GIFT OF 
 HORACE W. CARPENTIER 
 
TALES RETAILED OF 
 CELEBRITIES & OTHERS 
 
TALES RETAILED OF 
 CELEBRITIES & OTHERS 
 
 BY SIR HASTINGS D'OYLY, BART. 
 
 LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD 
 NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXX 
 
[yr 
 
 J^ 
 
 .1 • • •( 
 • • •• •••• •••••••• • 
 
 ;• : •/'•,.?{ : ••• • •'."•.. .* 
 
 
 rMMTBD IN BNGLAND BV WILLIAM BRKNDOH AND SON, LTD.. PLYUOCTH 
 
DEDICATED 
 TO MY DEAR WIFE 
 
 AIMEE 
 
 WHOSE LOVING SYMPATHY 
 
 AND TENDER CARE 
 
 HAS MADE HER WHAT GOD INTENDED 
 
 THAT WOMAN SHOULD BE 
 
 A HELPMEET 
 
 FOR HER GRATEFUL HUSBAND 
 
 Bless'd memory that brings to mind 
 Remembrance of our wanderings 
 O'er sea and land, at home, and far 
 Away, through many distant lands ; 
 Of numerous male and female friends ; 
 And some amusing happenings too ; 
 Help me to bring for other's ears 
 Some simple tales which may amuse 
 And help to while away the time 
 When they have nothing else to do. 
 
 435508 
 
 A2 
 
PREFACE 
 
 WHEN I began to compile some of the 
 following tales, my intention was to 
 have them printed for private circula- 
 tion among my relatives and friends. I have, 
 however, been persuaded by some of my friends 
 to offer them to the public ; otherwise I 
 should not have ventured to do so. With the 
 exception of the first tale, and one or two of the 
 others, the rest all relate to incidents which came 
 under my own observation during a lifetime of 
 over fourscore years. I can only hope that you 
 may be able to find some of these tales of some 
 little interest ; and if this little book results in 
 enabUng you to *' while away the time " now and 
 then, and to get some little amusement there- 
 from, I shall be satisfied, and pleased that I 
 accepted my friends' advice to get it published. 
 They are simple tales mostly such as arejtold in 
 ordinary after dinner chit-chats round the fire, 
 over a good cigar and a glass of good wine, when 
 young men tell tales of present-day happenings 
 to be capped by older men's tales|of|the *Vgood 
 old times." They are generally laudator es temporis 
 acti these old men ; and although the youngsters 
 
viii TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 of the present day have certain advantages which 
 their ancestors did not possess, still there were 
 many things which the latter did possess which 
 the former lack. I have carefully avoided anything 
 which might in any way be displeasing to the 
 relations and friends of the several persons to 
 whom the tales refer, and so I feel sure that they 
 will not offend or hurt the feelings of anyone. 
 And now, my friends, adieu ; au re voir ; so long. 
 I take this opportunity of thanking Messrs. 
 Elliott and Fry for permission to use their portrait 
 of myself for the frontispiece, also Mr. C. E. 
 Buckland, CLE., for his valuable assistance. 
 
 W. Hastings D'Oyly. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 Preface . . . . . . . . . vii 
 
 BOOK I. TALES 
 
 Chapter I. A Hundred Years Ago 
 
 The Right Hon. Warren Hastings, Governor-General 
 of India — Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert .... 
 
 Chapter II. Dorsetshire, Haileybury and Scotland 
 
 " Squire " J. J. Farquharson, M.F.H., of Langton — 
 Gerard Sturt (afterwards Lord Alington) and his 
 brother Napier Sturt — The Mansel twins — The Queen 
 Dowager — Lord Rivers of Rushmore — " S. G. O.," 
 Lord Sidney Osborne — Lord Portman of Bryanston 
 — Sir Edward Baker, Bart., of Ranston, Dorsetshire — 
 The Ker Seymers of Hanford — The Marquis of West- 
 minster of Eaton Hall, Motcombe, etc. — ^Mr. Henry 
 Grant, champion tennis player, beats the French 
 champion. Elephant's feet — Iwerne Minster. The 
 Bowyer Bowers. Lord Wolverton. A sporting parson. 
 " Sic transit gloria " domi — Baron Hambro of Milton 
 Abbey. An Indian Mutiny episode — Captain Wyndham 
 of West Lodge — Some Haileybury men. East India 
 Company's College — George Gordon Macpherson 
 (little Cluny) — ^The Marquis of Bute of Mount Stuart 
 /. S. Calverley ....... 
 
 IX 
 
X TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 Chapter III. India 
 
 PACK 
 
 Sir Gaspard le Marchant — Prince Gholam Mahomed — 
 Some Calcutta friends — Octo Malet's fight on foot with 
 a bear — A scrap with the rebels — Sir Frederick HalU- 
 day, K.C.B., first Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal — 
 TraveUing up country through jungles full of fugitive 
 rebels from Koer Singh's defeated army — Colonel 
 Mundy of the 19th Regiment — Some Tirhoot indigo 
 planters — Sonepore fair and race meeting — Mr. ColUns, 
 contractor and owner of race-horses — Frank Vincent 
 of Barh— Mr. W. H. Urquhart and Mr. E. Garnet Man 
 — Percival Dickens — Arthur Levien — ^Lord Mayo — Joe 
 Gundry, an Oxford Harlequin and Captain of the 
 Dorset County Cricket Team — Lord Eldon and the Rev, 
 W. H. H. Truell — Stourhead, seat of Sir Henry Hoare. 
 Sources of the Stour river — Phi. Horlock — Sir William 
 Hudson, President of the Behar Indigo Planter's 
 Association . . . . . . . .41 
 
 Chapter IV. Tirhut, Bhaugulpore, and Arrah 
 
 Captain Sir John Farquhar, Indian Government Stud 
 Department — Sir Richard Temple, Bart., G.C.S.I. etc. 
 etc. — Messrs. Burrowes, Mylne and Thomson of 
 Beheea, and Mr. Michael Fox of Cutthea — The Maha- 
 rajah of Doomraon — Alonzo Money, C.B. — " Spinning 
 Jenny*' — Padre Adams, V.C. — H.R.H. Albert Edward, 
 Prince of Wales — Ghosts — A dream which came true — 
 The Sonthals, a hill tribe — ^Mr. Cleveland and his two 
 memorials — Sir Cecil Beadon — Mr. Gregor Grant of 
 Bhaugulpore, indigo planter and large landowner — 
 Mr. Teignmouth Sandys ...... 82 
 
 Chapter V. Indian Celebrities and Others 
 
 General George Halliday — Contrasts — Some of the lost 
 tribes of the House of Israel — Lord William Beresf ord — 
 Captain Machel — Some doctors — Rajah Chundra nath 
 Banerji of Nattore in Rajshahye — Sir William Meddly- 
 cot of Venn and his sons — An American Colonel, a hero 
 of the Civil War — The Duke of Manchester — Lord 
 Shaftesbury— General Drayson, R.E.— A. C. Brett. 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 PAGR 
 
 Cecil Quentin and the yacht Merrythought — Roberts 
 and Cook, champions at bilHards ; a remarkable 
 break at Jumalpore, India — The Ladies Meade, 
 daughters of Lord Clanwilliam — Serjeant Ballantyne 
 — ^Lord Robson — A Mayfield version of the story of 
 St. Dunstan and his Satanic Majesty — An adventure 
 with an elephant — Sporting guard and driver- on an 
 Indian State railway — Indian hill stations. Darjeel- 
 ing. Lord Ossulston. Mr. Smallwood (" Chips ") — 
 A snake story. Kill or cure, an unenviable reputa- 
 tion Ill 
 
 BOOK II. LEGENDS 
 
 Family Legends and Tales taken from " The House of 
 D'Oyly," by William D'Oyly Bayley, F.S.A. 
 
 Robert de Oyly, feudal Baron Hocknorton of Oxford 
 Castle, Constable of Oxford. Henry Beauclerc who 
 became King Henry I — Legend of Robert D'Oyly's 
 vision of two Abingdon monks telling tales of him to 
 the Virgin Mary in heaven — ^The Lord Nigel D'Oyly, 2nd 
 Baron. Sir Foulk D'Oyly the Crusader — The chatteryng 
 pyes of Oseney Legend as to the foundation of Oseney 
 Abbey near Oxford — The 5th and last Baron Hock- 
 norton. King Henry III seizes on all the D'Oylys' 
 domains. False returns of packed jury — ^Two versions 
 of the origin of the dessert napkins termed " d'oylys " 
 — Black letter epitaph below the efi&gy of John 
 D'Oyly 1492 A.D. — A gay Lothario, yet still a perfect 
 husband — Sir Cope D'Oyly's monument in Hambledon 
 Church. Epitaph by the poet Quarles — Episode at the 
 tournament at Ashby de la Zouch, temp. Richard I 
 — A ghost story — Eaten by cannibals. Two boys 
 spared — A verified account of an apparition at time of 
 death at a place 6000 miles distant from place of death . 143 
 
BOOK I. TALES 
 
TALES RETAILED OF 
 CELEBRITIES &> OTHERS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A HUNDRED YEARS AGO 
 
 The Right Hon. Warren Hastings, Governor-General of India — 
 Sir Walter Raleigh Gilbert. 
 
 A LITTLE over a hundred years ago, 
 when War *' spread its wide desolation " 
 ^over several of the fair countries of the 
 continent of Europe, Great Britain then, as she 
 is now doing, took a part in the struggle to free 
 " the wronged and oppressed peoples '' from the 
 *' wanton and perfidious aggression '' of a ruth- 
 less tyrant. Sir Charles Lawson in his most 
 interesting book, The Private Life of Warren 
 Hastings, quoted some passages from a speech 
 made by Warren Hastings at a banquet given by 
 the Civil and Military Officers of the Honble. East 
 India Company's Services, to the Duke of Welling- 
 ton shortly after the battle of Waterloo, at which 
 banquet Warren Hastings presided. As these 
 extracts from his speech are so peculiarly applic- 
 able to the present day, I reproduce them here. 
 Sir Charles Lawson wrote as follows : '' Warren 
 Hastings declared in reference to the defeat of 
 
;4- TALIS RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 'Napdleofi and his ' wanton and perfidious ag- 
 gression ' that it was the Duke who, himself 
 led by an unseen hand, conducted all the move- 
 ments of this awful scheme of over-ruling justice ; " 
 and Hastings concluded his speech by saying : 
 " This was the consummated work of our most 
 noble guest under the auspices of that Being who, 
 whatever means He may adopt for the chastise- 
 ment of offending nations, invariably makes 
 choice of the best moral characters as His fittest 
 instruments for the dispensation of His blessings 
 and His mercies to mankind/' Now after loo 
 years that Supreme Being has chosen Great 
 Britain and her overseas children, and America, 
 to punish " the offending nations '' who are now 
 with '' wanton and perfidious aggression " oppress- 
 ing and wronging the peoples of several of the 
 fair countries of Europe and Asia. 
 
 Have you ever heard or seen the following 
 Hindustani couplet which rather sarcastically 
 describes the utter confusion caused in Warren 
 Hastings' camp at Benares, when the Maharajah 
 of Benares raised a revolt, and Hastings with his 
 small retinue had to make a precipitate flight, 
 barely escaping with his life ? I give the lines 
 with an English translation : 
 
 " Ghoraper howdah, Hathiper jeen 
 ChuUi-ao, juldi-ao Warren Hasteen." 
 
 (Saddles on elephants, howdahs on steeds 
 Come along, quickly come Warren Hastings.) 
 
WARREN HASTINGS 5 
 
 I should like to add a few lines on that great 
 statesman's character ; for, although his character 
 has been fully cleared, first by the decision of the 
 Peers in the House of Lords, and subsequently 
 by several eminent writers who have shown the 
 gross inaccuracies which abound in Lord Macaulay's 
 essay, still I think my father's testimony will be 
 considered valuable, as he was brought up, after 
 my grandfather's death, by Warren Hastings at 
 his beautiful seat Daylesford. My father thus had 
 as good an opportunity as anyone of judging 
 what sort of a man Warren Hastings was. My 
 father was never tired of singing the praises of 
 his beloved guardian. He used to describe him 
 as an upright, truthful. God-fearing man of 
 the strictest integrity, of whom it might well be 
 said that he was integer vitcs scelerisque punts. 
 Warren Hastings was an exceptionally good 
 scholar. He was a King's scholar at Westminster, 
 and my father described his verses and trans- 
 lations into Latin, especially one of the '' Evening 
 Hymn," as being most beautifully conceived 
 and rendered. I wish I had a copy. Can any of 
 you find me one ? 
 
 With the wisdom and foresight of that Joseph 
 whom Potiphar appointed to be ruler of the land 
 of Egypt, Warren Hastings erected huge granaries 
 for the storage of grain as a protection against 
 the inroads of that dread visitant famine. One 
 of these granaries still exists at Bankipore, the 
 
6 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 civil station of Patna. It is a monstrous edifice 
 built in the shape of a cone and, towering as it 
 does above the highest trees, forms a landmark 
 to be seen from all sides. 
 
 The following verses written by Warren Hastings 
 are excerpts from Sir Charles Lawson's Private 
 Life of Warren Hastings. 
 
 IMITATION OF HORACE BOOK II, ODE XVI 
 
 " He who would happy live to-day 
 Should laugh the present ills away, 
 
 Nor think of woes to come : 
 For come they will, or soon, or late ; 
 Since mixed at best is man's estate 
 By heaven's eternal doom." 
 
 Extract from verses written by Hastings in 
 India to his wife then in England : 
 
 " Hope still attendant and delusive stands. 
 And points, but coldly points to distant lands. 
 Gilds the faint summits with her falt'ring ray ; 
 But deserts, rocks, and seas obstruct the way ; 
 And age, and sickness, and the clouds that teem 
 With unknown thunders, through the prospect gleam." 
 
 My father was a good sportsman. One day he 
 went out pig-sticking in India with Sir Walter 
 Raleigh Gilbert and others. A long line of 
 elephants and beaters were put into an extensive 
 covert of long grass some six to eight feet high. 
 It was difficult to get the wild boars out of the 
 high jungle, but eventually a fine boar broke 
 covert just in front of my father. The boar 
 having been hustled about in the jungle was 
 furious and made a sudden charge at my father's 
 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH GILBERT 7 
 
 horse. Unfortunately the pig was on the left 
 side of the horse and the charge was so sudden 
 that my father had barely time to get his spear 
 over the horse's neck, and certainly no time to 
 take a good aim. The pig managed to get under 
 the horse, a favourite Arab, and literally ripped 
 open the horse's belly. The horse with my father 
 fell down and the pig immediately got on my 
 father's back as he lay face downwards on the 
 ground. Sir Walter called out to my father to lie 
 close and added, '' Fm coming " ; then he most 
 pluckily got off his horse and crept up to the pig, 
 who was too intent on attacking my father to 
 notice Sir Walter, who pointed his spear at the 
 pig's side, and gave a loud yell. The pig turned 
 sharp round and the spear went into his side just 
 behind the shoulder, and, as luck would have it, 
 touched his heart. Thus was my father's life 
 saved by a most plucky act on the part of Sir 
 Walter ; for an angry wild boar is an ugly 
 customer to meet on foot. An account of this 
 incident was published in the Oriental Sporting 
 Magazine. 
 
 My father had a very fine suit of Sikh armour 
 inlaid with gold which Sir Walter Gilbert took from 
 a Sikh chieftain in the Sikh war, and which he 
 presented to my father. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 DORSETSHIRE, HAILEYBURY AND SCOTLAND 
 
 " Squire" J. J. Farquharson, M.F.H., of Langton — Gerard Sturt 
 (afterwards Lord Alington) and his brother Napier Sturt — 
 The Mansel twins — The Queen Dowager — Lord Rivers of 
 Rushmore — " S. CO.," Lord Sidney Osborne — Lord Port man 
 of Bryanston — Sir Edward Baker, Bart., of Ranston, Dorset- 
 shire — The Ker Seymers of Hanford — The Marquis of West- 
 minster of Eaton Hall, Motcombe, etc. — Mr. Henry Grant, 
 champion tennis player, beats the French champion. 
 Elephant's feet — Iwerne Minster. The Bowyer Bowers. Lord 
 Wolverton. A sporting parson. " Sic transit gloria " domi — 
 Baron Hambro of Milton Abbey. An Indian Mutiny episode 
 — Captain Wyndham of West Lodge — Some Haileybury men. 
 East India Company's College — George Gordon Macpherson 
 (little Cluny)— The Marquis of Bute of Mount Stuart— C. S. 
 Calverley. 
 
 WHEN my father retired from the 
 Bengal Civil Service, he with my 
 mother and myself came back to 
 England and at first settled down at Lang- 
 ton Lodge, near Blandford, in the fair county 
 of Dorset. This small property adjoined the 
 larger estate of Langton, the property of Captain 
 J. J. Farquharson, M.F.H., who also owned the 
 estates of Gunville and Eastbury, both in Dorset- 
 shire. He was generally called " The Squire.*' He 
 hunted almost the whole county for fifty-one years 
 
 8 
 
" SQUIRE " J. J. FARQUHARSON 9 
 
 without once receiving a single subscription, and 
 thus created a record, beating Mr. Assheton-Smith 
 by one year only. Captain Farquharson had 
 kennels at Eastbury, from which he hunted the 
 east half of the county, and other kennels at 
 Cattistock from which he hunted the other half 
 of Dorset. I was present at the public dinner 
 given to the old Squire when he gave up the 
 Mastership of the Foxhounds. At this dinner 
 he was presented with a splendid life-size portrait 
 of himself on his favourite hunter, with three or 
 four hounds, the pick of the pack, in the fore- 
 ground, and old Treadwell the huntsman and 
 Harry the first whip in the background. After 
 this there were no less than four packs in Dorset- 
 shire, the Blackmore Vale (master Sir Richard 
 Glyn and afterwards Mr. Digby), the East 
 Dorset (Lord Portman), the Cattistock (Lord 
 Poltimore), and in the south east (Mr. Delme 
 RadcUffe). 
 
 Squire Farquharson's son Robert married my 
 first cousin, so we saw a good deal of him and his 
 family. I remember the first time I dined at 
 Langton when I was much impressed by the 
 magnificent dining-room and the massive service 
 of plate ; but what impressed me most were the 
 solid gold plates on which meat was served. The 
 Squire who was a very rich man died very much 
 in debt, to every one's surprise, and though his 
 son James lived for some time at Langton, the 
 
10 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 house was later let to strangers, and the old 
 Squire's descendants now live at Eastbury. 
 
 Two of the most noticeable figures in the 
 Squire's hunt were Gerard Sturt (afterwards 
 Lord Alington) and his younger brother Napier 
 Sturt. They always rode fine hunters, and were 
 invariably in the first flight. Napier was in the 
 Guards, and went with his regiment to the Crimea. 
 At the battle of Inkermann he was wounded in the 
 fleshy upper part of one of his legs, and was sent 
 home. I met him shortly after this at a meet of 
 the hounds at Stourpaine bushes. He had not quite 
 recovered from his wound, so could not ride, but 
 he was driven up to the meet in a low phaeton. 
 Half the county came up to congratulate him, 
 and one man who had heard of the suffering 
 Napier had undergone said to him : 
 
 " Wouldn't you like to come across that Russian 
 who shot you ? " 
 
 '' By jove, yes," replied Napier, ** I should. 
 What d'ye think I'd do to him ? Why I'd give 
 him a ten pound note with the greatest pleasure 
 for having sent me home ! " 
 
 Lord Alington and Sir Frederic Johnstone had 
 a well-known racing stable, and once won the 
 Derby. Their horses did not always win of 
 course ; and some silly asses, who had backed one 
 of these which failed to win, hinted that the horse 
 
GERARD STURT & NAPIER STURT ii 
 
 had been '' pulled." The nincompoops could not 
 understand that no horse is always at his best, 
 and that some horses are of so nervous a tempera- 
 ment that they are easily upset by the slightest 
 contretemps. The following is a case in point. 
 Once in the winter of 1863-64 at a meet of the 
 hounds, Lord Alington said to me : 
 
 '* Did you ever come across a horse called 
 Gridiron in India ? '' 
 
 '' Yes,'' I replied, '' and a queer - tempered 
 brute he was." 
 
 '' He was once mine," said Lord Alington. 
 ** What did you think of him ? " and he added, 
 '* Did he run in and out ? " 
 
 '' Well," I said, '' he was the fastest horse in 
 India at the time but he certainly lost a lot of 
 races that he could have won. He took a great 
 liking to the lad who looked after him on the 
 voyage out and when that lad rode him in a race 
 he won, but when any other jock was up the 
 jock could not get the best out of him ; he simply 
 refused to win." 
 
 I remember well the first time I met Lady 
 Charlotte Sturt, the mother of Gerard and Napier 
 Sturt. It was one day when she drove over to 
 lunch with us, and I was much struck with her 
 great height as my father handed her into the 
 dining-room ; she seemed quite to dwarf him and 
 he was full six feet in height and broad-shouldered. 
 She was the sister of Lord Cardigan, who was with 
 
12 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 his regiment in the famous charge of the Light 
 Brigade at Balaclava in the Crimea. 
 
 When we moved from Langton Lodge to 
 Stepleton Park, Langton Lodge was taken by 
 Colonel George Mansel, the twin brother of John 
 Pleydel Mansel of What combe. They were so 
 exactly alike in every feature, as well as in figure, 
 that often the most absurd mistakes were made, 
 even by their own father who once coming into 
 his library, where his son George was sitting by 
 the fire, addressed him as John. Once John went 
 to dine with George at the Officers' Mess of the 
 latter's regiment, and for a lark George made 
 John put on one of his spare-mess kits and they 
 walked into the mess room arm in arm. They 
 were so exactly alike that all the officers burst 
 into fits of laughter, being quite unable to make 
 out which of the two was their brother officer. 
 
 While we were living at Langton Lodge my 
 uncle Sir Charles D'Oyly died at Florence and my 
 father succeeded to the family title, and Sir 
 Charles' widow came to live with us. She was a 
 tall, handsome and very clever woman, who dressed 
 rather magnificently and walked with quite a 
 stately grace. She was always called the Dowager 
 to distinguish her from my mother and this led 
 
THE QUEEN DOWAGER 13 
 
 to an amusing incident. One of the poor people 
 in the neighbouring village of Pimperne meeting 
 my father and mother coming out of church one 
 Sunday touched his hat and, after inquiring about 
 their health, said : 
 *' And how's the Queen Dowager ? '* 
 In those days the Queen Dowager was included 
 in the prayer for the Royal Family, and some of 
 the more ignorant poor people, when they used 
 to see the Dowager walking up the aisle, tall and 
 stately with a regal grace, thought that she must 
 be the Queen Dowager whom they had heard 
 prayed for. One of them said : 
 
 '' Her be the Queen Dowager for sure." 
 
 Leaving Langton Lodge my father moved to 
 Stepleton Park which he took from its owner 
 Lord Rivers on a twenty-one years' lease. This 
 Lord Rivers was the 5th Baron of that name and 
 there was a legend prophesying that none of the 
 5th Baron's sons would reach the age of twenty- 
 one or succeed to the title. He had three sons and 
 three daughters. Two of the sons died while 
 quite young ; the third son, however, seemed 
 likely to prove the prophecy false, and the Rev. 
 Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne, who lived at 
 Durweston, begged Lord Rivers to allow him to 
 take the lad in hand and to treat him in a special 
 way. This Lord Rivers allowed, and great hopes 
 
14 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 were raised as the boy approached his twentieth 
 birthday ; but alas ! he never reached his twenty- 
 first birthday, and, dying, fulfilled the prophecy. 
 This was all the more strange as all the other 
 members of the family were particularly strong 
 and healthy, and the three daughters lived to a 
 good old age. 
 
 Lord Sidney Godolphin Osborne, who was a 
 brother of the Duke of Leeds and a clergyman, held 
 the living of Durweston in the estate of Lord Port- 
 man and just outside that nobleman's fine Park of 
 Bryanston. Lord Sidney was a very clever man ; 
 he used to be a frequent contributor to The Times 
 newspaper and wrote over the initials S. G. O. 
 which came to be well known, and his letters 
 and articles were always read with interest by the 
 cleverest men of the day. He was, among other 
 things, good at mesmerism, and he cured many of 
 his and the adjoining parish of Stourpaine of their 
 ailments by mesmerism. He told me once of an 
 astonishing case he had experimented on. A 
 young girl was mesmerised by him and while 
 under mesmerism was ordered by Lord Sidney 
 to attend carefully to some lines he was about to 
 repeat to her and to remember them when she 
 awoke. He then recited two or three lines out 
 of one of Shakespeare's plays. The girl was an 
 ignorant, badly-educated child who had never 
 
LORD PORTMAN OF BRYANSTON 15 
 
 read or heard of Shakespeare ; yet when she 
 awoke she was able to repeat the Hnes correctly 
 although she forgot them very soon afterwards. 
 
 The first Baron Portman became M.F.H. after 
 Squire Farquharson's retirement, and hunted the 
 East Dorset hounds. His son William succeeded 
 him as second Baron and was created Viscount 
 Portman. He is one of the richest Peers of the 
 United Kingdom, and his huge fortune, which has 
 been increasing yearly, owed its origin to one of 
 his ancestors, a Mr. Portman who was a well- 
 known breeder of live stock. He purchased some 
 fields to the north of where the western part of 
 Oxford Street now stands, and his land was by 
 degrees built upon, and now Portman Square, 
 Bryanston Square, and many of the streets 
 adjoining those squares, as also parts of Oxford 
 Street and Baker Street, belong to Lord Portman, 
 who also owns extensive properties in Dorset- 
 shire, Somersetshire, and some lands in Hamp- 
 shire. The first Baron was Lord Lieutenant of 
 Somersetshire. The present Viscount has hunted 
 the East Dorset hounds for nearly as long a time 
 as Squire Farquharson hunted the county, and 
 he still rides to hounds though well over eighty 
 years of age. 
 
i6 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 One of our nearest neighbours at Stepleton was 
 Sir Edward Baker Littlehales Baker, Bart., whose 
 estate of Ranston adjoined ours of Stepleton. 
 He was one of the best and kindest friends I 
 ever had. He was a rich man who owned the 
 greater part of Baker Street in London (including 
 the site of Baker Street Railway Station for which 
 he received a large sum) and several of the streets 
 running out of it. He was one of the most hospit- 
 able men I ever met, and entertained right royally, 
 always having his house full of guests. He would 
 place his stables, horses, and carriages, his shoot- 
 ings and gamekeepers at their disposal and at that 
 of his numerous friends living in the neighbour- 
 hood, among the latter of whom I was fortunate 
 enough to be one. As an instance of his princely 
 hospitality I may mention that one year, when the 
 Fleet was off Portland, he engaged a large number 
 of rooms at the principal hotel in Weymouth and 
 asked a large number of his friends to be his 
 guests ; my wife and I were among them. One 
 night after dinner when we his guests, about 
 twenty-four in number, were sitting round the 
 table smoking and drinking our wine, the large 
 double doors were suddenly thrown open, and we 
 found ourselves looking through them on to a 
 huge room full of people listening to a performance 
 at the other end of the room by the Christy 
 Minstrels. Another night Sir Edward engaged 
 a special train to take his guests to the county 
 
SIR EDWARD BAKER OF RANSTON 17 
 
 hunt ball at Dorchester, and back again after it 
 was over. Sir Edward was a bachelor, his left 
 arm was withered, owing, it was said, to the 
 rough treatment of his nurse when he was a child. 
 She used to drag him about upstairs and down- 
 stairs roughly by his left arm. 
 
 Sir Edward's mother did the honours at Ranston 
 and splendidly she performed the duty. She was 
 Lady Elizabeth, the only daughter of the then only 
 Irish Duke, the Duke of Leinster. She was a 
 splendid specimen of the well-bred Grande Dame, 
 without any false pride, and she had the most 
 perfect manners, was a most courteous hostess, 
 and a most pleasant companion to her numerous 
 friends. She was very fond of the old-fashioned 
 game of Casino, and many a time I have played 
 that game with her. One day my father and 
 mother and I lunched at Ranston, and our big 
 St. Bernard dog '* Lion " walked up to the house 
 with us, and was left outside. We were waiting 
 for lunch for some time after it was due, so Lady 
 Elizabeth asked me to ring the bell. The old 
 butler answered the bell and came in to the 
 room with a long face and said : ''If you please, 
 my Lady, Sir John's big dog got into the dining- 
 room and has eaten up all the pie and carried off 
 the turkey to the shrubberies where he is devour- 
 ing it." Lady Elizabeth took it very quietly and 
 told the butler to tell the cook to make up some 
 fresh dishes as soon as she could and in a wonder- 
 
i8 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 fully short time we were able to enjoy a very good 
 lunch. 
 
 One of Sir Edward's sisters married Mr. Good- 
 lake, a part proprietor of The Times newspaper. 
 Their eldest son Tom was blind, having lost one 
 eye through an accident at school from a knife 
 he was carrying when he fell downstairs ; the 
 other eye was affected and he soon lost the sight 
 of that too. He was one of the pleasantest, most 
 agreeable fellows in the world. Another son, 
 Gerald, was in the army and was a magnificent 
 shot, and often shot rabbits with a rifle. He had 
 a remarkably clever dog, a French poodle, which 
 he called ** Crapeau,*' and he taught it no end of 
 tricks. After dinner this dog would walk round 
 the table on his hind legs, and then turn and go 
 round again on his forelegs with his hind legs 
 up in the air. When the troops for the Crimea 
 were encamped at Chobham and H.M. the Queen 
 came to inspect them, '' Crapeau " was dressed 
 in the uniform of a Guardsman and stood up at 
 the end of a line of the Guards with a miniature 
 rifle at the salute, which vastly pleased Her 
 Majesty. Being a crack shot, Gerald Goodlake 
 was selected as a sharpshooter and he accounted 
 for a large number of the enemy. One day he 
 was squatted behind a rock when a regiment of 
 French Zouaves passed by near him at the double 
 to attack the enemy. Gerald could not resist this 
 chance of a scrap, so he at once joined the Zouaves 
 
MISS JANE GOODLAKE 19 
 
 in their charge. He might have been but was not 
 court martialled for leaving his post. One day 
 when I was dining at Ranston, Sir Edward showed 
 us a letter he had that day received from Gerald 
 Goodlake from the front. In it was enclosed the 
 scut of a hare which he had shot with a bullet as 
 it was running across one hundred yards in front 
 of him. Jane Goodlake, a sister of Gerald's, was a 
 famous beauty ; her portrait was one of those in 
 the Book of Beauty which was published about 
 that time. I used to do a little photography as a 
 boy and I got Miss Goodlake to sit for me, which she 
 did most patiently in different attitudes ; although 
 she was a good bit older than I was, and I was only 
 in my teens, I fell madly in love with her much 
 to her amusement. She afterwards married a 
 Mr. Webb of Newstead Abbey (Lord Byron's 
 place). Another sister of Sir Edward Baker 
 married a Mr. Hutchin who wrote a very good 
 history of the Dorsetshire families. Among Sir 
 Edward's guests were the following : Ben Little- 
 hales, a cousin, a genial pleasant man with a 
 jovial beaming countenance, '' always merry and 
 gay," he was generally at Ranston during the 
 hunting season ; then there was another cousin, 
 Major Littlehales, a good sportsman and a first 
 class whip. A third cousin was Lord Kildare, 
 eldest son and heir of the Duke of Leinster. I 
 also met at Ranston, Mr. and Lady Jane Repton ; 
 also Lady Rayleigh and her clever son ; and a 
 
20 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 Pole, Count Wczele. As the second letter of his 
 name, c, looked almost like an e, he was nick- 
 named Weasel especially as few people could 
 pronounce the real name correctly. Can you 
 give the correct pronunciation ? Here it is : 
 The W and the z are not pronounced, so, leaving 
 those out, there remain the letters c e 1 e which 
 are pronounced CheUi. Sir Edward one day 
 drove, or rather Major Littlehales drove, a party 
 from Ranston in a *' brake " with four horses to 
 Bill Day's training stables at Woodyates, and as 
 there was no room for me. Sir Edward gave me a 
 mount on one of his thoroughbreds, a nice Uttle 
 filly which had been returned from Bill Day's 
 stables as not fit for racing. At Woodyates we 
 were shown round the stables where were several 
 well-known winners. Sir Edward had a filly there, 
 then called the Hersey filly, which was entered 
 for the Epsom Oaks. She had just won a trial 
 so Sir Edward decided to let her run in that race. 
 She did not win, however, for ** Fille de I'air " and 
 others were too good for her. Some years after- 
 wards I believe she won a race when she had been 
 renamed *' Flower of Dorset." When the Somerset 
 and Dorset Railway Co.'s line was being con- 
 structed, Sir Edward Baker and Mr. John Pleydell 
 Mansel guaranteed the payment of interest to 
 shareholders at a certain rate, but as the line did 
 not pay for some years the guarantors were let 
 in for a very large sum, and Sir Edward's income 
 
THE KER SEYMERS 21 
 
 was appropriated to liquidate his share of the 
 debt. Ranston had to be let to strangers, and Sir 
 Edward was an exile for some years. 
 
 Hanford, the estate of the Ker Seymers, adjoins 
 the estates of Stepleton and Ranston. Mr. 
 Henry Ker Seymer was a very popular man and 
 for many years was one of the three members of 
 Parliament for Dorsetshire. Hanford House is a 
 very fine specimen of Tudor architecture, and the 
 estate is an extensive one. Mr. and Mrs. Ker 
 Seymer had only one child, a daughter named 
 Gertrude, who married a Mr. Clay, son of the well- 
 known member for Hull, who was a celebrated 
 whist player and one of the joint authors of 
 Cavendish, After the marriage, Mr. Clay assumed 
 the name of Clay Ker Seymer. He was in the 
 diplomatic service so his wife saw a good deal of 
 Court life at several of the gay capitals of the 
 Continent. When her father and mother died, 
 Mrs. Clay Ker Seymer settled down at Hanford. 
 They also had a house at Newmarket. King 
 Edward VH, when Prince of Wales, stayed with 
 them at Hanford and they also saw a good deal 
 of him at Newmarket. He gave Gertrude Ker 
 Seymer photographs of his two Derby winners 
 ** Persimmon " and '* Diamond Jubilee,'' at the 
 bottom of each of which he wrote " For Mrs. 
 Ker Seymer '* and signed his name. Mrs. Ker 
 
22 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 Seymer showed me a photo album of hers, in 
 which she had portraits of many Royalties and 
 other celebrities, who had presented them to 
 her, and among them was one of Queen Alexandra 
 which King Edward tried to sneak as he declared 
 that he had not got a copy of that particular 
 portrait. Mrs. Ker Seymer pointed out to me the 
 mark of the King's finger nail where he tried to 
 pull out the photo. She was a bright, clever, and 
 witty woman and a wonderful mimic. She 
 imitated with wonderful accuracy the brogue of 
 her Irish cook, as she repeated many of that 
 cook's humorous sayings. She could also speak 
 very perfectly in the broad Dorset dialect. She 
 once made a very smart and humorous reply to 
 Lord Alington when she was staying with him at 
 Crichell. She was riding with him and with some 
 of his guests and he was admiring her riding and 
 said to her, *' I must get you to ride for my 
 stable," to which she replied : *' Oh ! I'm afraid 
 my arms are not strong enough." This was, 
 of course, in allusion to the malicious stories which 
 some people had told, as malicious people will, 
 about racing men, if one of their horses " runs 
 in and out," losing a race one day and winning 
 another day, beating easily the horse which had 
 beaten him before. The inventors of such stories 
 do not seem to understand that a horse lilce a 
 human being is not always in the pink of perfection, 
 in the best of health, and that it is only natural that 
 
THE MARQUIS OF WESTMINSTER 23 
 
 sometimes a horse may not be able to run as well 
 as he can at other times. Such stories about 
 Lord Alington's horses being '* pulled " are as 
 absurd as those about Lord William (Bill) Beres- 
 ford and equally without foundation. 
 
 Sullivan, the great composer, was an intimate 
 friend of Mrs. Clay Ker Seymer and it was at her 
 house, Hanford, that he composed his famous 
 tune for the hymn '' Onward Christian Soldiers.'' 
 You can fancy his face when he heard the village 
 choir singing '' Like a mighty Harmy marched 
 the Church of Gawd." Sullivan used sometimes 
 to play voluntaries on the organ at St. Peter's, 
 Cranley Gardens, and, when I was staying with 
 my father-in-law at Queen's Gate Gardens, we used 
 to go to St. Peter's and were charmed by his 
 beautiful melodious playing. This was before 
 the houses in Cranley Gardens were built, and the 
 approach to the church was through cabbage 
 gardens. Clay Ker Seymer's brother was the 
 composer of the tune of *' Songs of Arabi." 
 
 The old Marquis of Westminster, progenitor 
 of the Dukes of Westminster, an eccentric man 
 who dressed very badly in very old clothes, and 
 who spent as little money as possible on himself, 
 was one of the richest men in the kingdom. He 
 always travelled third class. He was a quiet man 
 who always preferred the peaceful solitude of his 
 
24 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 moderate-sized estate of Motcombe in Dorsetshire 
 to the display and magnificence of Eaton Hall 
 and of his town house. All this accounted for 
 the stories of his being mean and stingy ; while 
 far from this, he was in reality one of the most 
 truly charitable and generous of men. Instead of 
 leaving large sums by his will to charitable 
 institutions, which sums would have to be paid 
 by his heirs out of the estate, he did his charitable 
 work during his lifetime, out of his income, instead 
 of spending it on himself. This is the truest 
 charity. My father went to a house party at 
 Motcombe on one occasion and told me several 
 stories about the old Marquis. The town of 
 Shaftesbury, two miles from Motcombe, stands 
 on a very high hill, and oftentimes water was not 
 easily procurable ; so the Marquis at great expense 
 gave the town a water supply. He also gave it a 
 covered-in market-place with a glass roof so that 
 farmers and others coming to market might do 
 their marketing under shelter should it be rainy. 
 On one occasion my father was walking in the 
 grounds at Motcombe with the Marquis, who was 
 wearing a very old overcoat, which had been 
 torn in places, and mended with white cotton ! 
 My father asked him why he wore such old clothes, 
 and why, if the torn places were to be mended, 
 they could not be mended with black cotton. 
 The Marquis replied : 
 
 ''Oh! what does it matter? every one about 
 
A SHABBILY DRESSED MAN 25 
 
 here knows me, so no one is likely to take me for a 
 tramp/' 
 
 '* But/' my father said, '' you do the same in 
 London,'' to which the Marquis replied : '' Yes, 
 but there no one knows me so what does it 
 matter ? " 
 
 I will give one more story. The Marquis was 
 walking one day from home towards Shaftesbury, 
 when he saw before him a cart with one wheel in 
 the ditch ; and the old crock of a horse and its 
 owner were vainly trying to get the cart out of the 
 ditch. As the Marquis came up alongside, the 
 owner of the cart, seeing a shabbily dressed man, 
 asked him to give a helping hand. The Marquis 
 immediately went to his help and putting his 
 shoulder to the wheel, the trio — ^the Marquis, the 
 owner, and the old gee — managed to get the cart 
 on to the road. The owner thanked the Marquis, 
 and offered him a lift, so the Marquis got up beside 
 the owner and said : '' That's a poor horse you've 
 got, he's not fit for the work." The owner replied 
 that he could not afford to buy another. Then 
 the Marquis got down and said he must be going 
 back and asked the owner if he would be driving 
 into Shaftesbury again soon ; the owner said he 
 would be coming on the following Tuesday, so the 
 Marquis said : '' Very well, look out for me here- 
 abouts and give me another lift." On the next 
 Tuesday the Marquis met the same cart and its 
 owner, to whom he handed an envelope in which 
 
26 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 the Marquis said the owner would find a small 
 present for himself, and then walked to and passed 
 through the gate to Motcombe. The owner of 
 the cart opening the envelope found a fifty-pound 
 note and a few lines advising him to buy a younger 
 and stronger horse, and he then perceived who his 
 charitable friend was, and that he was not by 
 any means stingy though he was dressed like a 
 pauper. 
 
 It was, I think, in 1856 that I went with my 
 father and mother on a visit to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Henry Grant at Wormleybury in Hertfordshire. 
 Mr. Grant was then a very old man, an octo- 
 genarian, and indeed not far from ninety, 
 but still wonderfully active, and in possession 
 of all his faculties. He was a pleasant and most 
 charming host. He had been from 1804 one of 
 the guardians of my father, who regarded him 
 with the greatest esteem and honour. He used 
 to watch me playing billiards in the hall at 
 Wormleybury, and gave me many hints. In his 
 youth he had been a celebrated tennis player 
 (the old tennis, not the modern lawn tennis). In 
 fact he was the champion tennis player of the 
 time. He told me how he had been challenged by 
 the French champion and how he, Mr. Grant, 
 had beaten the Frenchman. Before leaving 
 India, my father had sent, as a present, to Mr. 
 
ELEPHANT'S FEET 27 
 
 Grant some pickled humps ; these were con- 
 sidered great deHcacies being the most tender 
 and toothsome part of the BengaH dwarf bullock. 
 Mr. Grant, not having been told what they were, 
 thought from their shape that they must be 
 elephant's feet ; and not relishing the idea of 
 eating elephant's feet, he gave them away to some 
 of his tenants at the Knoll in Glamorganshire 
 where he then lived, a magnificent place situated 
 in the most lovely country. Later he sold that 
 property and purchased Wormleybury. 
 
 My father went over to have a look at his old 
 College, Haileybury, which is only about three 
 miles from Mr. Grant's house, and went up one 
 of the four staircases to the corridor off which 
 was the room he had occupied some forty years 
 previously when he was at college. In the corridor 
 he heard someone call out '' D'Oyly." Looking 
 round in surprise he saw one of the college students 
 who apologized and explained that he was calling 
 to his friend William D'Oyly who was then a 
 student at Haileybury. This William D'Oyly 
 was a member of a branch of our family. My 
 father ascertained that this William D'Oyly was 
 occupying the very same room that he, my father, 
 had occupied forty years or more previously. 
 
 When I came home in 1863-64, I went again to 
 stay with Mrs. Grant who was then a widow. 
 There I met Lady Florence Bushby, the beautiful 
 wife of the famous Metropolitan Police Magistrate, 
 
28 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 who was a nephew of Mrs. Grant. Lady Florence's 
 brother, young North, was at college with me in 
 1856-57. 
 
 Iwerne Minster was, when I was a boy, the 
 property of the Bowyer Bowers, who for many 
 generations had owned that fine estate. The 
 younger children were about my age and I saw 
 a good deal of them. Old Mr. Bower was a typical 
 old English gentleman farmer. Big and portly, 
 he was an imposing figure, and he and his wife 
 were a most homely and hospitable couple. He 
 was too old, when I knew him, to hunt or shoot, 
 but he had been a good sportsman. His younger 
 brother, who was the parson at the adjoining 
 parish of Shroton, was also a big, heavy man, 
 but he still kept up hunting, and a very big 
 powerful horse he required to carry his weight. 
 The old Mr. Bower's estate was a large one and 
 was well-preserved. Many a day's good sport I 
 had with his two sons, in the coverts, in the fields, 
 and in the meadows where snipe abounded ; and 
 after the day's shoot was over, and we returned 
 to the house, old mother Bower used to bring 
 out her home-made cakes and ale, and the most 
 delicious orange brandy which she made herself, 
 and it was ripping good stuff. When the old man 
 died his eldest son. Captain Tom Bower, sold the 
 estate to Lord Wolverton, who pulled down the 
 
A SPORTING PARSON 29 
 
 old house, which the Bowers had inhabited for 
 generations, and built another one. Tom Bower 
 married a sister of Sir Baker Russell. 
 
 The parson at Iwerne Minster was a good old 
 sportsman, named Acton. Whenever the hounds 
 met within reach, he used to mount his nag and 
 ride off to '' join the glad throng that goes laugh- 
 ing along." You remember dear old Whyte 
 Melville's famous hunting song and the verse 
 about the sporting parson ? Well ! that was 
 Acton. By this I do not intend to imply that 
 Mr. Acton was at all neglectful of his duties. On 
 the contrary, he was a most zealous minister and 
 never really neglected his duties. He was one of 
 the most awful stammerers I ever met, and it was 
 quite painful to hear him, but, strange to say, 
 when he was at the reading desk in church, 
 or in the pulpit, he never once stammered 
 at all. 
 
 Tom Bower settled in London ; he also had a 
 house in Cheltenham and another in Brighton. 
 His brother and his sisters also left Dorset and 
 thus one more of the old county families dis- 
 appeared and their estates knew them no more. 
 When I returned on leave from India in 1869, I 
 found many of the old houses occupied by 
 strangers, some fortunately were only temporarily 
 let, but others were sold. Ranston, my good old 
 friend Sir Edward Baker's estate, was let for 
 many years ; so was Hanford, the Ker Seymers' 
 
30 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 place ; also Langton, Squire Farquharson's fine 
 mansion ; the Parry Okedens of Turnworth too 
 had gone. Colonel and Mrs. Charles Malet and 
 their graceful and lovely daughters no longer 
 lived at Fontmel Parva. The young birds had 
 left their nest and the parent birds had flown to 
 Bath. The pretty eldest daughter, Florence, 
 married the celebrated Dr. Warre, Head Master 
 and Provost of Eton. 
 
 Baron Hambro was at Milton Abbey in 1855. 
 It is a lovely fine old place between Blandford 
 and Dorchester. He was the head of the great 
 banking house of Messrs. Hambro and Sons. 
 He was a Dane, and once told me, as we walked 
 over the grounds, that it was his ambition to 
 buy as much of the lands in the neighbourhood as 
 were formerly in the possession of the Danes. He 
 always expressed himself as everlastingly grateful 
 to my mother for having introduced him to one 
 of her friends, a Mrs. Greathed. She was the 
 widow of Colonel Greathed whom my people 
 knew well in India. The Colonel and his wife 
 had the most wonderful escape from being mur- 
 dered by the rebels during the Indian Mutiny. They 
 owed their escape to their faithful native servants 
 who, as the rebels were approaching the house, 
 hid their master and mistress in rolled-up carpets, 
 and collected all the furniture in the house and 
 
CAPTAIN WYNDHAM OF WEST LODGE 31 
 
 placed it all in one room. They told the rebels, 
 when they arrived, that the Major and his wife 
 had already left the station. The rebels then took 
 all the portable loot they could find and went on 
 to sack other houses. Once, when I went to play 
 cricket at Milton Abbey with the then young 
 Hambros, I met that famous old cricketer of the 
 old school named Felix, who before then used to 
 play in the All England eleven. This will give you 
 some idea of how long ago this was. Baron 
 Hambro's eldest son, Charles, married one of Lord 
 Hardwicke^s daughters, the handsomest of the 
 handsome Yorkes. Long after when I came home 
 on leave from India I was dining with some friends 
 who lived in Portland Place, in a lovely house, and 
 I was told that it was the house which had been 
 bought by Charles Hambro and had been altered 
 and done up for him, but he died before the house 
 was ready, and my friends then purchased it. 
 
 Captain Wyndham was a retired officer who had 
 been in the Scots Greys. He was one of the well- 
 known hunting men of the East Dorset hunt and 
 lived at West Lodge, a house buried in the thick 
 of the Cranbourne Chace, a long and wide belt of 
 woodland running down from Lord Rivers' place, 
 Rushmore, in the north of the county, to the east 
 of Blandford. He was a noticeable figure in the 
 hunt with his fox-coloured moustache and beard. 
 
32 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 his bushy eyebrows, beneath which his blue eyes 
 twinkled brightly and merrily. His younger 
 children were playfellows of mine ; they were as 
 wild a lot as can be imagined ; living as they did 
 in a secluded part of the woods they were accus- 
 tomed to run about wild. Beatrice was a regular 
 tom-boy. One day as the hounds passed by West 
 Lodge she rushed to the stables, just as she was, 
 with a short skirt and no hat, jumped on her 
 brother's pony bare-backed and rode full pelt 
 after the hounds, her long hair streaming behind 
 her. Her brother, Spencer, was a very good sort, 
 and as plucky as they make 'em ; unconven- 
 tional, but straight as a die. One day when he 
 was shooting with his father he gave his gun to 
 the keeper to hold, while he scrambled through a 
 hedge ; when he got to the other side, the keeper 
 handed back his gun through the hedge, with the 
 muzzle towards Spencer ; the trigger got caught 
 in the twigs of the hedge and the gun went off, 
 wounding Spencer in the side ; he fell down but 
 was not unconscious ; his father went up to him, 
 and, seeing the wound, said in his bluff way, 
 ** Spencer, my boy, you're a dead man, say your 
 prayers," to which Spencer replied, ** I am not 
 dead, father, but I am saying my prayers." He 
 recovered and later went out to India with his 
 regiment, where I met him again, and we had long 
 talks about dear old Dorsetshire and our old 
 friends. 
 
ffC^^^^^ 
 
 " OLD HEAVY '' 33 
 
 Just before the Indian Mutiny I went to 
 Haileybury and I was one of the last batch of 
 Haileybury men, for after we left for India the 
 College was closed, and the buildings were used 
 for the new public school of Haileybury. We were, 
 I am afraid, a bit wild, and there was a story that 
 Sir James Stephen, the History and Political 
 Economy Professor, was talking with some of our 
 fellows about what was to be done with the 
 College buildings when Haileybury should be 
 closed as the E.I. College ; one said he heard it 
 was to be a girls' school ; another suggested 
 barracks ; on which Sir James said, *' If it is to 
 accommodate persons at all like you it ought to 
 
 be a lunatic asylum '' Professor Heaviside 
 
 was our Mathematical Pro. *' Old Heavy," as he 
 was called, was a big man, and very popular. At 
 his lectures he used to be so engrossed in his 
 subject that he never noticed the pranks that 
 some of the men played, however noisy they might 
 be ; so one of them made a bet that he would 
 drive some sheep into Heavy's lecture room while 
 he was lecturing without his knowing anything 
 about it, and he won his bet. He tipped a shepherd 
 to let him have two or three sheep for half an 
 hour ; they were brought to the door of the 
 lecture room and driven in and out again, dear 
 old Heavy going on with his lecture as if nothing 
 had happened. He had a great reputation as a 
 mathematician, and when Haileybury was closed 
 
34 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 got, I believe, an important post. The Professor 
 of Persian had the lease of a small wood near the 
 College, and it was said that there was only one 
 pheasant in that wood, but it had given the 
 Professor many years of " sport," for he was such 
 a bad shot that the bird always managed to fly 
 away unwounded, and soon got to enjoy the 
 *' sport " as much as the Professor did. One year 
 before I entered Haileybury, my father took me 
 there on what was called Di's day. This was the 
 day in each year on which the Directors of the 
 East India Company used to go down to Hailey- 
 bury to hear the Principalis report, and a grand 
 luncheon was given to them and their guests. 
 None of the College men were allowed to go to 
 these lunches, but two of the fellows made a bet 
 that they would get in. One was a nephew of 
 the Chairman of the Court of Directors, and he 
 and his friend made up a plan to personate 
 foreigners of distinction, and wrote letters to the 
 chairman saying how much they would like to 
 visit Haileybury on " Di's day." They got 
 invitations and had the cheek to go down in the 
 train in the same compartment as that in which 
 the chairman travelled. They were so well got 
 up that the chairman did not recognize his own 
 nephew, and the two fellows won their bets, 
 enjoyed a first-class lunch, as well as the fun of 
 it all. We had a very good cricket eleven, nearly 
 all from public schools, among them Bob Carrie 
 
CRICKET 35 
 
 (Harrow), R. Burney (Captain of Winchester XI), 
 G. Lang (the celebrated Harrow bowler, who 
 afterwards played for an England eleven), and 
 others from Rugby, Marlborough, etc. We won 
 every match we played during the two years I was 
 in College, excepting only two matches which were 
 drawn. These two were Haileybury v. Oxford 
 Harlequins ; and Haileybury v. M.C.C. and Ground. 
 At the latter match we had the crack bowlers 
 Wisden and Grundy against us. Tom Lockyer, 
 the celebrated Surrey and All-England wicket- 
 keeper, was one of our professionals. He was 
 also a steady bowler and took the greatest trouble 
 in training us. He was a magnificent wicket- 
 keeper, he had a good eye and a quick hand to 
 follow it, and the way he took a leg-shooter was 
 marvellous, while he never missed a chance of a 
 quick catch at the wicket. He was as hard as 
 nails, and once, when I was batting in a match, 
 and he was standing as umpire near square-leg, I 
 got a lovely half-volley to leg, caught it fair and 
 square and hit it as hard as ever I struck a ball. 
 Old Tom had no time to get out of the way and 
 it landed on his chest. He fell down like a shot 
 partridge, but soon got up again, and as I went 
 up to ask him if he was all right, he replied, '' I'm 
 all right now, sir, thank you, but — don't do it 
 again, sir/' 
 
36 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 Little George Gordon Macpherson was at school 
 with me. He was the younger son of the Laird, 
 the head of the clan, who lived at Cluny Castle 
 in Inverness-shire. At school we called his son 
 ** Cluny.'' He was one of the pages to the Queen, 
 and a royal carriage used to come to the school 
 to fetch him whenever he was required for a state 
 function. During one of the vacations when I was 
 at Haileybury, my father and mother took me 
 with them to Scotland. I had been invited to 
 stay at Cluny Castle, so I left my parents at 
 Perth and travelled by the Inverness coach. 
 We passed through the lovely Killiecrankie Pass, 
 and I drank for the first time a cup of the famous 
 Atholbrose at Blairgowrie. At Kingussie I was 
 met and driven in a dog-cart to Cluny Castle. 
 After dinner, to my surprise, the Pipers came into 
 the dining-room, and marched round the guests 
 seated at the table, playing for all they were 
 worth. It was rather deafening in a closed room, 
 and certainly a very novel experience. I got 
 some splendid shooting ; grouse, black game, 
 ptarmigan, and so-called blue hares. Later young 
 '' Cluny " got, as was the custom for Queen's 
 pages, a commission in one of the Guards regiments 
 and when I first saw him in uniform I could not 
 help smiling, for he was short and his bearskin 
 looked almost as tall as he did. Shortly after- 
 wards I saw a very good caricature of him in Punch 
 as a tiny man smothered by a huge bearskin. 
 
