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. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. JUL I ,83j NOV b 1969 b 4 jREC'D 1 o - 9 oS -4PM • SEP 22 1980 tSL^^X :•?•:: = T, / LD 21-20m-6.'39 / T.""-. 435508 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY