SIR JOHN MOORE
So soon as the first excitement of Roy's arrival began to subside, his
thoughts turned in the old direction, towards the Army.
Mr. Bryce took upon himself to act as he knew that the Colonel would
have acted if able; and a brief space of time saw Roy being transformed
into a smart young subaltern, in the same regiment of infantry where
Jack had lately obtained his Captaincy.
"And now," Roy said, not once but a dozen times, to Molly, "the one
thing in the world I want is to serve under Moore!"
"Are you in such a hurry to go away from us again?" Molly asked
wistfully. But she understood, as she would not have understood five
years earlier, and before Roy could speak she added,—"I know. Of course
you can't help it. You must wish to go! Only I hope you won't stay away
too long."
"We've got to squash Napoleon before anybody can think of stopping at
home."
In the beginning of this year, 1808, Moore had returned to England from
the Mediterranean, after an absence of nearly two years. Then he had
his last holiday. Four months of rest were granted to the hard-worked
warrior, who during thirty years had held himself at his Country's
service, fighting for her in all parts of the world, and being at
least four times severely wounded. At this date he was looked upon by
competent judges as the foremost man in the British Army, as the one to
whom, above all others, England in her hour of need would turn.
The chief part of his holiday was spent at the quiet Surrey home of
his brother, with his mother and sister; and one is glad to know that
he had that peaceful interlude before the stormy end. He had had much
to try him, and he had gone through heavy battling of more than one
description when out in Sicily.
It was during his time there, when acting second in command to old
General Fox, brother of Mr. Charles Fox, Prime Minister of England,
that the one love affair of Moore came about. The little tale is worth
telling, though apart from the course of this story, for it says much
as to the character of Moore.
Several times the assertion has been made that Sir John Moore was
engaged to Lady Hester Stanhope, niece of Mr. Pitt. This is a mistake.
Lady Hester was his friend, and he admired her greatly; but it was as
a friend only, not as a lover. On the conclusive authority of General
Anderson, who for twenty-one years was with him in the closest possible
intercourse, there was but one whom Moore ever seriously wished to
marry. That one was—not Lady Hester, but Caroline Fox, daughter of the
old General in command at Sicily.
That the niece of Mr. Pitt should have been his most intimate
woman-friend, and the niece of Mr. Fox his one and only love, reads
curiously in the light of party politics. But Sir John was no party
man. The great Minister, Pitt, had for him an unbounded esteem and
affection on the one side. And Mr. Fox, on the other, at a time when a
movement was astir to make Moore Commander-in-Chief in India, utterly
refused to allow him to go. "It was impossible for him," he said,
"in the state in which Europe then was, to send to such a distance a
General in whom he had such entire confidence." Moore stood outside
political warfare, grandly and simply, as representative of his Country.
He had many troubles in Sicily. The object of the British forces
being there was to save the Sicilies from the grip of Napoleon. But
the tortuous policy of their Sicilian Majesties, the entire lack of
honesty and of public spirit, the underhand cabals and oppositions,
the weakness and wickedness of the Queen, and the mischief made by one
Englishman there, who acted throughout as Sir John's enemy, hindered
far more from being done than was done.
Amid all this, however—amid the fighting, the difficulties, the
trickeries, the entanglements of Sicilian politics and warfare, Moore
fell deeply in love. But he did not marry. He did not even let the girl
know that he loved her.
Caroline Fox was very young, not yet eighteen. Moore was already in his
forty-sixth year. He did not think it right, at her age, even to give
her the choice.
Whether this decision was in the abstract wise, some may question. It
is at least conceivable that Caroline Fox herself was already in love
with him. Had she been so, it would indeed have been sad that, from a
noble sense of duty, he should have denied happiness to her as well as
to himself. True, he had not sought her; but he was intimate in the
house, and he was a man of extraordinarily attractive power. In such a
case it does seem, from the woman's point of view, that she ought to
have been allowed to say for herself either Yea or Nay.
That view does not detract from the admiration which his conduct must
arouse. Sir John was not of a nature to love lightly, to give up his
wishes easily. It was a hard fight. Harder far this conflict than all
his battles with the soldiers of Napoleon.
Yet he conquered; and to the young girl herself he said not one word
which might have encouraged her affections. To Anderson he explained
his reasons with a frank and touching simplicity, the echo of which
comes down to us now through ninety years and more.
"She is so young," he said. "Her judgment may be overpowered. The
disparity of age is not, perhaps, at present very apparent. My position
here, my reputation as a soldier of service, and my intimacy with her
father, may influence her to an irretrievable error for her own future
contentment. My feelings, therefore, must be suppressed, that she may
not have to suppress hers hereafter, with loss of happiness."
Can anything surpass the quiet grandeur of that must?
He was a man in the prime of life, eminently handsome, accomplished,
fascinating, the idol of his friends, the darling of his country, with
every hope of a splendid career still before him. That such a man,
when profoundly in love, should pause to view the question solely with
respect to the girl's happiness, not his own—that he should humbly
question whether, though he might win her, she might not in after years
regret her action and wish herself free;—this, no doubt, is such a
hero as has often figured in fiction. Quite an ideal hero! So some may
object.
