Chapter 19

Here was a pretty state of matters! The Major and his wife could not see their way clear at all. Consultation followed consultation, with visits on the Major's part to poor Martell in the dining-room irregularly interspersed. It was almost morning before affairs arranged themselves after a fashion. The new basis agreed upon was that the previously existing arrangement should be regarded as dead, and that a courtship between Martell and Miss Davidson should be commenced _de novo_--he to do his best to recommend himself to the lady's affections, she to learn to love him if she could, red hair and all. And so George went home, and the Segowlie household went to bed.

Poor George at the best had a very poor idea of courting acceptably; and surely no man was more heavily handicapped in the enterprise prescribed him. He had to court to order, and to combat, besides, both the bad impression made at starting and the misfortune of his red hair. The poor fellow did his best. He used to come and sit in Mrs. Freeze's drawing-room hours on end, glowering at Miss Davidson in a silence broken by spasmodic efforts at forced talk. He brought the girl presents, gave her a horse, and begged of her to ride with him. But the great stupid fellow had not thought of a habit and the girl felt a delicacy in telling him that she had not one. So the horse ate his head off in idleness, and George's heart went farther and farther down in the direction of his boots. He had so bothered Mrs. Freeze that she had washed her hands of him, and had bidden him worry it out on his own line.

In less than a month the crisis came. Miss Davidson could not bring herself to think of poor George as affording the makings of a husband. She told Mrs. Freeze so, and begged, for kindness sake, that the Major would break this her determination to Mr. Martell and desire him to give the thing up as hopeless. The Major thought the best course to pursue was to write to George to this effect. Next morning in the small hours the poor fellow turned up in the Segowlie veranda in a terribly bad way. He would not accept his fate at second-hand in this fashion; he must see Miss Davidson and try to move her to be kind to him. In the end there was an interview between them, from which George emerged quiet but very pale. His notable matrimonial bandobast had proved the deadest of failures; and the poor fellow's lip trembled as he thought of Mactavish's happy home and his own forlorn bungalow.

But although he had red hair and did not know in the least what to do with his feet, George Martell was a gentleman. The lady continuing anxious to go home, he insisted on his right to pay her return passage as he had done her passage outward, urging rather ruefully that, having taken a shot at happiness and having missed fire, he must be the sole sufferer. It is a little surprising that this uncouth chivalry did not melt the lady, but she was obdurate, although she let him have his way about the passage money. So in the company of an officer's wife going home Miss Davidson quitted Segowlie and journeyed to Bombay. Poor old George, with a very sore heart, was bent on seeing the last of her before settling down again to the old dull bachelor life. He dodged down to Bombay in the same train, travelling second class that he might not annoy the girl by a chance meeting; and stood with a sad face leaning on the rail of the Apollo Bunder, as he watched the ship containing his miscarried venture steam out of Bombay harbour on its voyage to England.

The same night he set out on his return to his plantation. At near midnight the mail-train from Bombay reaches Eginpoora, at the head of the famous Bhore ghât. Some refreshment is ordinarily procurable there, but it is not much of a place. George Martell had had a drink, and was sauntering moodily up and down the platform waiting for the whistle to sound. As he passed the second class compartment reserved for ladies he heard a low, tremulous voice exclaim, "Oh, if I could only make them understand that I'd give the world for a cup of tea!" George, if uncouth, was a practical man. His prompt voice rang out, "_Qui hye, ek pyala chah lao!_" Promptly came the refreshment-room _khitmutghar_, hurrying with the tea; and George, taking off his hat, begged to know whether he could be of any further service.

It was a very pleasant face that looked out on him in the moonlight, and there was more than mere conventionality in the accents in which the pleasant voice acknowledged his opportune courtesy. Insensibly George and the lady drifted into conversation. She was very lonely, poor thing; a friendless girl coming out to be governess in the family of a _burra sahib_ at Chupra. Now Chupra is only across the Gunduck from Tirhoot, so George told his new acquaintance they were both going to nearly the same place, and professed his cordial willingness to assist her on the journey. He did so, escorting her right into Chupra before he set his face homeward; and he thenceforth got into a habit of visiting Chupra very frequently. Need I prolong the story? I happened to be in Bankipore when the Prince of Wales visited that centre of famine-wallahs. It fell to my pleasant lot to take Mrs. Martell in to dinner at the Commissioner's hospitable table. Mrs. Mactavish was sitting opposite; and I went back to my bedroom-tent in the compound without having made up my mind whether she or Mrs. Martell was the prettier and the nicer. So you see George Martell did not make quite so bad a _bandobast_ after all.

