able to credit such proficiency, had, 
 when in command of the parade, endeavoured 
 to stump him by setting him problems to be 
 solved there and then by moving the men ; but 
 he altogether failed, and the men themselves 
 took due note of the fact. 
 
 Then again, he was gifted with an excellent 
 word of command, his voice being extraordin- 
 arily clear and carrying far, with a perfect 
 grasp of that subtle point, interval, and without 
 any trace of hesitation. As time went on, he 
 was now and then — to his infinite delight — 
 deputed to take the adjutant's parade, the men 
 working beautifully under his hand on these 
 occasions, and this being no idle assertion on 
 my part, but a fact noted by all of us at the 
 time. 
 
 Perhaps they felt they knew him, in the 
 same way that he was getting to know and to 
 understand them — their light-heartedness and 
 generosity, the spirit and the sterling qualities 
 that distinguished the large majority of them, 
 the pitfalls that surrounded them. He had 
 the rare faculty of never forgetting a name, 
 and as an Eton boy it had been the amusement 
 of his school-fellows to get him to stand at the 
 
 o 
 
2IO AINSLIE GORE 
 
 door and name those who passed along the 
 street — an achievement in which he was rarely 
 at fault, being also generally able to add the 
 boy's house and the name of his tutor. So 
 here, with as many as three hundred on these 
 parades, he was often able to call a man by 
 name, and if it was a common name to add 
 the letter of his Company. 
 
 I know that he was always thinking of the 
 men, and while being too junior in rank and 
 service to initiate fresh departures himself, he 
 was at the disposal of anybody at any time, in 
 such entertainments as '' Sing-songs " and Regi- 
 mental theatricals. Comic songs were some- 
 what painful things to him, but he was content 
 to remain at the piano for the greater part 
 of the evening, playing accompaniments and 
 bringing some refinement into them, checking 
 vulgarity of all kinds at rehearsals, and now 
 and then singing a really fine song himself or 
 playing something **just to raise the standard 
 a bit." The men grew to know him exactly, 
 and were perfectly aware that, with him, any- 
 thing of coarseness was hateful, just as was 
 obscenity and bad language. He never rated 
 a man or abused him when he heard anything 
 of the kind ; but his eyes would darken, and 
 throwing his head somewhat back, he would 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 211 
 
 say quite quietly — " I wish you would drop 
 that while I am here — and also when I'm 
 not." 
 
 "Of course you and I can't do much," he 
 said to me one day. **This place may be, in 
 some ways, the best quarter out of England 
 for us ; but just look at it for these fellows. 
 They are simply cooped up here within the 
 narrow limits of the town and the two main 
 roads, being never even allowed up the Rock, 
 much less off it. Then, look at the never-end- 
 ing round of guards and sentry-go, as often as 
 not giving them no more than four nights in 
 bed, and in a climate like this, with every 
 devilry round the corner waiting for them to 
 their ruin. Can you wonder at the drink and 
 these eternal fines, and what a pass till mid- 
 night sometimes means in the morning ? I tell 
 you, I often feel half ashamed in going through 
 the barracks in hunting kit, or when riding 
 out, as we all do, into the country." ^ 
 
 I cannot hope to record each of his many 
 schemes as time went on, and how he narrowly 
 escaped getting into trouble himself through 
 his outspokenness on several occasions. He 
 
 * It is fair to say that the conditions mentioned here are now 
 greatly modified. At the date spoken of Gibraltar was guarded 
 as though besieged, five oflScers and many hundreds of men 
 being on guard daily, besides pickets and other details. 
 
212 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 learnt here by making mistakes, as he had 
 learnt in his home in earlier days ; and if now 
 and again his actions were misunderstood, he 
 had a happy way of enlisting the sympathy of 
 those in authority, approaching them with that 
 irresistible manner of his, and laying his 
 suggestions before them in such a manner that 
 the initiative might appear to be theirs when 
 the proposals finally took form. 
 
 It would be wholly false, if not indeed ridicu- 
 lous, to suggest that the improvements in the 
 general lot of the soldier on the Rock at this 
 time were primarily due to him. Reform was 
 in the air, and he merely chanced, having 
 always been something of a reformer, to be- 
 come one of the active agents in what was 
 going on, and occasionally to take the lead. 
 " I don't know much about cooking," he would 
 say, with a merry laugh and a twinkle in his 
 eye — ** except what I learnt in the boys' kitchen 
 at my Dame's, inferno of an evening that it 
 was ! They say we have got to begin with the 
 men's stomachs — make a change in the baked 
 and boiled on alternate days, and give them 
 something more than the bowl of stewed tea 
 and bit of bread between dinner one day and 
 breakfast the next. I am all for that ; but my 
 line will be to get up their appetites outside, 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 213 
 
 so that they may do justice to the fare when 
 they return ! " 
 
 He had, from the first, taken to play with and 
 coach the men of his Company at cricket and 
 football ; being something more than a pro- 
 ficient at both games. He was also one of 
 those who worked at this time for boating to 
 be allowed, and permits to be given for fishing. 
 Once again, he could play an efficient part 
 here, and could prove himself to be a better 
 man than nine out of ten he met, though 
 always unconscious of this himself. The in- 
 fluences of his Eton life came to the fore, and 
 what he had learnt in the historic Playing 
 Fields and on the placid waters of the Thames, 
 was bearing fruit in the pitiless summer glare 
 of this great Rock and the blue waves that 
 laved its feet. 
 
 In one other direction, however, he was 
 certainly personally responsible for what was 
 a new departure here. The Regiment was 
 lying in the Casemate Barracks, and the wide 
 ditch of the inner lines of the fortress boasted 
 there some scanty soil. With the permission 
 of those in authority he started gardening for 
 his Company. There were three things, he 
 knew, that never failed to appeal to the man 
 in the ranks, and if the first two were children 
 
2 14 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 and dumb animals, the other was undoubtedly 
 a garden, even though the ground available 
 were merely a few feet in extent. So the old 
 truth, that the first thing an Englishman does, 
 the world over, is to make himself a garden, 
 received further confirmation here, and from 
 Ainslie's small beginnings and the prizes 
 offered in his Company, gardening came into 
 general fashion on the Rock. 
 
 The whole length of that wide ditch at the 
 Casemates held, in course of time, a continuous 
 series of miniature gardens, neatly bordered 
 by the whitewashed stones that are always a 
 part of the business, and the stern lines of the 
 fortifications were changed. People riding in 
 from the country would stand on the draw- 
 bridges and look, before passing into the 
 tunnelled ways giving access to the fortress ; 
 and what they saw was a number of men in 
 their shirt-sleeves, either contemplating, pipe 
 in mouth, the result of their efforts to grow 
 Sutton's vegetable seeds in Gibraltar, or tend- 
 ing such flowers as the sun suffered to live on 
 this shady side of the great walls — with bird- 
 cages hung here and there on nails, and the 
 smaller children brought out from the stifling 
 heat of the congested married quarters to play 
 where they had never been before. 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 215 
 
 Ainslie was often down there himself in 
 an unostentatious way, full of cheeriness, and 
 evincing the keenest interest in all that he was 
 shown. The old ideals were as strong in him 
 as ever : in these gardens there was an appeal 
 for beauty, just as in children's gardens on the 
 sands of the sea shores of far off England, and 
 beauty, the great civilising agent, would make 
 answer mutely. What was being done here 
 was not much, yet it would tell up in the 
 greater whole. Barrack life was necessarily 
 rough, with men in hundreds, crowded by 
 twenties and thirties into dark and unlovely 
 rooms. It could hardly be otherwise, ap- 
 parently. But each individual digging and 
 planting here would gather something. Each 
 was a unit in a greater whole, and a still 
 greater whole beyond that. And the one and 
 the other were capable of being made better by 
 those influences that were at work — here, now 
 and always — and that were even more potent 
 than that spirit of discipline and obedience, 
 whose business it was to prepare for the great 
 and, it might be, final call. He would often 
 talk to me in such a strain, and with that 
 touch of seriousness that had been always a 
 part of him. 
 
 Sometimes, when he looked round these 
 
2i6 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 men's gardens, he would purposely bring a 
 lady or two with him, that at least some of the 
 men might hear the sound of a lady's voice. 
 
 ** Come along and see our gardens " — he 
 would say to these — " You must come ; and 
 when you get there you must say a word to the 
 men. Don't forget that these fellows are giving 
 the best years of their lives in your service. A 
 word or two of kindly interest coming from 
 you will make them happy for hours. Don't 
 be shy of them. I know there are rough ones 
 among them — perhaps as rough as can be. It 
 always seems to me, however, that the first 
 thing we have got to do with even the worst, 
 is to try and make them proud of themselves, 
 and you can only do that by showing that you 
 yourself are proud of them." 
 
 His very earnestness was infectious, and 
 many who had hung back came forward and 
 helped, so-called soldiers' gardens spreading, 
 in time, wherever a few square feet of soil could 
 be found. The majority never knew who had 
 started the idea, and Ainslie would have 
 laughed contemptuously had such been men- 
 tioned. But, once again, the men knew, and 
 put a mark in their minds on that score. 
 
 Ainslie went home on three months' leave 
 during our second hot season on the Rock ; 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 217 
 
 and when he returned, took up all his interests 
 with increasing vigour. His Colour-Sergeant 
 told me afterwards that he verily believed 
 some of the men had been counting the days, 
 and that the Company's rooms seemed to 
 brighten up when he reappeared. 
 
 It goes without saying that the Band had 
 always occupied a considerable place in his 
 affections, exercising the same spell over him 
 that soldiers' bands had always done. As 
 soon as his musical gifts were discovered, he 
 was put on the Band committee at once, and 
 from that moment spared neither his time nor 
 his money in working it up to the highest 
 pitch of perfection ; getting additional acting 
 bandsmen sanctioned ; augmenting the Band 
 fund ; and purchasing the best instruments, 
 that the tone of the wood or the brass and 
 the whole volume of sound might be enriched. 
 
 I often used to watch his face when the band 
 was playing in the stillness of the evening, and 
 knew well what was passing in his mind. He 
 would [frequently 'get away at such times by 
 himself, and never cared to talk, even when 
 the item on the programme was ended. 
 
 There was in the ranks of the band at that 
 date a man who possessed a tenor voice of 
 altogether exceptional quality. As soon as 
 
2i8 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 Ainslie discovered it, he arranged, when our 
 Band performed at night on the Alameda, that 
 this man should sing a song as part of the 
 regular performance, and just before " God 
 save the Queen " at the close. The song was 
 always the same, and the effect was such, in 
 the cooler air after the heat of the day — in the 
 shadows of the pepper trees and the light of 
 the moon — that hundreds came to listen, lodg- 
 ing themselves on the walls above the rippling 
 sea. 
 
 The words were William Henley's ** Eng- 
 land, my England," and the music was Ainslie's 
 own, played by the full band. I never think of 
 those nights, now, without recalling the third 
 verse : — 
 
 '* Ever the faith endures, 
 
 England, my England : — 
 Take and break us : we are yours, 
 
 England my own ! 
 Life is good and joy runs high 
 Between English earth and sky : 
 Death is death ; but we shall die 
 
 To the song on your bugles blown, 
 England — 
 To the stars on your bugles blown ! " 
 
 Before the end of that summer, one of the 
 worst epidemics of fever known for years 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 219 
 
 visited the Rock. So severe was the visita- 
 tion that the whole of our Regimental staff 
 succumbed, the Regiment being for a time in 
 command of a Captain. One of our officers 
 died and several men, among them being our 
 singer : the health of many others was impaired 
 for life. 
 
 Whenever any of his own men were sick, 
 Ainslie had always made it his business to 
 visit them in hospital, and I know that at this 
 time he frequently spent many hours there, 
 talking to those confined to bed and sometimes 
 writing their letters ; reading to the con- 
 valescents, or sitting with a group of figures 
 clad in hospital blue, in such scraps of shade 
 as might be found in front of that great build- 
 ing. He was at all times totally without self- 
 consciousness, and having been accustomed 
 all his life to mix freely with the people of the 
 land and go in and out of their cottages, he 
 could enter these wards without shyness and 
 talk to these men in their own tongue of the 
 home interests that he knew were dear to 
 them. 
 
 I remember well his coming back from the 
 hospital on the evening that our singer died. 
 He spoke almost indignantly, as his habit 
 was when he felt things keenly. **Yes," he 
 
220 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 repeated — '*he has gone, like the others! 
 And who shall say that he has not given his 
 message ? I see his age was only twenty-six ; 
 but don't ever think that the value of a life is 
 to be estimated by the tale of the years. That 
 is quite wrong. I tell you a child may leave 
 things of beauty behind it, and more powerful 
 for good, than the actions of many a hundred 
 men. So here, in the case of this man of ours. 
 Do you think people will forget his song ? — 
 never ! " — and there was something of a choke 
 in his voice as he finished. 
 
 Life — the life of the individual — was always 
 regarded by Ainslie in the light of a work of 
 art. His own, like everyone's, had been 
 planned by his Creator ; but he believed that 
 the planning had been merely the outline, and 
 that it fell to him, as to all men, to fill in the 
 detail, to perfect the whole. The time allowed 
 might be long, or it might be short. That did 
 not signify. Time was a factor that pertained 
 to our world ; and some works of art might be 
 marred by an overplus of time being devoted 
 to them. Beauty lay primarily in simplicity, 
 and the beauty that was itself imperishable 
 would be attained when time ceased. Flaws 
 there must be, marring again and again the 
 outward symmetry of the plan ; but here, once 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 221 
 
 more, there came to man's aid another thing 
 of divine beauty — the undying promise of 
 ultimate forgiveness. Unless I am mistaken, 
 this was what always influenced him on the 
 more serious side of his character, and that lay 
 at the root of his keenest endeavours — of the 
 perennial hope that never left him. 
 
 I have said before that the religious sense 
 was strong in him. I have certainly never 
 known anyone more punctilious about fulfilling 
 what he considered the very profession of his 
 creed necessarily entailed. He seldom spoke 
 of such things, even to me. His life spoke for 
 itself. And others knew it. More than once 
 I fancied that I noticed in those whose lives 
 would not have borne close scrutiny, a certain 
 shyness when in his company. He never 
 spoke of such, and he very rarely criticised. 
 ''Fault-finding is easy," he would say. ** Any 
 fool can do that. The job is not to do it. 
 And I always try to remind myself of what 
 I read once, somewhere in Goethe — * I see 
 no fault in others of which I have not 
 myself been guilty.' Well put for most of 
 us, isn't it?" 
 
 As an instance of how strongly he felt that 
 religion was a necessity to all, and at the same 
 time how fully he realised that if it was to be 
 
222 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 made attractive to the multitude in its outward 
 form, brightness must be brought into church 
 services by every possible means, the following 
 may be given. 
 
 On moving up to South Barracks from the 
 Casemates, our place of worship became the 
 great school above the New Mole Parade. 
 By some it was called South Barrack Chapel, 
 though not a consecrated building. Ainslie no 
 sooner grasped the situation than he asked his 
 Colonel's permission to make use of some of 
 the bandsmen. He wished to form a choir. 
 The band boys could all sing or learn to do 
 so, and with them, and eighteen or twenty 
 instrumentalists, more brightness might be 
 brought into the parade services on Sunday 
 mornings. He had sung in his village choir 
 from boyhood, and was determined to see what 
 he could do here. 
 
 There were rigorous rules, as he soon found, 
 regarding what might be sung at these services, 
 and the Psalms and responses were not among 
 the number. So much the worse. He would 
 get his music in somehow, and cast round at 
 once to see how this might be done, being 
 never tired of asserting that music was the 
 most powerful to influence of all the arts. 
 
 A new Chaplain had been lately placed in 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 223 
 
 charge of the South District who possessed 
 the gift of addressing men. AinsHe went to 
 him and suggested a voluntary service on 
 Sunday evenings throughout the winter, offer- 
 ing at the same time to find a choir. When 
 the matter was arranged and the trammels of 
 red tape here again finally negotiated, he never 
 failed, when off duty, to attend the practices 
 of this choir, and in fact trained those who 
 came himself, and all of whom gave their 
 services voluntarily. Many of the members 
 were his own bandsmen, under the Band 
 Sergeant ; but among the singers were men 
 of different corps, as well as always Ainslie 
 himself. The Psalms and responses were sung 
 at these services, and hymns were numerous, 
 with occasionally an Anthem when the choir 
 had attained to some proficiency. 
 
 Once again he tried his best to interest out- 
 siders here in what was being done, keeping 
 the religious side and his own part in the 
 matter in the background altogether. He 
 discovered a certain boy in the band who 
 possessed an excellent voice, and set to work 
 to train him with the utmost care in various 
 solo parts. A little later, I heard him saying 
 to a group we met on the Walls — " If you 
 want to hear a good thing, come up to South 
 
224 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 Chapel on Sunday evening. We have got a 
 boy — he's very fat and is called Samson — who 
 sings * Oh for the wings, for the wings of a 
 dove,' just first-class — you must come and hear 
 him : don't forget." They came, and came 
 again, and in time it was no uncommon sight 
 to find a congregation there numbering close 
 upon five hundred, and one moreover made up 
 almost entirely of soldiers, with a sprinkling of 
 their wives and children. 
 
 It might be supposed that Ainslie was 
 rapidly becoming exceptionally popular by all 
 that he was doing. In the common accepta- 
 tion of the term he was nothing of the kind, 
 the qualities that marked him in so many ways 
 not making for such, and he himself never 
 courting popularity. He was still the dreamer 
 he had always been ; he was reserved as ever, 
 and retained all his earlier love of solitude. 
 He was often to be seen going out or returning 
 from a ride by himself, and, as often, sitting 
 reading in a quiet corner of the library of the 
 Garrison. At all times, when out and about, 
 there was alertness in his every movement, 
 accompanied usually by a quick action of the 
 head and a keen look in the grey eyes. Even 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 225 
 
 on the hottest days he walked quickly, giving 
 others the impression that he was on some 
 definite errand. I do not think I ever saw 
 him idle, and certainly never knew him ** loaf" ; 
 his interests were too many, and his desire to 
 be up and doing too keen. 
 
 There is no doubt that his profession always 
 came first with him. He qualified early for pro- 
 motion, attending many courses on a variety 
 of subjects and generally distinguishing him- 
 self where examinations were entailed. Among 
 other things he had acquired a useful know- 
 ledge of Spanish that often stood him in good 
 stead as earth-stopper, and had also steeped 
 himself in local history, constantly picturing the 
 struggles of Nations that this mighty Rock had 
 witnessed. 
 
 Then again, the romance that he had woven 
 about a soldier's calling in his youth never lost 
 its hold on him, but rather increased in power 
 and intensity, even the monotonous round of 
 duty and the daily life of the barrack square 
 being powerless to deprive him of those ideals 
 that he kept always steadily before his mind. 
 To him, this was the resting and the training 
 time. The latent strength was there just the 
 same. Only the call was wanting to bring the 
 whole to life. Here, in this fighting machine, 
 
 p 
 
226 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 was invincibility, the inheritance of centuries ; 
 and when that call came, this Regiment of 
 which he was so proud, would justify itself and 
 add a still more glorious page to its history. 
 Such things to him were a certainty. 
 
 It was only on rare occasions that he would 
 talk in such a strain. For the most part he 
 kept his dreams and fantasies almost wholly to 
 himself, being fully aware that those about him 
 cared for nothing of the kind. He could meet 
 these friends on commoner ground elsewhere — 
 meet them and engage with them in all their 
 sports and games, pursuits or undertakings 
 whatsoever — meet them in full eagerness, be- 
 cause contests of all kinds gave zest to life 
 and the spirit of rivalry was to him congenial. 
 Thus, while on one side he might be a mystic, 
 a poetic dreamer, on the other he was always 
 the man of action, with cool indifference and 
 finest pluck that was never daunted, though 
 the things to be faced were the gravest that 
 might come. 
 
 Looked at as a whole, it was not perhaps 
 surprising that some failed to understand this 
 being of many tastes and many talents and 
 no less strange ideals. There was something 
 altogether uncommon about this Ainslie Gore, 
 and even to those of his own age he was not 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 227 
 
 exactly one they looked to make their close 
 and intimate friend. He seemed sometimes 
 to be living a life apart from theirs, though 
 going with them often hand in hand. Thus 
 some were, in a way, shy of him — his tastes 
 puzzled them, his talents made them, in a sense, 
 afraid, his exuberant energy overwhelmed 
 them, his serious views of life belonged to a 
 world that was to many here unknown. 
 
 So far as he was himself concerned, he was 
 certainly not one of those to whom a host of 
 friends was a necessity. To him, friendship 
 was something sacred and akin to a love, and 
 he could not therefore give this love to many. 
 Yet he was by no means deficient in largeness 
 of heart and ready sympathy on all occasions. 
 I should say that he spent half his life in doing 
 acts of kindness of which more than half the 
 world about him never dreamed. Enlist his 
 sympathy, ask his aid, and he was an enthusiast 
 at once, and one that would not spare himself. 
 In a sense he was the friend of all ; but he re- 
 mained throughout his life the intimate of few, 
 giving to these his love whole-heartedly and 
 without possibility of change. 
 
 I have more than once spoken of the way 
 his men regarded him. He had won the affec- 
 tion of many among them, and one and all 
 
228 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 trusted him. His reputation throughout the 
 ranks, I found out later, exceeded that of most 
 of us. And if this gradually widened during 
 these years, a circumstance arose at this time 
 that added to it immeasurably in the eyes of 
 the rank and file. 
 
 The epidemic of fever already referred to, 
 had seriously reduced the number of officers 
 available for duty. Many had been invalided 
 home, and Ainslie, like several other subalterns, 
 found himself left in charge of his Company, 
 with the prospect of having to take it through 
 the annual course of musketry at the North 
 Front Camp in a few weeks' time. Companies 
 were located at this hutment in turn, and it 
 was during the period he had to spend there 
 that Ainslie found himself suddenly in a position 
 of some difficulty, if not indeed danger. 
 
 Among the men of his command was one 
 possessed of a violent temper, and who shall be 
 known here by the name of Clancy. Ainslie 
 had often befriended this man, and had stood 
 up for him on more than one occasion when he 
 chanced to get into serious trouble, though he 
 always felt that he had never really won him. 
 Clancy's comrades no doubt considered him 
 dangerous ; but they liked him and knew him 
 for a good soldier, admiring his bull-necked 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 229 
 
 strength and courage, and possibly considering 
 that a company made up of men of his stamp 
 would be likely to prove invincible on service. 
 Had it not been for his temper, Clancy would 
 long before this have been promoted : his fail- 
 ing was his curse, and on this occasion nearly 
 landed him in gaol. 
 
 It happened one morning, at the 600 yards 
 range, that Clancy had to fire last. He lay 
 down, pulled trigger and missed. Loading 
 again, he did the same, and Ainslie went over 
 to him. ** The bally gun won't shoot," growled 
 the man, with many an oath added — " Missed 
 every shot but one at the last something-or- 
 other range, and now it's same here." 
 
 ''Not shoot?" said Ainslie. ''Get up and 
 let me try." It was the custom with us when 
 any man complained of his weapon to fire with 
 it at once ; so Ainslie took the rifle, steadied 
 himself for a moment and fired, the signalling 
 disk showing that he had scored an inner, 
 missing the bull's-eye by a few inches. " There 
 is nothing wrong with the gun ; try again," 
 he said quietly. 
 
 Once more, Clancy went down, looking black 
 as thunder. The two sections in rear, with the 
 sergeants keeping the registers, stood silently 
 waiting for the result, and perhaps scenting 
 
230 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 trouble. Again there was the crack of the 
 rifle, followed by no movement in the marker's 
 butt : the shot had once more missed the target. 
 The next instant, the man had taken the rifle 
 by the muzzle, flung it from him, and then 
 stood there trembling. 
 
 " March the sections home," said Ainslie. 
 "Stand fast this man and you, Colour-Sergeant, 
 and the right file of this section. March off. 
 Now go and fetch that rifle," he added, turning 
 to Clancy. The man never moved. Once 
 more Ainslie gave his order. The man's 
 fingers were twitching ; but he still never 
 moved, and at the same time the Colour- 
 Sergeant, as if doubtful, placed himself be- 
 tween the youthful officer and the man. For a 
 moment it looked as if Clancy would attack 
 the rest of those present. '* March him to the 
 Guard Room and confine him," said Ainslie, at 
 last. The man found his tongue then ; but he 
 obeyed and was marched away, one of the 
 spare markers bringing in the rifle. 
 
 The men in the huts were all agog. '* Here 
 he comes," said one, — '* being taken to the 
 Guard Room, see yonder." ** Por ole Joe ; 
 wull there, he done hisself in this time, and no 
 mistake," said another — *' That temper o' his '11 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 231 
 
 bring un to the gallows, if he don't mind." 
 " It's a District this time, and two years hard," 
 remarked a man busy cleaning his belts, to be 
 corrected by his neighbour with — '' Go on with 
 yer — I tell yer it's a Gineral and five years 
 penal. Once on that Guard Report you don't 
 come off, and this here's insubordination." 
 *' Mut'ny, yer means," broke in another. 
 
 The men in several of the nearest huts were 
 craning out of the windows, watching the party 
 coming across the sandy flat, with the officer 
 following some way behind ; and the spare 
 marker farther away still, carrying Clancy's 
 rifle. They had nearly reached the white, 
 dusty road leading to the Neutral Ground — 
 the only one to pierce the English Lines — 
 when they were seen to halt, and the officer to 
 be catching them up. 
 
 *' 'Taint unlike a funeral," remarked one of 
 the lookers on ; ** we none of us shan't see ole 
 Joe no more." ** You bide a minute," returned 
 another — '* I reckons there's summut up — see ? 
 Where our lieutenant have got his hand in a 
 job, it don't always come out as usual." 
 
 Ainslie told me all about it afterwards, under 
 pledge of secrecy. To have to punish any 
 man for trivialities was to him little short of 
 
232 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 misery. Here was a much graver case. In- 
 stead, therefore, of at once going to compare 
 the targets and complete the registers, he 
 followed the others in the direction of the hut- 
 ment, where he could see Clancy's comrades 
 leaning out of the windows. He knew exactly 
 what that meant and what those men were 
 saying, just as he knew the conflict that was 
 passing in his own mind, every step he took — 
 the dictates of his own heart on the one hand, 
 and the paramount claims of duty on the 
 other. 
 
 He called to the party to halt at last, and 
 came up with them. "Turn about," he said, 
 when he reached them. Then he broke out 
 with — ** Are you going to disgrace the Regi- 
 ment before the whole Garrison ? I know that 
 I am not going to let you do anything of the 
 kind. Do you want to sentence yourself to 
 penal servitude? You won't do that, if I can 
 help it. I'll give you another chance: take it 
 or leave it ; it rests with you." 
 
 Clancy's fingers began twitching again, and 
 his eyes wandered over the cliffs of the great 
 Rock and then he cast them on the sun-burnt 
 ground. Ainslie did not wait for the man's 
 answer, but added to the Sergeant — '' March 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 233 
 
 him back to the firing point, and then send one 
 of the men to warn the markers in the butts. 
 He has only two shots to go." 
 
 The Sergeant, a man who wore three medal 
 ribbons and had many years' service, dropped 
 behind for an instant, and muttered to Ainslie 
 — "I'm an old soldier. Sir, and you'll pardon 
 me ; but if you gives this man back his rifle an' 
 he misses, he'll turn it on to you and blow your 
 brains out. I know the man, Sir, and he's 
 vi'lent." 
 
 "Think so," said Ainslie. 
 
 Five minutes later Ainslie had handed the 
 man his rifle and made him get into position — 
 ** Take time," he said — *' don't be in a hurry. 
 I want to see you make a bull." Clancy looked 
 savage still ; but the cloud had already gone 
 partly from his face as he looked up for an 
 instant at the young officer stooping over him. 
 Then he took aim. " Crack," went the rifle, 
 and up went the white disk. Ainslie's hope 
 had been realised. 
 
 ** I think we had better say as little about 
 this as possible," remarked Ainslie to his 
 Colour-Sergeant, after he had visited the butts 
 and signed the registers. They were walking 
 back to the camp together, Clancy having gone 
 
234 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 on with the other men, his rifle once more on 
 his shoulder. 
 
 '* Strike me blind if I ever see'd such a thing 
 as that!" ejaculated one of the men, leaning 
 out of the hut windows in his shirt-sleeves, 
 when the party was seen once more to be 
 returning. 
 
 A bugler boy came out on to the steps in the 
 full blaze of the late afternoon sun, and having 
 filled his small lungs sounded *' Come for 
 Orders." Ainslie stirred in his chair and 
 opened his eyes. The world outside was 
 coming to life again and people were beginning 
 once more to move about. A fresh sentry 
 had just relieved the former one at the main 
 entrance, and being fresh after a sleep on the 
 plank bed in the guard room, was tramping 
 his beat, his red jacket showing up brightly 
 against the glare of the white walls, and his 
 bayonet catching the glint of the sun when 
 he turned. He had two hours before him, and 
 plenty of time to tramp. When his turn came 
 to be relieved, the evening gun would fire a 
 thousand feet above, pickets would be falling 
 in and fifes and drums would be beating ** Re- 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 235 
 
 treat" — the old familiar sounds travelling up 
 the face of the Rock as they had done for 
 nigh two centuries, finding their echoes there, 
 and telling their stories at the close of yet one 
 more long-drawn day. 
 
 The sun had already set when Ainslie and I 
 emerged from the sun-baked South Pavilion, 
 and on all sides there was stillness. We stood 
 for a while looking across the placid waters of 
 the bay — all green and gold — to the purple 
 hills of Algeciras. 
 
 *' I had such a dream just then, lying in that 
 chair," said Ainslie. *'A11 comes of looking 
 through Drinkwater and Sayer and ever so 
 many other volumes yesterday on guard. I 
 really believe I must have gone through, in 
 the time, all the events of the three years and 
 seven months and twelve days that the great 
 siege of this place lasted. And what a story 
 it was ! To think of these quarters of ours 
 having stood, then, just as they are now. 
 Those fellows must have all been heroes, even 
 if there were bad ones among them. Just 
 picture what they had to go through — attacked 
 by fire-ships and bumboats, night after night, 
 bombarded from sea and land, eaten up with 
 scurvy and fever, the water scanty and bad. 
 
236 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 and such provisions as they had going rotten 
 in the heat, the town almost destroyed and in 
 flames again and again, and starvation staring 
 them in the face. 
 
 ** Then again, imagine the whole population 
 crowding together up there, at Europa Flats, 
 when first Rodney's fleet, and then Darby's, 
 and then Howe's were sighted, bringing them 
 at long intervals some temporary relief; picture 
 that crowd of half-starved beings — men, women, 
 and children — sick at heart, and yet raising 
 cheer on cheer at the sight of those fleets in 
 The Gut. And then, think of the inferno of 
 that last attack, by specially constructed ships 
 and the whole weight of the fleets of France 
 and Spain ; with that other concourse of spec- 
 tators thronging those hills yonder that they 
 might witness this giant's fall — the bay strewn 
 with wreckage far and near ; but always with 
 the old Rock frowning down at the whole, and 
 remaining impregnable still." 
 
 He was full of his old enthusiasms as he 
 talked, repeopling the world with heroes, 
 dreaming of their great deeds, and longing, 
 as I know, that some small chance might one 
 day come for him in the calling that he had 
 made his own. 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 237 
 
 ** But after all," he continued, *' it is not the 
 great fights and the great deeds, any more 
 than the great epics, that have the most lasting 
 effects upon the lives of the many. I believe 
 the silent things drive deepest and reach 
 farthest. No doubt the people here were un- 
 able to grasp the meaning at the time ; but 
 I always imagine that of all the many things 
 this Rock has seen, the most moving must 
 have been the sight of the two battered ships 
 of the line entering this bay — in just such a 
 light as this, perhaps, though it was the 28th 
 October — the Neptune slowly towing in the 
 Victory, with Nelson's body on board." 
 
 During our last winter a stroke of luck fell 
 to Ainslie. One of his Excellency the Gov- 
 ernor's aide-de-camps went home on three 
 months' leave, and Ainslie was offered the 
 temporary billet. His Colonel demurred at 
 first, feeling that though he now had the re- 
 quisite three years' service, he was too young 
 for such a post ; but he was overruled, and 
 Ainslie took up his new duties at the Convent 
 under the distinguished soldier who reigned 
 there. His social gifts were many. He had 
 
238 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 won his way among all classes, and now he 
 was to be brought into touch with the host 
 of visitors who came and went durincr these 
 
 o 
 
 winter months, and who belonged to every 
 nation under the sun. 
 
 Once again he ran the chance of being spoilt 
 and made over much of. His many gifts, like 
 his music, found their affinity in many hearts ; 
 he stood a splendid example of young man- 
 hood ; and among those who now crossed his 
 path, were some who were struck by the natural 
 simplicity that was the secret of his charm, and 
 who whispered together as they watched him 
 that there was an exceeding beauty in this 
 young life and sunny character pointing to 
 great and ultimate success. 
 
 This last was quite true ; and I think myself 
 that he had, by now, come near attaining the 
 ideal that Carlyle once held up before the eyes 
 of a great gathering of young men — that he 
 had, in truth, ** grown to be one all lucid and in 
 equilibrium — healthy, clear, and free, and dis- 
 cerning all round about him." 
 
 By the time Ainslie's temporary appointment 
 came to an end our years on the Rock were 
 nearly over. The day before we sailed he 
 went to the Convent to bid the Governor 
 good-bye. The great soldier had always taken 
 
SOME SOLDIERING 239 
 
 an interest in him, and on this occasion led 
 him down into the garden that he might talk 
 with him, Ainslie telling me afterwards that 
 his last words were these — '' You must go to 
 India as soon as you can. India is the place ; 
 there is practically no soldiering in England." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE SUMMONS 
 
 " They don't seem to value us very highly," 
 remarked Ainslie in a loud voice, that those 
 standing near him might hear. 
 
 " No," shouted a brother officer, with a 
 laugh — ** but that will be revised all right if we 
 go to the bottom ! '* 
 
 A group of us had collected on the lee side 
 of the main companion-way for a minute or 
 two : black clouds racing above, a mountainous, 
 leaden-coloured sea running, noise enough to 
 deafen, and a whole gale blowing. We were 
 four days out from Gibraltar, having had bad 
 weather all the time, and for the last day and a 
 half had been battened down in the Bay of 
 Biscay. 
 
 That afternoon we had had to destroy and 
 
 throw overboard three of our horses, these 
 
 having received such injuries as to render them 
 
 useless. At the same time all the men were 
 
 sent down to the lower decks, to lie down there 
 
 and act as ballast, this hired transport. No. i"], 
 
 240 
 
THE SUMMONS 241 
 
 being some feet higher out of water than she 
 should have been. Our captain had applied 
 for coal before leaving the Rock, in order to 
 lower her a little ; but unfortunately for us the 
 Admiralty supply was just then short. So we 
 put to sea as we were, and moreover with a 
 complement of boats very far from sufficient to 
 accommodate the crowd of men, women and 
 children on board. 
 
 In the opinion of some, the seas we shipped 
 should have gone a long way towards remedy- 
 ing the lack of ballast. Nevertheless, No. 37 
 continued to behave like a mad thing, rolling 
 scuppers under and lurching so handsomely 
 that considerable damage was done. The 
 misery in the women and children's quarters 
 especially, and also on the troop decks, was 
 distressing to witness, and those of us therefore 
 who could keep their feet had a busy time, 
 both night and day. 
 
 Ainslie, I remember, though by no means a 
 good sailor, was indefatigable in conveying 
 help to all he could, setting a fine example of 
 cheery indifference to discomforts, and spending 
 a good deal of his time among the men in the 
 semi-darkness of that vessel's hold. Over all 
 that, however, it is well to draw the veil. We 
 weathered the gale in the Bay, and an equally 
 
 Q 
 
242 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 bad time in the Channel, and finally, on a 
 February morning in 1897, disembarked at a 
 South coast port in a blizzard of snow that, 
 clad as they were and coming from a warm 
 climate, put many of our men into hospital. 
 
 It would have been difficult at that date to 
 find a finer regiment anywhere. The men, for 
 the most part, were of splendid physique ; 
 their average number of years' service was 
 high ; and we were fully up to our strength. 
 We had suffered a good deal on our short 
 voyage, and the damage to kit and consequent 
 loss to the men had been severe. But with the 
 mysterious faculty possessed more especially 
 by soldiers, and that is frequently a cause of 
 amazement even to those who command them, 
 the Regiment disembarked as spic and span as 
 if it had just come out of barracks ashore, and 
 I believe made a considerable impression upon 
 the inhabitants of that South coast port on 
 marching in. 
 
 A fate, however, awaited us that was common 
 then to all regiments arriving home from foreign 
 service. Before many weeks had passed we 
 scarcely knew ourselves. The splendour of 
 our martial bearing had largely departed. Our 
 Colonel's time was up, and several other officers 
 retired. The time-expired men took their dis- 
 
THE SUMMONS 243 
 
 charge ; a very heavy draft was at the same 
 time called for, to be sent forthwith to our 
 other battalion in India ; and our ranks gradu- 
 ally became full of strange and very young 
 faces : the Regiment was wholly changed. 
 
 The despatch of that draft to India brought 
 about the first real separation between myself 
 and Ainslie. Three subalterns had to go with 
 it, and I was one of the number. At the 
 moment, he was disappointed that he could 
 not come too ; but he was wanted elsewhere, 
 and I know that he had already made up his 
 mind to take the advice he had been given, 
 and to obtain an exchange to India on the first 
 opportunity. 
 
 **I shan't be long after you," he said to me 
 cheerily, just before we parted. *' Meanwhile, 
 they can't wipe us out altogether. It is im- 
 possible for any power on earth to do that. A 
 rotten system may reduce us to the condition 
 of * a squeezed lemon,' and all that we see going 
 on just now may play Harry with us. But 
 you can't blot out tradition, or destroy every- 
 thing that rules here — a regiment lives for 
 ever, whatever may happen to it. We shall 
 rise again, right enough, and break into new 
 life, with the old spirit about us still." 
 
 He had lost none of the hope and vigour 
 
244 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 and *'go" that had always marked him, and 
 if some of us had begun to feel dispirited by 
 what we witnessed, the effect upon him was 
 that of a call for further effort — for still more 
 determined fight on his part, and always with- 
 out losing heart. 
 
 He came down with the draft on the day we 
 embarked, and spoke enthusiastically of the 
 future when we parted. I can see his tall 
 figure now, standing on the wharf, when the 
 rest of us were aboard the craft that was to 
 take us as far as Southampton. He struck me 
 more than ever then as the very beau ideal of 
 what a young soldier might be-— strong, clear- 
 eyed, possessed of a keen love of his profes- 
 sion and immeasurably proud of it ; fit to go 
 anywhere and to do anything at any moment, 
 and holding always by the old ideals that had 
 occupied his mind from boyhood onwards. 
 
 He was acting adjutant at the time, and just 
 before we cast off, some of the men seeing him 
 standing there alone, raised a cheer. Then 
 one among them — a bull-necked, powerful- 
 looking man, known among the others as Joe 
 — sung out his name, and the rest cheered him 
 after that more lustily than ever. 
 
 The last bell rung to clear ship, we hauled 
 slowly out, and he waved his hand and turned 
 
THE SUMMONS 245 
 
 to go. I knew exactly what his feelings were 
 at that moment. The band on the jetty struck 
 up a tune of many memories. We were moving 
 through waters smooth as oil, and there was a 
 brilliant yellow light in the western sky behind 
 a dark mass of shipping on that still, spring 
 evening. For a moment there was silence, 
 and the cheering died away. The men crowd- 
 ing on the poop were listening to the band. 
 Then they joined in, and started singing 
 *' Auld Lang Syne." 
 
 I had not been long in India, when the 
 following letter reached me from Ainslle : — 
 
 ** You see I am writing from Downham. I 
 came up here to talk to my father about a 
 possible exchange. It seems I can effect this 
 with Ronald who, as you know, is invalided 
 home with dysentery. Only one thing rather 
 sticks in my mind — my dear old people seem 
 disappointed I should be going abroad again 
 so soon, though they both, I need hardly say, 
 put a good face on it. Of course I know very 
 little about how matters stand in India, though 
 from what fellows say and what I gather from 
 the papers, there seems every likelihood of a 
 big business on the Frontier before the year is 
 
246 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 out. I wouldn't miss that for all the world, 
 and I don't think my father would mind my 
 going so much, if he thought there was a 
 chance of my seeing active service. What he 
 dislikes is the idea of my being stuck down in, 
 what he calls, *some beastly unhealthy station,' 
 and asks, * What's the fun of that? ' 
 
 "My mother goes on the principle that 
 where a soldier is sent he must go, but there 
 is no reason for him to go out of his way to 
 look for things. I chaff her a lot when she 
 says that, and tell her it's all nonsense. These 
 are not days — if there ever were such — when 
 all one has to do is to stand in the barrack 
 square, complacently waiting for something to 
 turn up : that's rot ! So the end of it is that 
 my father is going up to the War Office to 
 see a friend or two there, get the big wigs to 
 sanction this exchange when it comes forward, 
 and also find out, if he can, whether there is 
 any truth in the reports the Press has got hold 
 of. I will wager anything he gets his way : 
 his cheery old face hasn't altered a bit. 
 
 ** I won't talk about other things now, or 
 other people. I am only here for three days 
 and must leave again to-morrow evening. No 
 doubt, when the exchange is sanctioned, my 
 new Colonel will give me a couple of months' 
 
THE SUMMONS 247 
 
 leave, though always with the chance of this 
 being cut short if I am wanted. Have you 
 started polo yet ? I shall have to get you to 
 look out for a pony or two for me. We are 
 getting on all right. Last week we had a 
 batch of men from the depot, and we are taking 
 a few recruits. They are not bad, though not 
 up to the old lot. Good-bye. A. G." 
 
 The old Squire experienced few difficulties 
 at the War Office, and before the end of 
 August the exchange was sanctioned, '* pro- 
 vided no expense was thereby caused to the 
 public." In other words, Ainslie undertook to 
 join our battalion in India at his own charges, 
 and at the expiration of the two months' leave 
 subsequently granted him. 
 
 ** Now, all we have got to do," said the 
 Squire to Ainslie on the night of his arrival at 
 Denton, his face wreathed in smiles — ** is just 
 to get our kit together and keep our eyes open 
 as to what is going on out there. But I don't 
 think we had better say much about it to your 
 mother — time enough for that, you know — time 
 enough for that! Meanwhile, you must go 
 round all your friends here, and see what we 
 have been doing. I can't say there is much 
 improvement in the outlook. There is no end 
 to the reductions in rent, and the demands of 
 
248 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 the farmers are also endless. So, one way 
 and another, there is not a penny comes back 
 out of the estate now — or is likely to, so far as 
 I can see. But, dear me, there is no reason 
 for us to cry out. The property is clear of 
 all encumbrances, and things are bound to 
 come right in time — bound to ; and what's 
 more, they will then be all right for you. 
 What's the use of a father if he can't see to 
 that!'* 
 
 Ainslie told me much of such talks in his 
 letters at this time, speaking of his father's 
 continued cheerfulness and energy as splendid. 
 *' It isn't as if he was young," he said in one of 
 these — ** he is already over seventy, and yet 
 he is out and about everywhere, and has given 
 up none of his County work. He has dropped 
 hunting, of course, and for some time now ; 
 but talks of coming out with me on * the First ' 
 — to act as marker, he says, and get a shot 
 when he can, for we still walk all our birds, as 
 in old days." 
 
 ** I have been here a fortnight," he writes in 
 another letter the following week — *' and think 
 I have made good use of my time : been 
 round to every farm, and seen a whole host of 
 old friends, on the land, and in the cottages as 
 well. Of course I know how difficult it is 
 
THE SUMMONS 249 
 
 really to get at the inner thoughts of these 
 people. Almost all are frightfully reticent, 
 some keep their eyes on the main chance, and 
 a few are humbugs — though very few, where 
 they realise that perhaps one knows a little 
 oneself. 
 
 ** But apart from all that, there are folk here, 
 and in plenty still, who I believe are true as 
 steel and as honest as the day. Haven't they 
 known one from childhood, watched one's 
 foolery as a boy, and seen one grow up with 
 them and theirs ? Of course they have, and 
 they know it. And therefore when I take 
 their hands and look again at their honest 
 faces, I believe I can trust what they say, and 
 take their welcome in the way they mean me 
 to. They don't give their hearts to all — and 
 quite rightly ; but they never swerve from 
 those they have really learnt to know. For 
 my part — well, I love them all. They always 
 stand, in my eyes, as part of my home ; and 
 for my home I would give my life. 
 
 ** You know my ideas on that score. Per- 
 haps I have inherited them from my father ; 
 and you should just hear the people on the 
 place speak of him I They honour a man of 
 backbone and one who shows fight ; and in 
 his case they have watched him closely through 
 
250 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 all these hard times, marked things coming 
 lower and lower at this old house, year after 
 year, till the place has become silent and well- 
 nigh closed, and seen at the same time, what 
 Lawrence Allen of Compass Furlong — an old 
 man now, himself — put into words, when 
 chatting with me the other day. 
 
 "'Ah,' he said, 'there's one, anyways, as 
 never spares hisself, and acts up to what er 
 preaches. Our Squire hain't no afternoon 
 gentleman,^ he hain't. Does uns best, he do, 
 straight on the nail, and goes hand in hand 
 wi' the rest on us — come what may, rough or 
 smooth, wet or shine ! I reckons as no un 
 can't take arter a better pattern than hisn's. 
 An' it be my firm beliefs — same as old Mr. 
 Drew was a-sayin' at the ordinary, last Satur- 
 day as ever was — as when his time do come 
 to stick up his stick,^ you an' we an' the rest 
 on us '11 find as he's tidied all up as it should 
 be, and picked up every mortal one of his 
 crumbs.^ That's what our Squire be, an' your 
 fayther be ; an' we don't want no strangers 
 here ! ' And then he turned away, as he 
 always does, you know, * when he's had his bit 
 of a say.' 
 
 ^ A man who is always behindhand and neglects matters. 
 ^ To die. ' To tidy up work neatly. 
 
THE SUMMONS 251 
 
 *' We have got the jolliest little boy staying 
 here — my Uncle John's son, and my godson 
 (think of that !) ; the said uncle and my aunt 
 being here too. My father has taken to the 
 child enormously, and no wonder. I think he 
 will make a rare good one. You should have 
 just seen the little fellow two days ago. I 
 took him by the hand and led him down to the 
 deer paddock, where * Alice Grey ' is spending 
 the last years of her life. The old mare knew 
 my voice at once when I came back here, and 
 I fancy horses are like dogs in this particular, 
 and that they never forget. However, I called 
 to her, and she came out from under the shade 
 of the elms into the broad sunlight and put her 
 nose on my shoulder. And then I put little 
 Reggie on her back, and we went round the 
 paddock together ; the little fellow holding on 
 by the mane, not the least afraid, and indeed 
 laughing from sheer joy. And just then, poor 
 old Welfare tottered out of his garden at the 
 back of the stables, and seeing us, stood there 
 repeating more than once : * Well there — that's 
 just as it should be — just for all the world as it 
 should be ! ' 
 
 **This letter has run to an unconscionable 
 length ; but I must tell you one thing more, 
 from which I have been hanging back all the 
 
252 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 time. I have been over to your people pretty- 
 often — a confession in itself! Two days ago, 
 I met your sister on my way. Well ; some- 
 thing happened. And after that we went into 
 that room with the big Raeburn portrait in 
 it. Of course I had to play. Music is some- 
 times responsible for a good deal, and it has 
 certainly been responsible for a good deal here. 
 
 " When I had finished, and was just shutting 
 the piano, she called out from the big sofa — 
 ' Do you remember a song you sung, years ago, 
 when we were all three together ? I wish you 
 would sing it again.' So I had to sing Ich 
 Hebe Dick once more, and when I had finished, 
 I looked across the room and saw that tears 
 were streaming down her cheeks. Of course 
 she said she was not really crying, and tried 
 to wipe them away quickly, on my saying that 
 tears at such a time were a bad omen. Then 
 we both laughed, and agreed that omens were 
 rubbish and tears sometimes very silly things. 
 
 " I know you will not say anything about 
 this when you are writing home. Nobody 
 knows, and we mean to tell nobody yet. You 
 and I, however, have always been such close 
 friends, that I can't keep anything from you. 
 I don't think that if we are to be brought 
 closer together even than we have been, and 
 
THE SUMMONS 253 
 
 what's more by the ties of relationship, we 
 can ever become more like brothers than all 
 these years of our joint lives have proved us 
 to be. 
 
 ** You will take me, I know, in the way that 
 she has. And then, when the years in India 
 are over, and all that they may possibly bring, 
 I think I shall be content to hang up my sword 
 in the hall with the others that have hung 
 there long ; though mine, perhaps, may fail to 
 tell the stories that they do, to the Gores of 
 a future day. 
 
 ** Mind you keep me informed as to how 
 things are going, and wire to me at once if 
 you scent trouble ahead. There is nothing to 
 prevent my joining before my leave is up, and 
 I can start at an hour's notice, my kit being 
 practically ready. I wouldn't miss a show for 
 all the world. I have dreamt of such things a 
 thousand times, and to be at last with the Regi- 
 ment in one good thing, would be supremely 
 splendid — and what is more, might tend, as I 
 believe, to make one a better man. Good-bye. 
 — Affectionately yours, A. G." 
 
 That was the last letter I ever had from 
 him. Things moved somewhat quickly after 
 that. A letter from me to him crossed this 
 one, and though it was destined never to reach 
 
254 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 him, I give it here because it explains the 
 position of affairs in India, and how these led 
 shortly afterwards to his hurried departure from 
 his home. 
 
 ** My last letter will have told you of all the 
 different shaves that were going the round of 
 camp and barrack, and it looks now as if some of 
 these were working out true. The Mohmands 
 have been misbehaving themselves, and what 
 is more to the point, the Afridis and Orakzai 
 have been playing Old Harry on the borders 
 and the Government is getting restive. They 
 can't stand such doings much longer. The 
 Orakzai raided Samava recently, and the Afri- 
 dis were in the Khyber, with Malakhand and 
 Chakdara attacked by the Swat Johnnies be- 
 fore that. It will have to be stopped, though 
 nothing has been settled yet, so far as we can 
 learn. It will be si big thing if it comes, and 
 all that we hear is true ; but you will realise 
 what fellows are when they begin to talk out 
 here. Plenty of time yet. There appears to 
 be no chance of our being warned for service, 
 and leave is still being granted. 
 
 " Can't write any more now. We have a 
 polo match to-day against the 5th, and as I am 
 playing, I must go round and have a look at 
 the ponies. Got one ripper, you know. Bought 
 
THE SUMMONS 255 
 
 him of Charley Hay, when they were ordered 
 home — you remember him at my Dame's, don't 
 you ? 
 
 ** Awfully sorry I have not been able to go 
 on with this before. We have been rather 
 busy. I will tell you in a minute about that ; 
 but first of all — we won that match, all right. 
 One of us hit a lucky goal in the last five 
 minutes. It was a deuced good game, all 
 through, and my new purchase played Ai. 
 
 *' Well, since I began this a fortnight ago, 
 things have been moving a bit quick. Of 
 course you have had your eyes open and have 
 watched The Times telegrams. The Mohmand 
 expedition starts next week, we are told. A 
 bigger business than this is brewing, though, 
 and the Colonel has heard privately that it is 
 quite possible we may be wanted. We should 
 go up to Peshawar, though nothing is moving 
 at present. I will let you have a wire directly 
 I think you had better make a start, or you may 
 miss the job — and where would you be then, 
 with all the soul-inspiring things you have been 
 conjuring up in your mind for years! At 
 present, I picture you without thought of the 
 shiny East, and concentrating your powerful 
 intelligence upon how to get the best of those 
 extraordinary wild partridges of yours, with 
 
256 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 Giles to help you, all he knows. Hope you 
 have been successful. Don't I wish I was 
 along. I heard from my sister that you had 
 been over to see them a time or two, and that 
 they hoped to get you to shoot there later. 
 Mind you go, or I fancy somebody may be 
 disappointed ! 
 
 ** I have just this moment heard that the 
 General who is to command the big show is 
 actually on his way out, having been home on 
 leave. I wonder they did not warn you at the 
 same time ! No symptom of any call for us yet. 
 It is sickening, especially as others we know are 
 actually on the move to Peshawar and Jumrud. 
 However, we are ready to jump off at any 
 moment, and of course they know that all right. 
 
 *' I shall address my next letter to Port Said 
 post-office. You will be on the way very soon, 
 I expect, and possibly before this reaches you. 
 Should you get it, however, don't forget that, 
 failing Port Said, there will be letters for you, 
 for certain, at Aden, and also at Bombay if you 
 call at Grindlay Groom's offices in Hornby 
 Road. From rumours I have heard since 
 writing this far, I feel pretty sure I shall be 
 wiring to you before long, and possibly in the 
 next few hours, though I shall post this all the 
 same." 
 
THE SUMMONS 257 
 
 Ainslie was coming back through the village 
 with his father when my telegram was delivered 
 to him. The Squire was riding his cob, and 
 Ainslie was walking by his side, with his gun 
 on his shoulder. They stopped for a moment 
 in the roadway when the boy caught them, and 
 it happened to be just in front of Susan 
 Mantel's little shop, so she told me later, and 
 **when she wer' on the point of servin' a cus- 
 tomer with a nice bath-brick — that she wer'." 
 
 Ainslie read the message to himself and then 
 aloud to his father, thrusting it hurriedly into 
 his pocket, and quickening his pace so that the 
 Squire's cob had to jog to keep up with him. 
 This is how it ran, the original being before me 
 as he received it : it marked a red-letter day 
 in his life, and he wished it kept : — 
 
 ** Start at once. Call letters Aden and 
 Grindlay's Bombay." 
 
 Susan Mantel saw the whole episode, and 
 being a woman of discernment as well as having 
 had a talk with Ainslie a day or two before, 
 put two and two together, and, according to 
 her own account, there and then remarked to 
 her customer — " I knows exactly what that 
 be, Mrs. Pryn, I says — knows exactly, I be 
 bound I does. 'Tis his summons. He be 
 called for, and m.ay the Lord Almighty, I says, 
 
258 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 not make it a call for he. I got no faith in 
 them blacks, Mrs. Pryn, I says — not a mossel, 
 I haven't. And what our por soldiers a-got to 
 do to kep 'em in their place and lern 'em how 
 to conduct theirselves, nobody 'ouldn't believe. 
 The young Squire, ther', was only a-sayin' to 
 me t'other day, I says, as ther' was great odds 
 among 'em and as no trustes wasn't to be 
 placed in 'em. 
 
 **But ther' now, Mrs. Pryn, I says, jus' look 
 at they two a-goin' along together, like — th' old 
 Squire, and hisn's bonny son wi' gun on 
 shoulder. Ah ! — a brave look, has our young 
 Squire got wi' un, I says — a brave look. I 
 alius said as ther' wasn't never no un wi' such 
 looks, the country round, and no un wi' a bigger 
 heart or kinder ways wi' un. Us'n all knew'd 
 that. An' I hain't ashamed, Mrs. Pryn, I says, 
 to own to it — I loved un as a child, I says, and 
 I loves un now, though it 'ouldn't be seemly, 
 like, for me to say so much to many — that it 
 'ouldn't. Ah well, ther' — th' old Squire, his 
 good lady, and the son. Wher' be you a-goin' 
 to match they, I says? Nowhere, I says. 
 Brave an' bold, that's what he be, bless un ! " 
 
 It was four o'clock on the 29th of September 
 
THE SUMMONS 259 
 
 when my message reached him. Before six 
 he had left his home and was on his way to 
 London. Of his doings after that, Httle is 
 known beyond what he left recorded in the 
 small penny account book that he carried with 
 him, and in which he wrote down certain things 
 from day to day. The writing is very minute, 
 and being in pencil was already much rubbed 
 before it came into my hands ; so much so, 
 indeed, as to be almost undecipherable in 
 places. 
 
 With the book, when I found it, were a letter 
 from his father and one from his mother, which 
 had reached him just as he was leaving London, 
 and which I will give in what appears to me to 
 be their proper place ; a short note from my 
 sister, already referred to ; and two letters from 
 myself which he found waiting for him at Aden 
 and Bombay as I had promised. These were 
 tied up together at the time by me, and now lie 
 before me on this table as I write. 
 
 For such further details as were subsequently 
 gatherable, I was necessarily dependent upon 
 the one or two who met him on his long 
 journey, especially in the latter part of it. 
 All alike spoke of his eagerness to press on, 
 and his keen anxiety to reach the Regiment 
 before the real advance began. Untoward 
 
26o AINSLIE GORE 
 
 incidents that would have served to check 
 many, he brushed aside : if he could not get 
 there one way he would get there by another. 
 And when he met those who took a grave 
 view of their responsibilities, and explained 
 what could and could not be done according 
 to the regulations, he seems to have listened 
 respectfully and then to have taken a line of 
 his own, cost what it might. 
 
