N. B.--_These two stories are founded on fact; but the personal
allusions are fictitious. As regards public events, they are
historically accurate.--G. W. E. R._
I
_A FORGOTTEN PANIC_
Friday, the 13th of September, 1867, was the last day of the Harrow
holidays, and I was returning to the Hill from a visit to some
friends in Scotland. During the first part of the journey I was
alone in the carriage, occupied with an unlearnt holiday task;
but at Carlisle I acquired a fellow-traveller. He jumped into the
carriage just as the train was beginning to move, and to the porter
who breathlessly enquired about his luggage he shouted, "This is
all," and flung a small leathern case on to the seat. As he settled
himself into his plate, his eye fell upon the pile of baggage which
I had bribed the station-master to establish in my corner of the
carriage--a portmanteau, a hat-box, a rug wrapped round an umbrella,
and one or two smaller parcels--all legibly labelled
G. W. E. RUSSELL,
Woodside,
Harrow-on-the-Hill.
After a glance at my property, the stranger turned to me and exclaimed:
"When you have travelled as much as I have, young sir, you will
know that, the less the luggage, the greater the ease." Youth,
I think, as a rule resents overtures from strangers, but there
was something in my fellow-traveller's address so pleasant as to
disarm resentment. His voice, his smile, his appearance, were alike
prepossessing. He drew from his pocket the _Daily News_, in those
days a famous organ for foreign intelligence, and, as he composed
himself to read, I had a full opportunity of studying his appearance.
He seemed to be somewhere between thirty and forty, of the middle
height, lean and sinewy, and, as his jump into the train had shown,
as lissom as a cat. His skin was so much tanned that it was difficult
to guess his natural complexion; but his closely cropped hair was
jet-black, and his clean-shaven face showed the roots of a very
dark beard. In those days it was fashionable to wear one's hair
rather long, and to cultivate whiskers and a moustache. Priests
and actors were the only people who shaved clean, and I decided
in my mind that my friend was an actor. Presently he laid down his
paper, and, turning to me with that grave courtesy which when one
is very young one appreciates, he said: "I hope, sir, that my abrupt
entry did not disturb you. I had a rush for it, and nearly lost my
train as it was. And I hope what I said about luggage did not seem
impertinent. I was only thinking that, if I had been obliged to look
after portmanteaus, I should probably still be on the platform at
Carlisle." I hastened to say, with my best air, that I had not been
the least offended, and rather apologized for my own encumbrances
by saying that I was going South for three months, and had to take
all my possessions with me. I am not sure that I was pleased when
my friend said: "Ah, yes; the end of the vacation. You are returning
to college at Harrow, I see." It was humiliating to confess that
Harrow was a school, and I a schoolboy; but my friend took it with
great composure. Perfectly, he said; it was his error. He should
have said "school," not "college." He had a great admiration for
the English Public Schools. It was his misfortune to have been
educated abroad. A French lycée, or a German gymnasium, was not
such a pleasant place as Eton or Harrow. This was exactly the best
way of starting a conversation, and, my schoolboy reserve being
once broken, we chatted away merrily. Very soon I had told him
everything about myself, my home, my kinsfolk, my amusements, my
favourite authors, and all the rest of it; but presently it dawned
upon me that, though I had disclosed everything to him, he had
disclosed nothing to me, and that the actor, if I rightly deemed
him so, was not very proud of his profession. His nationality,
too, perplexed me. He spoke English as fluently as I did, but not
quite idiomatically; and there was just a trace of an accent which
was not English. Sometimes it sounded French, but then again there
was a tinge of American. On the whole, I came to the conclusion
that my friend was an Englishman who had lived a great deal abroad,
or else an American who had lived in Paris. As the day advanced,
the American theory gained upon me; for, though my friend told me
nothing about himself, he told me a great deal about every place
which we passed. He knew the industries of the various towns, and
the events connected with them, and the names of the people who
owned the castles and great country-houses. I had been told that
this habit of endless exposition was characteristic of the cultured
American. But, whatever was the nationality of my companion, I
enjoyed his company very much. He talked to me, not as a man to
a boy, but as an elder to a younger man; paid me the courtesy of
asking my opinion and listening to my answers; and, by all the
little arts of the practised converser, made me feel on good terms
with myself and the world. Yankee or Frenchman, my actor was a very
jolly fellow; and I only wished that he would tell me a little
about himself.