THE LUCKNOW OF TO-DAY--1879

It was in Cawnpore on my way up country, during the Prince of Wales's tour through India, that there were shown to me some curious and interesting mementoes of the siege of Lucknow. The friend in whose possession they were was near Havelock as he sat before his tent in the short Indian twilight, a short time before the advance on Lucknow made by him and Outram in September 1857. Through the gloom of the falling twilight there came marching towards the General a file of Highlanders escorting a tall, gaunt Oude man, on whose swarthy face the lamplight struck as he salaamed before the General Lord Sahib. Then he extracted from his ear a minute section of quill sealed at both ends. The General's son opened the strange envelope forwarded by a postal service so hazardous, and unrolled a morsel of paper which seemed to be covered with cabalistic signs. The missive had been sent out from Lucknow by Brigadier Inglis, the commander of the beleaguered garrison of the Lucknow Residency, and its bearer was the stanch and daring scout, Ungud. As I write the originals of this communication and of others which came in the same way lie before me; and two of those missives in their curious mixture of characters may be found of interest to readers of to-day.

LUKHNOW, _Septr. 16th._ (Recd. 19th.)

MY DEAR GENERAL--The last letter I recd. from you was dated 24th ult'o, since when I have rec'd [Greek: no neus] whatever from y'r [Greek: kamp] or of y'r [Greek: movements] but am now [Greek: dailae expekting] to receive [Greek: inteligense] of y'r [Greek: advanse] in this [Greek: direktion]. Since the date of my last letter the enemy have continued to persevere unceasingly in their efforts against this position & the firing has never ceased day or night; they have about [Greek: sixten] guns in position round us--many of them 18 p'rs. On 5th inst. they made a very determined attack after exploding 2 mines and [Greek: suksaeded] for a [Greek: moment] in [Greek: almost geting] into one of our [Greek: bateries], but were eventually repulsed on all sides with heavy loss. Since the above date they have kept up a cannonade & musketry fire, occasionally throwing in a shell or two. My [Greek: waeklae loses] continue very [Greek: hevae] both in [Greek: ophisers] & [Greek: men]. I shall be quite out of [Greek: rum] for the [Greek: men] in [Greek: eit dais], but we have been [Greek: living] on [Greek: redused rations] & I hope to be [Greek: able] to [Greek: get] on [Greek: til] about [Greek: phirst prox]. If you have not [Greek: relieved] us by [Greek: then] we shall have [Greek: no meat lepht], as I must [Greek: kaep] some few [Greek: buloks] to [Greek: move] my [Greek: guns] about the [Greek: positions]. As it is I have had to [Greek: kil] almost all the [Greek: gun buloks], for my men c'd not [Greek: perphorm] the [Greek: ard work without animal phood]. There is a report, tho' from a source on which I cannot implicitly rely, that [Greek: mansing] has just [Greek: arived] in [Greek: luknow] havg. [Greek: lepht part] of his [Greek: phors outside] the [Greek: sitae]. It is said that [Greek: he] is in [Greek: our interest] and that [Greek: he] has [Greek: taken] the [Greek: above step] at the [Greek: instigation] of B[Greek: riti]sh [Greek: athoritae]. But I cannot say whether [Greek: su]ch [Greek: be the kase], as all I have to go upon is [Greek: bazar rumors]. I am [Greek: most anxious] to [Greek: hear] of yr. [Greek: advanse] to [Greek: enable mae] to [Greek: rae-asure our native soldiers]. [Footnote: The reader will observe that the words are English, though the characters are Greek.]--Yours truly,

J. INGLIS, _Brigadier_,

H.M. 32'd Reg't.

To Brig'r Havelock, Commg. Relieving Force.

The other missive is of an earlier date, and was brought out in the same manner as the first.

_August 16_. (Recd. 23rd August.)