 At no time does a man declare his own 
 character quicker than on a campaign. In 
 Ainslie's case, those who met him here — and 
 particularly at the point where he ultimately 
 struck the line of march — tell how greatly they 
 were impressed by his depth of nature and 
 high-souled sense of duty. "He was always 
 ready to lend a hand," said one. '* I don't 
 think I ever saw anything to beat his self- 
 forgetfulness and invincible good temper, and 
 we certainly all admired his splendid strength 
 and physique." 
 
 ** I never met a man," wrote another, who 
 chanced while in command of a mule battery 
 to be thrown into close company with him 
 for a large part of a day and a night — ** I 
 never met a man who possessed a greater 
 share of what I will call the compelling power. 
 There was a natural charm about him that 
 
THE SUMMONS 261 
 
 simply won my heart at once, and at the same 
 time brought me over to his views that I had 
 at first felt bound seriously to oppose. I can 
 only tell you that though he was a much 
 younger man than myself, I ended by feeling 
 I must give him all he wished. His energy 
 was infectious, just as there was something 
 captivating in his whole bearing. The very 
 truth that was in the man shone out in those 
 grey eyes of his and rang in his every word, 
 so that we who met him out here, as I did, 
 for the first time, asked — * Who's that?' — and 
 then looked, and looked again." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 EASTWARD 
 
 I DO not propose to give the whole contents 
 of this stained and crumpled diary, however 
 great its human interest might prove to some. 
 Many of the entries are of a private nature — 
 references to his home and to mine ; to his 
 past life, and his hopes for the future, both 
 in this world and the next. The very last 
 thing he would have wished would have been 
 that such thoughts as escaped him here, and 
 that he jotted down during the enforced idleness 
 of a long journey, should appear in print for 
 the rest of the world to discuss and criticise. 
 He was intensely reserved, and seldom referred 
 to those things that were linked with his inner 
 consciousness. What he felt most he at all 
 times spoke about least. And knowing this, 
 I have thought it right to give here only such 
 entries as serve the purpose of the moment. 
 
 '' We are banging along across France. The 
 sun has only been up half an hour. Let me 
 
 s63 
 
EASTWARD 263 
 
 see — it's Saturday morning: must date this — 
 Oct. \st, 1897. Poor pheasants ! I expect Giles 
 has killed his brace by this time, to keep the 
 day. In thirty-six hours from now we should 
 be in Brindisi. Been rather a fool, Fm afraid. 
 Must try and make up for it by going as 
 much quicker than the post as may be possible, 
 and as nearly as quick as a telegram as I can. 
 The truth is, I ought to have started a week 
 or more ago. But I was torn in two, and 
 dallied on : it's the old story ! A woman is 
 often altogether too strong for a man ; and 
 that is just the reason why she may lead him 
 on the road to heaven — if she has it in her 
 — or send him straight along the one lead- 
 ing to somewhere else. It is a mystery, and 
 will remain so. I believe that if all the other 
 greater truths of life were found, one by one, 
 to be bubbles, and were duly pricked, this 
 one would remain, to defy the rest of us to 
 the end. Glad I'm not a woman: it is suf- 
 ficient responsibility to be a man. 
 
 ** I was so hurried yesterday, before leaving 
 London in the evening, that I hardly had 
 time to do more than glance at two letters from 
 the dear old people at home. I have just 
 read them again, this afternoon. They tried 
 their best to keep touch v, ith me, so long as 
 
264 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 I was in the Country. How like them ! They 
 can't reach me by letter again, for a long while." 
 
 The two letters referred to here, I found 
 upon him later myself. I have just undone 
 them, after all these years, and tried to smooth 
 out their creases and their frayed edges. They 
 are like sacred things to me. The first, given 
 here, was from his father ; the other from his 
 mother. 
 
 ** Dear Sonnie, — I know we have said our 
 good-byes ; but your mother wants to try and 
 reach you for a word or two more before you 
 leave London early to-morrow, so of course 
 I must back her up, and, after the manner of 
 us men, put all the blame of this epistle on the 
 woman ! I expect your mother feels there are 
 some things she can trust herself to write 
 rather than speak ; and there are plenty of 
 things that women, and especially mothers, 
 can put into words better than we can. But 
 whether this is right or not, I am not going to 
 be left behind where you are concerned, even 
 though I repeat myself. 
 
 ** I am so very glad, as I said, to think of 
 your seeing a bit of active service, and know 
 well how you have always hoped for a chance of 
 
EASTWARD 265 
 
 the kind. Most of us are the better for such 
 experiences, and I go so far as to say that it 
 would be well for all men to go through some 
 real hardship, or danger, or privation, at least 
 once in their lives, and before they are much 
 more than five - and - twenty. Every man, 
 woman and child here will look eagerly for 
 news of you, and also to seeing you back 
 before very long. You have lost your leave 
 and the cub-hunting, and they ought to let 
 you have another turn as soon as this job is 
 over. Anyway, won't we just about give you 
 a welcome when that great day comes ! 
 
 ** Many of the old folk here are scratching 
 their heads over your unceremonious departure, 
 and saying they would have liked a grip of 
 your hand before parting. I met old Willum 
 on my way back from the stables, after telling 
 Welfare someone would have to take this, and 
 he said, with pull of forelock that is now pass- 
 ing out of fashion — ' Ther', I does hope, to be 
 sure, that the young Squire '11 come safe back, 
 an' not get hurted : can't afford to lose the 
 likes o' he.' I told the old man that you 
 would be all right ; but with the usual deep 
 wisdom of his class, he would have it that 
 * furrin parts wus furrin' parts, all said and 
 done, and none on 'em wasn't old England' — 
 
266 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 an assertion that I have difficulty in combating. 
 Mrs. Shaw said much the same when I passed 
 her at the back door, though she took on most 
 about 'the dangers of the girt waters,' and 
 seemed to think, while she has never seen the 
 sea, that she knew all about them from a 
 lifetime's acquaintanceship with the Severn 
 floods. 
 
 " I like to hear them talk like that. It goes 
 to show that when you have once won the 
 hearts of the best of them, they will no more 
 change their affections than Molly would, who 
 lies by my side as I write. Of course it is 
 only to be got by living with them and grow- 
 ing up with them and theirs. And as you 
 have very certainly done this, I trust some 
 day you may find that affection stand you in 
 good stead. You know these folk and all 
 their ways and wants ; and when you come to 
 live here in your turn — as the members of our 
 family have done, one after the other, for long 
 — your very familiarity with them and with the 
 land, should teach you the line to take under 
 all skies and all conditions of weather. 
 
 ** I am not afraid, anyway, and the one great 
 joy of my heart is that I have you to follow 
 me. You'll look after the people and the 
 place, and keep up the traditions of the family 
 
EASTWARD 267 
 
 — no one better ! If I am not here when you 
 come back, don't forget what I have often told 
 you ; and some day, when you have chosen a 
 wife for yourself — and that won't be long, I 
 hope — bring up the next generation on the 
 same lines. Well, that's enough of that, and 
 I will only add that all my hopes in such 
 directions — and family and home are everything 
 to some of us — all my hopes are centred in 
 you. 
 
 ** Dear me ! — when one comes to think of it — 
 how I envy you! It seems a long time back to 
 the Crimean days and the 8th September '55. 
 When we tumbled out of the trenches that 
 day, you know, we had 260 yards to go to 
 reach the Redan, and the ground as bare of 
 cover as the back of my hand — ^just whitish 
 rock and stone and rubble — and uphill pretty 
 near all the way. They were flinging grape 
 and canister into our teeth and our left flank at 
 the same time, while the fire from the parapet 
 took us on the right shoulder. I tell you it 
 swept the ground like hailstones in one of our 
 northerly gales on the Severn flats, and how 
 anyone lived through it I can't say. We 
 gained the ditch edge, however, and dropped 
 in, and I don't think there had been much 
 amiss with our line as we came on ; but we 
 
268 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 couldn't hold our ground and, worse luck, 
 were presently recalled. 
 
 ** It was just in that open stretch that we 
 suffered most, and the pity was that it was all 
 thrown away. We lost two hundred and twenty- 
 one in killed and wounded in the old Regiment 
 alone, and out of eighteen officers of ours that 
 went in, there were only two that came out 
 alive and untouched — your old father having 
 the luck to be one of them. May it be so 
 with you : I feel sure it will be. Good-bye. I 
 won't say any more. — Ever your affectionate 
 father, Rupert Gore." 
 
 ** Dearest Son, — Your father says he will 
 send this over to Actover this evening, so that 
 it may catch the late post and reach you before 
 you start in the morning. After you left, we 
 both went back to the library ; but your father 
 kept repeating to himself, as he looked out of 
 the window, just this — * As straight as a line 
 — he'll go as straight as a line — I know that 
 right enough ! ' He was talking to himself and 
 looking across the park to the high woods. 
 Of course I knew what he meant ; but it was 
 too much for me, so I have come away here to 
 be alone and to write this letter to you. 
 
 ** Don't think me very silly ; but it is not 
 
EASTWARD 269 
 
 easy for a mother to part with a son, especially 
 if she has only one ! Of course it is natural that 
 you should wish to be off, and I try to remind 
 myself that if mothers can't face such things in 
 the way they should and give their sons to the 
 fighting Services, as your father always calls 
 them, there is not much hope for the Country. 
 So I trust, dear boy, you will not think I was 
 wanting in spirit in anything I said to you. I 
 never thought yesterday that we should be 
 parted so soon. It has all come so suddenly. 
 I was looking forward to the rest of your leave, 
 and to several things that I fancied might 
 happen in the time. All the same, I had 
 noticed that you and your father seemed to 
 look for The Times more eagerly than usual, 
 and think now that you were hiding things 
 from me, which was very wrong of you both. 
 
 ** And now it is all over and you are actually 
 gone, within two hours of that horrid telegram 
 coming. Well, you are not the first of your 
 family to leave these doors on much the same 
 errand, and in that lies part of the pride of the 
 place and of your name. I like to think that. 
 Such a fresh call as this, seems to light old fires 
 anew, and to bring into our lives again those 
 whose doings are too easily forgotten. I know, 
 in my case, it will send me round some of the 
 
270 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 old portraits with quite fresh interest, though 
 that should never be. 
 
 ** And now as to yourself, my dearest son. 
 I have no fear but that God will bless and 
 protect you, and bring us all three together 
 again in His good time, and when this service 
 of yours is over. That He will help you in all 
 that may befall you, I shall pray both night 
 and morning, and many times a day. You 
 will be always in my thoughts. I know that 
 you will do your duty fearlessly, and as your 
 father calls it — * go straight ' ! You have always 
 done so, from the first — here, in your home. 
 We all know that, and I above all, for perhaps 
 it is often the mother who knows the son best. 
 You have never given us trouble — never once ! 
 I think you will be pleased to feel that, now 
 you are called away to scenes of which we 
 women can know nothing. Some day, perhaps, 
 you will be a great and good soldier, though I 
 know you laugh at such ideas yourself. You 
 are quite young yet ; but your time will come, 
 and then, in my old age — if indeed I and your 
 father are not getting old already — I shall be 
 so proud of your doings, and thank God with 
 a grateful heart, as I often do now, for such 
 a son. 
 
 '* But here is your father, telling me I must 
 
EASTWARD 271 
 
 stop, so perforce I must obey. He has just 
 come in with a letter in his hand, looking 
 rather guilty when I laughed at him for trying 
 to make out it was all for my sake that he was 
 sending this by horse messenger to Actover. 
 I leave you to picture the expression on his 
 face, when I guessed he had been writing to 
 you himself. He has retreated at this moment 
 to the big chair in the corner, where I have 
 so often seen you lolling, with many of your 
 favourite books about you ; and I believe he 
 has gone there on purpose, and because it was 
 your particular chair, for books are not the 
 same living things to him that they have 
 always been to you. If the truth must be told, 
 you men are not half as brave as us on some 
 occasions, and in spite of all your father says, 
 I can see that he feels your going intensely, and 
 is just keeping himself up by talking and doing 
 anything that comes to hand. Once more, 
 then, dearest boy — your old mother's best of 
 loves — good-bye and good luck, and may you 
 be brought safely back to us before so very long. 
 — Your loving mother, Edith Gore." 
 
 ** Oct, 2nd, Brindisi Harbour. — The moon 
 is shining — not just on us, but miles and miles 
 away out at sea, leaving a silver streak on the 
 
272 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 very limit of the horizon. By and by the light 
 will work our way, and this harbour and town, 
 and accumulated mass of shipping all along 
 this wharf, will be flooded with it : the silver- 
 grey clouds will have drifted slowly and 
 solemnly before the faint airs that are their sole 
 companions, to create further beautiful effects 
 here, and for the benefit of all who care to 
 look. 
 
 ** How I wish people would sometimes walk 
 at night. They little know what they miss. 
 Give them pavements and gas lamps, and they 
 will trudge, shop-gazing, till they drop. Sug- 
 gest their leaving their houses after dark in the 
 country — to come over the hills and look down 
 at the moonlit valley and the mists that hang 
 at the bends of the river ; that float here and 
 float there and are gone again, like the life of 
 a man — to enter the woods and listen to its 
 many sounds, in storm or calm ; to tell the 
 trees in winter by the forms of their dark limbs 
 against the starlit heavens ere the moon is 
 up, or by their voices in the winds — to walk 
 through the glades in summer's shortest nights, 
 when the warmth rises from the ground where 
 the sun has beat all day, and Nature seems to 
 be panting in the stillness — to watch the golden 
 glow, where the syn w^nt down, travelling now 
 
EASTWARD 273 
 
 from the West to the North, and from the 
 North onward to the East again, to be turned 
 once more to silver at the dawn of another 
 day ; — suggest their leaving their houses and 
 seeing some of these, and a myriad other 
 things that are only to be seen and heard and 
 felt in the night hours, is to be thought at least 
 strange ! More's the pity. 
 
 ** October -^rd. — Monday morning. W^e left 
 Brindisi about midnight, and are now steaming 
 straight for Port Said. I have just been look- 
 ing through the itinerary of my journey, as 
 made out in London on Friday. I could not 
 have done it at all, had it not been for the 
 extraordinary kindness of the P. & O. Com- 
 pany and Cook's. They seemed to take quite 
 a personal interest in the matter. That's the 
 best of going to great firms. You get the 
 best of everything. Of course you pay for 
 it ; but the best pays, whether you are going 
 a long journey, and hope, as I do, to reach 
 the end without losing a minute, or merely 
 want to take a long walk in the best shoe- 
 leather. 
 
 ** Well, this is how they tabled it out for me 
 — to begin at the beginning : — 
 
 ** Leave London, Friday evening, September 
 30th. 
 
274 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 ** Reach Brindisi, Sunday evening, and leave 
 about midnight. 
 
 ** Port Said, morning of 6th October. 
 
 ** Suez, on the 7th. 
 
 ** Aden, early morning of the nth. 
 
 ** Bombay, on the i6th.^ 
 All depends upon the hour we reach Bombay. 
 That's the crucial point, because, otherwise, I 
 may miss the Punjab Mail, leaving at 5.15 p.m. 
 If I do so, there will be the clear loss of a day, 
 and I shall be kicking my heels in the streets 
 of Bombay. From there to Peshawar takes 
 two' days and a few hours, when of course the 
 fun will begin. But no doubt letters at Aden, 
 or somewhere, will tell me what then. If I 
 am lucky I ought to reach the Regiment soon 
 after the 20th, and my leave is not up till 
 November 2nd. 
 
 " October ^th. — We are rather a miscellaneous 
 crowd on board : hardly any soldiers, the 
 majority being bound for other places than 
 India, and a few going no farther than Egypt. 
 We have already started cricket and other 
 games, and great fun they are. There is also 
 
 ^ It must be remembered that these dates refer to seventeen 
 years ago, the P. & O. Company informing the writer that, 
 since 1897, the acceleration in contract service outwards, be- 
 tween Brindisi and Bombay, now amounts to seventy-four 
 hours. 
 
EASTWARD 275 
 
 a small piano in the saloon, and I go and 
 strum on it sometimes in the afternoon. The 
 worst is, people will come and bother me to 
 play jigs I never heard of, and just when one 
 wants to be alone. I try to accommodate them 
 as best I can. 
 
 ** October 6th. — Port Said. Early morning. 
 What a place ! Looks as if the dregs of the 
 whole world had been swept in here and left 
 to rot in the heat. 
 
 "• We were getting on all right in the Canal 
 till this afternoon, when we were pulled up. 
 A large steamer aground ahead somewhere ; 
 and here we have been for nearly two hours, 
 with high sandy banks on either side of us. 
 It is rather maddening, for I keep counting 
 up the days and the hours and the minutes — 
 and it may well be a matter of minutes to me. 
 
 " October ytk, — We are just passing Suez, 
 late to-night, and have already lost some time. 
 We are getting up a concert for to-morrow 
 evening, and are going to have the piano on 
 deck. I wonder what a concert will be like in 
 the heat of the Red Sea. I am singing * Tom 
 Bowling,' for the benefit of the crew — and I 
 hope, for the passengers as well. Surely Tom 
 Bowling himself is one of the immortals : he'll 
 never die, though his soul has gone aloft many 
 
276 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 years now. He certainly played his part, and 
 left an indelible mark behind him. Wish I 
 could ! 
 
 " October lOth, — The heat has been great, 
 and the wind being with us has made it ten 
 times worse. A dreadful thing happened 
 yesterday. One of the quartermasters had 
 gone up to the main cross-trees, and fell from 
 there into the sea. A boat was lowered at 
 once, and the ship was stopped. I shall never 
 forget seeing his cap afterwards, floating on 
 the water where he went down. Some say 
 he must have struck his head against one of 
 the open ports, and so sunk at once. Anyway, 
 after rowing about for nearly an hour, the cap 
 was the only trace brought back by the boat. 
 He leaves a wife and four children, and we 
 are getting up a subscription for them. We 
 always fly to money. Very naturally. In 
 many cases it is our only way of showing 
 sympathy. We have put off our second con- 
 cert. To-morrow we shall be at Aden. We 
 ought to reach there very early in the morning ; 
 but we shan't, probably, till after mid-day. 
 
 " October nth. — Aden. Here we are, at last, 
 and about half a day late. Can't be helped. 
 One good thing is that I have got the letter 
 I wanted, and have read it again and again. 
 
EASTWARD 277 
 
 I feel quite in heart, though I have evidently 
 missed a lot of the preliminaries. I think I 
 shall be in time to reach them before the 
 fighting begins : will try my level best. Wish 
 to goodness the ship would go on. Every 
 minute may make a difference." 
 
 The letter referred to is the first of those I 
 wrote in the hope of reaching him on his 
 journey out. I found it with the others at 
 the time, and give it here : — 
 
 ** It was no use my writing to Port Said : 
 the letter would only, I feel sure, have missed 
 you there, so I shall try my second string, and 
 hope this may reach you at Aden. Don't 
 forget that another letter will be waiting for 
 you at Bombay, to tell you the latest. You 
 must call for it at Messrs. Grindlay, Groom's 
 offices in Hornby Road. 
 
 " Here we are at Peshawar, right enough. 
 The concentration had been going on for some 
 time before our arrival, and also at Jamrud, so 
 that the country, for miles round, seems alive 
 with troops and transport and all the impedi- 
 menta of a modern army. You would be 
 hugely interested in it, and it would take your 
 fancy. It is all on such a big scale, and the 
 
278 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 gradual growth of this great force, slowly 
 perfecting its arrangements that it may reach 
 death grips with pretty well certainty of 
 victory, would fire your mind with all sorts 
 of romantic ideas. 
 
 " There is no doubt that we are coming into 
 touch with big things, and to miss these would 
 break your heart. Bad enough your missing 
 all we are at now — so much of which reminds 
 me of our talk of tented fields when we were 
 boys and devoured all the books we could get 
 on the Punjab wars, the Mutiny and the rest. 
 I got your wire all right, and was thankful to 
 hear that you had started directly mine reached 
 you. Every hour is bringing you nearer to 
 your goal now. 
 
 ** Of course I am brim full of knowledge. 
 Perhaps you would like a little of it. The first 
 thing that strikes one, not having seen such 
 shows as this before, is, as I say, the stupen- 
 dous scale on which everything is being done. 
 It makes all one's previous experiences in peace 
 time seem quite insignificant. This is the real 
 thing. There is no doubt of that. 
 
 ** First of all, our fighting force is to be 34,000 
 men, when all have come in, with not far short 
 of the same number of non-combatants, and 
 about 50,000 transport animals. That's a 
 
EASTWARD 279 
 
 jolly lot of mouths to fill every day and keep 
 supplied with everything, from ammunition to 
 firewood, food, and fodder. To start with, we 
 have to get the whole crowd through the 
 Kohat Pass, as our three columns are to 
 concentrate at Kohat, at the first go off. 
 
 ''There is nothing to be got in the country 
 we have before us. It is God forsaken, 
 they tell us, and the most difficult country in 
 the world. Only two Europeans have ever 
 visited it, and these never came back. There 
 are no roads, only goat tracks at best, with 
 miles of mountain torrents, where the water 
 rushes over rocks and boulders and is icy. In 
 the daytime it is often blazing hot, and at 
 night beastly cold. The gorges are only wide 
 enough for two animals to move abreast, and 
 occasionally not that. They are also very 
 steep, with precipitous descents. And, mind 
 you, a plucky enemy holding every defile and 
 occupying every ridge, and knowing every inch 
 of the country perfectly. 
 
 *' These Afridis and Orakzai carry the latest 
 breechloading rifles ; which, moreover, we 
 have taught many of them how to use. They 
 are grand marksmen and have plenty of 
 ammunition, for having lately got in their 
 autumn harvest, money has been plentiful 
 
28o AINSLIE GORE 
 
 and they have been free to indulge their 
 fancy in such directions to the full. 
 
 "No doubt you saw, before you left, that 
 the Malakan had been attacked ; that these 
 Johnnies had actually invested Chakdara on 
 the Swat River ; and that all the tribes on this 
 side of the Panjkora were up. Well, we are 
 going to teach them manners, though some 
 say it is not going to be exacdy a walk over. 
 Afridis are fighters by instinct, being simply 
 born to the job and loving it ; and to add to 
 their natural love of fight, and by way of in- 
 flaming them, a notice has been sent round by 
 their mullahs to say that this expedition of ours 
 is a war of extermination against them, and 
 that we mean wiping them out for good. 
 Meanwhile, as they can, it is said, put not 
 less than 40,000 fighting men against us of 
 the quality described, I should not think 
 * wiping out ' would be exactly easy, even 
 if it were our way of doing things. 
 
 ** There are three columns, and ours is the 
 main column, under the chief. It is to be 
 made up of 8 Regiments of British Infantry, 
 12 of Native Infantry, 6 Mountain Batteries, 
 I Regiment of Native Cavalry, and 5 companies 
 of Sappers. We are to advance over the 
 Samana into the heart of the Afridi country — 
 
EASTWARD 281 
 
 to Tirah, a country where no British Force 
 has ever been — and we are told we are to 
 sweep away all opposition as we go. 
 
 " We may almost certainly be first opposed 
 at the Sampagha and other passes leading into 
 the Rajgul and Maidan valleys. The former 
 is nearly due north of our line of forts on the 
 Samana. The approach is fairly easy, they 
 say, and the position can be turned on either 
 flank. Once we are over that, we shall have 
 below us the summer quarters of the Afridis — 
 the southern valleys of Tirah, and almost 
 immediately afterwards, we should be in the 
 very heart of the tribal country. 
 
 " Well ; that's what we have before us. Our 
 force is said to be the very flower of the army 
 in India. Come along quick and make up the 
 nosegay, and select the kind of bud you are 
 going to be ! We have grand times before us — 
 simply grand ! Mind you don't lose an instant 
 anywhere. When you have done with the 
 ship and the trains, come at a gallop all the 
 rest of the way, till you pick us up ; and when 
 any horse or pony you have begged, borrowed, 
 or stolen, is blown and can't carry you another 
 yard, come on at a double — 'steady double,' 
 mind you, and ' no running,' as our first drill- 
 sergeant use to say. He was much too fat to 
 
282 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 do either himself. I know your staying powers 
 well enough, and can see you, now, tumbling 
 into Chalvey at the School Jump in the Steeple- 
 chase, but winning it all the same ! " 
 
 ''October i2tk, — About four days more and 
 we shall be in Bombay, and, if I have luck, in 
 five days after that I ought to reach them. 
 That should just about do it. Some of the 
 folk on board have begun to chaff me about 
 my anxiety to get on, and last night one of 
 the company in the smoking-room remarked 
 to the rest — * I have never seen a fellow in 
 such a hurry to be killed, in all my life ! ' All 
 the others laughed, so of course I laughed 
 too. At the same time, the idea of being 
 killed is quite a new one to me. It never 
 entered my head, and I certainly don't want 
 to be. 
 
 "When we all laughed, another fellow added 
 — ' The truth is, he is tired of life ! ' That's 
 a funny idea, too. Life! — why, life is the 
 finest thing in the universe. Surely, though, 
 one isn't meant to spoil it all by taking stock 
 of risks and dwelling on possible wounds ? 
 That is just to stifle effort at the start. And 
 as to being tired of life, I always think of 
 that remark of Goethe's — ' A man will be tired 
 
EASTWARD 283 
 
 of anything sooner than of life, and no one 
 reaches the goal towards which he set out ; 
 for however long a man may be prosperous 
 in his career, still, at last, and often when in 
 sight of the hoped-for object, he falls into 
 a grave which God knows who dug for him, 
 and is reckoned as nothing.' 
 
 *' I think that is about right, so far as I 
 can remember it and put it into English. The 
 doctrine is rather depressing. If, however, we 
 are in reality seldom able to attain our desires 
 in their entirety — and all the rest that Goethe 
 says here is true — that is no reason why we 
 should not have an aim. To have an aim 
 and to be prepared to risk all in its attainment, 
 leads to happiness. I don't know if I am 
 wrong, but I always think it best to go forward, 
 without allowing the final, inevitable shadow 
 to intrude upon the way. Life is given to 
 be spent — spend it ! 
 
 ''October \^th. — We are going to have our 
 last entertainment to-night. Two men are doing 
 that dualogue that we have often had at home — 
 two old Gloucestershire women in poke bonnets, 
 telling their gossip to one another. Only one 
 of the men comes from the County, and I don't 
 quite see how the other is going to manage 
 the dialect. You must start young to acquire 
 
284 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 that and the inimitable pronunciation ; there is 
 no getting it later. 
 
 *' I hoped to have stuck to the piano, so far 
 as I was personally concerned, and quite enough 
 too ; but several voted there should be reciting, 
 so I have been persuaded to give them some- 
 thing in that line. I am sure I don't want to, 
 and think they will be sorry they asked me, 
 for I have found a copy of Browning in the 
 ship's library, and have polished up my recol- 
 lection of a poem of his that I once had to 
 declaim in School Speeches, on the 4th June 
 at Eton. It is * Abt Vogler (after he has been 
 extemporising upon the musical instrument of 
 his invention),' and I have still a vivid recol- 
 lection of how my dear old Tutor tried to teach 
 me not to miss the points, and especially in those 
 two wonderful stanzas, the ninth and tenth : — 
 
 Therefore to whom turn but to thee, the ineffable Name ? 
 
 Builder and maker, thou, of houses not made with hands ! 
 What, have fear of change from thee who art ever the same ? 
 Doubt that thy power can fill the heart that thy power 
 expands ? 
 There shall never be one lost good ! What was shall live 
 as before; 
 The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound ; 
 What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good 
 more; 
 On the earth the broken arcs ; in the heaven, a perfect 
 round. 
 
EASTWARD 285 
 
 All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall 
 exist ; 
 Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor 
 power 
 Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the 
 melodist 
 When eternity afifirms the conception of an hour. 
 The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too 
 hard, 
 The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, 
 Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ; 
 Enough that he heard it once : we shall hear it by-and-by. 
 
 '* I must finish this off for the present. To- 
 morrow will be a regular rush. We are certain 
 to be a good bit behind time, and I fear it 
 will be afternoon before we are in. I don't 
 mind how late it is, so long as there is enough 
 margin left for me to catch that Punjab Mail 
 
 at 5.15- 
 
 " I was told last night by an old Colonel 
 
 who is on his way to Madras, that the thing 
 
 above all others for me to do is to avoid the 
 
 Embarking Officer. If I go near anyone to 
 
 do with the local Head Quarters' Staff in 
 
 Bombay, he says, I shall almost certainly be 
 
 caught and made use of to take detachments 
 
 of troops up country, and thereby be let in 
 
 for a loss of many days. As I am still on 
 
 leave, there is no reason why I should put my 
 
 neck into such a noose, so I shall take his 
 
286 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 advice. The thing to do is to get to the 
 Regiment : I shall be safe then. 
 