When, late in the afternoon, we passed Bletchley Station, I bethought
me that we should soon be separated, for the London and North-Western
train, though an express, was to be stopped at Harrow in order to
disgorge its load of returning boys. I began to collect my goods
and to prepare myself for the stop, when my friend said, to my
great joy, "I see you are alighting. I am going on to Euston. I
shall be in London for the next few weeks. I should very much like
to pay a visit to Harrow one day, and see your 'lions.'" This was
exactly what I wished, but had been too modest to suggest; so I
joyfully acceded to his proposal, only venturing to add that, though
we had been travelling together all day, I did not know my friend's
name. He tore a leaf out of a pocket-book, scrawled on it, in a
backward-sloping hand, "H. Aulif," and handed it to me, saying,
"I do not add an address, for I shall be moving about. But I will
write you a line very soon, and fix a day for my visit." Just then
the train stopped at the foot of the Hill, and, as I was fighting
my way through the welter of boys and luggage on the platform,
I caught sight of a smiling face and a waved hand at the window
of the carriage which I had just quitted.
The beginning of a new school-quarter, the crowd of fresh faces,
the greetings of old friends, and a remove into a much more difficult
Form, rather distracted my mind from the incidents of my journey,
to which it was recalled by the receipt of a note from Mr. Aulif,
saying that he would be at Harrow by 2.30 on Saturday afternoon,
the 21st of September. I met him at the station, and found him
even pleasanter than I expected. He extolled Public Schools to
the skies, and was sure that our English virtues were in great
part due to them. Of Harrow he spoke with peculiar admiration as
the School of Sheridan, of Peel, of Palmerston. What was our course
of study? What our system of discipline? What were our amusements?
The last question I was able to answer by showing him both the
end of cricket and the beginning of football, for both were being
played; and, as we mounted the Hill towards the School and the
Spire, he asked me if we had any other amusements. Fives or racquets
he did not seem to count. Did we run races? Had we any gymnastics?
(In those days we had not.) Did we practise rifle-shooting? Every
boy ought to learn to use a rifle. The Volunteer movement was a
national glory. Had we any part in it?
The last question touched me on the point of honour. In those days
Harrow was the best School in England for rifle-shooting. In the
Public Schools contest at Wimbledon we carried off the Ashburton
Challenge Shield five times in succession, and in 1865 and 1866
we added to it Lord Spencer's Cup for the best marksman in the
school-teams. All this, and a good deal more to the same effect,
I told Mr. Aulif with becoming spirit, and proudly led the way to
our "Armoury." This grandly named apartment was in truth a dingy
cellar under the Old Schools, and held only a scanty store of rifles
(for the corps, though keen, was not numerous). Boyhood is sensitive
to sarcasm, and I felt an uncomfortable twinge as Mr. Aulif glanced
round our place of arms and said, "A gallant corps, I am sure,
if not numerically strong. But this is your School corps only.
Doubtless the citizens of the place also have their corps?" Rather
wishing to get my friend away from a scene where he obviously was
not impressed, and fearing that perhaps he might speak lightly
of the Fourth Form Room, even though its panels bear the carved
name of BYRON, I seized the opening afforded by the mention of the
local corps, and proposed a walk towards the drill-shed. This was
a barn, very roughly adapted to military purposes, and standing,
remote from houses, in a field at Roxeth, a hamlet of Harrow on the
way to Northolt. It served both for drill-shed and for armoury,
and, as the local corps (the 18th Middlesex) was a large one, it
contained a good supply of arms and ammunition. The custodian,
who lived in a cottage at Roxeth, was a Crimean veteran, who kept
everything in apple-pie order, and on this Saturday afternoon was
just putting the finishing touches of tidiness to the properties
in his charge. Mr. Aulif made friends with him at once, spoke
enthusiastically of the Crimea, talked of improvements in guns
and gunnery since those days, praised the Anglo-French alliance,
and said how sad it was that England now had to be on her guard
against her former allies across the Channel. As the discourse
proceeded, I began to question my theory that Aulif was an actor.
Perhaps he was a soldier. Could he be a Jesuit in disguise? Jesuits
were clean-shaved and well-informed. Or was it only his faculty of
general agreeableness that enabled him to attract the old caretaker
at the drill-shed as he had attracted the schoolboy in the train?
As we walked back to the station, my desire to know what my friend
really was increased momentarily, but I no more dared to ask him
than I should have dared to shake hands with Queen Victoria; for,
to say the truth, Mr. Aulif, while he fascinated, awed me. He told
me that he was just going abroad, and we parted at the station
with mutual regrets.