MY DEAR GENERAL--A note from Colonel Tytler to Mr. Gubbins reached last night, dated "Mungalwar, 4th instant," the latter part of which is as follows:--"You must [Greek: aid] us in [Greek: everae] way even to cutting y'r way out if we [Greek: kant phorse our] way in. We have [Greek: onlae a small phorse]." This has [Greek: kaused mae] much [Greek: uneasiness], as it is quite [Greek: imposible] with my [Greek: weak] & [Greek: shatered phorse] that I can [Greek: leave] my [Greek: dephenses]. You must bear in mind how I am [Greek: hampered], that I have upwards of [Greek: one undred & twentae-sik wounded], and at the least [Greek: two undred & twenae women], & about [Greek: two undred] & [Greek: thirtae children], & no [Greek: kariage] of any [Greek: deskription], besides [Greek: sakriphising twentae-thrae laks] of [Greek: treasure] & about [Greek: thirtae guns] of [Greek: sorts]. In consequence of the news rec'd I shall soon put the [Greek: phorse] on [Greek: alph rations], unless I [Greek: hear phrom] you. [Greek: Our provisions] will [Greek: last] us [Greek: then] till [Greek: about] the [Greek: tenth] [Greek: september]. If you [Greek: hope] to [Greek: save this no time must] be [Greek: lost] in pushing forward. We are [Greek: dailae] being [Greek: ataked] by the [Greek: enemae], who are within a few yards of our [Greek: dephenses]. Their [Greek: mines] have [Greek: alreadae weakened our post], & I have [Greek: everae] [Greek: reason] to [Greek: believe] that are carrying on [Greek: others]. Their [Greek: aeteen] [Greeks: pounders] are within 150 yards of [Greek: some oph our bateries], & [Greek: phrom] their [Greek: positions & [Greek: our inabilitae] to [Greek: phorm working] [Greek: parties], we [Greek: kanot repli] to [Greek: them. Thae damage done ourlae] is very [Greek: great]. My [Greek: strength] now in [Greek: europeans] is [Greek: thrae undred] & [Greek: phiphtae], & about [Greek: thrae hundred natives], & the men [Greek: dreadphulae] [Greek: harassed], & owing to [Greek: part] of the [Greek: residensae] having been [Greek: brought down] by [Greek: round shot] are without [Greek: shelter]. Our [Greek: native] [Greek: phorse] hav'g been [Greek: asured] on Col. Tytler's authority of y'r [Greek: near] [Greek: aproach some twentae phive dais ago are naturallae losing konphidense], [Greek: and iph thae leave] us I do not [Greek: sae how the dephenses] are to be [Greek: manned]. Did you [Greek: reseive a letter & plan phrom] the [Greek: man] [Greek: Ungud]?--Kindly answer this question.--Yours truly,

J. INGLIS, _Brigadier_.

Cawnpore is an engrossing theme, and Bithoor alone would furnish material for an article; but my present subject is Lucknow, and I must get to it. There is a railway now to Lucknow from Cawnpore, but the railway bridge across the Ganges is not yet finished and passengers must cross by the bridge of boats to the Oude side. Behind me, as the gharry jingles over the wooden platform, is the fort which Havelock began, which Neill completed, and in which Windham found the shelter which alone saved him from utter defeat. Before me is the low Gangetic shore, with the dumpy sand-hills gradually rising from the water's edge. A few years ago there used to ride at the head of that noble regiment the 78th Highlanders, a smooth-faced, gaunt, long-legged, stooping officer on an old white horse. The Colonel had a voice like a girl and his men irreverently called him the "old squeaker"; but although you never heard him talk of his deeds he had a habit of going quietly and steadily to the front, taking fighting and hardship philosophically as part of the day's work. Those sand-banks were once the scene of some quiet, unsensational heroism of his. He commanded the two companies of Highlanders whom Havelock threw on the unknown shore as the vanguard of his advance into Oude. No prior reconnaissance was possible. Oude swarmed with an armed and hostile population. The chances were that an army was hovering but a little way inland, waiting to attack the head of the column on landing. But it was necessary to risk all contingencies, and Mackenzie accepted the service as he might have done an invitation to a glass of grog. In the dead of the night the boats stood across with the little forlorn hope with which Havelock essayed to grapple on to Oude. Landing in the rain and darkness, it was Mackenzie's task to grope for an enemy if there should be one in his vicinity. There was not; but for four-and-twenty hours his little band hung on to the Oude bank as it were by their eyelids, detached, unsupported, and wholly charged with the taking care of themselves until it was possible to send a reinforcement. The charge of this vague, uncertain, tentative enterprise, fraught with risks so imminent and so vast, required a cool, steady-balanced courage of no common order.

"Onao!" shouts the conductor of the train at the first station from Cawnpore, and we look out on a few railway bungalows and a large native village apparently in a ruinous state. All this journey is studded with battlefields, and this is one of them. If I had time I should like to make a pilgrimage to the street mouth into which dashed frantically Private Patrick Cavanagh of the 64th, who, stung to madness by the hesitation of his fellows, was cut to pieces by the tulwars of the mutineers. We jog on very slowly; the Oude and Rohilcund Railway is to India in point of slowness what the Great Eastern used to be to us at home; but every yard of the ground is interesting. Along that high road passed in long, strangely diversified procession the people whom Clyde brought away from Lucknow--the civilians, the women, the children, and the wounded of the immortal garrison. That swell beyond the mango trees under which the _nhil gau_ are feeding, is Mungalwar, Havelock's menacing position. No wonder though the outskirts of this town on the high road present a ruined appearance. It is Busseerutgunge, the scene of three of Havelock's battles and victories, fought and won in a single fortnight. We pass Bunnee, where Havelock and Outram tramping on to the relief, fired a royal salute in the hope that the sound of it might reach to the Residency and cheer the hearts of its garrison. And now we are on the platform of the Lucknow station which has more of an English look about it than have most Indian stations. There is a bookstall, although it is not one of Smith's; and there are lots of English faces in the crowd waiting the arrival of the train. The natives, one sees at a glance, are of very different physique from the people of Bengal. The Oude man is tall, square-shouldered, and upright; he has more hair on his face than has the Bengali, and his carriage is that of a free man. The railway station of Lucknow is flanked by two earthwork fortifications of considerable pretensions.