 " Our entertainment went well this evening, 
 and the funny thing to me was that even the 
 crew seemed to appreciate ' Abt Vogler.' I 
 should have thought it would have been over 
 their heads, and the heads, too, of many others 
 present. The applause, however, was tre- 
 mendous, and when it ended we all sang * God 
 save the Queen.' So there's an end of all 
 that. It has been a cheery, jolly time, and I 
 suppose we shall all be scattered to-morrow. 
 
 " To-morrow! — thereis always the to-morrow, 
 thank Heaven ! We talk glibly of the finality 
 and the end of things, but surely that is quite 
 false. The course is continuous ; the work to 
 be done here, and there, without end. No one 
 knows when his appointed task shall be judged 
 as finished here, and when he shall be set one 
 that is new elsewhere. Young or old, the 
 uncertainty is the same for all. Better fix the 
 eyes on the common goal, without over much 
 questioning. And if the hopes we cling to so 
 wistfully as the days draw on, leave us now 
 and then feeling very tired, we may rest assured 
 that the sense of weariness will vanish when 
 the sun of time goes to its setting and that 
 which is of eternity shall rise. 
 
EASTWARD 287 
 
 ** It is getting ever so late and I must stop. 
 The ship is quite silent, except for the eternal 
 throb of the screw and, at intervals, the tread 
 of one of the watch on deck. How ' Abt 
 Vogler ' runs in one's head ! — 
 
 And I blunt it into a ninth, and I stand on alien ground, 
 Surveying awhile the heights I rolled from into the deep ; 
 
 Which, hark, I have heard and done, for my resting place 
 is found, 
 The C major of this life : so now I will try to sleep." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY 
 
 *' October i6th. — Did any man ever have such 
 a narrow shave! I just managed it, and that 
 was all. The low-lying land was not sighted 
 till tiffin time. That was bad enough. But 
 we simply crawled when we got round Colaba 
 Point, and it was past 4 o'clock when we 
 dropped anchor. I felt inclined to jump into 
 the water and swim ashore. It was a job to 
 get a boat. Managed it at last. Landed at 
 the Apollo Bunda, kit and all, having previously 
 separated what I wanted with me from what 
 must be sent after me to Peshawar. The rest 
 comes out from England by next mail. 
 
 ** When at last I got ashore, I took a tickha- 
 gharri, and by bad luck dropped in for the 
 stupidest driver on earth. He actually drove 
 me into Apollo Street, which he must have 
 known was up for repairs ; as indeed we found, 
 to my great annoyance. So we had to go 
 back, and got into a street called Rampart Row, 
 
 and from that into Churchgate Street. A 
 
 288 
 
THE END OF THE JOURNEY 289 
 
 clock struck five as I reached Grindlay's offices 
 in Hornby Road, and it was several minutes 
 before I could get anyone to attend to me. 
 Arranged everything there ; got the letter I 
 expected ; jumped into xh^gkarri again ; made 
 the stupidest driver on earth leather his pony ; 
 and ran for this train — ^just reaching it in time, 
 and my kit being flung in after me when it 
 was already on the move. It is all right now ; 
 and I am in India, and on the GIP. But 
 just fancy if I had missed it ! Quite possibly 
 it might have altered my whole career. 
 
 " From this letter, it seems I may just reach 
 them in time, and no more. I have read it 
 over and over again, and tried to plot it out to 
 the last minute. We are due at Agra at 5.45 
 to-morrow evening ; Delhi at 9 p.m. ; Umballa 
 at 2.43 A.M. — that's the day after to-morrow ; 
 Amritzar at 7.57 the same morning ; Lahore 
 at 9 A.M. ; Rawalpindi at 3.50 p.m., and Peshawar 
 at 8.13 that same evening. One good thing; 
 we seem to be going faster than in the old 
 * Indus' : there are things to measure pace by 
 now, and there are none at sea. It is all 
 splendid." 
 
 The letter that reached him in Bombay was 
 my second, the last of the five that had been 
 
290 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 tied up separately with the penny account book 
 years ago. It lies before me once again at 
 this moment, and runs thus : — 
 
 *' I do hope you got my letter at Aden, for it 
 will have told you things that could hardly 
 have reached you before you left England. I 
 fancy now that you should be in Bombay in 
 less than a week, when you will of course get 
 this. 
 
 ** We have been having a jolly spell of hard 
 work, and have covered some ground, too, 
 between whiles, for here we are in ^ Shinwari, 
 our advanced base. But I must go back a bit. 
 After leaving Peshawar, our column came 
 right through from Bara and Jamrud, and 
 reached the foot of the Kohat Pass on the 9th 
 October. The next day we crossed and got 
 all our lot through to Kohat, doing the 
 eighteen miles without a hitch. The other two 
 columns followed us on the nth and 12th, and 
 we all joined up and were ready for our next 
 step. 
 
 " The Transport is a sight, and yet they 
 say we haven't enough ! There are animals of 
 all sorts — ponies, mules, donkeys, camels — 
 together with every kind of vehicle, from 
 bullock waggons to ordinary go-downs. The 
 
THE END OF THE JOURNEY 291 
 
 whole of this show is in charge of some 
 17,000 drivers of kinds. And all this that our 
 army may live, and what's more, fight ; with a 
 place for the damaged in the way of a liberal 
 supply of dhoolies and full hospital equipment. 
 But you are bound to see all this for yourself. 
 The constant stream must continue, to and fro 
 on our line of communications, whatever we 
 may be doing ourselves. You will find it pretty 
 hot, and at night fairly cold — don't forget this. 
 ** As soon as our huge mobilisation was 
 complete at Kohat, we left there and followed 
 the river to Ustazai, half way to Hangu — a 
 distance of about a dozen miles, you will find it. 
 There is a good camp there, standing on a 
 conical hill, looking down a fertile valley. 
 You can't mistake it. We crossed the Kohat 
 River near Ratsan, the travelling not being bad 
 from there all the way to Hangu, and past 
 Darban and on to Kai. We were going 
 North, after leaving Kohat — bare, rocky-look- 
 ing country for the most part, the Samana 
 ridge stretching out before us, with Fort 
 Lockhart, away to the right, when we reached 
 Kai. From this last, you will only have about 
 twelve miles left to get to this place, and I 
 only hope to heaven that you will come in 
 before we go forward. I cannot say when the 
 
292 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 real advance will be, exactly, these points 
 being naturally kept dark ; but it can't be 
 many days now, and we shan't have far to go 
 before the fun begins. 
 
 ''At present we are still busy concentrating 
 here, and, what is more, gradually accumulat- 
 ing twenty days' stores for 20,000 men. Our 
 camp stands on two conical hills, and we are 
 having enough to do in putting it into a state 
 of defence : it doesn't do, apparently, to hold 
 these Afridi chaps too cheap. Apart from 
 convoy duty, what we are doing now there- 
 fore, and more particularly, is building zaribas 
 round the extremities, with wire entangle- 
 ments in the valley between. In some ways, 
 we have had rather a rough time ; but it has 
 been awfully jolly and I have enjoyed every 
 step of the eighty or ninety miles, or whatever 
 it is we have come on our ten toes, since 
 leaving Peshawar. The only thing that I 
 have constantly regretted is that you were not 
 along, and all the fellows say the same. But 
 I must tell you what I can about our friends, 
 or rather enemies, in front, and also something 
 of the kind of job we can see plainly enough 
 lies ahead of us. You will know, then, all 
 that we do, and will be able to take your own 
 line. 
 
THE END OF THE JOURNEY 293 
 
 ** We have already come into touch. On 
 the nth, a working party of Pioneers and 
 1000 Punjabis went over the Changru Kotal 
 and were fired on. Luckily we had some 
 other troops handy and a mountain battery, 
 and the enemy were shelled with severe loss, 
 and with no casualties on our side. The 
 village of Dargai was seen to be crowded, 
 and we know that large forces are concen- 
 trated in the Khanki valley beyond. The 
 enemy have apparently posted themselves in 
 front of the Shinwari position. 
 
 **The ascent from Shinwari, we are told, 
 looks easy from the plain, but in reality is a 
 steep, rugged, almost impassable hillside, with 
 no road, only sheep or goat tracks and as rough 
 as you like. Dargai, which is about six miles 
 from this, and which we rather gather is to 
 be our first objective, and from which we have 
 to bundle these fellows out somehow or other, 
 is a good deal higher than the Changru Kotal. 
 On one side there is a sheer precipice, and 
 there is only one point of access — not a very 
 comfortable look-out, seeing that this approach 
 is fully commanded from the ridge above, 
 where the enemy have built themselves in 
 behind pretty solid sangars. 
 
 ** Well, that is all I have to say. I have 
 
294 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 been writing this at odd moments to-day and 
 a bit hurriedly ; but I am keen you should 
 know exactly where we are and certain land- 
 marks that may help you. You will want the 
 inside of three days at least to reach us from 
 Peshawar. Your only chance is to come on 
 independently ; to be a little mutinous ; and 
 to pick up a pony for yourself, by hook or 
 crook. I can only say again — do your level 
 best. We have a grand chance before us, and 
 I would not have you absent for all the wealth 
 of India!" 
 
 ''October lytL — I have had the most amaz- 
 ing piece of luck. That sentence — * You will 
 want the inside of three days at least to reach 
 us from Peshawar' — has been running in my 
 head all day. It means that, via Peshawar, I 
 could not expect to get to this place, Shinwari, 
 till the 2ist, at the earliest, and very possibly 
 not till some days later, seeing that getting 
 through the Kohat Pass, crowded as it is, 
 must be no joke. However, if there are such 
 things as good angels, I feel sure mine must 
 be attending me pretty closely, for as luck 
 would have it, a spare, dried-up looking, lean 
 man, with quick, dark eyes and a keen face, 
 entered my carriage at Agra, and we have 
 
THE END OF THE JOURNEY 295 
 
 been talking ever since. He is one of the 
 Indian Civils, and was once at Kohat. He 
 asked me where I was going up country, and 
 I told him my story as well as I could. He 
 did not thaw at once, though the wonder is 
 that anyone can be cold at all in this heat ; 
 but he became quite genial after a bit, and has 
 given me no end of help. 
 
 ** The outcome of it is that I am not going 
 to Peshawar now. Think of that ! He says 
 that if I once land in there, the chance is I 
 shall take a week to get on, if I ever do. I 
 must leave the train at Rawalpindi to-morrow 
 evening, and get another to take me to a place 
 called Khushalgarh. By this means I shall 
 save enormously, and avoid the main stream 
 on the lines of communication. Khushalgarh, 
 he says, is only thirty-two miles from Kohat. 
 I feel that what with the heat and this unex- 
 pected stroke of luck, I shall hardly be able 
 to sleep to-night. This new-found friend says 
 he will tell me more to-morrow. He is going 
 as far as Lahore, and there will be plenty of 
 time in the morning to talk the matter out. 
 
 ''October \Zth, — I think I have got it all. 
 My new-found friend had some maps with 
 him, and by the help of these and his own 
 intimate knowledge of the country, was actually 
 
296 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 able to give me the distances from Kohat to 
 Shinwari. The whole is 46 miles, he says, 
 by Usterzai — 12 miles ; Hangu — 13 miles ; Kai 
 — 15 miles; and from there, 6 miles will land 
 me at Shinwari. He reckons it would take 
 about five hours by tonga to get from Khushal- 
 garh to Kohat, and says that there would 
 be no difficulty about getting on alone from 
 this last, as there are pretty certain to be 
 dep6ts every march ; that is, about every fifteen 
 miles. 
 
 **We have just parted at Lahore, both 
 hoping that we shall meet again some day. 
 I could not thank him enough for all his help. 
 It just makes all the difference to me, and I 
 feel fairly sure now that I shall be able to 
 get through before they leave Shinwari : I'll 
 have a jolly good try, anyway. Delhi, Lahore, 
 Umballa! Household words with us, and 
 yet, in general atmosphere and appearance, so 
 utterly unlike what one pictured them. The 
 truth is, there is no conjuring up a true picture 
 of such a land as this. You must have visited 
 the East to realise it ; and to smell the smell 
 of the East once is to know it ever afterwards 
 blindfold. 
 
 ** We shall be at Rawalpindi in about an 
 hour, so I must get my few things together a 
 
THE END OF THE JOURNEY 297 
 
 bit. I wish I knew my way about better — or 
 rather, knew my way at all ; also that I had 
 some Hindustani at command. The only two 
 words I know, as it happens, are jeldie jao — 
 the equivalent, I believe, for *push on,' or 
 * shove along ' ; don't matter which, so long 
 as they'll do it ! 
 
 ** October i^tL — Usterzai. Just conceive the 
 news that reached me on getting to Khushal- 
 garh late yesterday evening ! I had the bad 
 luck to run against one of those strange indi- 
 viduals — very rarely met with in our Service — 
 who seems to take a delight in the morbid, and 
 loves to deal in the depressing. If it is any 
 satisfaction to him, he certainly made me feel 
 quite sick. 
 
 "It seems that yesterday, the force, or part 
 of it, at Shinwari, left at 4 a.m., and that by 
 9.30 the batteries had already come into action 
 against the Dargai ridge. At noon, a rush 
 was made and the crest was carried. By this 
 time it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Shinwari 
 was eight miles away, over roads only recently 
 made, and the little water to be had was three 
 miles distant, apparently. So the main part 
 of the force retired, and the rest followed, 
 between 4 and 5, when the sun was sinking. 
 What happened after that he did not know, 
 
298 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 no further news having come through. He 
 was, however, of opinion that it was the worst 
 thing that had occurred in India for genera- 
 tions, and that to such fellows as these Afridis, 
 a retirement on our part meant that they had 
 beaten us. He added a lot more in the same 
 strain, finishing up with — * You seem to be 
 in a confounded hurry ; but you are too late — 
 altogether too late ! ' If I had not been a 
 newcomer, and he much my senior, I should 
 have told him what I thought of him. 
 