THE MARQUIS OF BUTE 37 
 
 After leaving Cluny Castle I rejoined my father 
 and mother and my Aunt Eliza (the Dowager), 
 and we went on a visit to Mount Stuart, Rothesay. 
 My aunt was a cousin of the Marchioness of Bute, 
 and the Marquis was then a boy of about fourteen 
 years of age. The Marchioness was a strict 
 Protestant, but she made the one great mistake 
 of her life when she, instead of sending her son to 
 a good public school, appointed a tutor to educate 
 him at home, and selected, if you please, a Roman 
 Catholic. No wonder this tutor persuaded him to 
 embrace the Roman Catholic faith. 
 
 The view from the house, overlooking the sea 
 and the beautiful Isle of Arran, is a most lovely 
 one. The young Marquis used to get me to play 
 with him at several boyish games. He was a 
 very nice pleasant-mannered boy and he amused 
 me very much once when he said to me, rather 
 pompously, that if I cared to have some shooting, 
 his keeper and dogs were at my service ; of this 
 I gladly availed myself, and I enjoyed several 
 days' excellent shooting — grouse, blackgame and 
 one day roedeer. In the plantations near the 
 house were some wild turkeys, but no one was 
 allowed to shoot these. One of the keepers taught 
 me a dodge to avoid any accident that might 
 happen to the left hand owing to the gun bursting. 
 He said that his father had taught him, and the 
 lesson had saved his hand on one occasion from 
 being blown off by the bursting of his gun. The 
 
38 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 plan was, instead of holding the gun by the left 
 hand round the breach end of the barrel, to hold 
 the left hand against the trigger-guard between 
 the thumb and first finger with the fingers pointed 
 towards one's body so that the trigger-guard fits 
 into the hollow between the base of the thumb 
 and forefinger and enables one to press the gun 
 back steadily against the right shoulder. For 
 snap-shots particularly this was an excellent 
 arrangement but not for rifle or ball gun. 
 
 Have you ever seen a little book of verses and 
 translations by that celebrated scholar and witty 
 humorist, C. S. Calverley ? They are not only 
 extremely amusing, but also the work of an 
 exceptionally clever man. I will tell you about 
 them lower down, but first I wiU retail some 
 amusing tales about their author. He was a 
 relative of one of my aunts, the wife of Colonel 
 Fendall, who was in a Dragoon regiment all 
 through the Peninsular War in Spain under 
 Wellington. Driving through Castle Carey once, 
 where the Calverleys were then staying, we 
 stopped to lunch with them, and this was the 
 first time I met Calverley — I saw him afterwards 
 in the Senate House at Cambridge where he was 
 reading out his grand prize poem. He was at 
 first at Oxford and was always a terror to the 
 Proctors, but they were never able to find any 
 
C. S. CALVERLEY 39 
 
 serious fault with him. His name was Blayds 
 when at Oxford, and he improvised the following 
 lines relating to the Proctor's feelings about 
 
 him : 
 
 ** If they want old Blades to cut 
 
 They first must find a handle." 
 
 On one occasion he determined to get out of 
 
 college at night, and he got a friend (Lord ) 
 
 to give him a shoulder to help him to climb over 
 the wall. When he was called before the Proctor 
 the next day, he was asked how he managed to 
 get out of the college, and he replied : 
 
 " By the help of the Lord I leapt over the wall." 
 This so tickled the Proctor that he could not 
 find it in his heart to take any serious notice of 
 the escapade. 1 Later at Cambridge he wrote the 
 Verses and Translations above alluded to ; and 
 later still he was a frequent contributor to Punch. 
 His light but witty sonnets about his school and 
 college days will delight anyone who remembers 
 with pleasure his own early days. His Dover to 
 Munich is not only amusing with sudden drops 
 from the sublime to the ridiculous, but the latter 
 part in which he describes the beauties of the 
 art treasures in the Galleries is thrilling in its 
 grandiloquence, and forcible in its appeal to one's 
 highest feelings. Then his Proverbial Philosophy 
 sparkles with bright flashes of wit. Some of 
 
 ^ A different version of the story is given in Works of C. S. Calverley, 
 published by George Bell in 190 1. I got my version from Mr. Percival 
 Diekens. 
 
40 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 his translations from Horace are very happily 
 
 rendered, and, as a Cambridge friend of mine said, 
 
 are in parts '' better than the original/' For 
 
 instance, the following which in the original Latin 
 
 are rather cumbrous and lacking in rhythm : 
 
 " Faune nympharum fugientum amator 
 Per meas fines et aprica nires 
 Lenis incedas, abeasque parvis 
 i^quus alumnis." 
 
 Compare this with Calverley's smooth-running 
 
 and correct translation : 
 
 " Wooer of young nymphs who fly thee 
 Lightly o'er my sunht lawn 
 Trip and go, uninjured by thee 
 
 Be my weanhng herds, O Faun." 
 
 Then the last verse : 
 
 " Inter audaces lupus errat agnos 
 Spargit agrestes tibi sylva frondes 
 Guadet invisam pepulisse fossor 
 ' Ter pede terram." 
 
 " Lambs play on the wolf their neighbour. 
 Wild woods deck thee with their spoil, 
 And with glee the sons of labor 
 
 Stamp thrice on their foe the soil." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 INDIA 
 
 Sir Gaspard le Marchant — Prince Gholam Mahomed — Some 
 Calcutta friends — Octo Malet's fight on foot with a bear — 
 A scrap with the rebels — Sir Frederick Halliday, K.C.B., 
 first Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal — Travelling up country- 
 through jungles full of fugitive rebels from Koer Singh's 
 defeated army — Colonel Mundy of the 19th Regiment — 
 Some Tirhoot indigo planters — Sonepore fair and race meet- 
 ing — Mr. Collins, contractor and owner of race-horses — 
 Frank Vincent of Barh — Mr. W. H. Urquhart and Mr. E. 
 Garnet Man — Percival Dickens — Arthur Levien — Lord Mayo 
 —Joe Gundry.an Oxford Harlequin and Captain of theDorset 
 County Cricket Team — Lord Eldon and the Rev. W. H. H. 
 Truell — Stourhead, seat of Sir Henry Hoare. Sources of the 
 Stour river — Phi Horlock — Sir William Hudson, President 
 of the Behar Indigo Planters' Association. 
 
 WHEN I started in 1858 for India, my 
 father took me down to Southampton 
 to see me off. We found that Sir 
 Gaspard le Marchant 's name was down in the 
 list of passengers by the P. and O. boat in 
 which I had engaged a passage, and heard that 
 he was staying at the same hotel as the one 
 in which we were putting up. As my father 
 knew him he took me up to Sir Gaspard's room 
 and asked him to look after me on the voyage. 
 Sir Gaspard was bound for Malta, of which he had 
 
 41 
 
42 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 just been appointed Governor. He was most kind 
 and attentive to me and took me with his party, 
 on arrival at Gibraltar, to the house of the 
 Governor of that fortress, where we had lunch, 
 and were then taken all round the fortifications. 
 On arrival at Malta I went with his party to see 
 him sworn in at Government House. After the 
 ceremony Sir Gaspard was only too delighted to 
 get away for a quiet stroll, and to smoke one of 
 his big Havana cigars. As he passed the sentry 
 in the Courtyard the sentry stopped him and 
 said that smoking was not allowed there. Sir 
 Gaspard said, '' Don't you know who I am ? " 
 to which the sentry replied, " No, sir, I do not, but 
 even if you was the Governor himself I should 
 have to prevent your smoking here." This 
 delighted Sir Gaspard so much that he immediately 
 chucked away his cigar and gave the sentry a 
 sovereign, saying, '* I am the Governor, but you 
 have done what was quite right and proper." He 
 then walked out of the Courtyard and lit another 
 cigar outside the gates, and enjoyed it all the more 
 after the amusing incident. 
 
 Shortly before I started for India, my father 
 and mother and I went to dine with Prince 
 Gholam Mahomed, a descendant of the. old 
 Moghul Emperors and a pensioner of the East 
 India Company, who was then in London. He 
 
A MAGNIFICENT HORSEWOMAN 43 
 
 drank with evident enjoyment some excellent 
 champagne, and my father said to him, '' I thought 
 you Mahomedans were not allowed to drink 
 wine,'' to which the Prince replied, '' Pray, Sir 
 John, do not call this excellent beverage a wine. 
 It is far too good a thing to be called a wine ! " 
 
 On arrival at Calcutta I was met by Mr. Charles 
 Lushington, Financial Member of the Governor- 
 General's Council. His wife was a cousin of 
 mine, and I stayed at their fine house several 
 weeks. Mrs. Lushington was a magnificent horse- 
 woman and before her marriage often rode some 
 of her father's race-horses, and I believe she 
 once rode and won a race for him. She was also 
 a fine whip and used to drive a four-in-hand. 
 
 While in Calcutta, the Indian Mutiny was still 
 going on, and I joined the Volunteers and was 
 attached to the Calcutta Volunteer Rifles. 
 Precious hot work it was too, drilling on the 
 '* Maidan " in the mornings in the month of 
 May, the hottest month in the year. I, with 
 several Haileybury chums, used often to go 
 to lunch with some of the Merchant Princes of 
 Calcutta, and on one of these occasions we met a 
 very amusing American who used to keep us in 
 fits of laughter, not only by his funny stories, but 
 also by his quaint American style of expression. 
 We had been talking about a man, the hair of 
 
441TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 whose head was of a particularly bright shade of 
 red, and some one asked the American if he had 
 met him, to which he replied, " D'ye mean the 
 man who looks as if he had just run through hell 
 with his hat off ? '* I and my old Haileybury 
 chums used to go down to the P. and O. Officers' 
 Club at Garden Reach, whenever a P. and O. boat 
 was signalled, to meet the new arrivals of other 
 Haileybury friends, and we always kept an eye 
 open to spot any fresh '' spins " who might have 
 arrived. We used to give nicknames to the 
 various spins and some of these were most apt. 
 One we called *' Squeezums " from the warm, 
 tight squeeze with which she shook hands. 
 Another we called '* Dumb-bell " as she rarely 
 spoke except in monosyllables. Then there were 
 three sisters whom we called Faith, Hope, and 
 Charity, and this was conspicuously apt as 
 regards Charity who was " the greatest of these." 
 Talking of nicknames I may here mention some 
 I heard of much later when I was " up country." 
 Three sisters were called " The World, The Flesh, 
 and The Devil," while three others were known 
 as '' Plague, Pestilence, and Famine." 
 
 There are two good clubs in Calcutta, the 
 '' United Service " and the '' Bengal Club." I and 
 several of my Haileybury friends were elected 
 ■-^ members of the latter. There I met some well- 
 
 known Mutiny heroes, among them Sir James 
 Out ram, Hereward Wake the famous defender of 
 
 ^ 
 
AN IMPRESSIVE SCENE 45 
 
 Arrah, Ross Mangles the first civilian who was 
 decorated with the V.C., and Eraser MacDonell 
 who also gained the V.C., and many others. 
 When Queen Victoria's Proclamation was read 
 out in 1858 by Lord Canning, a guard of honour 
 was selected from our regiment, the Calcutta 
 Volunteer Rifles, and I marched with it to Govern- 
 ment House where we lined the long flight of 
 steps, on the top of which stood Lord Canning 
 and his staff, Sir Frederick Halliday, the 
 Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, and the members 
 of the Governor-Generars Council. Presently a 
 detachment of the Naval Brigade which had been 
 gloriously fighting up country, marched up with a 
 swinging step, and formed line in front. They 
 were a splendid set of men, and marched proudly 
 along looking what they were, a body of con- 
 quering heroes just back from victory. Lord 
 Canning read the Proclamation in which Her 
 Majesty announced that she had taken over from 
 the Honourable East India Company the govern- 
 ment of the country. The scene was an impressive 
 one ; the roads leading to Government House 
 being lined with soldiers, behind whom the 
 natives stood in vast crowds, dressed in bright 
 colours ; while the military bands played the 
 National Anthem, Rule Britannia, and other 
 patriotic tunes. 
 
46 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 I paid a visit before leaving Calcutta to 
 Mr. Octavius Malet, an old friend of my father. 
 Mr. Malet was then Judge of Beerbhoom, a district 
 which adjoins the hilly tract known as the Sonthal 
 Pergunnahs. He had been, when he first arrived 
 in India, an Assistant Magistrate under my 
 father, and I enjoyed a pleasant week's visit to 
 him and his wife. He always wore a very thick, 
 wide gold ring round the bottom of the thumb 
 of his right hand. I remembered the story 
 my father told me explaining why Mr. Malet 
 wore this ring on his thumb, and this is the 
 story : Octo Malet was out bear-shooting with a 
 friend, and a large bear was found. Mr. Malet 
 decided to get down off his elephant, and to fight 
 the bear on foot with a native axe. The bear 
 stood upon his hind legs and Mr. Malet went for 
 him, and struck at the bear's head. To his dismay 
 the head of the axe flew off the handle, and he 
 was left at the mercy of the bear who got hold of 
 him, and began hugging him. With great pluck 
 Mr. Malet put his hand into the bear's mouth and 
 pulled its tongue across its teeth, so that the bear 
 could not bite him without hurting its own 
 tongue ; but Mr. Malet's thumb was badly 
 injured and the flesh was torn away. Beginning to 
 feel faint he called out to his friend to shoot and 
 take the risk of hitting him. His friend fired 
 and fortunately hit the bear in a vulnerable 
 part and thus Mr. Malet's life was saved. He 
 
A NARROW ESCAPE 47 
 
 had the broad ring made to hide the scar on 
 his thumb. 
 
 After I returned to Calcutta my eldest brother, 
 Charles, who had been fighting against the 
 Mutineers at Meerut and elsewhere, came down 
 to Calcutta and stayed with the Lushingtons. 
 Before the Mutiny he had seen service with his 
 regiment in the Gwalior campaign, and later was 
 appointed to be an A.D.C. on Lord Dalhousie's 
 staff. Lord Dalhousie was Lord Canning's pre- 
 decessor as Governor-General of India, and when 
 he was leaving India he gave my brother the 
 choice of an appointment in the Secretariat or 
 one in the Government Stud Department. My 
 brother selected the latter and was in charge of 
 the Stud at Haupper, forty miles from Meerut, 
 when the Mutiny broke out. As the mutinous 
 sipahis approached his stud, he and his wife had 
 to make a sudden flight by night to Meerut and 
 narrowly escaped being murdered. This however 
 cost his wife her life. My brother was appointed 
 second in command at Meerut of the Volunteer 
 force there and he had many scraps with the 
 enemy and more than one narrow escape. The 
 narrowest one was when he was coming down 
 country with a detachment of the Carbineers. 
 Their scouts reported a large body of mutineers 
 near the line of march, and Major Wardlow at 
 
48 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 once determined to attack them. My brother 
 put on an old hunting-cap, the best kind of pro- 
 tection he could find at the moment for his 
 head, and he then charged the enemy with the 
 Carbineers. 
 
 Poor Major Wardlow and all the senior officers 
 were killed, and my brother had to lead the 
 Carbineers. A native sowar tried to cut him 
 down, but fortunately the metal in the hunting- 
 cap saved his head from being cut open, and he 
 had the satisfaction of running his sword through 
 the sowar's body. The enemy were routed and 
 fled. The hunting-cap found a place in my father's 
 armoury at Stepleton. 
 
 When I first arrived in India Sir Frederick 
 Halliday was Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, 
 and he held that appointment all through the 
 trying time of the Indian Mutiny. He was a fine 
 tall man with an imposing presence, a firm mouth, 
 keen, penetrating blue eyes, and a most charming 
 manner ; as good a man as could have been 
 found to be at the head of affairs in Bengal at 
 the most critical time the country ever passed 
 through during the years 1857-58. Sir Frederick 
 was passionately fond of music and a very good 
 performer on the double bass. He used frequently 
 to have musical parties ; indeed music was his 
 chief hobby. A Mr. T. F. Bignold, a member of 
 
THE RISING MAN 49 
 
 the Civil Service, wrote some very clever verses 
 in my wife's album about the fads of several 
 Lieutenant-Governors of Bengal, under the title 
 of *'The Rising Man/' The first of these verses 
 related to Sir Frederick's love of music, and 
 the other verses to the fads of the succeeding 
 Lieutenant-Governors. Here they are : 
 
 THE RISING MAN 
 Tune : " Vicar of Bray/' 
 
 When Halliday held merry sway. 
 
 And fiddling was in fashion, 
 My Stradivarius I would play, 
 
 For music was my passion ; 
 Nor hushed my string till Grant was King 
 
 And indigo unquiet. 
 Then boldly rushed into the ring 
 
 The champion of the ryot. 
 
 Chorus — For this is law, and I'll maintain 
 As ably as I can, Sir, 
 That whatsoever King shall reign 
 I'll be the Rising Man, Sir. 
 
 When Beadon on the musnad sat 
 
 I shifted my position. 
 Collecting sheep and oxen fat 
 
 To grace his Exhibition ; 
 And ere he broke the omlah's yoke 
 
 I caught the inspiration 
 And learned the brogue of every rogue 
 
 Who filed an apphcation. 
 
 For this is law, etc. etc. 
 
 When Beadon's day had passed away 
 
 And Grey assumed his station. 
 With pen in hand I took my stand 
 
 On the " Higher Education " ; 
 
50 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 But now that lotteries are put down, 
 
 I cut my friends who gamble, 
 And rush my puppy dogs to drown, 
 
 And win a smile from Campbell. 
 
 For this is law, etc. etc. 
 
 In framing rules for primary schools 
 
 In rural exploration, 
 My active mind shall seek and find 
 
 Congenial occupation. 
 Then George^ shall be my King till he 
 
 Shall seek St. Stephen's lobby, 
 When I shall feel an equal zeal 
 
 For his successor's hobby. 
 
 For this is law, etc. etc. 
 
 P.S. 1874. I hail, since Campbell must depart. 
 Our British Bonapartist " 
 And worship Art with all my heart. 
 
 Myself a humble artist. 
 For often as my fertile pen 
 
 Some fresh report Composes 
 I catch awhile my Master's style 
 And tint the whole with roses. 
 
 For this is law, etc. etc. 
 
 My facile eye can best descry 
 
 That famine is impending. 
 And none but Dick through thin and thick 
 
 Can guide us to its ending. 
 Transactions nice in Burmah rice. 
 
 Colossal cash advances 
 Must needs demand the skilful hand 
 
 That guided our Finances. 
 
 For this is law, etc. etc. 
 
 Mr. Bignold also wrote some clever and satirical 
 lines about the building used as a church at 
 
 * Sir George Campbell. • Sir Richard Temple. 
 
BELVEDERE 51 
 
 Rampore Beauleah (which was more Uke a barn 
 than a church), and about those who attended 
 the services there : 
 
 " Our church as at present it stands 
 
 Can boast neither parson nor steeple ; 
 It's surrounded by low-lying lands 
 And frequented by low-lying people." 
 
 Not very flattering to the residents, but perhaps 
 apphcable to some of them. In the early part 
 of 1859 I married a daughter of Sir Frederick 
 HaUiday, and before leaving Calcutta I went to 
 stay with my father-in-law at Belvedere. The 
 house was named by my grandfather (who lived 
 in it towards the end of the eighteenth century) 
 after the home of his wife's family, the Rochforts 
 of Belvedere and Rochfort. One morning when 
 riding with Sir Frederick he pointed out to me 
 the spot where the brave and noble Warren 
 Hastings risked his life in a duel with his arch 
 enemy and jealous rival Francis. It was to me 
 holy ground as I looked uncovered at it, for it 
 was here that Right triumphed over wrong, 
 where the truthful and honour-loving Warren 
 Hastings stopped, for a time at least, the lying 
 tongue of a clever but unscrupulous enemy. 
 ' Unfortunately it was only for a time, for Francis 
 ; lived to return to England to poison the minds of 
 several of the leading politicians against Hastings 
 and to succeed in getting him arraigned before 
 the House of Lords, on infamously false and 
 
52 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 malicious charges. Here again Right and Truth 
 triumphed over wrong and falsehood, for at the 
 end of the long-protracted trial, each Peer rose 
 in his place one after the other and placing his 
 hand on his heart said, ** Not guilty on mine 
 honour/' Sir Frederick Halliday when he retired 
 and returned to England was offered the appoint- 
 ment of Governor of Jamaica, which he had to 
 refuse on account of his wife's health. He was 
 then made a Member of Council of the Secretary 
 of State for India and his services were so much 
 appreciated that when over eighty years of age 
 he wished to retire the Duke of Argyle wrote 
 him a very complimentary letter begging him to 
 retain his appointment. This, however, he felt 
 he could not do ; but after his retirement he was 
 frequently colisulted by the Secretary of State 
 on matters of the first importance. He lived to 
 the great age of ninety-four and retained his 
 faculties to the last. He kept up his musical 
 parties long after he was eighty years old, and 
 these parties included several of the leading 
 musicians of the day. So great was his vitality 
 that in his last illness when he recovered after a 
 violent attack, he, laughing, said to his daughter, 
 '' That was a sharp tussle with Death ! but I 
 got the best of it ! " 
 
A VERY TEDIOUS JOURNEY 53 
 
 Having been appointed Assistant Magistrate 
 of Tirhoot, a district north of the Ganges and 
 four hundred miles from Calcutta, my wife and 
 I started for Mozufferpore, the chief town of 
 Tirhoot. The first hundred miles was by train to 
 Ranigunge. As the railway was not then com- 
 pleted beyond that point we had to travel the 
 rest of the four hundred miles in a dak gharrie, a 
 kind of large palankeen on four wheels, in which 
 we could lie full length, with sliding doors each 
 side. Ordinarily speaking these carriages were 
 drawn by small horses, but as the Dak Company's 
 horses had all been commandeered for transport 
 work during the Mutiny, our carriage had to be 
 drawn by native coolies, relays of whom were 
 placed at stages along the Grand Trunk Road. 
 A very tedious journey it was. This road passes 
 through a corner of Chota Nagpur, a hilly and 
 jungly tract, and we learnt that these jungles 
 were then full of '' Bhagees," or fugitives, remnants 
 of the rebel Koer Singh's army which very 
 shortly before had been thoroughly beaten and 
 dispersed by Sir Vincent Eyre at Sasseram, a little 
 further north on the other side of the Sone River. 
 At night we both woke up as the carriage stopped 
 suddenly, to find that our coolies had deserted us 
 and left us stranded in the jungles. This was a 
 by no means pleasant situation for us in a dense 
 jungle full of our savage enemies ! However the 
 coolies presently returned. They had seen some 
 
54 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 mutineers and bolted, but the rebels were the 
 more frightened and made themselves scarce, 
 giving us as wide a berth as possible. The next 
 morning we found ourselves in the Dunwa Pass, 
 which was lovely in the rosy dawn and reminded 
 me of the KilUecrankie Pass in Scotland. At the 
 further end of the Pass we came to the Dunwa 
 Dak Bungalow (traveller's rest-house), where the 
 old Khansama came out and salaamed. We 
 ordered some breakfast ek dum (at once). He 
 joined his hands in front of him and said, '* Your 
 Highness, please pardon your slave, for I have 
 nothing ; the Bhagees have been here and have 
 carried off all my moorghies and goats. I can 
 only make you some chupattis and boil a couple 
 of eggs.'* As we had a tin of biscuits and some 
 potted meats in our gharrie, we didn't do badly, 
 and on the whole felt thankful to the Bhagees 
 for having taken away all the fowls and goats, 
 for we had already had an experience of Dak 
 Bungalow poultry and he-goat. This is how a 
 Dak Bungalow Khansama converts a live cock 
 into a boiled fowl in a brace of shakes. Being 
 ordered by a traveller to prepare a meal quickly, 
 the Khansama goes out into the compound, calls 
 his cocks and hens, and throws a handful of grain 
 on the ground. The '' chicks " as he calls them 
 rush up and begin to peck greedily at the grain, 
 when the Khansama suddenly pounces on an 
 ancient cock, seizes it by the throat and carries 
 
COLONEL MUNDY 55 
 
 it shrieking and flapping its wings to the 
 kitchen. 
 
 There he quickly stops its shrieks by cutting 
 its throat ; then hangs it up for a few moments 
 while he puts the kettle on the fire and gets the 
 fish-kettle ready. Then he plucks off the feathers, 
 cleans and trusses the bird and puts it in the fish- 
 kettle to boil for a few minutes ; then he brings 
 it on a dish and proudly lays it on the table. 
 No wonder it is a tough morsel after so quick a 
 transformation. 
 
 At last after many weary days of travelling we 
 arrived at our destination, Mozufferpore. 
 
 On arrival at Mozufferpore we found the 19th 
 Regiment were still there as the country had not 
 yet quietly settled down after the exciting times 
 of the Indian Mutiny. Colonel Mundy was in 
 command. He was an exceptionally good billiard 
 player, and told us a good story against himself. 
 I will record it as he told it. "I was once staying 
 at a hotel and I strolled into the billiard-room 
 and began knocking the balls about, when a 
 Yankee came up and asked me to have a game. 
 I complied, and he said that he would bet a 
 sovereign that he would beat me. I thought it 
 only right to let him know who I was, so I told 
 him my name. He replied : 
 
 '' ' Stranger, I guess I do not care whether 
 
56 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 your name is Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday 
 or any other darned day, but FU put a sovereign 
 on the game/ So we played, and, by Jove, sir, 
 he won it." 
 