* * * * *
The year 1867 was conspicuously a year of Fenian activity. The
termination of the Civil War in America had thrown out of employment
a great many seasoned soldiers of various nationalities, who had
served for five years in the American armies. Among these were
General Cluseret, educated at Saint-Cyr, trained by Garibaldi,
and by some good critics esteemed "the most consummate soldier of
the day." The Fenians now began to dream not merely of isolated
outrages, but of an armed rising in Ireland; and, after consultation
with the Fenian leaders in New York, Cluseret came to England with
a view to organizing the insurrection. What then befell can be
read in Lathair, where Cluseret is thinly disguised as "Captain
Bruges," and also in his own narrative, published in _Fraser's
Magazine_ for 1872. He arrived in London in January, 1867, and
startling events began to happen in quick succession. On the 11th
of February an armed party of Fenians attacked Chester Castle,
and were not repulsed without some difficulty. There was an armed
rising at Killarney. The police-barracks at Tallaght were besieged,
and at Glencullen the insurgents captured the police-force and
their weapons. At Kilmallock there was an encounter between the
Fenians and the constabulary, and life was lost on both sides.
There was a design of concentrating all the Fenian forces on Mallow
Junction, but the rapid movement of the Queen's troops frustrated
the design, and the general rising was postponed. Presently two
vagrants were arrested on suspicion at Liverpool, and proved to be
two of the most notorious of the Fenian leaders, "Colonel" Kelly
and "Captain" Deasy. It was when these prisoners, remanded for
further enquiry, were being driven under a strong escort to gaol
that the prison-van was attacked by a rescue-party, and Sergeant
Brett, who was in charge of the prisoners, was shot. The rescuers,
Allen, Larkin, and Gould, were executed on the 2nd of November,
and on the 1st of December Clerkenwell Prison was blown up, in
an ineffectual attempt to liberate the Fenian prisoners confined
in it. On the 20th of December Matthew Arnold wrote to his mother,
"We are in a strange uneasy state in London, and the profound sense
I have long had of the hollowness and insufficiency of our whole
system of administration does not inspire me with much confidence."
The "strange uneasy state" was not confined to London, but prevailed
everywhere. Obviously England was threatened by a mysterious and
desperate enemy, and no one seemed to know that enemy's headquarters
or base of operations. The Secret Societies were actively at work
in England, Ireland, France, and Italy. It was suspected then--it
is known now, and chiefly through Cluseret's revelations--that the
isolated attacks on barracks and police-stations were designed
for the purpose of securing arms and ammunition; and, if only there
had been a competent General to command the rebel forces, Ireland
would have risen in open war. But a competent General was exactly
what the insurgents lacked; for Cluseret, having surveyed the whole
situation with eyes trained by a lifelong experience of war, decided
that the scheme was hopeless, and returned to Paris.
Such were some--for I have only mentioned a few--of the incidents
which made 1867 a memorable year. On my own memory it is stamped
with a peculiar clearness.
On Wednesday morning, the 2nd of October, 1867, as we were going up
to First School at Harrow, a rumour flew from mouth to mouth that
the drill-shed had been attacked by Fenians. Sure enough it had. The
caretaker (as I said before) lived some way from the building, and
when he went to open it in the morning he found that the door had
been forced and the place swept clean of arms and ammunition. Here
was a real sensation, and we felt for a few hours "the joy of eventful
living"; but later in the day the evening papers, coming down from
London, quenched our excitement with a greater. It appeared that
during the night of the 1st of October, drill-sheds and armouries
belonging to the Volunteer regiments had been simultaneously raided
north, south, east, and west of London, and all munitions of war
spirited away, for a purpose which was not hard to guess. Commenting
on this startling occurrence, the papers said: "We have reason
to believe that one of the ablest of the Fenian agents has been
for some time operating secretly in the United Kingdom. He has
been traced to Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London. It is
believed at Scotland Yard that he organized these attacks on Volunteer
headquarters, arranged for the arms and ammunition to be transferred
by a sure hand to Ireland, and has himself returned to Paris." A
friend of mine who had gone up to London to see a dentist brought
back a _Globe_ with him, and, as he handed it to me, he pointed
out the passage which I have just cited. As I read it, my heart
gave a jump--a sudden thrill of delicious excitement. My friend
Mr. Aulif must be the Fenian agent who had organized these raids,
and I, who had always dreamed romance, had now been brought into
actual contact with it. The idea of communicating my suspicions
to anyone never crossed my mind. I felt instinctively that this
was a case where silence was golden. Fortunately, none of my
school-fellows had seen Mr. Aulif or heard of his visit; and the
old caretaker of the drill-shed had been too much gratified by talk
and tip to entertain an unworthy thought of "that pleasant-spoken
gentleman."
Soon the story of these raids had been forgotten in the far more
exhilarating occurrences at Manchester and Clerkenwell which closed
the year; and the execution of Michael Barrett on the 26th of May,
1868 (the last public execution, by the way), brought the history
of Fenianism in England to an end.
As I looked back on my journey from Scotland, and my walk round
Harrow with Mr. Aulif, I thought that the reason why he did not
arrange for our School-armoury to be attacked was that he would
not abuse the confidence of a boy who had trusted him. Perhaps it
really was that the rifles were too few and the risks too many.