 ** There was no getting on that night, as the 
 tonga only runs during the daytime. It was 
 already past midnight, and so I ate some of 
 the cold chops and bread I had packed my 
 haversack with at Rawalpindi Station, took a 
 drink of water, and then rolled myself in my 
 blanket under the lee of a wall and slept till 
 dawn. 
 
 *' The tonga left just before light, and I was 
 the only one travelling by it. The tonga 
 wallah was a good fellow and shoved along 
 well ; cracked his short whip with a long lash, 
 made the most extraordinary sounds at the 
 ponies, and occasionally blew a bugle-shaped 
 horn. I should have blown it too ; but hardly 
 felt in the humour, and kept asking myself 
 what the real truth was about this retirement. 
 
THE END OF THE JOURNEY 299 
 
 and whether there was any truth in it at all. 
 It seemed, as I thought it over, that I must 
 have certainly missed something, and that was 
 depressing. But if so, there was all the more 
 reason for redoubling my efforts. We got an 
 extra pony hitched to the outside of the shafts 
 at one dak, and at another place a third was 
 put on in front to help up the hills, for our 
 load was heavy ; both the other seats being 
 crammed with things, and odds and ends hung 
 on anywhere, and over the wheels as well. 
 
 '*We had reached Kohat before noon — a 
 rum-looking place, with a wall round part of 
 it, about twelve feet high, and with an amphi- 
 theatre of hills behind. Much of the country 
 seems just a savage waste, with rocks and 
 stones everywhere, and brushwood formed of 
 all manner of thorns, mimosa, and also wild 
 olive. A few patches of cultivation in the 
 lower lands, and here and there a grassy glade, 
 with mulberry trees, and now and then a large 
 walnut with a stone seat under it, put there by 
 the natives. Great mountains covered with 
 snow in the distance, with two great peaks 
 higher than the rest. 
 
 ** Though nearly the whole force had left 
 Kohat, there was a busy scene there. The 
 first thing I tried to do was to get a pony 
 
300 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 somehow. Once again my luck stood me in 
 good stead, or that good angel of mine, for I 
 chanced upon a mule battery that was going 
 forward this very afternoon, and got the Major 
 commanding it to let me come too. So here 
 I am with them, for the moment, and have 
 reached this place, Usterzai, twelve miles on 
 my way. 
 
 ** The bad news was confirmed at Kohat ; 
 but I can't make out if the Regiment was en- 
 gaged. Nobody knew. It is said that the 
 retirement was a ticklish affair ; the enemy 
 coming on again, and the desultory fighting 
 continuing throughout the greater part of the 
 night of the eighteenth. Retire ! What could 
 the Regiment have thought ? It is horrible, 
 though there was obviously no help for it. 
 
 " I am writing this with difficulty. The sun 
 has set ; but the moon is now rising. The 
 effect has been splendid ; the summit of the 
 peaks on one side being lit up, and the cliffs 
 on the other left in steel-blue shadow. I can't 
 make out the stars at all ; but on such occasions 
 as this, a man has to be 'his own star,' I suppose. 
 It is a stern, rugged country, and gets worse 
 and worse after leaving Kohat ; the road follow- 
 ing the left bank of the Kohat River all the way 
 we have come, at present, and ascending all 
 
THE END OF THE JOURNEY 301 
 
 the way, too. Shinwari, they say, is over 2000 
 feet above Kohat, and Dargai 2000 feet above 
 that. 
 
 '* It is terrible loss of time sitting here in 
 this way, but it can't be helped. I am writing 
 by moonlight now, and the men are lighting 
 fires. There are the sounds of the camp on 
 all sides — fellows laughing and talking, horses 
 clearing their nostrils, the champing of bits, and 
 the continual rumble of wheels, someone- chop- 
 ping firewood, and another working at a field 
 forge. The smoke of the fires drifts off, and 
 as the scent comes my way, it reminds me of 
 Denton and the fires the men used to make in 
 the clearings at home. 
 
 '' I have just been having a talk with the 
 Major, and have told him what I want to do. 
 He is an Eton fellow, and has found out what 
 little there is to know about me, and I have 
 found out all about him. At first, he laughed 
 at my idea that I should push on to-night. 
 But he is going to back me all the same, for 
 the sake of the bond between us. 
 
 " One thing he tells me, and this is that 
 these Afridi beggars are hard to get level 
 with, and never lose a chance. They move 
 infernally quickly, and it is difficult to see them 
 on the rough hillsides. Flanking parties may 
 
302 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 think they clear the whole ground ; but directly 
 they are gone, these born fighters come back 
 again, having hidden themselves in holes or 
 behind boulders. He says they always 'snipe' 
 at a single fellow, though they rarely give them- 
 selves away by doing so at a big party. On 
 this line of communications, he thinks I shall 
 be all right ; but once off it, I shall have to 
 look out. He was on the Frontier, in the show 
 of two years ago, so knows all about it. 
 
 '' I am going ahead shortly, and start in an 
 hour. The Major has gone off now to get me 
 a good feed, and also to feed an extra pony of 
 his own, that I am to leave at the Field Park 
 at Shinwari, when I get there. With decent 
 riding, he says, he is certain the animal will do 
 the job, if anything on four legs can. Of course 
 all this is hugely exciting. I revel in it — just 
 what I have longed for for years ! 
 
 "It seems that the road continues on this 
 side of the river for another two miles, and 
 then crosses and runs along the South of the 
 Samana range of hills all the rest of the way. 
 I mus^ do it. The distance is only about thirty- 
 four miles, and I mean to try my best. Only 
 one thing more — if anything happens to me, I 
 trust the Regiment will believe I have tried to 
 be in my place : that's all ! " 
 
THE END OF THE JOURNEY 303 
 
 Such is the last entry in this tattered book 
 of many memories. 
 
 **Yes, Sir," replied the Sergeant, drawing 
 himself up and saluting — *'Yes, Sir; we seen 
 him comin' along the road yonder, leading a 
 pony, and just as it was turning light. The 
 Regiment hadn't been gone — well, not half an 
 hour, it hadn't. Ther' was smoke still showing 
 from the fires, and some un — I forgets who 
 'twas — asks th' officer if he'd have a cup of 
 coffee, as ther' was a drop or two of it lef . 
 But he turns round and says, with a bit of a 
 laugh — ' I won't go for to trouble about that,' 
 he says — ' got no time ; thank you ! Which 
 way to the Field Park ? ' Then he asks — * An' 
 which be my best road to overtake 'em ? ' So 
 I showed un, an' says — * Yonder, Sir, see — 
 that's the line of 'em, a-windin' away round 
 yon bluff.' 
 
 ** He jus' seemed to smile, then ; jumps on 
 his pony, and touches un with his heels and 
 was off. * Thank you. Sergeant,' he calls — * I 
 shall catch 'em yet ! ' An' that's the very last 
 as I seen of un, for he had the look o' one as 
 wanted to get on, an' no time to talk. No, he 
 didn't look partic'lar tired, he didn't. His 
 
304 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 eyes wer as bright as a child's, and he wore 
 a merry smile on the face of un, he did. Well, 
 one of mi' own men said as much, arterwards, 
 an' as he looked like one likely to be doin' 
 execution, if so be he come to close quarters 
 and got in ! " 
 
 That was all I was able to gather in that 
 direction. It was quite sufficient. He had 
 done his last ride, evidently saving his pony 
 as much as he could, and timing his journey 
 to within twenty minutes. I wish now he had 
 missed us by an hour, and also wish many 
 another thing. I have often reckoned up 
 those minutes, and ended the same way — a 
 journey of many thousand miles, at so many 
 miles an hour, and brought down, in the end, 
 to yards and minutes. Missing us by an hour 
 would certainly have made a difference ; but 
 so would half an hour, or a quarter, or any 
 fraction of the minutes themselves. A little 
 less eagerness on his part, another hour's delay 
 on the voyage, missing the mail at Bombay or 
 that friend in the train, the refusal of the loan 
 of that pony for the night ride — anything, 
 everything would have made a difference. 
 No ; it was just that twenty minutes, with the 
 added time it took him to deliver the pony 
 where he had promised to — it was just that 
 
THE END OF THE JOURNEY 305 
 
 that did it, and brought him to the fatal spot 
 to the fraction of a second, to meet a random 
 shot. The Hne of thought has been followed, 
 a thousand times, till it has come to be a tangled 
 skein refusing all unravelling. Best leave it. 
 
 A long trail of dead and wounded were 
 being brought down the steep descent from 
 the summit of the kotal, after the second fight 
 at Dargai, on the 20th October, 1897. Some 
 of the wounded were being carried in one way, 
 some in another, down the zig-zag track and 
 between the rocks and boulders — on men's 
 backs, in men's arms, on their crossed hands : 
 so, too, the dead, slung as best might be, 
 silently and with reverence. 
 
 The long trail wound its way down, under 
 great cliffs, down hazardous slopes, through 
 scrub that tore clothes and caught at every- 
 thing. Below us lay the valleys and ravines 
 of a savage, desolate mountain region ; behind 
 us, the scene, still warm, of one of the finest 
 fights the Frontier had ever known ; and with 
 us, this tale of dead and wounded that had 
 gone to make the victory — that scarcely more 
 than an hour before had been a living, eager 
 throng, going forward silently, with light in 
 
 u 
 
3o6 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 the eyes and a catch in the breath, till of a 
 sudden, in one quarter, the pipes rolled out 
 the slogan, and in another men broke into a 
 cheer. 
 
 It chanced that I was detailed to go back 
 with others, as escort to one portion of the 
 convoy of ambulance waggons, carts, and 
 dhoolies, for the camp at Shinwari. We had 
 gone some way, and I had been walking on 
 the off-side of a waggon in which, with others, 
 were two wounded brother officers, when one 
 of the escort came round, saying — ** There's 
 one of ours a-hailin' of us down the nullah!' 
 The convoy was halted for the moment, owing 
 to a block in front, and I dropped down to see 
 what was wrong, for two were on the ground 
 there, one of whom was kneeling on one knee 
 and waving his hand. 
 
 **Ay," said this one, when I reached him; 
 and for a moment I paid no attention to his 
 words : they seemed to come from a long way 
 off, and to belong to another world. "■ Ay," 
 he said, again — ** the vara fust shot as was 
 fired. Then ther was a sing out — * Sthretcher 
 this way ! ' — and I dropped back ; and ther' er 
 lay. 
 
 " Ther' was no call for the like when I got 
 to un, as I could see — sthretcher or naught — no 
 
THE END OF THE JOURNEY 307 
 
 call whativer ! He'd put in his time. Ah, 
 reached us — ay ! — come up at a run, he did ; 
 and soon arter it showed full light. Ther' was 
 scarce a single wan amongst us noticed un — 
 scarce a single wan — any more than us took 
 count o' that shot, or knew'd wher' it come 
 fra' ! " 
 
 "They may try mi, now, for not bein' in mi 
 place — they may try me bi Rigimental, or 
 Disthrict, or Gineral — they may try me by any 
 bally court they like ! Do you think I haven't 
 took full punishment a'ready, through missin' 
 o' the finest fight as iver wus? Do you judge 
 as that's not enough for any man, for that 
 matter?" — and the words seemed to hiss 
 through his teeth, as if he were torn by con- 
 flicting emotions. 
 
 ** Ah ! " — he went on — " the Regiment's had 
 a belly full of fightin' to-day, an' over yonder 
 goes the truth o' that, as I can see. But who 
 was a-goin' to leave un lying here, stark 
 though he wer' — not me ! — not for all the best 
 o' the fightin' as could come, and though it 
 wer' promised to last from dark till dark come 
 back again. 
 
 ** Do yer think as I would leave he to be 
 mauled by them hell-thieves that hides and 
 hides and we can never finds, and is as nimble 
 
3o8 AINSLIE GORE 
 
 with their knives as they little Goorkha chaps 
 yonder with their kookriesf No fear! They 
 shouldn't niver touch he. He wer' the bes' 
 friend as iver any on us had — the bes' friend ; 
 and if it warn't for he, I'd be doin time now — 
 ay, doin' time now." 
 
 I recall looking at the man's face at that 
 point. I had been dazed till then. His words 
 came hot, and quicker and quicker, as though 
 the temper rose in him. He had square jaws, 
 a bull-neck, and powerful shoulders, and much 
 blood had dried on one cheek. Then I knew. 
 It was Joe Clancy, and he wore a full 
 Corporal's stripes upon his arm. He only said 
 a few words after that. We had other work in 
 hand. 
 
 ** They sniped the two of us, as 'twas," he 
 continued later, in answer to a question — ** Ay, 
 sniped the two of us, till they got me in the 
 shoulder an' the ribs. That's naught ! So I 
 draw'd un down here behind these stones for 
 a bit o* shelter — draw'd un down and waited, 
 and hoped to Gawd as they'd come on ! But no 
 fear ; they hadn't got the spirit — they hadn't 
 got the spirit — though we was only wan ! " 
 
 We buried our dead from Dargai fight in the 
 
THE END OF THE JOURNEY 309 
 
 lonely, desolate valley at Shinwari ; and there, 
 in unmarked graves, they rest in God. 
 
 Just beneath the East window of Denton 
 Church, on a square plot of soft turf, kept 
 closely mown and surrounded by a hedge of 
 yew not more than eighteen inches high, are 
 two recumbent stones. The one records that 
 Rupert Gore departed this life on the 
 28th day of February, 1899, in the seventy- 
 third year of his age ; and the other, that 
 Edith, his wife, followed him some five weeks 
 later. 
 
 But there is more. Between these two, 
 stands a beautifully fashioned cross of our 
 red Forest stone ; and on the plinth below, 
 run these words : — 
 
 To the Glory of God, 
 
 and in loving memory of 
 
 AINSLIE GORE, 
 
 only son of Rupert and Edith Gore, 
 
 who gave his life for his Country 
 
 on the Indian Frontier, 20th October 1897, 
 
 in the 25th year of his age. 
 
 This cross is placed here 
 
 by the men, women, and children of this parish. 
 
 I often go there on the long summer even- 
 
3IO AINSLIE GORE 
 
 ings, when the sound of bat and ball and 
 cheery laughter come from the village green, 
 and the shadows of great elms stretch them- 
 selves lazily over the cool grass. 
 
 Peace let it be ! for I loved him and love him for ever; 
 The dead are not dead but alive. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON Tm- r . 
 A XT Tav-*«^=,-^ ^^ — 
 
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 iM6 '68 HI AM, 
 
 i'l) 2l-100w-7.'33 
 
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 52.1255 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA LIBRARY