 The district of Tirhoot was famous for its 
 numerous indigo factories, and large fortunes 
 were then made by many of the planters. They 
 were all most hospitable and jolly good fellows. 
 They had a Planters' Club at Mozufferpore of 
 which dear old Minden Wilson was the President. 
 He is still alive though very old. He wrote a most 
 amusing book about the Tirhoot indigo planters. 
 I will give one or two tales which I heard about 
 some of them. Paddy Cox, of Dooly, fifteen miles 
 from Mozufferpore, was a cheery, merry Irishman, 
 and his house and table were always open to any 
 visitors, to whom he always gave a hearty welcome. 
 He was very fond of practical jokes. Once he had 
 several planters at his bungalow and he was 
 expecting a young Irishman who was on his 
 way out from home, and was coming to be one 
 of his assistants at Dooly. It was the custom for 
 planters expecting visitors to send out horses to 
 be placed at stages on the road for the visitors 
 to ride or drive. He accordingly sent out horses 
 for young Blake, but for the last stage he sent a 
 dhobi's (washerman's) donkey. Young Blake, 
 not relishing this obstinate mount, decided to 
 
BILL THE MOUSSAFIR 57 
 
 walk the last five miles and arrived hot and very- 
 thirsty, looking more like a drowned rat ; which 
 provoked a good laugh at his expense ; however, 
 Paddy gave him a peg and introduced young 
 Blake to those present. At dinner they all, one 
 after the other, asked him to have a glass of wine 
 with them, till at last poor young Blake slipped 
 under the table and was carried to bed, and the 
 next morning his host came up to his room and 
 said : 
 
 *' Fm afraid you're in for it ; you know you were 
 beastly rude to Bill Stewart/' (Bill the Mousaffir 
 he was called.) 
 
 Poor young Blake had not the slightest remem- 
 brance of what occurred, so it was easy to persuade 
 him that he had said some very rude things to 
 Bill Stewart. Then Paddy Cox continued : 
 
 '' Bill is mad with rage and insists on a duel, 
 so I have brought you one of my pistols.'' 
 
 Young Blake had to get up and go out to the 
 spot selected for the duel. He was a wideawake 
 young fellow, and he quietly slipped a bullet or 
 two into his pocket. On the ground they saw him 
 take one of these bullets out of his pocket and 
 ram it down the muzzle of his pistol ; on seeing 
 this. Bill the Mousaffir took to his heels and made 
 tracks in a bee-line for the bungalow ; and so 
 young Blake scored. Of course the whole thing 
 had been got up as a joke and Bill's pistol was 
 loaded with jelly instead of ball, but when he 
 
58 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 found that Blake was putting a ball into his 
 pistol he found that discretion was the better 
 part of valour. They then aU returned to break- 
 fast and after it was over Blake asked for a tooth- 
 pick, so Paddy Cox told him to ask the native 
 servant for one. *' But," he said, '' I don't know 
 the Hindustani for toothpick." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Cox, " ask for a kodal." 
 You can imagine Blake's surprise when the 
 servant solemnly handed him a kodal (a native 
 spade) ! 
 
 There was some very extensive stabling at 
 Dooly which I was surprised to find full of a 
 large number of fillies. These were some of the 
 Government Stud rejections from the Poosah 
 Stud, which were sold annually as unfit for army 
 work. Cox used to buy up a large number of 
 these and send them down to Calcutta to be sold 
 by auction as harness nags, and a very fair 
 profit he made. Many indeed, nearly all, of these 
 fillies were quite thoroughbred, being got by 
 English thoroughbred sires or by high-class Arabs, 
 out of well-bred English, Australian, and country- 
 bred mares. More than one of them each year 
 turned out to be useful racers. Bill Stewart was 
 the heir to a Baronetcy, but he died before the 
 then holder of the title. His son however suc- 
 ceeded. Talking of the custom of laying out 
 horses on dak (at stages some five or six miles 
 apart), I once with my wife had a rather exciting 
 
" LALL TATTOO '' 59 
 
 drive to Hajipur on my way to Patna. At one of 
 these stages where we changed horses, the^syce 
 brought out a small horse almost a pony. It 
 was a chestnut and I learnt afterwards that it 
 was well known as a budmash (bad tempered). 
 It was called the '' Lall Tattoo.'' It took five 
 syces to harness it ; one held its left ear in a 
 switch, another the right ear with another switch, 
 while a third stood at the pony's head and with 
 one hand held the bridle and with the other hand 
 held a switch on to the pony's upper lip ; a fourth 
 held the tat's tail which he twisted round its 
 hind leg to prevent its kicking, while a fifth syce 
 lifted the shafts of the dogcart, pulled the cart 
 up behind the pony, and got the shafts into the 
 loops of the harness. The dogcart had been 
 turned round facing the way we had come from, 
 because it was always the pony's custom on 
 starting to turn round and proceed in the direction 
 contrary to that which he was facing. When the 
 harnessing was completed, we jumped up into the 
 cart, and precious slippy we had to be for the 
 pony reared up suddenly, turned round sharp, 
 and went off with a huge jump at a hand-gallop, 
 and then settled down to a steady trot and never 
 stopped till he reached the next stage ; a very good 
 dak horse when once started, but a holy terror at 
 first. 
 
6o TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 At the south-eastern comer of the Sarun 
 district where the Gunduk River separates it 
 from the district of Tirhoot, and flows into the 
 Ganges, a very large fair is held annually, which 
 is attended by many thousands of Hindoos from 
 almost all parts of India ; they assemble there to 
 bathe and wash away their sins in the holy waters 
 at the confluence of the two rivers, at the poom- 
 eema (full moon) of the month of Kartick. This 
 is generally at the end of October or in the first 
 week of November. To this fair are brought 
 for sale, elephants big and small (some quite 
 babies) ; also horses of all kinds — ^Arabs, Caboolees, 
 and country-breds in large numbers. There are 
 also booths full of Indian and Cashmiree shawls 
 and cloths of all kinds, natives' shoes, Benares 
 brass-ware ornaments, lovely alabaster boxes 
 and plates inlaid with jasper, greenstone, tur- 
 quoises, garnets, etc., in exquisite patterns, from 
 Agra ; inkstands, paper weights, etc., made of 
 steel, inlaid with gold in graceful designs ; sweet- 
 meats and in fact almost every conceivable kind 
 of commodity. The western part of the fair is 
 reserved for Europeans. The whole place is 
 covered by groves of mango trees extending for 
 miles. Under these trees are pitched the camps 
 of the several principal oflicials from the sur- 
 rounding districts. There is also a military camp 
 for the officers of the regiments stationed at 
 Dinapore on the opposite side of the Ganges. 
 
A FAIR 6i 
 
 Also there is a planters' camp. Each of these 
 camps has a large dining -tent and a huge 
 shamiana, or canopy, the floor under which is 
 covered with carpets on which are placed sofas, 
 chairs, tables, and the usual furniture of a drawing- 
 room. The road leading to these from the main 
 central road is lined with tents for visitors to 
 sleep in. Then there is a very good race-course 
 and a fine grand-stand with large ball and supper 
 rooms attached. The fair lasts ten days. The 
 first night after dinner a race ordinary is held in 
 the supper room where the usual business in 
 connection with the next morning's races is 
 transacted ; owners of race-horses put in ac- 
 ceptances or notices of horses scratched, etc. etc. ; 
 lotteries are then opened on each race and are 
 quickly filled up. The next morning at day- 
 break a military band marches past each encamp- 
 ment to wake up those who may still be asleep, and 
 warn them that it is time to get up if they want 
 to witness the first race, for the races commence 
 at a very early hour so that the last race may be 
 run before the sun is too high. That night there 
 is a ball and I have seen quite a hundred couples 
 dancing on the excellent floor of the ball-room. 
 The next day is given up to calling at the various 
 camps, and to going over the native fair. In 
 the evening a race ordinary is held for the second 
 day's racing which takes place the next morning, 
 and another ball takes place in the evening, and 
 
62 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 so it goes on for ten days ; the day's amusements 
 being varied, cricket, polo, tennis, pig-sticking, 
 etc. etc. It is a most enjoyable holiday spent 
 under canvas in open country far removed from 
 any town or village. The natives bathing in 
 thousands on the night of the full moon at the 
 confluence of the Gunduk and the Ganges is a 
 sight to be seen and remembered. The horse- 
 races are quite first class, and the Sonepore Cup 
 is to the Viceroy's Cup at Calcutta pretty much 
 what the Two Thousand is to the Epsom Derby. 
 There were always several good stables at Sonepore. 
 Colonel Robartes, who commanded a cavalry 
 regiment at Segowli, near the Nipal frontier, 
 always had some '* good uns," and a sporting 
 Scotchman, an indigo planter, owned a famous 
 horse called *' Mercury," who won several of 
 the best races. A Mr. Vincent, who with Lord 
 Ulick Browne and a Mr. Barnes had a breeding 
 stud at Barh, owned a stallion by whom they 
 got some very good winners. 
 
 Mr. Collins, a contractor, who had made a pile 
 by contracts with Government and with the 
 East India Railway Company up country, came 
 down once from Allahabad with a good string of 
 racers to the Sonepore meeting. He was a yery 
 rough diamond, but a level-headed, good man of 
 business, sharp as a needle and as straight ** as 
 
MR. COLLINS 63 
 
 they make 'em/' His language was not always 
 either Parliamentary or suitable for a drawing- 
 room. Though he was rough perhaps, he was 
 nevertheless good-natured and amusing. He was 
 a specially good type of the successful British 
 contractor. *' Caelum non animos mutant qui 
 trans mare currunt.'' There was a young Deputy 
 Magistrate who thought no small beer of himself 
 as an amateur gentleman jockey. He went up 
 to Mr. Collins one day and asked him if he would 
 give him a mount on one of his racers. Mr. Collins 
 replied, '' Why didn't you write and ask me for 
 one before the meeting ? Had you done so I 
 would have brought down a first-class mahogany 
 commode which would have been just the very best 
 sort of mount for you ! '' He did not use the 
 word commode however ; what he did call it is 
 not printable ; still the snub was about as neat a 
 one as I fancy the young '' Deputy " ever got or 
 deserved. 
 
 Why is it that some fellows are always success- 
 ful in everything they undertake ? How is it 
 that everything they touch turns to gold ? Has 
 it anything to do with luck ? with the Goddess 
 of Fortune ? Surely they ought to be content 
 with the lot which, as Horace said, ''seu Fortuna 
 dedit, seu fors objecerit.'' In spite of Horace's 
 denial I think that some are content and thus 
 
64 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 form an exception to the rule, and Frank Vincent 
 was one of these. I take it that their success is 
 due in the main to the fact that they have their 
 heads screwed on the right way, because they are 
 clear-sighted and can recognize a good opportunity 
 when it is approaching, are quick to catch it and 
 strong to hold on while it lasts, and only let go 
 when it no longer pays. Such an one was Frank 
 Vincent. He was a Deputy Magistrate in what 
 was known as the " uncovenanted '' service of the 
 Government, in which the work was hard and 
 the pay comparatively poor. Frank Vincent 
 went up to Darjeeling on leave with a friend, 
 Mr. Barnes, and there they went over some of 
 the tea plantations in the neighbourhood and 
 were so impressed that they secured some lands, 
 had them planted with tea, and the result was so 
 satisfactory that they took more land and added 
 it to their garden ; built a factory and eventually 
 made a pot of money. Vincent later with Mr. 
 Barnes and Lord Ulick Browne started a horse- 
 breeding stud at Barh at which place Vincent 
 was stationed as Deputy Magistrate in charge of 
 the sub-division. They had a very good thorough- 
 bred stallion, ** Croesus," whose stock turned out 
 well on the turf. He named some of this stallion's 
 colts and fillies after his place Barh, thus — 
 Barham, Barhman, Barhmaid, Barhone, etc. etc. 
 Having made a fortune he was lucky enough to 
 find a rich widow whom he successfully wooed and 
 
THE SONEPORE CUP 65 
 
 married. When he was at home on leave in the 
 early sixties he went to a sale of thoroughbreds 
 at the Curragh. One lot was dead lame, but 
 Vincent who knew something about horses, and 
 seeing that the horse had good racing points and 
 that his legs were clean, decided to make a bid 
 for him ; and eventually the horse was knocked 
 down to his bid of nineteen guineas. He soon got 
 the horse all right, and took him out to India. 
 He called him Curraghmore and sent him with a 
 native jockey to my stables at Chupra where he 
 asked me to look after his training for the Sonepore 
 races. I used to go out every morning to see him 
 gallop, and some others now and then rode up 
 to the race-course with me. Curraghmore certainly 
 moved well, but was not by any means hand- 
 some or attractive to look at, although a good 
 judge would recognize his good racing points. 
 My friends who were with me were not favourably 
 impressed by him, and indeed I heard one of 
 them say to another, '' What a beast ! What- 
 ever made Vincent bring out such an ugly brute ? " 
 One day Vincent came to stay with me and asked 
 me what I and the others thought of Curraghmore. 
 I told him that although the horse was not a 
 beauty I liked his paces, for he was undoubtedly 
 a good mover, but I added, " the others don't 
 fancy him much, they call him an ugly beast.'' 
 Afterwards, at Sonepore, Curraghmore won the 
 Sonepore Cup and some other good races, and 
 
66 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 Vincent came up to me and said, '* What d'ye 
 think of the ' ugly beast ' now ? " 
 
 In January each year a race-meeting was held 
 at Mozufferpore. Mr. W. H. Urquhart, a Deputy 
 Opium Agent at that station, was a fine old 
 sportsman, and a very good hand at training 
 horses for the races. He persuaded me to let him 
 train for me my thoroughbred Cape horse, *' Adam 
 Bede,*' for some of the races, for which, at his 
 advice, I entered the horse. In one race, the 
 weights for which were heavy, I was able to ride 
 my horse. There were some eight or nine entries 
 and I drew the inside place. I soon got the lead 
 and kept it easily, and I was nearing the winning- 
 post when suddenly I heard a clatter, clatter, 
 clatter behind me, and, looking round, saw little 
 Garnet Man on a country-bred belonging to Paddy 
 Cox coming up to my girths. He caught me 
 napping, and before I could get my horse going 
 he passed me and won by a short head. He had 
 a famous Galloway which he called " Chocolate " 
 with which he won every Galloway race at Sonepore, 
 Mozufferpore and at other meetings. He had 
 picked it out of an ** ekka '* for sixteen rupees, 
 and later refused an offer of Rs. looo for it ! He 
 was a member of the Bengal Uncovenanted 
 Service, and, finding his prospects anything but 
 brilliant, he went home on leave, was called to 
 
A RELATION OF CHARLES DICKENS 67 
 
 the Bar and then came back to India and did so 
 well at the Rangoon Bar that he soon made a 
 big pile, and then accepted the Recordership of 
 Rangoon. Mr. Urquhart had two sons, both 
 planters, who were good riders and successfully 
 tried their luck at small race-meetings, and 
 always were to be seen out with our pack of 
 hounds. Mr. Urquhart 's elder daughter married 
 first one of the Drummonds and secondly Bill 
 Stewart, and I met her years after in Park Lane, 
 or rather Hamilton Place, where she was staying 
 with the Drummonds. 
 
 Having passed in Hindustani, but having 
 failed in Bengali, I was transferred to the district 
 of Rajshahye in Bengal proper. My Assistant 
 Magistrate there was Percival Dickens, a relation 
 of the famous Charles Dickens. He told me 
 how he managed to pass the competitive examina- 
 tion for the Indian Civil Service, although he got 
 a round O for classics, and also a round O for 
 mathematics. He had been educated for several 
 years on the Continent, and he was well up in 
 the French, German, and Italian languages, and 
 literature ; and he got full marks for these and 
 also /^// marks for English history and literature. 
 He had such a truly marvellous memory that, 
 if you quoted a passage from any well-known 
 author, Dickens was able to continue the quotation 
 
68 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 to almost any length. He seemed to have by 
 heart all the principal works of eminent authors. 
 Full marks in any one subject have hardly ever 
 been obtained by any one candidate for the 
 I.e. Service. He was a crack billiard player and 
 we had many games together from which I learnt 
 several good hints. My predecessor at Rajshahye 
 was Charles Theophilus Metcalfe who had got up 
 a mounted Volunteer Corps in that district which 
 was full of silk filatures, and also indigo factories, 
 the managers and assistants of which all joined 
 this Volunteer Corps. When Metcalfe was trans- 
 ferred to Tirhoot he got up the Behar Mounted 
 Rifles, afterwards called the Behar Light Horse. 
 
 Having passed my examination in Bengali I 
 was retransferred to Behar to the Sarun District, 
 the head-quarters of which was at Chupra. 
 Arthur Levien was then Magistrate and Collector 
 of that district. He was a dapper little fellow who 
 could do almost anything in the way of feats of 
 agility, either on horseback or on foot, out of 
 doors or indoors. He was very popular, being 
 always in good spirits, a genial host in his own 
 house, and a welcome guest in the houses of his 
 many friends. He took the buffetings of Fate as 
 quietly as he accepted Fortune's most bounteous 
 gifts. '* iEquam servare mentem " was a maxim 
 he always followed. When almost knocked out 
 
SPEARING A WOLF 69 
 
 of time by a serious loss he would keep smiling 
 and say, '' God tempers the wind to the shorn 
 lamb/' He was a good sportsman with a very 
 good eye for the points of a race-horse. He had 
 a number of useful hacks and a race-horse named 
 *' North wold " who was second only to the 
 famous '' Vanderdecken/' and so he lost the 
 Viceroy's Cup and several other big races, but 
 in those races for which '' Van '' was not entered 
 he romped in. Levien was a good hand at pig- 
 sticking, and my first experience of that sport was 
 when he took me out with him and his party to 
 have a go at the pigs near '' Bill " Curtis's factory 
 on the banks of the Gunduk River. He told me 
 a story of how he once managed to spear a wolf ; 
 a very difficult job, as a wolf can generally out- 
 stay a horse. He managed it, however, thus : — 
 He was in a district in the Punjab when he got 
 khuhar (news) of a wolf in a neighbouring village. 
 He rode out, had the grass jungle beaten, when a 
 large wolf came out. He chased it at full gallop 
 for miles, but the wolf with its long, lolloping 
 stride kept well ahead of him, till Levien's nag 
 got too pumped to follow it any further, and the 
 wolf then trotted away quite calmly, not the 
 least distressed. Levien made enquiries from the 
 villagers who told him that the wolf came every 
 day and always went away in the same direction. 
 So Levien one morning sent a second horse on to 
 a clump of trees about two miles from the jungle 
 
70 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 where the wolf used to carry his victims. Then 
 Levien rode another horse up to the jungle, and 
 when the beaters drove out the wolf, he chased 
 the wolf at the best pace he could get out of his 
 horse, till he got to the clump of trees where he 
 had had his second horse placed. On this second 
 horse he mounted and chased the wolf till the 
 latter got pumped and then stuck him with his 
 spear, and thus put an end to its depredations. 
 
 Talking of wolves, I once got news in Chupra of 
 the frights some villagers had got from the raids 
 of a wolf who had not only killed and carried off 
 their goats and sheep, but had also carried off 
 two babies. When I went out to that village I 
 learnt that the wolf had gone away and had not 
 been since it carried off the babies. I found from 
 the villagers' tales that they had a superstitious 
 belief in lycanthropy. I asked them why they did 
 not drive off or try to kill the wolf with their 
 latthies and save the babies. They said, ** Sahib ! 
 we could not attack that wolf, for it has in it the 
 spirit of Sitaram one of our fellow villagers who 
 had gone on a pilgrimage to Juggernath where he 
 had died of cholera.'' I asked how they knew 
 that it was Sitaram's spirit in the wolf. They 
 replied, *' Because the only babies which that 
 wolf killed were the children of two of Sitaram's 
 bitterest enemies. That wolf never did any harm 
 to the children or animals of Sitaram's/n>n^s." 
 
A POPULAR VICEROY 71 
 
 When Lord Mayo was Viceroy of India he one 
 year had a camp at Sonepore fair. He was a very 
 popular Viceroy, being a genial Irishman, a good 
 sportsman and a broad-minded man of good 
 common-sense. He was a fine specimen of 
 humanity, with a fine presence, and always 
 secured the respect and kindly regard of all he 
 came in contact with. At his camp at Sonepore 
 he daily gave dinner parties and a few afternoon 
 receptions. At the first of these receptions held 
 under a huge shamiana (canopy), at which I was 
 present, I noticed that he kept on his hat although 
 the place was full of ladies, and all the other men 
 were of course uncovered. I pointed this out to 
 a friend who said, *' Don't you know that he is 
 privileged to wear his hat even in the presence 
 of royalty ? " Once in 1871 Lord Mayo came up 
 to the Shahabad district of which I was at the 
 time the Magistrate and Collector. He came to 
 open the Sone Canal works at Sasseram in the 
 south of the district, some sixty miles south of 
 Arrah. He and his staff were accompanied by 
 *' Teddy " Drummond, then Commissioner of 
 Revenue and Circuit of the Patna Division. From 
 Arrah I went with them by train to Mr. Walter 
 Thomson's fine place at Beheea, where the party 
 had lunch before which Lord Mayo thoroughly 
 enjoyed a swim in a large cover ed-in swimming 
 bath, for it was in the month of May, one of the 
 hottest months of the year. After this the party 
 
72 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 proceeded in several vehicles, mail phaetons, 
 buggies, and dogcarts to the camp at Dehree. 
 There the wide River Sone had been dammed up 
 by a strongly-built stone weir so as to get a high 
 level of water above the weir, from which canals 
 with many distributaries carried water to irrigate 
 the lands on both sides of the river for a con- 
 siderable distance, bringing some four thousand 
 square miles into touch with! the system. A little 
 lower down stream from Dehree is the famous 
 Sone bridge of the East India Railway Company's 
 main line. After opening the canals the party 
 proceeded along the Grand Trunk Road to 
 Sasseram, where I had a big lunch prepared for 
 the Viceregal party. Lord Mayo was very gracious 
 and kind, and noticed and spoke to one and all of 
 the officials of the district. He especially noticed 
 the fine saddle of mutton at lunch. I told him 
 that the Shahabad district was noted for its 
 sheep, many of which were fattened for the 
 Calcutta market. I had selected a specially fine 
 one for him ; and told him how I had arranged to 
 have it carried in a doolie by bearers the sixty 
 miles from Arrah to Sasseram, a week or ten days 
 before so that it should not get thin from such a 
 long journey on foot, and should have a few days' 
 feeding-up on the spot. 
 
A GAME OF WHIST 73 
 
 Towards the end of 1863 I went home on leave 
 from India and stayed with my father at Stepleton 
 Park. I got two winters' hunting and shooting 
 and one summer's cricket. In the summer of 
 1864 Httle Joe Gundry, an Oxford Harlequin and 
 Captain of the Dorset County Cricket Team, 
 asked me to play for Dorset v. Devon. The match 
 was to be played at Torquay, and we had a lovely 
 time there. We were made honorary members 
 of the club and Joe Gundry and I dropped in at 
 the club after dinner. We had dined at Sir 
 George Macgregor's house where I was staying. 
 At the club we sauntered into the card room. 
 We found two old stagers there, who, we after- 
 wards learned, were the best whist players in 
 the club. They asked us both to join them at a 
 game of whist. We did so, and we had the most 
 extraordinary luck, holding the most wonderful 
 hands, full of trumps and often the highest cards 
 in other suits. This luck stuck to us all through 
 the two games we played. It was a case of 
 shelling peas. Gundry, not being satisfied with 
 the high stakes, had heavy bets on the odd trick, 
 bets that were readily taken up, and we rose from 
 the table with our pockets well lined. We won 
 our cricket match, and afterwards Joe Gundry 
 and I went a tour playing in cricket matches at 
 Salisbury, Wilton, and other places. At Wilton 
 the young Earl Pembroke and his brother Sidney 
 Herbert were playing. The Earl, who was very 
 
74 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 tall, made a short speech at the cricket lunch, 
 and said in concluding it, ** I shall be only too 
 glad if I make a score as long as I am myself." 
 His hope was not realized, however, for he made 
 a duck's egg. 
 
 I also met Joe Gundry in 1869 when I was 
 again at home on leave. This time the Dorset v. 
 Devon match was played at Dorchester. Arrange- 
 ments were made for putting the members of the 
 two elevens up at different houses. I was asked 
 to stay at Mr. Fellowes' house. On arrival at 
 Dorchester I was met by Mr. Fellowes and some 
 of his guests among whom were Lord Eldon and 
 the Reverend W. H. H. TrueU. Lord Eldon 
 would insist on carrying my cricket bag to Mr. 
 Fellowes' house. He was most agreeable and 
 pleasant. TrueU was a connection of Lord Eldon's, 
 and I had met him (TrueU) before at several 
 cricket matches. He told me a very good story 
 of what happened to him when he was once 
 stopping at Lord Eldon's place. They had been 
 out shooting one day and when the shoot was 
 over TrueU made over his guns to the Head 
 Keeper to clean, and handed him a sovereign. 
 Next morning his guns were returned not only 
 uncleaned, but with the muzzles fiUed up with 
 mud. The Head Keeper, who was accustomed 
 to tips in " paper,'* looked with contempt on 
 
THE SOURCE OF THE STOUR 75 
 
 TruelFs tip of a ^' quid/' When Truell told 
 Eldon about this, the latter very properly sent 
 for the gamekeeper and turned him off there and 
 then, which served him jolly well right. 
 
 It was, I think, in 1855 or 1856 that I went 
 with my father and mother to Stourhead the 
 seat of Sir Henry Hoare. In the lovely grounds 
 the River Stour rises. As we entered these grounds 
 we saw before us an exquisite scene : A large 
 lake across the narrow end of which nearest to us 
 was a pretty three-arched bridge. Beyond this 
 lake was studded with little islets covered with 
 rhododendrons, which in the month of June give 
 colour to the landscape with their beautiful 
 blooms, of various shades of rose, mauve, white, 
 and rich carmine. The lake is surrounded by 
 small hills, covered with fine trees of every 
 description. On our right was a fine model of 
 the Temple of the Muses ; on our left on a rounded 
 hill the Temple of the Sun rose from a small 
 clearing in the woods. At the further end of the 
 lake stood a perfect replica of the Pantheon. 
 Beyond this was a hillock, under which was a 
 hoUowed-out circular cave with a domed roof ; 
 and on the right-hand side of this cave was an 
 opening which let in the light on to the stream 
 of the Stour. In this stream was a bed of rock, 
 reclining on which was a beautiful figure of a 
 
76 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 nymph carved out of pure Carrara marble. On 
 a brass plate on the bank of the stream were 
 engraved the following lines out of Pope's 
 poem : 
 
 " Nymph of the grot these sacred springs I keep 
 And to the murmur of these waters sleep. 
 Oh ! spare my slumbers gently tread the cave. 
 And drink in silence, or in silence lave." 
 
 Then over the further entrance to the cave was 
 a board on which were inscribed the following 
 lines from Virgil : 
 
 " Hie domus, hae sedes, hcec sunt penetralia magni 
 Amnis, in hoc residens facto de cautibus antro 
 Undis jura dabat." 
 