* * * * *
The year 1870 found me still a Harrow boy, though a tall one; and
I spent the Easter holidays with my cousins, the Brentfords, in
Paris. They were a remarkable couple, and if I were to mention
their real name, they would be immediately recognized. They had
social position and abundant means and hosts of friends; but, acting
under irresistible impulse, they had severed themselves from their
natural surroundings, and had plunged into democratic politics.
It was commonly believed that Brentford would not have committed
himself so deeply if it had not been for his wife's influence;
and, indeed, she was one of those women whom it is difficult to
withstand. Her enthusiasm was contagious; and when one was in her
company one felt that "the Cause," as she always called it without
qualifying epithet, was the one thing worth thinking of and living
for. As a girl, she had caught from Mrs. Browning, and Swinburne, and
Jessie White-Mario, and the authoress of _Aspromonte_, a passionate
zeal for Italian unity and freedom; and, when she married, her
enthusiasm fired her husband. They became sworn allies both of
Garibaldi and of Mazzini, and through them were brought into close,
though mysterious, relations with the revolutionary party in Italy
and also in France. They witnessed the last great act of the Papacy
at the Vatican Council; and then, early in 1870, they established
themselves in Paris. French society was at that moment in a strange
state of tension and unrest. The impending calamity of the Franco-German
War was not foreseen; but everyone knew that the Imperial throne was
rocking; that the soil was primed by Secret Societies; and that
all the elements of revolution were at hand, and needed only some
sudden concussion to stir them into activity. This was a condition
which exactly suited my cousin Evelyn Brentford. She was "at the
height of the circumstances," and she gathered round her, at her
villa on the outskirts of Paris, a society partly political, partly
Bohemian, and wholly Red. "Do come," she wrote, "and stay with
us at Easter. I can't promise you a Revolution; but it's quite
on the cards that you may come in for one. Anyhow, you will see
some fun." I had some difficulty in inducing my parents (sound
Whigs) to give the necessary permission; but they admitted that
at seventeen a son must be trusted, and I went off rejoicing to
join the Brentfords at Paris. Those three weeks, from the 12th
of April to the 4th of May, 1870, gave me, as the boys now say,
"the time of my life." I met a great many people whose names I
already knew, and some more of whom we heard next year in the history
of the Commune. The air was full of the most sensational rumours,
and those who hoped "to see the last King strangled in the bowels
of the last priest" enjoyed themselves thoroughly.
My cousin Evelyn was always at home to her friends on Sunday and
Wednesday evenings, and her rooms were thronged by a miscellaneous
crowd in which the Parisian accent mingled with the tongues of
America and Italy, and the French of the southern provinces. At
one of these parties I was talking to a delightful lady who lived
only in the hope of seeing "the Devil come for that dog" (indicating
by this term an Imperial malefactor), and who, when exhausted by
regicidal eloquence, demanded coffee. As we approached the buffet, a
man who had just put down his cup turned round and met my companion
and me face to face. Two years and a half had made no difference
in him. He was Mr. Aulif, as active and fresh as ever, and, before
I had time to reflect on my course, I had impulsively seized him
by the hand. "Don't you remember me?" I cried. He only stared. "My
name is George Russell, and you visited me at Harrow." "I fear,
sir, you have made a mistake," said Aulif, bowed rather stiffly to
my companion, and hurried back into the drawing-room. My companion
looked surprised. "The General seems put out--I wonder why. He
and I are the greatest allies. Let me tell you, my friend, that
he is the man that the Revolution will have to rely on when the
time comes for rising. Ask them at Saint-Cyr. Ask Garibaldi. Ask
McClellan. Ask General Grant. He is the greatest General in the
world, and has sacrificed his career for Freedom." "Is his name
Aulif?" "No; his name is Cluseret."
* * * * *
Next day at _déjuner_ I was full of my evening's adventure; but my
host and hostess received it with mortifying composure. "Nothing
could be more likely," said my cousin Evelyn. "General Cluseret
was here, though he did not stay long. Perhaps he really did not
remember you. When he saw you before, you were a boy, and now you look
like a young man. Or perhaps he did not wish to be cross-examined.
He is pretty busy here just now, but in 1867 he was constantly
backwards and forwards between Paris and London trying to organize
that Irish insurrection which never came off. England is not the
only country he has visited on business of that kind, and he has
many travelling names. He thinks it safer, for obvious reasons, to
travel without luggage. If you had been able to open that leather
case in the train you would probably have found nothing in it except
some maps, a toothbrush, and a spare revolver. Certainly that Irish
affair was a _fiasco_; but depend upon it you will hear of General
Cluseret again."
And so indeed I did, and so did the whole civilized world, and
that within twelve months of the time of speaking; but there is
no need to rewrite in this place the history of the Commune.