Lucknow is so full of interest and the objects of interest are so widely spread that one is in doubt where to begin the pilgrimage. But the Alumbagh is on the railway side of the canal and therefore nearest; and I drive directly to it before going into the town. From the station the road to the Alumbagh turns sharp to the left and the two miles' drive is through beautiful groves and gardens. Then the plain opens up and there is the detached temple which so long was one of Outram's outlying pickets; and to the left of it the square-walled enclosure of the Alumbagh itself with the four corners flanked by earthen bastions. The top of the wall is everywhere roughly crenelated for musketry fire, and on two of its faces there are countless tokens that it has been the target for round shot and bullets. The Alumbagh in the pre-Mutiny period was a pleasure-garden of one of the princes of Oude. The enclosed park contained a summer palace and all the surroundings were pretty and tasteful. It was for the possession of the Alumbagh that Havelock fought his last battle before the relief; here it was where he left his baggage and went in; here it was that Clyde halted to organise the turning movement which achieved the second relief. Hither were brought from the Dilkoosha the women and children of the garrison prior to starting on the march for Cawnpore; here Outram lay threatening Lucknow from Clyde's relief until the latter's ultimate capture of the city. But these occurrences contribute but trivially to the interest of the Alumbagh in comparison with the circumstance that within its enclosure is the grave of Havelock. We enter the great enclosure under the lofty arch of the castellated gateway. From this a straight avenue bordered by arbor vitae trees, conducts to a square plot of ground enclosed by low posts and chains. Inside this there is a little garden the plants of which a native gardener is watering as we open the wicket. From the centre of the little garden there rises a shapely obelisk on a square pedestal and on one side of the pedestal is a long inscription. "Here lie," it begins, "the mortal remains of Henry Havelock;" and so, methinks, it might have ended. There is needed no prolix biographical inscription to tell the reverent pilgrim of the deeds of the dead man by whose grave he stands--so long as history lives, so long does it suffice to know that "here lie the mortal remains of Henry Havelock"--and the text and verse of poetry grate on one as redundancies. He sickened two days before the evacuation of the Residency and died on the morning of the 24th of November in his dooly in a tent of the camp at the Dilkoosha. The life went out of him just as the march began, and his soldiers conveyed with them, on the litter on which he had expired, the mortal remains of the chief who had so often led them on to victory.

On the following morning they buried him here in the Alumbagh, under the tree which still spreads its branches over the little garden in which he lies. There stood around the grave-mouth Colin Campbell and the chivalrous Outram, and stanch old Walter Hamilton, and the ever-ready Fraser Tytler; and the "boy Harry" to whom the campaign had brought the gain of fame and the loss of a father; and the devoted Harwood with "his heart in the coffin there with Caesar;" and the heroic William Peel; and that "colossal red Celt," the noble, ill-fated Adrian Hope, sacrificed afterwards to incompetent obstinacy. Behind stood in a wide circle the soldiers of the Ross-shire Buffs and the "Blue Caps" who had served the dead chief so stanchly, and had gathered here now, with many a memory of his ready praise of valour and his indefatigable regard for the comfort of his men, stirring in their war-worn hearts--

Guarded to a soldier's grave By the bravest of the brave, He hath gained a nobler tomb Than in old cathedral gloom. Nobler mourners paid the rite, Than the crowd that craves a sight; England's banners o'er him waved, Dead he keeps the name he saved.

The burial-place was being temporarily abandoned, and as the rebels desecrated all the graves they could discover it was necessary to obliterate as much as possible the tokens of the interment. A big "H" was carved into the bark of the tree and a small tin plate fastened to its trunk, to guide to the subsequent investigation of the spot. Dr. Russell tells us that when he visited the Alumbagh before his return home after the mutiny in Oude was stamped out, he found the hero's grave a muddy trench near the foot of a tree which bore the mark of a round shot and had carved into its bark the letter "H." The tree is here still and the dent of the round shot, and faintly too is to be discerned the carved letter but the bark around it seems to have been whittled away, perhaps by the sacrilegious knives of relic-seeking visitors. There is the grave of a young lieutenant in a corner of the little garden and a few private soldiers lie hard by.