 Just beyond was a grotto in which was the 
 figure of the God of the Stour with an oar and 
 some bulrushes in one hand, while under the 
 other arm he held a pitcher from which flowed 
 the first visible waters of the Stour, which after 
 passing by the cave ran into the lake. From the 
 end of this lake the Stour pursued its tortuous 
 course through the fair lands of Dorset on its 
 way to the British Channel near Christ church. 
 We revelled in these grounds ** from rosy mom to 
 dewy eve," and made many sketches with all 
 the ever-changing charms of light and shade ; 
 first as Calverley sang, '' When the rosy mom 
 appearing floods with Hght the dazzled heaven," 
 up to the time when, as Macaulay so beautifully 
 
ALFRED'S TOWER ^^ 
 
 expresses it, the scene is suffused with ''the 
 mellow effulgence of the setting sun." The lands 
 of the estate are at a considerable altitude above 
 sea-level, and on the highest point stands Alfred's 
 Tower which was erected to commemorate his 
 last great victory. It is said that the view from 
 the top of this tower extends over thirteen 
 counties, and though this is very probably an 
 exaggeration, you can certainly see the higher 
 lands in some seven or eight counties. Close to 
 the tower is the spot where the three counties of 
 Dorsetshire, Somersetshire, and Wiltshire meet. 
 You have, of course, heard of Sir Boyle Roche's 
 bird and its ability to be in two places at one 
 and the same time. Well I have beaten that 
 bird's record, for lying at full length on my back 
 at this trij unction point, my head rested in 
 Dorset while my left leg was in Somerset and my 
 right leg in Wilts. 
 
 Phineas Horlock, who was always called '' Phi," 
 was my father's coachman. He was quite a 
 character. Sharp as a needle, and '' cute as 
 they make 'em," he could put his hand to almost 
 anything. He commenced life as a stable-boy in 
 Bill Day's training stables at Woodyates. He 
 was very like a monkey in appearance as well as 
 in certain gestures. The first thing he took to 
 and quickly mastered was writing in shorthand ; 
 
78 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 then he learnt photography from me, purchased 
 a camera and became quite a good photographer. 
 He was also a capital hand at carpentry, and he 
 made a harmonium which turned out so well 
 that he was allowed to play it in our little private 
 chapel in the grounds at Stepleton. When he 
 was perched on the seat playing it he looked more 
 like a monkey than ever. We had a splendid 
 little Irish pony called '* Erin,'' about which Phi 
 told me an amusing story as follows : ** Cute d'ye 
 call him, Master Hastings ? " he said. *' Why, 
 what d'ye think I caught 'im doin' t'other day ? 
 I 'ad been out of the stable for a few minutes 
 'aving left my coat 'anging up in the saddle 
 room. When I came back I saw a lot of marks 
 on the floor, and some froth all about the pockets 
 of my coat that I left 'anging in the saddle 
 room. I looked in the pockets and found that a 
 happle which I had left in one of the pockets 
 was missing. ' That's that little varmint Erin,' 
 says I to myself ; and so I goes to 'is loose box 
 between the saddle room and the coach 'ouse ; 
 and there 'e was lookin' the pictur of hinnocence 
 with the door of the loose box shut-to, but un- 
 latched. He had managed to lift the latch with 
 his teeth to let 'isself out, but couldn't manage 
 to latch hit when 'e scuttled back on hearing my 
 footsteps." Phi was a plucky little chap, toQ, as 
 the following will show. I had a sUght accident 
 from my gun by which I lost the top of my fore- 
 
HORLOCK'S MARVELLOUS COURAGE 79 
 
 finger of my left hand, and Phi was sent in the 
 dogcart to Blandford for the doctor. On his way, 
 at the bottom of the steep hill opposite Heyward's 
 Bridge, the mare tried to bolt and one of the 
 reins broke. Just at that moment Lord Sidney 
 Godolphin Osborne was walking along the road 
 in front of the dog-cart, and he told us afterwards 
 of Phi Horlock's marvellous courage which Phi 
 had never told us about. It seems that finding 
 the rein was broken Phi climbed over the splash- 
 board and scrambled along the mare's back, his 
 feet on the shafts, till he reached the mare's 
 neck, when he was able to get hold of the broken 
 end of the rein and pull the mare up. I doubt 
 whether anyone but Phi or a monkey could have 
 managed to do this while the mare was galloping 
 swiftly along. There's some use in being like a 
 monkey sometimes ! 
 
 Our private chapel in the grounds at Stepleton 
 is worth mention. When we first went there a 
 huge ugly board with the twelve commandments 
 printed on it covered the east end of the chapel 
 above the altar. When my father and the Rev. 
 Mr. Penny restored the chapel, this huge board 
 was taken down, and behind it was found a bricked- 
 up arch with a beautiful old window. Round the 
 arch was a partly-broken stone border, orna- 
 mentally carved, in which were combined the 
 Norman zigzag and the Saxon pellet, showing its 
 antiquity. At the west end of the chapel were 
 
8o TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 the burial vaults in which were interred the 
 remains of the several ancestors of Lord Rivers' 
 family. On a marble tablet to the memory of 
 Peter Beckford were engraved the following 
 
 lines : 
 
 " We die and are forgotten, 
 Tis heaven's decree ; 
 And so the fate of others 
 Must be the fate of me." 
 
 *' Why shouldn't it be your fate }'* I used to think 
 when I read these lines. Peter Beckford was, 
 I believe, the brother of the Beckford who built 
 Beckford's Tower on the top of Lansdown Hill 
 near Bath ; in which Tower Pope wrote many 
 of his famous poems. The garden and grounds 
 at Stepleton owe to Peter Beckford the two huge 
 stone vases on pedestals, beautifully proportioned 
 and ornamented with carved wreaths, also two 
 Satyrs' heads on the tops of stone columns, also 
 a leaden statue, life-size of Diana venatrix, all 
 of which Beckford brought from Italy. 
 
 Sir William Hudson, known to his friends as 
 Paddy Hudson, was President of the Behar 
 Planters' Association. When I was acting as 
 Behar Opium Agent at Patna my brother-in-law, 
 Fred Halliday, was the Commissioner of Revenue 
 and Circuit of the Patna Division. He was called 
 upon by Government to enquire and report on 
 some contemplated legislation in connection with 
 
SIR WILLIAM HUDSON'S REPORT 8i 
 
 the relations between indigo planters and the 
 natives of the districts where indigo was cultivated, 
 Fred Halliday sent copies of the correspondence 
 to Paddy Hudson for a report on the views held 
 by indigo planters. After a short time Paddy 
 Hudson, who was a bit of a wag, submitted his 
 so-called report which consisted of a number of 
 sheets of foolscap headed thus : 
 
 From W. B. Hudson 
 
 President Behar Planters' Association 
 To the Commissioner of the Patna Division. 
 
 dated Mozufferpore the of 
 
 Then followed many blank pages at the end of 
 which were the words : 
 
 I am. Sir, your obedient servant. 
 
 Signed W. B. Hudson. 
 
 Attached to this was a note from Paddy Hudson, 
 in which he said, '' I submit the annexed report ; 
 will you kindly fill up the hiatus ? " Of course 
 the papers were returned to Paddy to be filled 
 up and eventually Fred Halliday got a very good 
 report on the subject. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 TIRHUT, BHAUGULPORE, AND ARRAH 
 
 Captain Sir John Farquhar, Indian Government Stud Depart- 
 ment — Sir Richard Temple, Bart., G.C.S.I. etc. etc. — Messrs. 
 Burrowes, Mylne and Thomson of Beheea, and Mr. Michael 
 Fox of Cutthea — The Maharajah of Doomraon — Alonzo 
 Money, C.B. — " Spinning Jenny " — Padre Adams, V.C. — 
 H.R.H. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales — Ghosts — A dream 
 which came true — The Sonthals, a hill tribe — Mr. Cleveland 
 and his two memorials — Sir Cecil Beadon — Mr. Gregor 
 Grant of Bhaugulpore, indigo planter and large landowner 
 — Mr. Teignmouth Sandys. 
 
 WHEN I returned to India in 1869 I 
 was sent to Mozufferpore as Joint 
 Magistrate to await a district vacancy. 
 I stayed with my brother-in-law, Fred Halliday, 
 who was then Magistrate and Collector of Tirhut. 
 Captain Farquhar, who was in charge of the 
 Government Stud at Poosa, in the Mozufferpore 
 district, was staying at Fred Halliday 's house 
 also, as well as some of the officers of the Rifle 
 Brigade from Dinapore, for the race-meeting in 
 Mozufferpore. The Behar Light Horse gave a 
 big dinner under canvas to all the residents and 
 visitors. I drove Johnny Farquhar up to the 
 
 dinner and we found that there were several 
 
 82 
 
JOHNNY FARQUHAR 83 
 
 tables marked ABC and so on. A list was hung 
 up showing each of the guests the table at which 
 he was to sit. As we went in, some of the officers 
 of the Rifle Brigade came up and asked us at 
 which table we were dining. We said, '' at B 
 table.'* Johnny Farquhar then asked them 
 which was their table, and one of them replied, 
 ^^Oh! we're in (HEL)L." At once Johnny 
 Farquhar said, '' By Jove ! you're in luck, for 
 you will at least get your dinner hot ! " After 
 the meet I went to Poosa and spent a pleasant 
 week with Farquhar. He took me round the 
 numerous stables and paddocks, all beautifully 
 clean and well kept. He also showed me the 
 school he had opened for the children of the 
 natives employed at the farm. I heard that when 
 Lord Mayo came to inspect the stud, he and the 
 ladies of his party who had known Johnny 
 Farquhar as a smart man about town, were 
 astonished to find him taking an interest in 
 schools for native children ! It was too funny 
 for words. When I was at Haileybury Johnny 
 Farquhar 's elder brother was there also ; and his 
 father Sir Walter was the Conservative candidate 
 at the 1856 election for the Hertford seat. Sir 
 Walter had several sons, and most of them 
 succeeded to the baronetcy, for they one after the 
 other died sine prole. My friend Johnny who 
 was, I think, the third brother who succeeded to 
 the baronetcy did not hold it long, and as he had 
 
84 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 no son, he was succeeded by a younger brother, 
 the present baronet. Sir Robert. 
 
 In the famine year 1873-74, I was at Rampore 
 Beauleah, the head-quarters of the district of 
 Rajshahye. The people of this district did not 
 suffer so much from the famine as those of some 
 of the adjoining districts did. My district being 
 on the north bank of the Ganges was selected as 
 a convenient spot in which grain could be collected 
 and stored, and thence distributed as need arose 
 among the famine-stricken districts adjoining it. 
 Sir Richard Temple who was then Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Bengal visited Rampore Beauleah 
 and Godagari where we had constructed huge 
 store-houses for grain. Sir Richard was much 
 criticized about his enormous expenditure in 
 grain and in " colossal cash advances '' to ryots, 
 and some people declared that there was no 
 famine at all, that Sir Richard invented it. But 
 we who knew felt that had it not been for the 
 prompt and energetic measures taken by Sir 
 Richard there would have been the most frightful 
 mortality from starvation. This was certainly 
 one of the cases in which prevention is better 
 than cure. If there was no famine it was because 
 Sir Richard prevented it. While Sir Richard was 
 at Beauleah I used to attend him and his party 
 on their early morning rides. The town was, for 
 
SIR RICHARD TEMPLE 85 
 
 a Bengali town, fairly clean and free from jungle. 
 But when riding, one morning, we turned sud- 
 denly on to a road leading out to the country 
 and I was disgusted to find that the conservancy 
 overseer had neglected this outlying part of the 
 municipality. The jungle had been allowed to 
 grow unchecked and to spread right up to and 
 behind several native huts. Close to the side 
 of one house was a hollow full of the most disgust- 
 ingly putrid and stinking water of a dark brown 
 colour, caused by decomposing leaves fallen into 
 it from the surrounding jungle, and also by the 
 filth and sweepings from the adjacent huts ; a 
 pestiferous spot, a veritable nursery for the germs 
 of cholera, diphtheria and malarious fever. *' Now 
 I'm in for it," I thought as Sir Richard pulled up 
 and surveyed the scene. After a good long look 
 he turned to me and said, '' How lovely ! How 
 exquisite ! " Then he turned again to have 
 another look at the spot. I burst out laughing 
 at his unexpected exclamations, when he turned 
 round again suddenly with a look of surprise. 
 I explained how I had expected to get a good 
 wigging for allowing such a noisome pestilential 
 hole to exist within the municipality, at which he 
 joined heartily in the laugh, and said, '' That 
 shows how differently two persons can look at a 
 thing." Sir Richard used to paint very well in 
 water-colours and was a warm admirer of the 
 beauties of Nature. It was certainly a beautiful 
 
86 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 picture, lit up by the rays of the morning sun : 
 the luxuriant growth of the jungle ; the many 
 various colours of the foliage ; the graceful ferns ; 
 the wild hemp ; the pale silvery green of the 
 Calotropis gigantea in sharp relief against a back- 
 ground of the dark brown and ruby red foliage of 
 the ** bughundi/' or wild croton plant ; many a 
 *' liquid gem of sparkling dew " hanging from 
 each stem and leaf ; dragon-flies with their bright 
 iridescent hues flashing in the sun's rays. It all 
 formed a truly lovely picture, and no wonder Sir 
 Richard's artistic eye was enchanted with it. On 
 another occasion Sir Richard came to my district 
 to inspect the new line of the Northern Bengal 
 State Railway, from Sara on the Ganges to the 
 foot of the hills below Darjiling. Lord Ulick 
 Browne, the Commissioner of the Rajshahye 
 Division, and I met Sir Richard and travelled 
 with him on a trolly pushed along by coolies as 
 far as Nattore, where I had a dinner prepared for 
 the party in a large tent, the approach to which 
 was lined with hundreds of flags, and by blue- 
 coated and red-pugried native constables. The 
 Sub-Divisional Officer named Blyth helped in the 
 decorations. Young Fasson, an Assistant Magi- 
 strate, also helped and he invented a motto for 
 Blyth which he inscribed on one of the flags, on 
 which was depicted a dreary wilderness over 
 which rain was falling in torrents, representing 
 Nattore ; the motto underneath was. ** In flebili 
 
A DESERTED VILLAGE ^7 
 
 loco jucundus " in allusion to Bl3rth. The next 
 day we went along the line, and, at a place where 
 it was to cross a river, the bridge had not been 
 completed. The railway engineers told us of the 
 difficulties they had to contend with owing to 
 quicksands and the want of a firm foundation. 
 The natives declared that a devil lived at the 
 bottom of the stream who wouldn't allow the 
 foundations to stand ; so they brought some holy 
 men to exorcise the devil. Whether this had any 
 effect or not, certain it is that almost immediately 
 after the incantations the foundations were suc- 
 cessfully laid and the bridge was completed. At 
 one point we passed a deserted village, the huts 
 of which were more or less in ruins, when Sir 
 Richard quoted from Goldsmith : 
 
 " Sweet Auburn, fairest village of the plain," 
 
 at which we both laughed, for even Sir Richard's 
 poetic imagination could not look on the drab 
 ruins of this unsightly village as in any way 
 comparable, except perhaps for its desolation, 
 to Goldsmith's "Sweet Auburn." 
 
 Sir Richard had a very narrow escape once. 
 When he was riding along one of the dangerous 
 hill-paths at Darjeeling and going round a sharp 
 turn, he suddenly met a man, an officer of the 
 P. W.D., on a pony. The officer had a huge sola topee 
 on his head, and Sir Richard's horse took fright 
 and reared and then suddenly swerved round and 
 
88 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 fell down a precipice. Sir Richard had only just 
 time to throw himself off on to the road before 
 his horse fell. Sir Richard very pluckily caught 
 at the mare's rein, and tried to hold her up but 
 without success. A full account of this accident 
 is given by Sir Richard in his book The Story of 
 My Life. 
 
 Sir Richard was a very energetic and ambitious 
 man. A wag once made the following forecast of 
 Sir Richard's career. *' He will be Lieutenant- 
 Governor of a Province ; then Governor of a 
 Presidency ; then Viceroy of India ; he will 
 then return to England, be elected a member 
 of Parliament, then become Prime Minister. 
 Eventually he will die and go to Heaven, where 
 he will be made an Archangel and then he will 
 say, ' Ah ! there is still one thing higher for me 
 to attain to ! ' " 
 
 At Beheea in a magnificent house lived three 
 men, Messrs. Burrowes, Mylne, and Thomson, who 
 made large fortunes in the Shahabad district of 
 Bengal. They made themselves very useful in the 
 Mutiny and by their knowledge of the district 
 they gave valuable assistance to Sir Vincent Eyre's 
 forces, as guides, when he fought and pursued the 
 rebel Koer Singh's army up to Sasseram, where he 
 finally and completely defeated them. After the 
 Mutiny was over Messrs. Thomson, Burrowes, and 
 
THE MARARAJAH OF DOOMRAON 89 
 
 Mylne got from the Government as a reward for 
 their valuable services a long lease, at a very low 
 rental, of the whole of Koer Singh's extensive 
 estates which had been sequestered. These 
 estates were mostly covered with jungle which 
 the lessees cleared, and many thousands of acres 
 were thus brought under cultivation and let out 
 in regularly defined plots to ryots. The wilderness 
 was turned into a fruitful land, much to the 
 advantage of both the landlords and the ryots. 
 When I was Magistrate and Collector of Shahabad, 
 both Mr. Burrowes and Mr. Mylne had retired 
 with ample fortunes, and Mr. Walter Thomson 
 joined Mr. Michael Fox, of Cutthea, an adjoining 
 estate, as a partner in contracts with the East 
 India Railway Company. They kept open house 
 and nearly always had some guests staying with 
 them. Michael Fox's brother, Charles Fox, was 
 Manager of the estates of the Maharajah of 
 Doomraon, who during the Mutiny remained loyal 
 to the Government. 
 
 The Maharajah of Doomraon was a distinguished 
 nobleman who owned extensive estates in the 
 Shahabad and other districts ; and though the 
 owners of some adjoining estates were disaffected 
 during the Mutiny, while one of them Koer Singh 
 was one of the rebel chiefs, the old Maharajah 
 remained loyal to the Government. He was a 
 
90 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 fine old gentleman, polite and courteous, kind 
 and generous to his tenants, one of the good old 
 sort. Some of his estates were situated in an 
 adjoining district of the North-West Provinces 
 on the other side of the Kurrumnasa River. 
 The Hindustani name Kurrumnasa means the 
 destroyer of virtue. Being very superstitious 
 the Maharajah never crossed that river to visit 
 his estates on the other side, for the native 
 managers of those estates assured him that it 
 would be very unlucky to cross that river. He had 
 a pretty little garden bungalow, two stories high, 
 near his palace, which he always placed at my 
 disposal whenever I visited Doomraon during my 
 cold weather tours. The bungalow was pleasantly 
 situated in a prettily - laid - out and well-kept 
 garden. The approach to it was an imitation of 
 the approach to the famous Taj Mahal at Agra. 
 It was a broad path with a fairly wide masonry 
 watercourse running up the middle of it. In the 
 water grew several varieties of water-lilies, whose 
 rose, white and carmine blossoms rested on the 
 surface. On both sides of the path were borders 
 gay with flowers of every hue, and divers sorts 
 of plants with gracefully variegated foliage, and 
 rows of palms, plantains, pomegranates and 
 citrons. As we walked along this path the air 
 was filled with the delicate fragrance of the 
 Bussora rose (from which is extracted the well- 
 known '' atr of rose "), the sweet scent of the 
 
SNIPE SHOOTING 91 
 
 tuberoses, and the somewhat strong and rather 
 sickly odour of the Chumpa. Fruit trees in 
 abundance suppHed us with their luscious products. 
 At even, darkness hides the beauties of leaf and 
 blossom, the scene is changed, and millions of 
 fire-flies with their fairy lamps flit about in 
 endless twisting gyrations. An earthly paradise ? 
 yes ; but, like all earthly paradises, it has its draw- 
 backs ; for instance the rapacious mosquito will 
 not leave you long in peace, but will buzz about 
 you ; his song is not calculated to charm the savage 
 breast, it certainly makes one savage ; and his 
 bite leaves an itching memory you would be glad 
 to get rid of ; then the evil stinking '' gundee " 
 will get into your soup, or into a side dish, and 
 the imparted flavour is — well, simply awful ; then 
 centipedes and scorpions are not by any means 
 pleasant companions ; and musk rats gnaw holes 
 in your boots, and make everything they touch 
 smell strong, and communicate a disagreeable 
 noisome flavour to your beer and wine, by crawling 
 over the unopened bottles. Near this garden 
 bungalow is a large jheel (lake), round the edges 
 of which I and my friend Scobell Armstrong had 
 some excellent snipe shooting. On the banks of 
 this jheel under a grove of mango trees was a 
 small shooting lodge belonging to the Maharajah, 
 where, after shooting all the morning, we took our 
 bag and had breakfast, to which the snipe added 
 a savoury dish. In the afternoons we had some 
 
92 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 good wild-duck and teal shooting ; and in the 
 evening, as we left the jheel for home, the pro- 
 longed and loud croaking of the frogs, for the 
 first time, made me realize how accurate was 
 Aristophane's description of the frog's chorus by 
 his '' Breki ki kex, ko-ax, ko-ax." 
 
 When I returned to India after my first leave 
 home, I was posted to the Bhaugulpore district, 
 where Alonzo Money was the Revenue Com- 
 missioner of the Division. He was a bit of what 
 we call in India a ''bahadur'' — ^that is a big wig, 
 a man of exalted position, who keeps it up, looks 
 it, and knows it. He seemed therefore to be 
 rather '' stand-ofiish," but on the whole he was 
 a very good fellow and a sportsman. He used to 
 drive a very fine team of four Walers in his break, 
 and often took several of us out on moonlight 
 nights after dinner, and these drives were delicious 
 in the cool night air after the heat and toil of an 
 Indian summer's day. Often he drove us down 
 to the mess of the officers of the i8th Regiment of 
 Bengal Native Infantry, where we enjoyed a few 
 games of billiards and long well-iced pegs of 
 whisky and soda. Alonzo Money was a very 
 good billiard player and so was Mosely, the 
 Colonel of the i8th. The district of Bhaugulpore 
 is a very large one, reaching up to the Nipal 
 frontier, and is cut in half by the River Ganges. 
 
BHAUGULPORE 93 
 
 The northern part has a Hght sandy soil and yields 
 fine cereal crops. Quail and duck-shooting is 
 very good, and in the north there are numbers of 
 florican which make the most excellent eating. 
 The part of the district south of the Ganges is 
 high land with laterite soil abounding in '' kun- 
 ker '' (nodular limestone). There are many hills 
 and extensive jungles, in which are to be found 
 tigers, leopards, bears, sambhur, and fallow 
 deer, antelopes, jungle fowl, and partridges. 
 Alonzo Money was a good shot and we had some 
 good sport in the cold weather. In the north of 
 the district near the Maharajah of Sonbursa's 
 place wild buffalo are to be found, and in the 
 extreme north near the Nipal frontier there are 
 tigers and deer, and also florican. The town of 
 Bhaugulpore is on a high ridge of land on the 
 right bank of the Ganges. It is a long, straggling 
 town or rather a succession of villages with here 
 and there small breaks of open country. One 
 rainy season the Ganges rose to a higher level 
 than usual, and the wild boars and sows on the 
 *' dearas " (sandy islands in the river) were 
 driven by the floods on to the high lands on the 
 south side of the river. They did a lot of damage 
 to the Indian corn and sugar-cane crops, and we 
 the residents in Bhaugulpore determined to have 
 a little pig-sticking. Alonzo Money and I and 
 others mounted our nags the following morning 
 and rode up to some jungles into which we sent 
 
94 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 some native beaters with tom-toms and lathies 
 (bamboo poles). Alonzo Money was on his big 
 horse on the high ground near a deep ravine, on 
 the bank of which was some thick jungle. A pig 
 broke cover and charged Money's horse. Money 
 got his spear into it, but it did not do much 
 damage to the pig which turned back into the 
 jungle. Money's native cook had come out to see 
 the fun and had brought his kitchen spit with him. 
 Money told him to try and drive the pig out of 
 the jungle again. In went the cook poking his 
 spit into the bushes. The pig suddenly charged 
 and knocked the cook down, and being on the 
 edge of the ravine, cook and pig both fell over the 
 edge and rolled down to the bottom of the ravine 
 which was then luckily dry. None of the natives 
 could be induced to go down to the cook's assist- 
 ance, so I took my mare '* Spinning Jenny " up 
 to the edge of the ravine and urged her to go 
 down. She did not at all like it as the bank was 
 almost precipitous, and the laterite soil was very 
 hard and stony. The plucky little mare, seeing 
 that I insisted, put her hind legs well under her 
 and cautiously put her fore feet over the edge 
 and then slid down the steep bank to the bottom 
 of the ravine. We got there only just in time, 
 for the cook was lying prone on the ground, and 
 the pig was standing over him slashing his back 
 and his sides. I took ** Jenny " up to the pig 
 and got my spear well in, giving it an extra dig ; 
 
" SPINNING JENNY " 95 
 
 this proved quite enough for piggy-wiggy, and it 
 fell over on its side. Then the danger over, 
 several natives came up and lifted the poor 
 lacerated cook and carried him home. It luckily 
 turned out that the pig was a sow, for had it 
 been a boar the cook would have been done for. 
 I never before saw nor since have seen a sow 
 charge a horse or a man. The cook had no less 
 than sixteen wounds, but he recovered and I 
 fancy he never again went out pig-sticking with 
 a kitchen spit ! Alonzo Money afterwards became 
 a member of the Board of Revenue, and when he 
 retired from the service was appointed to a high 
 post as head of an important Department in 
 Egypt. 
 
 My mare, ''Spinning Jenny," I bought from 
 Frank Alexander when I succeeded him as Joint 
 Magistrate of Bhaugulpore. He warned me to be 
 careful how I mounted her as she had a habit of 
 turning her head round and seizing the rider's 
 leg with her teeth, a sure sign that some one had 
 once ill-treated her ; I went up to her and patted 
 her and spoke kindly to her, and then mounted, 
 and she never once tried any tricks on me. She 
 was a flea-bitten grey Punjabi mare by a thorough- 
 bred Arab sire. She had most easy pleasant 
 paces and any amount of endurance. She was 
 well up to all the pitfalls and dangerous places 
 
96 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 of the country. Once in the north of the district 
 we came to a quicksand, when she at once flopped 
 down and spread out her four legs like a spread 
 eagle and thus saved herself from sinking rapidly. 
 We managed to pull her out, luckily, as it was only 
 on the edge of the quicksand. She lived to the 
 great age of thirty-one and was hardly ever sick 
 or sorry during the twenty-three years she so well 
 and so faithfully served me. She was up to the 
 end so full of vitality that she actually tried 
 to bolt with me when she was twenty-seven 
 years old ! 
 
 For part of the time I was at Bhaugulpore, the 
 Rev. J. W. Adams, who was generally known as 
 *' Padre Adams," was the Chaplain at that 
 station. He was a splendid type of the '' Muscular 
 Christian," and a thoroughly good fellow in every 
 sense of the word. I saw a great deal of him, as 
 when my wife and children were ''up in the 
 hills north of Dehra," I, finding it rather lonely in 
 a big house all by myself, went to chum with 
 Padre Adams at the Parsonage. He was one of 
 the strongest men I ever met. He used to practise 
 with a pair of dumb-bells fifty-six pounds in weight 
 and he used them with the greatest ease. When I 
 first saw him naked, in the swimming-bath, I was 
 struck with his fine muscular development and 
 especially by the enormous size of his biceps 
 
PADRE ADAMS 97 
 
 which was just like a leg of mutton. He had 
 made more than one record in London gym- 
 nasiums with feats of strength. Later he went as 
 Field Chaplain with our forces during the Afghan 
 War. He told me afterwards how when advancing 
 through the thick woods he saw some (fortunately 
 the few exceptions) of our Tommies skulking 
 behind trees, so he seized them by the scruff of 
 the neck, lugged them out and shoved them 
 forward. He was loudly in praise of our Tommies 
 as a whole, however. He was, I believe, the first 
 padre to get a V.C. He did not tell me of this, 
 though I saw the accounts of his pluck, how under 
 fire he used his magnificent strength to get our 
 guns out of a muddy ditch or hollow in which 
 they had stuck fast, at a time when the enemy 
 cavalry were sweeping down to capture them. 
 He put his shoulder to the wheel and by a 
 mighty effort got them out and helped to save 
 them. 
 
 When he was leaving Bhaugulpore he asked me 
 to get up a raffle for his horse. I did so, and put 
 his name down for two of the tickets. One of 
 these tickets won him back his horse. He con- 
 sented after much persuasion, though he protested 
 strongly against the proposal, to let the horse be 
 put up a second time, and again I put his 
 name down for a ticket. Again he won, and 
 in despair he gave it away as a present. He 
 did not marry till he retired and returned to 
 
98 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 England, and he did not live many years after 
 that event. 
 
 In the year after Sir Richard Temple's famine, 
 H.R.H. Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, came 
 out to India. He held a Durbar (or Levee) at 
 Bankipore, the civil station of the district of 
 Patna. At this Durbar all the Officials who had 
 done good work during the famine were summoned 
 to attend. Charles Theophilus Metcalfe was then 
 the Commissioner of the Division. He made all 
 the arrangements for the Durbar, and very taste- 
 fully and well they were carried out under his 
 supervision. We were all in turn presented 
 to the Prince. To show how closely H.R.H. 
 attended to details, I may mention that when 
 Ross Mangles, V.C, the Secretary to the Govern- 
 ment of Bengal, was presented to him, the Prince 
 stopped him and pointed out to him that he 
 (Ross Mangles) had got his V.C. decoration in 
 the wrong place, for he said the V.C. medal should 
 have precedence before all other decorations, and 
 e made Mangles change it to its right place then 
 and there. After lunch the Prince showed his 
 well-known appreciation of female beauty by 
 spotting among the guests the prettiest woman 
 present, and he requested that she should be 
 brought up and presented to him. A squadron 
 of the Behar Light Horse met him at the railway 
 
GHOSTS 99 
 
 station and escorted him to the Patna Durbar 
 camp. They also escorted him back to the 
 railway station when he went after the Durbar to 
 continue his tour to the North -West Provinces 
 and the Punjab. The Prince complimented them 
 warmly on their smartness. 
 
 When I went on tour in the cold weather in 
 the Bhaugulpore district my first halt was at 
 Colgong, where I used to put up at Mr. Barnes' 
 fine house which was situated on the top of a hill 
 overlooking the Ganges River. The house was 
 empty as Mr. Barnes had been absent for some 
 years, but he very kindly put his house at the 
 disposal of any of the officials who might like to 
 stay there for a night or so. When I first went 
 there it had not been occupied by anyone for 
 more than a year. I had my solitary dinner in 
 the huge dining-room, sitting at the head of the 
 table which was long enough to dine forty guests. 
 After dinner when the servants had left the room 
 and I was enjoying a good manilla cigar, several 
 bats came into the room and began flying round 
 and round, swooping down now and then un- 
 pleasantly close to my head, till I was able, with 
 a driving whip, to make them fly out and leave 
 me in peace. Having finished my cigar and 
 enjoyed a '' peg/' I turned in, in a bedroom 
 upstairs and slept soundly till I was awakened in 
 
100 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 the early dawn and felt that I was not alone. 
 Then I saw in the dim light a ghastly figure with 
 a dark face and what looked like a large white 
 sheet wrapped round its head and hanging down 
 over its back. It was just for aU the world like 
 a ghost, sitting on the foot-rail of my bed, staring 
 at me. Then in the uncertain light I made out 
 two similar figures perched on the ledge of one of 
 the windows. I jumped up suddenly when all 
 three of the ghosts scampered away and jumped 
 out of the window on to the ground, some fourteen 
 feet below. I then discovered that they were 
 huge " Lungoors " (a species of large monkey), 
 almost as tall as a man, with black faces and 
 hands, while the tops of their heads and their 
 bodies are covered with thick white hair. It gave 
 me at first rather a creepy feeling to see these 
 brutes in my bedroom in the semi-darkness of 
 the early dawn before I was well awake, and I 
 naturally thought before they scampered away 
 that they were ghosts. 
 
 Did you ever hear of a real case of the correct 
 foretelling of a death pictured in all its vivid 
 details by a dream, to a person who was far 
 away from the place where the death took place ? 
 I was out with a shooting party near Rhotas, in 
 the hills in the south of the Shahabad district, 
 with young Wilkinson who was our host. We 
 
A RACING TRAGEDY ; ;:;v.;;>i^qi 
 
 went out on foot after a tiger, bear, and sambhur 
 deer. Wilkinson was a very plucky youngster 
 and often went out on foot after big game. When 
 our party broke up and the guests went their 
 several ways, Wilkinson told me he was going to 
 ride in a steeplechase at Ballygunge, near Calcutta, 
 in about three weeks' time. I returned to Arrah. 
 Some time after this I dreamt one night that I 
 was witnessing a race, and I recognized young 
 Wilkinson on a big horse, jumping over a very big 
 fence. I saw his horse blunder and fall with its 
 rider, who was apparently killed on the spot. A 
 few days later I saw an account of the steeple- 
 chase in a morning paper from which I learnt 
 that Wilkinson had been killed by a fall at the 
 big jump on the very morning on which I had 
 my dream. Now I had not been thinking of 
 young Wilkinson and his coming mount in the 
 steeplechase during the last few days before my 
 dream. I had quite forgotten all about it. 
 
 Young Wilkinson had a brother in Tirhut who 
 was always known as *' the skipper,'' a jolly, breezy 
 boy, always full of fun and ready for a lark. 
 
 On the south of the districts of Bhaugulpore 
 and Monghyr is a large tract which is called the 
 Sonthal Pergunnahs, inhabited by a hill tribe 
 known as Sonthals. A good many Sonthals live 
 also in the Khuruckpore Hills in the Monghyr 
 
:«SS{;:. TALES .RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 district. They are keen and excellent shikaris^ 
 and wonderfully clever trackers. They wear very 
 little clothing, and are seldom to be seen without 
 bows and arrows. I was camping one cold 
 weather with my friend, Scobell Armstrong, at 
 the foot of the Khuruckpore Hills and we had 
 some good shooting, a number of Sonthals coming 
 with us as shikaris. They placed us some way 
 up one of the hills which was covered with thick 
 jungle, and began to beat the jungle from the 
 valley upwards. Unfortunately I saw no stags, 
 but a huge sambhur doe came straight at me 
 along the narrow path. I shot it in the chest, 
 and it fell a few yards in front of me. It soon, 
 however, got up again and scampered down the 
 hill. Scobell Armstrong and I followed it, tracking 
 it by the drops of blood which it left behind it, 
 till these marks becoming fewer and more far 
 between, we at last lost all trace of the sambhur. 
 Then the Sonthals showed their superior skill in 
 tracking, running on quickly and never missing 
 the track which to us was invisible. On and on 
 along the foot of the hills they led us for over a 
 mile, when we came to '•an open space in the 
 jungle and all trace of the deer was lost ; so we 
 sat down and had some lunch ; we had hardly 
 finished lunch when I heard a faint whistle, and, 
 looking in that direction, I saw a Sonthal beckon- 
 ing to us to come up to him. Then as we came 
 up he pointed silently through some thick bushes. 
 
A WOUNDED SAMBHUR 103 
 
 After peering through the screen of brushwood 
 we at last caught sight of the sambhur lying on 
 the bank of a stream. I told the Sonthal to go 
 and bring the body to us, but he wouldn't go any 
 nearer, and he made signs to me to fire another 
 shot into it. At last I consented and shot it 
 through the heart. The Sonthal then told us 
 how dangerous a wounded deer (even a doe) could 
 be. From this camp we passed along the foot 
 of the hills till we came to the old town of Khuruck- 
 pore. Here on the banks of a hill stream 
 called the *' Mun " were the ruins of the 
 palace of the former Rajahs of Khuruckpore. 
 Below these ruins, in the middle of the 
 river, standing up out of the water, was what 
 looked like a round tower, with a peepul tree 
 growing out of the masonry at its top. It had 
 years before been a deep brick-lined well, some 
 little distance from where the river then ran ; 
 but the river, receding by degrees southward, had 
 cut away the earth round the well which was 
 left standing in the middle of the river, a striking 
 proof of the excellency of the old-time masonry. 
 In the early morning one day we went along the 
 banks of the Mun river upstream to the gorge 
 through which it emerges from the hills. Passing 
 through this narrow gorge between high cliffs, 
 we came suddenly to a large open space which 
 formed a lovely valley surrounded by hills covered 
 with jungle. Through this valley the waters of 
 
104 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 the Mun rushed over its rocky bed, now tumbling 
 over a ledge of rock, now dancing and laughing 
 merrily in the sunshine. The natives called these 
 rapids and the pool below them the *' Ha-ha 
 koond/' This reminded me of the Minnehaha 
 (laughing water) of Longfellow in his '' Hiawatha." 
 Opposite this lovely spot we had our lunch, after 
 a swim in one of the deeper parts of the river. 
 After lunch we sent one of the Sonthals across the 
 stream with some empty beer bottles, which he 
 placed, according to our instructions, on the 
 opposite bank ; then we made the Sonthals 
 practise with their bows and arrows, promising 
 anyone who hit and broke a bottle a prize. They 
 made very good practice and won several prizes. 
 After this the Sonthals took us to see a really 
 fine, broad waterfall some forty feet high and 
 some fifty feet wide. The Sonthals are a very 
 simple, straightforward, truthful and happy race 
 of men, a great contrast to their Bengali neigh- 
 bours. The latter however have somewhat cor- 
 rupted those of the former with whom they have 
 come in contact. One year the Sonthals began 
 to give some trouble during the census operations. 
 They refused to give information as to the number 
 of their women and children ; but when we 
 explained to them that it was necessary for the 
 Government to know how many people they have 
 to provide for in times of famine, and further 
 assured them that each one of us, including 
 
MR. CLEVELAND 105 
 
 Collector sahibs, Commissioners, and even the 
 great ''Lat sahib'' (the Viceroy) and the Governors 
 had to give full particulars regarding their 
 families and guests, the Sonthal headmen sub- 
 mitted quietly and offered no more resistance, 
 which was fortunate, for at one time they were 
 ready forcibly to resist the Government officers 
 who were prying into their domestic affairs 
 unnecessarily, as they thought. 
 
 As proof of the wisdom and administrative 
 ability of Mr. Cleveland, the distinguished head 
 Government official in the district of Bhaugulpore 
 during the time of Warren Hastings, there exist 
 to the present day two memorials to his memory. 
 One of these was a monument put up by order of 
 the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, in the 
 compound of Cleveland House, which Cleveland 
 used to occupy. Warren Hastings wrote the 
 epitaph himself, which shows how Cleveland, not 
 by force of arms, but by his tact and personal 
 influence, was able to quieten and subdue the 
 Sonthals at a time when a serious revolt was 
 threatened by them. The other memorial was 
 erected by the natives and is kept up to the 
 present day by their descendants. It is in the 
 shape of a Hindu Temple, and a keeper has 
 always been entertained to keep it in repair and 
 to light a lamp in it every night. For over one 
 
io6 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 hundred years this has been done. There could 
 not be a greater proof of the regard and estimation 
 with which he was held not only by the Govern- 
 ment, but also by the people of the district ; thus 
 for a century and a quarter his memory has been 
 kept green and fresh. The house he lived in is 
 still called Cleveland House. It is a fine imposing- 
 looking mansion with two wings, one on each 
 side of the main building. It is situated on top 
 of very high ground overlooking the river, and can 
 be seen from all sides from long distances. 
 
 Sir Cecil Beadon was the third Lieutenant- 
 Governor of Bengal. During the hot weather and 
 rainy season he used to come up to Bhaugulpore, 
 and he occupied a fine house there situated in 
 expansive park-like grounds. This house was 
 then re-named Chota (small) Belvedere, after the 
 Lieutenant-Governor's house in Calcutta. Sir 
 Cecil entertained the official and non-official 
 residents well, and was a pleasant-mannered, 
 courteous, and urbane host. It was a strange 
 coincidence that the British Ruler of Bengal, 
 Behar, and Orissa should have lived on the very 
 spot on which the former Mahomedan Rulers of 
 Behar lived. There is in the grounds of Chota 
 Belvedere a very fine Mausoleum, where some of 
 the ancient Mahomedan Rulers were buried. It 
 is something Uke the beautiful Taj at Agra, being 
 
MR. GREGOR GRANT 107 
 
 built on a high platform with turrets at the four 
 corners, and in the centre a high mosque-like 
 dome over the tombs. 
 
 Mr. Gregor Grant was one of those men who 
 turn everything they touch to gold. He com- 
 menced his career in India as an impecunious 
 adventurer, arriving with little more than the 
 clothes he stood in. He got employment in an 
 indigo factory near Colgong. Living with his 
 boss, the manager, he had few expenses and so 
 was able to save. He increased his savings by 
 lending small sums to native ryots, at a high rate 
 of interest. Thus after a few years he was able 
 to buy a small share in the factory. Eventually 
 he became the sole owner. He was travelling 
 about in the interior of the district at the time 
 the Mutiny broke out, and he narrowly escaped 
 falling into the hands of the rebels, by taking 
 refuge in a native hut where a native woman hid 
 him and protected him. He was not ungrateful 
 for this, as he gave her for her lifetime after the 
 Mutiny, a handsome pension. Later he built a 
 small branch factory on a spot where a stream 
 ran out from the hills into the plains. He selected 
 this spot because he had observed that the crops 
 on each side of this stream were particularly fine, 
 owing to the iron and other ingredients in the 
 water. For the indigo manufactured there, he 
 
io8 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 always got the highest prices in the Calcutta 
 market. He built for himself a very fine two- 
 storied house in Bhaugulpore, close to Sir Cecil 
 Beadon's house. I gave him a lease of the forests 
 and mineral products of the Khuruckpore estate, 
 belonging to the Maharajah of Durbhunga, who 
 was then a minor, whose estates were under the 
 Court of Wards, and I had to manage such of 
 them as were in my district. Gregor Grant was 
 a wonderfully healthy and very strong man, and 
 to this he owed his quick recovery from a nasty 
 accident, by which he broke his left arm. He had 
 gone down for a few days to his house at Colgong. 
 He slept in a room on the upper floor, and one 
 night he got up to go to the bath-room. He was 
 then only half awake and did not at once realize 
 where he was ; he went to a door which he 
 thought was that of the bath-room, whereas it was 
 a window of a first floor room. He opened the 
 jhilmils and stepped through into the open air, 
 and fell down some fifteen feet on to the ground 
 and broke his arm. In a wonderfully short space 
 of time he recovered and was able to get about 
 as usual. After thirty years or more in India he 
 became a very rich man, worth a good many 
 lacs of rupees. 
 
 When I first arrived at Bhaugulpore, Mr. 
 Teignmouth Sandys was living in a large house 
 
MR. TEIGNMOUTH SANDYS 109 
 
 situated in a very large compound in that station. 
 He had been for years the Judge of Bhaugulpore, 
 but had retired from the service and elected to 
 stay and enjoy his pension, at least for a time, 
 in the country he so much liked. He was a 
 tall, big, powerful man, a typical Cornishman, a 
 simple-minded, honest, straightforward gentleman 
 and a real good fellow. He was a bit queer. He 
 used to sleep on a bamboo platform which he had 
 put up on some high branches of a very fine 
 banyan tree ; he had made a succession of ladders 
 leading up to this platform. He had many fads ; 
 one of which was experimenting on machines for 
 extracting and dressing the fibre of the rheea 
 plant. He was not at all secretive, so of course 
 some one got hold of his invention and forestalled 
 him by taking out a patent for an improved 
 machine very much on the lines of the one which 
 old Sandys had invented. Then he thought he 
 would invent a method of building a house 
 without wooden beams, which are so often 
 destroyed by white ants. His idea was to make 
 huge broad blocks of artificial stone, each big 
 enough to form a ceiling to a room. He had an 
 assistant to help him. When one small bungalow 
 had been erected, Sandys asked his assistant to 
 live in it, but the assistant " wasn't having any," 
 and this was just as well for the roof did not stand 
 long. Mr. Sandys had several daughters : one 
 married Captain Montmorency ; another became 
 
no TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 Lady Norman ; another married Sir Mortimer 
 Durand, and still another was Mrs. Edward 
 Braddon, her husband being a brother of the 
 celebrated novelist, Miss Braddon. Edward 
 Braddon was in the uncovenanted Civil Service, 
 but retired and settled in Tasmania where he 
 became, I believe, President of the Council. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 INDIAN CELEBRITIES AND OTHERS 
 
 General George Halliday — Contrasts — Some of the lost tribes of 
 the House of Israel — Lord William Beresford — Captain 
 Machel — Some doctors — Rajah Chimdra nath Banerji of 
 Nattore in Rajshahye — Sir William Meddlycot of Venn and 
 his sons — An American Colonel, a hero of the Civil War — 
 The Duke of Manchester — Lord Shaftesbury — General 
 Drayson, R.E. — A. C. Brett — Cecil Quentin and the yacht 
 Merrythought — Roberts and Cook, champions at billiards ; 
 a remarkable break at Jumalpore, India — The Ladies 
 Meade, daughters of Lord Clanwilliam — Serjeant Ballantyne 
 — Lord Robson — A Mayfield version of the story of 
 St. Dunstan and his Satanic Majesty — An adventure with 
 an elephant — Sporting guard and driver on an Indian 
 State railway — Indian hill stations. Darjeeling. Lord 
 Ossulston. Mr. Smallwood (" Chips ") — A snake story. 
 Kill or cure, an unenviable reputation. 
 
 WHEN I went up with my family one 
 year to Mussoorie, one of the hill 
 stations of the North-West Provinces, 
 we stayed on the way at Meerut with my brother- 
 in-law, then Major Halliday of the Bengal Cavalry. 
 He was brigade-major at Meerut. He had some 
 nice horses, one of which he called "Baccarat,'' 
 and he told me why he called it by that name. 
 He had been dining one night at the mess of the 
 15th Hussars, and after dinner won a nice little 
 pot of money at baccarat. With this money he 
 
 III 
 
112 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 bought the horse which he appropriately named 
 after that game. When I was at Meerut, Alick 
 Stewart of the artillery, an old cricketing friend, 
 asked me to dine at his mess. I met several friends 
 there, among whom was Sir Seymour Blane who 
 was also a good cricketer and an old friend. George 
 HalUday was a very lucky man. All his invest- 
 ments, although some of them seemed rather 
 risky, turned out well. He was very fond of whist, 
 and when he retired and went home, he stuck to 
 his whist and couldn't be tempted to give it up 
 for bridge. He joined a whist club which was 
 called the Ferry Club. Do you know why it was 
 called the '* Ferry " Club ? Because there was no 
 bridge ! 
 
 It is not only in colour that the natives of the 
 East Indies are exactly the opposite to the white 
 races of Europe. In many of their habits, their 
 gestures and idioms they also differ. English is 
 written from left to right ; Hindustani (Urdu) is 
 written from right to left. In EngUsh if we want 
 to tell anyone to stop somewhere and wait for us, 
 we say, '* Stay here till I come back," a native 
 of the East Indies will say, ** Stay here till I do 
 not come back." In sewing, Europeans sew with 
 the needle pointing towards them or towards the 
 left shoulder ; a native derzie (tailor) sews with 
 the needle pointing away from him. A European 
 
EAST AND WEST 113 
 
 wanting to pick up something from the ground, 
 picks it up with his hand ; the native of India 
 picks it up preferably with his toes. An EngUsh- 
 man in beckoning to a person to come towards 
 him puts up his hand with the back of it towards 
 the person beckoned, and turns his forefinger 
 towards himself ; the native of India on the 
 contrary puts up his hand with the palm of his 
 hand towards the person beckoned and then 
 turns all his fingers downwards very much in the 
 manner an Englishman would do if he wanted to 
 signal to the person opposite to go further back- 
 wards. When coming into the presence of 
 superiors the natives of India take off their shoes, 
 and it is considered an insult on such occasions 
 if they kept them on. These are only a few of 
 the instances which might be quoted. The 
 following cannot perhaps be called contrasts, but 
 they show how cleverly the natives convert 
 English names and words into Hindustani : 
 
 English names and words. 
 
 Hindustani adaptations. 
 
 Dalrymple. 
 
 Dil aram (meaning heart 
 
 
 at ease). 
 
 Mcintosh. 
 
 Mukkun-tose (meaning 
 
 
 buttered toast). 
 
 Abercrombie. 
 
 Bikrum. 
 
 Christmas. 
 
 Kismis. 
 
 Volunteer. 
 
 Bullumteer (meaning 
 
 
 bow and arrow). 
 
 The first of these '* Dil aram " for Dalrymple is 
 specially apt, for James Dalrymple, afterwards 
 
114 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 Sir James, was a man of exceptionally placid 
 temperament, whom nothing could '' put out/' 
 If the natives of India are clever at this sort of 
 thing, the English are not far behind them, as the 
 following wiU show. The Hindustani name for 
 almonds and raisins is kis-mis-bodam, which the 
 English converted into kiss miss and be d d. 
 
 Did the Mahomedan conquerors of India and 
 do their descendants belong to one or more of 
 the lost tribes of the House of Israel ? They 
 certainly retain the names of the old Fathers 
 of the Hebrew race, for example : 
 
 Mahomedan names. 
 
 1. Adam. 
 
 2. Abool. 
 
 3. Ibrahim. 
 
 4. Ishak. 
 
 5. Yakoob. 
 
 6. Yusoof. 
 
 7. Daood. 
 
 8. Ali. 
 
 9. Isa. 
 
 10. Isra-il (Isryle). 
 
 11. Ishma-il (Ismyle). 
 
 Corresponding English Bible names. 
 
 1. Adam. 
 
 2. Abel. 
 
 3. Abraham. 
 
 4. Isaac. 
 
 5. Jacob. 
 
 6. Joseph. 
 
 7. David. 
 
 8. Eli. 
 
 9. Esau. 
 
 10. Israel. 
 
 11. Ishmael. 
 
 These are only a few of many instances. Then 
 again I heard, but I cannot vouch for the accuracy 
 of the statement, that the Cashmiris carry an 
 ark which is supposed to be the ark of the covenant. 
 They call their beautiful country the God-given 
 
LORD WILLIAM BERESFORD 115 
 
 land. The Koran contains many of the stories of 
 the old Hebrew Scriptures. Many also of the 
 sacrificial rites bear comparison with those of 
 the Israelites. They take off their shoes when 
 treading on holy ground. They practise circum- 
 cision, which custom, by the by, the Israelites 
 borrowed from other nations. The above remarks 
 I do not pretend to be exhaustive, they point only 
 to a few of the many similarities. 
 
 It was in Calcutta that I first met Lord William 
 Beresford, Bill Beresford as he was called by his 
 intimate friends (as indeed by others). He was 
 a good all-round sportsman, and did fairly well 
 on the turf. He was an A.D.C. on the Viceroy's 
 staff. I met him again at Simla, where he used 
 to ride on one horse with another harnessed in 
 front tandemwise, and he used to drive them at 
 a headlong pace along the narrow hill paths, 
 which were very dangerous at all times, curving 
 as they did round sharp corners with high rocks 
 on one side and steep precipices on the other, 
 to fall over which would mean instant death. He 
 never knew what fear meant. No one but the 
 pluckiest and most fearless dare-devil would have 
 attempted such a mad freak. He was also a 
 fearless rider in the hunting field. He was the 
 model from whom Whyte Melville painted one 
 of his heroes, hardening his heart and sitting 
 
ii6 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 tight, as he came to a big fence which seemed 
 almost impracticable. When I retired from the 
 Indian Civil Service I had some correspondence 
 with him about a plan I had in view, for starting 
 a Company to be called the *' Winning Sires 
 Stud Company/' He referred me to his brother, 
 Lord Marcus Beresford, and we two worked out 
 a plan, but that is another story to be dealt with 
 in the next tale. 
 
 Lord Marcus Beresford advised me to see and 
 consult Captain Machel at Newmarket. The 
 Captain was one of the best known men there, 
 and indeed on the turf elsewhere, both at home 
 and in India. I enjoyed a very pleasant ten 
 days' visit to him. After dinner each night he 
 took me into his billiard-room, which, he told me, 
 he got built up in record time so as to be ready 
 for the visit of H.R.H. Albert Edward, then 
 Prince of Wales. He pointed out the spot where 
 a society beauty poured a glass of champagne 
 down the Prince's back. One morning Mr. Harry 
 McCalmont came over and most kindly helped 
 Captain Machel and me in drawing up a prospectus 
 for our *' Winning Sires Stud Company," after- 
 wards Mr. McCalmont took us over his stables. 
 First he showed us the grand building where he 
 kept his famous invincible racer, *' Isinglass," 
 then a stallion sire. He had another stud horse 
 
THE WINNING SIRES STUD COMPANY 117 
 
 brought out to show me, a son of *' Hermit/' a 
 marvel of beauty and, as Machel said, the one of 
 ** Hermit's " sons who was most Hke his sire. 
 Unfortunately he would not do for us as he was 
 weak in the loins. Every morning we went 
 either to the race-course or to one of the training 
 courses to see the racers have their gallops. This 
 was shortly before the Cesarewitch of that year, 
 and Machel gave me his ideas as to what horse 
 would win that race, and he further gave the 
 names of the horses he thought would be placed 
 second and third. It turned out that he was 
 absolutely correct in his forecast, and I might 
 have made a pile by backing the horses he named, 
 but as I could not afford to bet on races I lost a 
 good opportunity. Captain Machel, when I left, 
 sent me to Mr. J. B. Leigh, known to racing men 
 as Bunny Leigh, a brother-in-law of Lord Alington, 
 and to Lord Buchan, who both consented to act 
 as Directors on the Board of our Company. Un- 
 fortunately the scheme fell through as it was 
 considered that Machel asked too much for his 
 stud farm and for one of his stallions. But 
 nothing would induce Machel to lower his prices, 
 for he said that he knew what they were worth to 
 him. One of his stallions, '* Pioneer," he sold, 
 and it turned out well and got some very good 
 stock. 
 
ii8 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 I was told a very good story about a famous 
 doctor, a specialist, who used to charge very 
 high fees, and had the reputation of being par- 
 ticularly keen in seeing that he got guineas and 
 not pounds only. A lady once consulted him, 
 then handed him his fee wrapped up in a piece of 
 paper. He stood with his back to the fire, put 
 his hands behind his back, took off the piece of 
 paper and threw it into the fire, he then counted 
 the coins and found only five, so he said to the 
 lady, '* My fee is five guineas not pounds/* She 
 replied, " I gave you five shillings wrapped 
 in a five-pound note.'' The Doctor suddenly 
 whipped round to try and recover the £5 note 
 from the fire, but was too late, the note was 
 burnt up ! 
 
 Another doctor, a friend of mine, told me that 
 he once got a fee of ;^200 for going from London 
 to Bath to see a patient who he found had been 
 suffering from a bad attack of hiccoughs, and 
 nothing they had tried did any good. My doctor 
 friend simply gave him a glass of water to sip 
 quietly and continuously till it was finished, and 
 while the patient sipped it the Doctor held the 
 patient's nose and mouth with his hands, and got 
 some one else to stop the patient's ears. This had 
 the desired effect, and the Doctor said to me, 
 laughing, '' Not a bad fee for a glass of water ! " 
 
A TIGER HUNT 119 
 
 Rajah Chundra nath Banerji of Nattore was a 
 very well-educated Bengali Brahmin, and a clever, 
 broad-minded man. Lord Northbrook, the Viceroy, 
 appointed him as an attache to the Government of 
 India Secretariat. When I was at Rampore 
 Beauleah the Rajah came there for a few days 
 from his home, Nattore, and I saw a good deal of 
 him. We got '' khabar '' (news) of a tiger which 
 had been killing a lot of cattle at a place about 
 two miles west of Rampore Beauleah. The Rajah 
 had several elephants, so we determined to go 
 out and try to find this tiger. A small zemindar 
 (landholder) named Akil Mondol, a very keen 
 shikari, joined us on a rather small elephant. 
 The Rajah gave me a very fine shikari elephant 
 for the tiger hunt, and I and a young assistant 
 of mine got into the howdah. We formed line 
 on the edge of the jungle, several natives with 
 tom-toms and latthies, or staves, began beating 
 the jungle, and we soon found a tiger. I got a 
 bullet into its side and he rolled over, but soon 
 got up again and charged the Rajah's elephant. 
 The Rajah fired both barrels at once and the two 
 balls entered the tiger's neck just as he was about 
 to spring on the elephant's head. This turned 
 the tiger, but it got into the jungle, though it was 
 too hard hit for it to get far away. We followed 
 it and found it lying down helpless ; nothing 
 however would persuade the native beaters to go 
 up to the tiger, and they begged me to put another 
 
120 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 bullet into him. Reluctantly I did this, and got 
 a ball into his heart. Then we had lunch under 
 a tree in the jungle and the Rajah asked if he 
 might join us. I told him that the lunch con- 
 sisted of beef, thinking it right that he, as a Hindoo, 
 should know this, for Hindoos are not supposed 
 to be allowed to touch beef. To our surprise the 
 Rajah said, '' I am very fond of beef," and when 
 we asked what he would have to drink, he again 
 said, '' I am very fond of both beer and whisky, 
 and indeed any sort of wine or spirit." Seeing 
 how surprised we looked, he added, *' You see 
 I am the head of the Hindoos here, their High 
 Priest, and though they would lose caste if they 
 ate beef, I would not do so ; " so we enjoyed a 
 good tiffin together. Poor Rajah ! Unfortun- 
 ately he allowed his liking for wine and spirits to 
 become an irresistible craving, and at last he fell 
 a victim to its fatal spell. 
 
 In the end of 1855 I went to a ball at Sir William 
 Meddlycot's place Venn. His three sons were 
 there. The eldest, Edward (who afterwards 
 succeeded to the title), was an old friend of mine ; 
 we had often played together in cricket matches. 
 There was a very large gathering at Venn for the 
 baU, and old Sir William danced away like a 
 two-year-old, and seemed to enjoy it as much as 
 his sons did. I danced once with Miss Macready, 
 
A SHORT-SIGHTED CRITIC 121 
 
 a daughter or a niece, I forget which, of the 
 celebrated actor of a ** temporis acti/' Edward, 
 the eldest son, succeeded to the title, but died 
 s.p. His younger brother Hubert is the present 
 baronet, and is a clergyman. Owing to an 
 affection of the throat he found that he could not 
 carry on the services of the Church, so he had to 
 resign his living. He then took up water-colour 
 painting as a profession. This was before he 
 succeeded to the title and estates. He became a 
 member of the Royal Water-Colour Society's Art 
 Club. 
 
 In 1869, when I was at home on leave, I met 
 him at Shroton, in the Ranston estate of the 
 Baker family, where he was then staying tem- 
 porarily. He was showing his pictures to some of 
 his friends, among whom was Sir Talbot Baker 
 who had succeeded his brother. Sir Edward, at 
 Ranston. Sir Talbot was very short-sighted, 
 so he put on his '' specs *' and looked at 
 the pictures. When he came to one which he 
 apparently admired most of all, he said, *' How 
 lovely ; that is of course in Switzerland ; I seem 
 to recognize it.*' Hubert Meddlycot smiled and 
 said, '* You ought to recognize it. Sir Talbot, as it 
 is a view taken on your own estate close to this 
 house." Of course it bore not the smallest 
 resemblance to Swiss scenery. 
 
122 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 When I was Opium Agent at Patna I went 
 down to Calcutta for a few days. On my last 
 day there I dined with Bob Lyall, and after 
 dinner crossed over to Howrah to catch the night 
 mail train up-country. I was only just in time, 
 and to my horror found all the carriages full ; 
 there was one carriage at the rear of the train 
 empty, but it was labelled *' Reserved." As I 
 turned away in disgust I caught sight of a tall, 
 erect, soldier-like man walking along the plat- 
 form towards the *' Reserved " compartment. He 
 had a slight limp. Seeing my look of distress 
 he came up and very kindly offered me a sleeping 
 berth in his reserved compartment. Naturally I 
 was only too delighted. He told me that he was 
 an officer in the U.S.A. Army and that he had 
 been all through the Civil War in America. I am 
 sorry to say that I have forgotten his name, but 
 I shall ever remember his kindness to me. After 
 a pleasant chat over our cigars and a peg, he 
 proposed turning in, as it was past ii p.m., 
 and he began to undress. I saw him take off an 
 artificial hand, then he took off a wooden fore- 
 arm, and then a leg ! Seeing my look of surprise 
 he burst out laughing, and said, ** I suppose you 
 are wondering what I shall take off next ? my 
 head, perhaps ? " He had appeared to be able 
 to use his arms and legs so well, that I had 
 no suspicion that any of them were artificial, 
 till I saw him taking off one after the 
 
THE DUKE OF WESTMINSTER 123 
 
 other. They were quite works of art, with 
 movable joints. 
 
 On one of my voyages home from India, among 
 my fellow passengers on the P. and O. boat were 
 the Duke and Duchess of Manchester and their 
 daughter, Lady Alice Montagu. I had met the 
 Duke in England when he was a young man, at 
 Lord's Cricket Ground and other places, one of 
 which was at Canford at a ball given by Sir Ivor 
 Guest, who was afterwards created a Baron 
 (Lord Wimborne). The Duke and I had many a 
 pleasant chat on board the P. and O. liner, at one 
 of which he complained of having been kept awake 
 by the incessant howls and shrieks of some child. 
 Hearing this, another fellow passenger related an 
 amusing story of how he had been kept awake by 
 some one in the cabin next to his keeping on for 
 hours singing and repeating ad nauseam the 
 nigger chorus : *' Daisy, Daisy, give me your 
 promise true '/' at last, unable to stand it any 
 longer, he yelled out : '* For goodness' sake, Daisy, 
 hurry up and give him your promise and let me 
 get off to sleep." The singer then burst out 
 laughing, but stopped his singing. This so 
 tickled the Duke that he hurried off to tell his 
 wife the story. When he was gone, my other 
 companion told me a story about the Duke. He 
 said that he met the Duke at a ball at Government 
 
124 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 House in Calcutta, and the Duke after supper, 
 having partaken liberally of champagne, toddled 
 into the ball-room. Presently a lady dancing 
 just in front of him fell flop on to the floor, 
 having got her dress caught on the spur of an 
 officer's boot. The Duke immediately called out 
 to the lady's partner, '* S-s-sit on her head ! " 
 Of course this story was not quite true, but it was 
 hen trovato si non vero. Lady Alice Montagu took 
 part in an animal race on deck ; I think the 
 animal she started for the race was a goose. 
 There were all sorts of animals in the race ; a 
 sucking pig, a lamb, a goat, and a tortoise 
 being among the competing animals. The 
 latter of course had a very long start allowed 
 to it. I believe Lady Alice's goose was the 
 winner. 
 
 In the early sixties of the nineteenth century. 
 Lord Shaftesbury was the Lord-Lieutenant of 
 the county of Dorset. He had a great respect for 
 my father which he showed by making him his 
 Deputy-Lieutenant. The Earl was a very solemn 
 religious man, but was well able to appreciate a 
 witticism, and kind enough to laugh at even a 
 feeble joke. Once he presided at a meeting at 
 which a rather heated discussion arose between 
 two of the speakers. Lord Shaftesbury got up 
 and, in his mild way, poured oil on the troubled 
 
GENERAL DRAYSON 125 
 
 waters ; whereupon the funny man of the meeting, 
 unable to resist the temptation to make a pun, 
 jumped up and said, *' I must congratulate our 
 noble Chairman, Lord Shaftesbury, in having so 
 effectually helped to bury the shafts of discord, etc. 
 etc." (Cheers and an appreciative smile from 
 Lord Shaftesbury.) 
 
 One of the most constant frequenters of the 
 billiard-room at the Royal Yacht Club in Southsea 
 during the eighties and nineties of the last century 
 was old General Drayson, a retired Sapper. He 
 was a very clever and indeed distinguished mathe- 
 matician who had made some valuable astro- 
 nomical discoveries. He was at one time a tutor 
 to some of the Princes of our Royal Family. He 
 played a very steady, though anything but 
 brilliant, game of billiards ; hardly ever missed 
 an easy stroke, and never tried a difficult one ; 
 still it was wonderful how often he won games 
 against better players than himself. Perhaps 
 this was to some extent because he was such a 
 tremendous fluker ; each time that he missed 
 the stroke he tried for, he almost invariably made 
 a fluke. He used a very thick, unwieldy cue with 
 a very big top, more like a barge-pole than an 
 ordinary cue. He wrote a book on billiards 
 (Oh ! that mine enemy would write a book !) and 
 
126 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 presented a copy to the Club. After reading it, 
 one of the members of the club said to him 
 chaffingly, *' A capital book, General, but there is 
 one chapter missing which you should have 
 added, and that is a chapter on flukes, and how 
 to make them'' at which there was a general 
 roar of laughter in which the General joined 
 heartily. 
 
 Alfred Corbyn Brett, I.C.S., was the Judge at 
 Mozufferpore for several years before he retired 
 from the service. When he came home to England 
 he bought a plot of land at Liss, and built a 
 house on it, and called it Mozufferpore. I went to 
 stay with him there for a week. He had a fine 
 large billiard-room attached to the house, where 
 we had many a battle with the ivories. One day 
 he drove me to Liphook to lunch with an old 
 friend of his, Cecil Quentin, who had bought a 
 very nice house there with some thirty or more 
 acres of land, which were beautifully laid out in 
 ornamental grounds sloping down to a pretty 
 little stream with a rustic bridge over it. Mr. 
 Quentin was a well-known yachting man, and he 
 owned that famous yacht Merrythought with 
 which he won the German Emperor's cup in, I 
 think, 1896. He showed me this magnificent cup 
 which was of solid silver with a gold Merrythought 
 
'' NO RELATION '' 127 
 
 on it. It was so huge that Quentin was able to 
 seat his baby inside of it ; and he showed me a 
 photo of it with the baby sitting inside it with 
 only the child's head and shoulders showing 
 above it. Mr. Quentin was a very good racquet 
 player and he had built in the grounds of his 
 house a very fine racquet court. After lunch we 
 had some good games there, old Brett, in spite of 
 his thirty years' service in the East, playing as 
 actively and well as ever. Brett told me several 
 good stories. One was of a case he tried in India, 
 in which the Defendant was a brother-in-law of 
 the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff in the witness-box was 
 examined as follows : 
 
 Counsel : '' 1 believe the Defendant is a relation 
 of yours ? *' 
 
 Plaintiff: ''He is no 'bloody' relation of 
 mine.'' 
 
 Brett found it difficult to keep his countenance, 
 but presently remarked : 
 
 '' I understand that you and the Defendant 
 were formerly friends, when I suppose you called 
 him ' Bhai ' (brother), but since you quarrelled 
 you have called him ' Sala ! ' " {" Sala " means 
 brother-in-law, but is also very commonly used 
 as a term of most offensive abuse.) 
 
128 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 The two champion billiard players, Roberts and 
 Cook, came out to India in the cold weather of 
 1879-80, and made a tour through the country, 
 playing exhibition matches at different places. At 
 the Bengal Club in Calcutta, John Roberts played 
 a game of 1000 up with a Mr. Morris of the Indian 
 Civil Service who was allowed a start of 700 
 points and just managed to reach the 1000 first. 
 I was present at an exhibition game between 
 Roberts and Cook at Jumalpore, which is a large 
 depot of the East India Railway Company 
 situated at the foot of the Khuruckpore Hills, 
 eight miles south of Monghyr. At this depot live 
 several of the heads of departments of the railway, 
 and there is a very nice little club for the officers, 
 and a large recreation room for the subordinate 
 employees. At the former of these Roberts and 
 Cook gave an exhibition, and I was fortunate 
 enough to be a witness of one of the most extra- 
 ordinary breaks ever made ; extraordinary not so 
 much on account of the length of the score as on 
 account of its peculiarity. During one of his 
 breaks. Cook potted the red ball and brought his 
 own ball to a position exactly between the two 
 middle pockets, but nearer to one than the other. 
 As Roberts' ball was too close to the spot on 
 which the red ball is usually spotted, to allow of 
 the red ball being placed on that spot, the marker 
 had to spot the red (as was the rule in those days) 
 
A GAME OF BILLIARDS 
 
 129 
 
 on the spot between the two middle pockets. 
 The position was like this : 
 
 A. Cook's ball. 
 
 B. Red ball on centre spot. 
 
 C. Roberts' ball. 
 
 Cook then proceeded to pot the red in the right- 
 hand middle pocket, making his own ball follow 
 on a few inches to D so that when the red was 
 again spotted on the centre spot B he was able to 
 pot it into the left-hand middle pocket, stopping 
 his own ball at its original position A, and so he 
 continued for quite a long time with the most 
 perfect see-saw spot shot imaginable. At last he 
 got his ball a little out of the line, and so played 
 to pot the red in a middle pocket and at the same 
 time to make a losing hazard into a bottom 
 pocket. He succeeded in potting the red, but his 
 own ball caught the angle of the bottom pocket 
 
130 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 and then rolled up again to a position between 
 the two middle pockets, giving him for the second 
 time the perfect see-saw spot shot. At this there 
 was tremendous applause ; the spectators, or at 
 least many of them, thinking that this was done 
 on purpose. Cook smiling gently at this, quietly 
 went on with his see-saw spot shot and made quite 
 a good break ; but in spite of this Roberts won 
 the game. Talking of billiards reminds me of a 
 game I once had with a native marker in Calcutta. 
 I commenced with a miss in baulk ; the marker 
 then tried a cannon off the red, made it, and went 
 on with a break of loo, winning the game before 
 I had a single entry, and I had to pay for a game 
 in which my only shot was a miss in baulk ! 
 
 When I first went to Southsea Lord Clan- 
 william was the Governor at Portsmouth. His 
 two daughters, the Ladies Meade, went to call 
 on some of the residents. At one house the 
 servant answering the front door bell enquired 
 their names and when they said, *'The Ladies 
 Meade,'* announced them with a loud voice as the 
 Lady's maids ! 
 
 When I was at the East India College at 
 Haileybury, I and several of the other fellows 
 went, at the Law Professor's suggestion, to hear 
 
'' LORD HARRY HOTSPUR " 131 
 
 some of the cases at the Hertford Quarter Sessions. 
 Serjeant Ballantyne, the famous barrister, was in 
 court and we much enjoyed Hstening to his clever 
 cross-examination. Lately an old barrister friend 
 of mine, who had known Ballantyne well, told me 
 a very good story about him and about a Peer's 
 son, whom, for the purpose of this story, I will 
 call Lord Harry Hotspur. My barrister friend 
 told me that he, as a boy, was desperately in love 
 with a very pretty actress and, as she smiled on 
 him, all went well till, one day, young Lord Harry 
 turned up and made love to the fickle young 
 actress, and quite cut out my friend. Lord Harry 
 for some time was to be seen everywhere with the 
 girl with whom he was so enamoured. His father, 
 the Marquis, hearing of this came up to town 
 post-haste, and went to consult his friend, Serjeant 
 Ballantyne, and asked him what was the best way 
 of getting his son out of the temptress's clutches. 
 Ballantyne knowing what a headstrong, obstinate, 
 determined young fellow Lord Harry was, said to 
 the Marquis, '' It's a rather ticklish job, but I 
 think I can manage it for you, but I will only 
 attempt it on one condition, and that is that you 
 at once pack up your things and go off home 
 to-night without seeing your son, for if you try 
 to persuade him to give up the girl you will only 
 make him ten times more determined to marry her 
 straight away." So the father, who had the most 
 implicit confidence in Ballantyne, returned home 
 
132 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 at once. Next day Ballant5me met Lord Harry 
 at his club, and after a chat over a cigar, said, 
 " Why don't you volunteer to go out to the front 
 in this Ashanti war ? If I were you I would lose 
 no time in offering your services to the War 
 Office/' Young Lord Harry at once dertermined 
 to follow this advice, sent in his appUcation and 
 started for the front. By the time the war was 
 over, he returned home and found his passion for 
 the pretty actress had cooled down and she was 
 forgotten, much to the delight of the old Marquis, 
 who heartily thanked Serjeant Ballantyne for 
 having saved the situation. 
 
 Another friend of mine lately told me the 
 following stories of Lord Robson, P.C., K.C., who 
 had been an old schoolfellow of his. Some years 
 after they had left school my friend met him in 
 the street, and asked him to dine with him. 
 Robson told him that when he was a young 
 briefless barrister he had to give evidence in a 
 case against a prisoner, who was on his trial. His 
 evidence was so clear and so strong that it 
 secured a conviction. After his release from 
 prison the old criminal one day called on Mr. 
 Robson as he then was. Mr. Robson was at first 
 afraid that his visitor had come to revenge himself 
 on him, but much to his surprise the ex-gaol bird 
 asked him to defend him in another case. Mr. 
 
ST. DUNSTAN 133 
 
 Robson did so, got him off and afterwards got a 
 lot of business through him ; and this was the 
 beginning of his subsequent very successful career. 
 After Mr. Robson had related this story my friend 
 asked him how it was he had not married, to 
 which Mr. Robson replied, '' Because I should 
 hate any woman who consented to marry such 
 an ugly man as I am." He had a hare-lip. He 
 however got over this feeling, for shortly after- 
 wards he did marry very happily. 
 
 I was staying once at May field in Sussex, where 
 a spring of water by the side of the road was 
 pointed out to me ; the colour of the water was 
 of a deep red. A version of the old legend relating 
 to St. Dunstan and the Devil is still told in May- 
 field and is as follows : — Near the ruddy spring 
 there was in old times a monastery. One day 
 St. Dunstan, who was at the monastery, saw a 
 figure walking up the drive towards the house ; 
 he soon recognized the figure as that of the Devil, 
 so he quickly took up the tongs and put the ends 
 of it into the fire, and awaited the advent of his 
 Satanic Majesty. When the latter came in, St. 
 Dunstan suddenly took up the tongs, the ends of 
 which were red hot, and with them seized the 
 Devil by the nose. The Devil then rushed out 
 of the house and made a bee-line for the spring, 
 where he dipped his nose in the cool water. The 
 
134 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 blood from his nose turned the water of the spring 
 into a ruby-coloured stream, and ever since it has 
 retained that crimson stain. 
 
 I was out shooting with E. Stewart, a Deputy 
 Magistrate, in the north of the Bhaugulpore 
 district near the Nipal frontier one cold weather, 
 or rather in the beginning of the hot weather, 
 for the hot west winds had set in. We were after 
 tiger, but did not come on one that day. We, 
 however, got some deer and several fine fiorican. 
 Stewart was on a pad-elephant, i.e., he had no 
 howdah, but only a straw-stuffed pad strapped 
 on to the back of his elephant. When the shoot 
 was over Stewart filled his pipe and struck a 
 match to light it. He threw away the end of the 
 match, but the wind caught it and drove it on 
 to the pad, and it happened to fall on a spot where 
 the covering of the pad had been torn and the 
 straw stuffing was exposed. This caught fire at 
 once, when the elephant feeling the burning 
 heat, trumpeted and set off at a tearing pace 
 across country, making a bee-line for some water 
 two or three hundred yards away. Stewart, 
 knowing well what would happen, wriggled along 
 the elephant's back till he got to its tail, and then 
 slid down its hind quarters and let himself fall 
 sprawling on the ground, luckily escaping a 
 helping kick from the elephant's hind leg. He 
 
A PEREMPTORY ORDER 135 
 
 was only just in time, for a second or two later 
 the elephant had reached the water and imme- 
 diately plunged in, and rolled in it on his back to 
 put the fire out. They are wonderfully sagacious 
 animals these monster mammals. Stewart, too, 
 knew what he was about. You have, of course, 
 heard of a bird, shot in the head, towering, and 
 then falling dead ; but I doubt if you ever saw 
 or heard of a bird performing this feat two or 
 three times over. Well, as Stewart and I were 
 returning to our camp, some quail got up. I got 
 off my elephant and followed them up to where 
 they settled down in a patch of Khurour grass, 
 and put them up again. I shot one which towered 
 high into the air and then fell to earth ; but before 
 we could pick it up it flew up and towered again, 
 and it repeated this for the third time. 
 
 When I was first at Bhaugulpore as Joint 
 Magistrate I was suddenly ordered to proceed to 
 Berhampore, the head-quarters of the Moor- 
 shedabad district, to act for three months as 
 Magistrate and Collector. I begged to be excused, 
 for I loved Bhaugulpore and did not fancy a 
 change to a Bengali district. In reply I got a 
 characteristic, laconic reply from Sir Ashley Eden, 
 then Secretary to the Government of Bengal, to 
 the following effect : '' You will take charge at 
 Berhampore on the 5th instant.'' This gave me 
 
136 1 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 only forty-eight hours to pack and be off, so I 
 started at once by rail to Nulhati, from which I 
 had to travel by a newly-made State railway to 
 Azimgunge. This was a light railway (metre 
 gauge) and ran over an undulating tract of country 
 where the gradients were very steep. Conse- 
 quently when the train was heavily laden, the 
 third-class passengers were asked to get down 
 and walk up the steeper inclines here and there. 
 When there were no European passengers to 
 make any objection, the driver used to pull up 
 at a certain spot, when he and the guard (both 
 Europeans) got down with their guns and went 
 to a marshy place they knew of close by to shoot 
 snipe and maybe a teal or two. Meanwhile the 
 patient, mild native passengers sat in their places 
 quietly waiting till it should please the sahib-lok 
 to return and take them on again. This accounted 
 for the trains so often arriving very late at their 
 destinations. 
 
 During the summer months now and then I 
 used to take leave and go with my wife and family 
 to one of the hill stations. First I went to Mus- 
 soorie a very pleasant hill station of the North- 
 West Provinces, seven thousand feet above sea- 
 level. Just above it was the station of Landowr, 
 eight thousand feet above sea-level. Next I went 
 to Simla where the Viceroy and his staff and 
 
^.^ 
 
 DARJEELING 137 
 
 Members of Council always spend the hot weather. 
 Another time I went to Darjeeling which can 
 boast of the grandest scenery of all the Indian 
 hill stations. The journey up the hills from the 
 monotonous dead level of the plains gave a 
 relief to the eyes. The luxuriant vegetation, the 
 graceful tree ferns, the wild, gaily-coloured dahlias 
 and other flowers, the bright plumage of the 
 birds, the songs of the bul-bul (Indian nightingale), 
 accompanied by the sound of the rapidly rushing 
 hill torrents, were simply glorious and most 
 charming. Then, as we got to the top, the grandest 
 sight of all met our enchanted gaze ; the giant, 
 everlasting hills with their snow-capped crests 
 mounting up into the skies; Kinchinjunga 
 towering up just in front of us 29,000 feet into 
 the clear air ; Everest, the highest of all, some 
 distance to the west. In these Himalayan heights 
 the mighty rivers of the Ganges and the Jumna 
 have their sources, at Gangootri and Jumnootri. 
 At Darjeeling I met Lord Ossulston, son of the 
 Earl of Tankerville. He was on leave from his 
 regiment, the Rifle Brigade, and I saw a good 
 deal of him. He was a very nice youngster, and 
 a friendly and agreeable companion. He told me 
 of his climbs up the Himalayas to the sources of 
 the two mighty rivers noted above. He also 
 told me, and some others at his hotel, many 
 amusing stories. Unfortunately they are not 
 ** printable." On our way up to Darjeeling we 
 
138 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 stopped at Kurseong where there is a small hotel, 
 and on arrival there we were told that a Mr. 
 Smallwood was in the next room to us, and was 
 most seriously ill, so we were asked to be as quiet 
 as possible. After dinner we were told that 
 Smallwood was dead. Judge of our amazement 
 when the next day after lunch the dead man 
 suddenly walked into our room. He was an old 
 acquaintance and was always known to his 
 friends as *' Chips.'' Seeing our looks of amaze- 
 ment, little Chips burst out laughing, saying, 
 " Lazarus come to life again.'' 
 
 When I was in Chupra, the headquarters of 
 the Sarun district, the whole country for miles 
 round was flooded, and the town of Chupra being 
 on comparatively high land was infested by 
 snakes which had been driven by the floods into 
 the one high spot in the neighbourhood. One 
 evening, when it was nearly dark, we returned to 
 our bungalow after our usual evening drive and 
 found a small crowd of natives standing round a 
 charpoy (bed) in front of our verandah ; on the bed 
 was the motionless figure of a senseless woman. 
 On enquiring what was the matter, I was informed 
 that the woman had been bitten by a korait 
 (a poisonous snake), and that they had brought 
 her to me as the doctor sahib was not at home, 
 having been called to a case in the interior of the 
 
A CURE FOR SNAKE-BITE 139 
 
 district . The woman to all appearances was already 
 dead, but the natives begged me to give her 
 some **dewai" (medicine). I remembered that 
 in my small medicine case I had a bottle of 
 eau-de-luce which was supposed to be of use in 
 cases of snake-bite, so I rushed into my writing- 
 room and got out the bottle. It was too dark for 
 me to see the printed instructions, so I poured out 
 into a wineglass some thirty drops, which, as far 
 as I could remember, was the dose prescribed ; 
 I tore off to the bedside of the unconscious woman 
 and told her husband to pour the medicine down 
 his wife's throat. Directly he had done so, the 
 woman suddenly jumped up to a sitting posture, 
 and then fell over on her side, coughing and 
 spitting. According to the directions the thirty 
 drops should have been added to half a wineglass 
 of water, but I had forgotten the water ! Her 
 relatives took her away and I heard later, to my 
 relief, that she had quite recovered, though her 
 throat was sore for some time. This, however, 
 was not the end of it, for the fame of my lucky 
 cure had spread far and wide, and the result was 
 that I was pestered with several cases of snake- 
 bite ; even persons who had actually died were 
 brought to me in the belief that I could restore 
 them to life ! But of course I refused to try my 
 hand again at a kill-or-cure adventure, so I always 
 sent the patients to the doctor. Dr. Jackson was 
 then the doctor at Chupra, a clever man, and one 
 
140 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 who had a sense of humour. One day when I was 
 feehng a Uttle squeamish I sent a note by my 
 sirdar (head servant) to Jackson, teUing him what 
 was the matter and asking him " to give the bearer 
 a dose for me/' When my bearer delivered my 
 note, Jackson made him open his mouth and 
 poured down it a peculiarly nasty-tasting con- 
 coction, to the sirdar's astonishment and disgust. 
 
BOOK II. LEGENDS 
 
FAMILY LEGENDS AND TALES TAKEN 
 FROM THE HOUSE OF D'OYLY 
 
 By William D'Oyly Bayley, F.S.A. 
 
 Robert de Oyly, feudal Baron Hocknorton of Oxford Castle, 
 Constable of Oxford. Henry Beauclerc who became King 
 Henry I — Legend of Robert D'Oyly's vision of two Abingdon 
 monks telling tales of him to the Virgin Mary in heaven — 
 The Lord Nigel D'Oyly, 2nd Baron. Sir Foulk D'Oyly the 
 Crusader — The chatteryng pyes of Oseney Legend as to the 
 foundation of Oseney Abbey near Oxford — The 5th and last 
 Baron Hocknorton. King Henry III seizes on all the D'Oylys' 
 domains. False returns of packed jury — Two versions of the 
 origin of the dessert napkins termed " d'oylys " — Black 
 letter epitaph below the ef&gy of John D'Oyly 1492 a.d. — 
 A gay Lothario, yet still a perfect husband — Sir Cope 
 D'Oyly's monument in Hambledon Church. Epitaph by 
 the poet Quarles — Episode at the tournament at Ashby de 
 la Zouch, temp. Richard I — A ghost story — Eaten by canni- 
 bals. Two boys spared — A verified account of an apparition 
 at time of death at a place 6000 miles distant from place of 
 death. 
 
 THE following legends and tales are taken 
 from Wniiam D'Oyly Bayley's Bio- 
 graphical, Historical, Genealogical, and 
 Heraldic account of The House of D'Oyly. Pro- 
 fessor Freeman, the celebrated expert in such 
 matters, in his article on " Pedigrees and Pedigree 
 Makers,'' published in the June, 1877, number of 
 the Contemporary Review, remarks on the accuracy 
 
 143 
 
144 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 and genuineness of this work. Chapter and verse 
 are given in copious notes at the foot of each page 
 for every statement made. I have selected only 
 such portions of that book as are likely to be of 
 interest to those outside our family circle. 
 
 ** The Lord Robert de Oyly, eldest son of 
 Seigneur de Oyly, of Oyly, near Lisieux in Nor- 
 mandy, accompanied by his brothers, Nigel and 
 Gilbert, followed in the train of Duke William of 
 Normandy to England in 1066 and shared largely 
 in the spoils of conquest . . . William the 
 Conqueror granted Robert de Oyly in 1067 the 
 city and Barony of Oxford, and created him 
 Baron Hocknorton in Oxfordshire. . . . Robert 
 de Oyly was commanded by William the Con- 
 queror to build, or rebuild, and fortify a castle at 
 the west end of Oxford '' . . . Thierri in his 
 History of the Norman Conquest mentions these 
 three brothers. " In 1084 Robert D'Oyly sumptu- 
 ously entertained the King at Abingdon . . . and 
 on leaving Abingdon his Majesty left his youngest 
 son, afterwards King Henry I, to be educated in 
 the convent there under the inspection of Robert 
 D'Oyly. The Royal youth profited so much under 
 his tutor, that he obtained the appellation of 
 Beauclerc " (Lyson's Berks.). ... He died in 
 September, 1090. He left no male issue, but one 
 daughter, Maude. whQ married Brian FitzCount, 
 
ESCAPE OF THE EMPRESS MATILDA 145 
 
 Lord of Abergavenny, who afterwards became 
 famous for his constant adherence to the Empress 
 Matilda in her contest with Stephen for the 
 EngHsh Crown. FitzCount on her arrival in 
 England declared in her behalf and fortified 
 Wallingford Castle, where, in the winter of 
 1 140-41, her Majesty took shelter and was 
 besieged by Stephen, when FitzCount made a 
 valiant and spirited defence of the fort on her 
 behalf (Lipscomb), and according to many ancient 
 accounts his wife, Maude D'Oyly, took a prominent 
 part in the action, '' inheritynge the spirit of her 
 ancestours/' The Empress had escaped there 
 from Oxford by passing down the River Thames, 
 then frozen over, eluding the observation of her 
 pursuers by being arrayed in white garments 
 while the ground was covered with snow. (Madox's 
 Hist. ExchequeVy I, 457.) 
 
 '' According to the legend, [Robert D'Oyly] 
 having seized to his own use (with King William's 
 sanction) a large meadow, near Oxford Castle, which 
 belonged to the Monks of Abingdon, Co. Berks, these 
 holy men were so exasperated, that prostrating 
 themselves before the altar of the blessed Virgin, 
 they prayed unceasingly that she would avenge 
 their injury. In consequence a terrible sickness 
 fell upon Robert D'Oyly. Still he continued im- 
 penitent, and remained so till warned in a dream 
 
146 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 of the certain punishment for his misdeeds that 
 was awaiting him in the world to come (nay, even 
 beheld two Abingdon Monks, whom he knew, 
 telling tales of him to the Virgin Mary in Heaven), 
 which with the pious exhortations of his wife soon 
 produced an ample apology to the monks. He 
 went to Abingdon Abbey and, standing before the 
 altar in the presence of the Abbot, the whole 
 convent and many of his friends, gave them 
 Tadmorton, a lordship of £10 per annum, £100 
 towards the rebuilding of their Monastery and 
 protested that he would never again meddle with 
 any of their possessions/' (Dugdale's Baronage.) 
 
 '' Nigel D'Oyly succeeded his brother as second 
 Baron Hocknorton and Constable of Oxford 
 Castle. He flourished during the reign of William 
 Rufus and officiated as Constable of all England 
 under that King.'' . . Nigel D'Oyly's great 
 grandson was the celebrated Sir Foulk D'Oyly the 
 Crusader, the devoted friend and companion-in- 
 arms of King Richard I. Of this hero of romance 
 various legends remain, and such were his exploits 
 and feats of arms that Sir Walter Scott introduces 
 him into the tale of Ivanhoe. Sir Foulk D'Oyly 
 sailed with Richard the First on his crusade to 
 Jerusalem, September, 1190, and, after the taking 
 of Acre from the Saracens in 1191, was one of 
 King Richard's favourite knights who acquitted 
 
SIR FOULK D'OYLY & CCEUR DE LION 147 
 
 themselves so brilliantly in the tournament held 
 there by Richard ; each of whom " ran three 
 courses, and cast to the ground three antagonists, 
 seven of whom were Knights of the Temple " 
 [Camdens Britan by Gough). Having been a 
 constant companion of King Richard throughout 
 the expedition, sharing his fortunes fair and foul, 
 His Majesty selected him and Sir Thomas de 
 Multon to accompany him home to England, after 
 the truce had been concluded with Saladin in 
 1 192. But finding it necessary to pass through 
 Austria in disguise, they had constantly to submit 
 to many degradations, and, among others, were 
 compelled to cook their own food. Thus it is 
 related that, as these warriors were busied in 
 roasting a goose, they were teazed by a female 
 minstrel, who had intruded on their solitude. 
 They rudely dismissed her without allowing her to 
 partake of their good cheer. In consequence of 
 this she betrayed them to the barbarous Leopold 
 Duke of Austria, and all three were immediately 
 taken prisoners, and cast into dungeons. Otho de 
 St. Blaize mentions that King Richard himself 
 turned the spit, forgetful that he wore a ring 
 which at once disclosed his exalted rank. Sir 
 Foulk died in Austria. His descendants bore 
 " Argent, a fesse dancettee between three crescents 
 gules,'' allusive to Sir Foulk's bloody crooked 
 path among the Saracens. 
 
148 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 The Lord Robert D'Oyly, third Baron Hock- 
 norton, succeeded his father in 1112. His prin- 
 cipal benefaction to the Church was in 1129, when 
 at the persuasion of his wife, Edithe, he founded 
 on an island in the River Isis the magnificent 
 Abbey of Oseney in Oxfordshire, a little below 
 Oxford Castle. The singular though ridiculous 
 legend of its foundation is given by Dugdale in the 
 Monasticon ; but Leland's version of it is much 
 more concise. " Edithe " (wife of D'Oyly), says 
 he, *' uside to walke out of Oxford Castelle with 
 her gentlewomen to solace, and that oftentymes 
 wher, yn a certen place, certen pyes usid to gather 
 to it, and ther to chattre, and as it were to speke 
 unto her. Edithe much marveylyng at this 
 mattier was sumtyme sore ferid as by a wonder 
 whereupon she sent for one Radulphe, a canon of 
 St. Frideswide's (at Oxford), a man of vertuous life 
 and her confessor, askyng hym counsell ; to whom 
 he answered, after that he had seen the faschion 
 of the pyes chatteryng oaly at her cummyng 
 that she shoulde bilde sum Chirche or Monasterie 
 in that place. Then she entreated her husband 
 to bilde a priorie and so he did, makyng Radulphe 
 the first Prior of if (also in Camden's Britan by 
 Gough). Her confessor told her, in fact, that the 
 magpies were wretched souls in purgatory, crying 
 out to her to bring them to rest. On King 
 Stephen's accession, he, Stephen, anxious to 
 obtain Robert D'Oyly's influence and support. 
 
THE D'OYLY DOMAINS SEIZED 149 
 
 dispossessed Milo de Gloucester of the Office of 
 Constable of England and conferred it on Robert 
 D'Oyly ; but D'Oyly remained true to the 
 Empress Matilda and received her thrice into 
 Oxford Castle between 1139 and 1141. Edithe, 
 D'Oyly's wife, survived her husband, but dying 
 in 1152 was interred in Oseney Abbey, with an 
 image of her in stone, holding in her hand a heart. 
 Above the arch over her tomb there was painted 
 on the wall a picture representing the foundation 
 legend of the Abbey, viz. the magpies chattering on 
 her advent to Oseney ; the tree ; and Radulphe 
 her confessor ; which painting, according to 
 Holinshed, was in perfect preservation at the 
 suppression of religious houses temp. Henry VIII. 
 
 The Lord Henry D'Oyly, fifth Baron, was the 
 last Baron Hocknorton. He is described in 
 several charters as '' Constabularius Regis." He 
 died leaving only one daughter, Maud, who 
 married Maurice de Gaunt alias Berkeley, Lord 
 of Were, Co. Somerset. The D'Oylys' Barony of 
 Hocknorton and all their estates became hy right 
 the inheritance of Sir Roger D'Oyly of Est cote in 
 Oxfordshire ; but King Henry regarding the 
 D'Oylys' Baronies, issued a writ of Diem clausit 
 extremum tested 7 July, 37 Henry III, to enquire 
 after the death of Henry D'Oyly (the fifth Baron) 
 whether Hocknorton was not demesne lands of 
 
150 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 the Crown. The Jury (no doubt packed by 
 Plessetis) found that with the exception of 
 Bradenham Manor, Co. Bucks, all Henry D'Oyly's 
 lands were an escheat to the King for want of heirs 
 of the bodies of the grantees ; but that Bradenham 
 manor having descended to the D'Oylys from 
 Maud Bohun had reverted to Humphry Bohun, 
 Earl of Hereford. Though the return was abso- 
 lutely false (as Edith D'Oyly, wife of Gilbert 
 Basset and aunt of the last Henry D'Oyly, had 
 descendants then living beyond all question) 
 King Henry III seized on all the D'Oylys' domains, 
 and conferred them on John de Plessetis. 
 
 John D'Oyly, son of Roger D'Oyly by his wife 
 the heiress of Robert Napparius in 4 Edw. I 
 (1275-76), held the manor of Pushull Nappa, Co. 
 Oxon, of Edmund, Earl of Cornwall (nephew of 
 King Henry III), by the yearly render of a table- 
 cloth of three shillings value ; or three shillings in 
 lieu thereof ; which manor had in the time of 
 Henry III been held of the Crown in capite, by 
 serjeanty, viz. by the said tenure of yielding 
 yearly a tablecloth to the Crown at the feast of 
 St. Michael by Robert Napparius. The above is 
 quite correct, but a story was founded on it which, 
 though romantic, is not so correct. This story is 
 to the effect that the ladies of the D'Oyly family 
 were accustomed to embroider with needlework 
 
" D'OYLY'S WOOLLEN WAREHOUSE '' 151 
 
 the yearly tablecloth quit rent, which accumulat- 
 ing in time were used at the Royal table and 
 called Doilies. A more correct, though less 
 romantic version of the origin of the dessert 
 napkins termed '' D'Oyleys,'' is to be found in 
 page 180 of The House of UOyly, and is as follows : 
 " Charles D'Oyly, alias Deeley, temp. Queen Anne, 
 established (probably in connection with his 
 father) the house in the Strand, still known as 
 ' D'Oyly's woollen Warehouse,' celebrated for 
 having originated the dessert napkin, termed in 
 commemoration of their inventor (the said Charles 
 D'Oyly or his father) D'Oylys. This house, 
 situate next to Hodsolls the banker in the 
 Strand, was built by Inigo Jones. . . . Charles 
 D'Oyly's brother James resided in this house, but 
 it was pulled down about 1782, and on its site 
 was erected the building now^ standing (No. 346 
 Strand). This James D'Oyly's name or his 
 successors is thus introduced into the work called 
 Wine and Wallnuts or after dinner Chitchat, 
 ' Do you remember when we used to have a hit 
 at backgammon, turn and turn about with old 
 D'Oyly in the Strand.' " 
 
 John D'Oyly, of Ewden and Greenland House, 
 succeeded his father in 1449, and became cele- 
 brated for his military exploits in France. He 
 
 ^ This was written in 1845. 
 
152 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 purchased the estate of Greenland or Southland 
 in the south part of Hambledon parish. John 
 D'Oyly " the famose souldier " died, according 
 to his brass, in 1492, when his remains were 
 conveyed across the Thames and deposited in the 
 old Abbey Church of St. Mary at Hurley, Co. 
 Berks, just opposite to Greenland House. A brass 
 plate containing his recumbent effigy in armour 
 was placed over the spot of his interment with his 
 crest, and the following hexameters and penta- 
 meters in black letter below his feet : 
 
 Per celebrem D'Oyly tenet hie locus ecce Johannem 
 
 Eheu quem pestis hinc inopina tulit 
 Dum sibi vita comes fuit hie proeclarus et armis 
 
 Sanguine que et virtus claruit ampla viro 
 Tecum igitur prece Christi Jhesu fac vivat in oevum 
 
 Armiger iste sibi cehca dona petens 
 
 A descendant of the above John D'Oyly who 
 was also named John, was a son of Sir Cope 
 D'Oyly, and was born in 1601. At the commence- 
 ment of the Civil War he removed from Chisle- 
 hampton to Greenland House, Co. Bucks, and was 
 hardly settled there ere it was garrisoned on behalf 
 of the King, and sustained a severe siege from the 
 Parliamentary party, which lasted six months 
 and finally reduced it to surrender in July, 1644. 
 Whitelock's Memorials contain several notices of 
 the siege. He mentions that " Greenland House 
 was a place very prejudicial to the country there- 
 
A SECRET MARRIAGE 153 
 
 abouts/' but stood so close to the Thames that 
 the ParUamentary forces battered it from the 
 other side of the river. He states that *' the 
 besiegers had almost beaten the house about the 
 ears of the garrison/' The present Greenland 
 House stands near the site of the original mansion, 
 and belongs to Lord Hambledon who inherited it 
 from his well-known father, Mr. W. H. Smith. 
 
 Cholmley D'Oyly, son of Sir John D'Oyly and 
 of his wife Margaret Cholmley, eldest daughter 
 and coheir of Sir Richard Cholmley of Grosmont, 
 Co. York, was brought up under the influence of 
 Charles H's Court, and became dissipated and 
 extravagant. He soon fell desperately in love 
 with Margaret Needham, the daughter of a poor 
 clergyman, whose poverty precluded the possi- 
 bility of the D'Oyly family sanctioning a matri- 
 monial alliance between their heir and the clergy- 
 man's daughter ; indeed Sir John D'Oyly was 
 then in quest of a wealthy heiress for his son to 
 replenish the empty coffers of the family ; but this 
 was of little consequence to the lover, who was 
 determined to wed the object of his affections. 
 He knew however that to marry her openly would 
 ruin him, and therefore suggested to her father 
 a secret performance of the ceremony. It was 
 readily agreed to ; Mr. Needham himself married 
 them at Cirencester, 9th May, 1692, and then till 
 
154 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 Cholmley's death the matter was preserved a 
 profound secret. Soon after, John D'Oyly met a 
 wealthy heiress for his son, Elizabeth, only child 
 of Richard Cabell, Esq. of Brooke, Co. Devon, 
 heiress to him, and eventually also to her uncle, 
 Samuel Cabell, Esq. of South Paterton, Co. 
 Somerset. . . . This lady was an heiress of landed 
 property to the amount of £20,000, besides a con- 
 siderable personal estate ; and the intrigues by 
 which her marriage with Cholmley D'Oyly was 
 brought about could scarcely be exceeded in skill 
 and contrivance by the imagination of the novelists 
 of the present day. Suffice it to mention the 
 project succeeded, and that, by indentures of lease 
 and release dated 20th and 21st Nov., 1693, all 
 Elizabeth CabelFs estates were conveyed to the 
 use of herself and her heirs till her marriage, then to 
 trustees for the term of 500 years for securing to 
 Sir John D'Oyly £6000 (which was undertaken to 
 be discharged in four years), then to Cholmley 
 D'Oyly for life, then to Elizabeth for life with 
 divers remainders. About the 9th Dec, 1693, 
 they were married. . . . But it was impossible such 
 a proceeding could ultimately produce either 
 credit or satisfaction to the family. Cholmley 
 D'Oyly not only sent his heiress out of the kingdom 
 soon after their marriage, but when with her would 
 frequently joke about having another wife else- 
 where (and little doubt there was of it, for both of 
 them were bringing him children at the same time), 
 
A QUAINT EPITAPH 155 
 
 though she herself admitted he had always made 
 her a kind and affectionate husband. 
 
 In the family chapel in Hambledon Church 
 there is a very handsome monument of marble and 
 alabaster, with the figures of Sir Cope D'Oyly and 
 his wife kneeling facing each other, while behind 
 them are the figures of their five sons and five 
 daughters. The monument is adorned with the 
 family arms and crest, and has, engraved thereon, 
 a quaint epitaph which is ascribed to the poet 
 Quarles. Sir Cope's wife was a sister of Francis 
 Quarles the poet. These are the lines : 
 
 Ask not of me " Who's buried here ? " 
 
 Goe ask the Commons, ask the Shiere 
 
 Goe ask the Church ; they'll tell you who, 
 
 As well as blubber'd eyes can doe ; 
 
 Goe ask the heraulds, ask the poor. 
 
 Thine ears shall hear enough to ask no more. 
 
 Then if thine eyes bedew this sacred urn 
 
 Each drop a pearl will turn 
 
 T' adorn his tomb ; or if thou can'st not vent 
 
 Thou bring'st more marble to this monument. 
 
 Would'st thou reader draw to life 
 
 The perfect copy of a wife ? 
 
 Read on and then redeem from shame 
 
 That lost but honourable name ; 
 
 This dust was once in spirit a Jael, 
 
 Rebecca in grace, in heart an Abigail, 
 
 In works a Dorcas, in the church a Hannah 
 
 And to her spouse Susannah, 
 
 Prudently simple, providently wary. 
 
 To the world a Martha and to heaven a Mary. 
 
156 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 Baldwin D'Oyly of the House of D'Oyly of 
 Oxfordshire, living temp. Henry II (who derived 
 his name from Baldwin de Redvers, Earl of Devon, 
 his maternal relative), became Esquire to Brian de 
 Bois Guilbert a Knight Templar as mentioned in 
 Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe ; followed him to the 
 tournament held at Ashby de la Zouch in Leicester- 
 shire temp, Richard I, where after that tourna- 
 ment Baldwin D'Oyly offered to Ivanhoe the 
 conquering champion, then known only as the 
 Disinherited Knight, " the horse and arms of his 
 liege de Bois Guilbert/' 
 
 In 1601 Elizabeth D'Oyly, daughter of Edmund 
 D'Oyly of Shottisham, married Robert Buxton of 
 Tybenham Hall, Co. Norfolk. *' There is a strange 
 ghost story respecting Tybenham Hall which 
 relates how a faithless lady, the wife of one of the 
 Buxtons, excited her husband's jealousy to such 
 an extent that he fought a duel on her account 
 and was killed within the walls of his own hall ; 
 in consequence of which the lady ever after 
 haunted a certain portion of the mansion (dis- 
 figured it is said with the stains of her husband's 
 blood), till razed a few years ago to * rid the old 
 hall of the ghost.' The armour worn by that 
 Buxton was hanging a few years ago at Tybenham 
 HaU." 
 
EATEN BY CANNIBALS 157 1 
 
 Captain Thomas D'Oyly was in the Bengal 
 Artillery from 1811 till 1834, when he went to 
 Sydney, Australia, on leave. On his return 
 voyage to India he embarked in the ill-fated ship 
 Charles Eaton. The ship set sail, but never 
 reached its destination, and for a considerable 
 period the fate of the passengers and crew was 
 utterly unknown. Great anxiety prevailed in 
 every quarter where Captain D'Oyly was known 
 in India, Sydney, and England. At last in the 
 autumn of 1835 rumours reached England that 
 the ship had been wrecked in Torres Straits and 
 that the passengers and crew had been ruthlessly 
 murdered by the savages who infest the islands 
 there. On further investigation the horrible 
 story proved too true. Mr. Bayley as guardian of 
 Captain D'Oyly's children and Mr. Robert D'Oyly 
 his eldest brother both applied through Lord 
 Glenelg to the English Government to send out a 
 frigate of war in quest of the survivors, if any, of 
 the Charles Eaton. The request was granted, while 
 similar exertions were being made in India by 
 Sir Charles D'Oyly and Major Twemlow. The 
 schooner Isabel was despatched on the mission in 
 question, and, to be brief, it was ascertained that 
 the Charles Eaton had been wrecked in Torres 
 Straits in August, 1834 i ^^^ ^^^^ v^it\i the 
 exception of five sailors who escaped in a boat to 
 Batavia and the two boys presently mentioned, 
 Captain D'Oyly, his wife, and third son with all 
 
158 TALES RETAILED OF CELEBRITIES 
 
 the crew and passengers had been murdered and 
 devoured by the cannibal savages. '' With the 
 intention of adopting them the wretches had 
 spared from the general massacre a cabin boy 
 named Ireland, and Captain D'Oyly's youngest 
 child, an infant of three years of age ; and these 
 were discovered on Murray's Island in the Straits, 
 having resided with the savages not less than two 
 years. Both were of course ransomed and 
 eventually brought to England. . . . Mr. Bayley 
 employed the celebrated marine painter, Car- 
 michael, to execute two very fine pictures, one of 
 the wreck of the Charles Eaton, and the other of 
 the redemption of his (Mr. Bayley's nephew)." 
 The picture shows the native savages holding up 
 the child, and the captain of the schooner holding 
 up an axe which was accepted as the price of the 
 boy's redemption. This picture is now in my 
 possession. A descendant of Captain Thomas 
 D'Oyly is now a Colonel, commanding a regiment 
 in Mesopotamia. He has been wounded, but has 
 recovered and lives to give a final touch to the 
 Turk. 
 
 Lieutenant Thomas D'Oyly, eldest son of the 
 above-mentioned Captain Thomas D'Oyly, was in 
 the 45th Bengal N.I. He died of cholera when only 
 twenty-one years of age, at Benares. At the time 
 of his death he appeared before his relatives in 
 
AN APPARITION 159 
 
 Mr. D'Oyly Bayley's house at Stockton, which is 
 over 6000 miles from the place where he died. 
 The case is a well-authenticated one, and is thus 
 described by Mr. D'Oyly Bayley in The House of 
 DVyly : 
 
 '* Many cases are related of persons who dying 
 abroad have in their last moments visited or 
 appeared to their friends at many thousand miles 
 distant. That a most remarkable instance of this 
 occurred in Mr. Bayley's house at Stockton 
 between the hours of twelve, midnight, and one 
 a.m., close upon the time when it was afterwards 
 ascertained Lieutenant D'Oyly died in the East 
 Indies, the author can vouch for, as it was com- 
 municated to him some weeks before news of 
 Lieutenant D'Oyly's decease reached England.*' 
 
 Lieutenant Thomas D'Oyly's brother, Edward 
 Armstrong-Currie D'Oyly, was in the Bengal 
 Horse Artillery. He was a handsome and very 
 popular young man and as brave as a lion. He 
 was killed in the Indian Mutiny and died fighting 
 his guns after he was wounded till death freed his 
 brave spirit. 
 
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