But the whole is true. There is no idealising in the question. John
Moore, actually and literally, less than one hundred years ago, loved
and decided thus. The grandeur of this man was that he thought always
of others before himself, that he lived for duty. Where duty pointed
or seemed to point down a pathway, no matter how hard and thorny the
road, there unhesitatingly he walked. Questions as to the wisdom of his
decision do not touch the splendour of his self-sacrificing conduct.
He never did propose for that young girl. Whether he would have done so
in after years cannot now be decided. In 1806, when this hard conflict
was fought out, less than three years of his fair life on earth
remained.
After his four months' holiday at home—just at the close of which
Roy Baron reached London—Moore was despatched on another expedition
to Sweden. It was an expedition rendered especially trying to its
Commander, and abortive in itself, by the crazy conduct of the King of
Sweden, who, not long after, went mad and had to be deposed. Moore,
when setting sail for England, wrote to his mother: "This campaign in
Sweden has proved the most painful to me I ever served."
One trial followed another in these later years of his life. The
heaviest of all was yet to come.
In the autumn of 1807, when Italy, Holland, Prussia, Austria, and
Russia had been all either conquered or humiliated and crushed,
Portugal next fell a victim to the rapacious Conqueror; and Portugal
was made a steppingstone to the conquest of Spain. Before the end of
May 1808, when Sir John Moore was sailing for Sweden, the French army
entered Madrid, declaring the whole country subject to the Emperor of
the French, and proclaiming Joseph Buonaparte king.
Then it was that the tide of Napoleon's successes reached high-water
mark. From this date, it may be said, the retreat of the waters began
on land, as their fall had earlier begun upon the ocean—at first
imperceptibly, for a long while fitfully, yet with accelerating speed.
Again and again the Spaniards had fought on the side of the French
against the English. But now at last the spell seemed to be broken; now
at last their eyes were opened. "As a man," it was declared, Spain had
risen against the Emperor; and a burst of enthusiasm, of generous and
vehement sympathy, rushed through the length and breadth of England. A
passionate longing to be led against the enemy pervaded all ranks in
the Army.
By the time that Moore got home from Sweden, Sir Arthur Wellesley had
already been sent to Portugal, with a force of nine thousand men; and
the eleven thousand, who had returned from the fruitless errand to
Sweden, were at once ordered to Portsmouth en route for Portugal.
An evening or two later Jack rushed in upon the Bryce circle, in hot
haste.
"Jack! Hallo, man—what's up now? Something out of the common, to judge
from the looks of you," declared Mr. Bryce, sitting near the window, in
flowered waistcoat, velvet tights, and silver-buckled shoes.
"How d'you all do? How d'you do, ma'am? Find yourself well, Polly? All
right, Molly? Heard the news?"
"What news?" from all four.
"Sir John Moore is ordered off to Spain. And our regiment is under
orders too!"
"Oh!" from Molly. "And if Roy should be taken prisoner!"
"Or if he should not!" suggested Mr. Bryce. "Nay, child, we'll permit
no doleful foretellings. What's up, jack? 'Tis no ill news to you to be
ordered to the seat of war."
"Ill news, sir! No!" with sufficient energy.
"Yet you look uncommon like to a thunder-cloud. What's wrong?"
"Could wish nothing better than to go, sir. Every man in the Army is
wild to be off. But I'm angry, I'll admit. 'Tis a fact that, after
serving in Sicily and in Sweden as Chief in command, Sir John Moore is
now to be in a subordinate position as third."
"Yet the King and the Duke of York are ever his friends," mused Mr.
Bryce. "And Lord Castlereagh esteems him highly."
"So say all. But there's Sir Arthur Wellesley in command of one army,
gone to Spain; and Sir John till now in command of another; and both of
'em to be under Sir Hew Dalrymple; and till he gets to Portugal, Sir
Harry Burrard is to act for him. Moore—the foremost and most brilliant
officer England has ever owned—to be under Burrard and Dalrymple! Has
the world gone crazed? But he'll rise to the top—small fear!"
"What says Sir John himself?"
Jack's face broke into a smile.
"Well, sir, it must go no further. Sir John was summoned to the
presence of Lord Castlereagh to receive orders. And those who were in
waiting in the anteroom heard sounds of a stormy interview. Sir John
said after to a friend—so I am told—that he had had it out with the
Ministers, and he was glad he had, for he would now think no more about
the matter."
"Jack, shall we soon see Roy?" asked Molly.
Jack had little doubt that Roy would look in. Everything was to be done
in a terrific hurry; and he had come himself to say good-bye there and
then; but Roy would certainly appear before starting for Portugal. A
few minutes later he called Polly into the little boudoir, and said:
"That's a brave Poll. No tears and no wailings. 'Tis as should be."
"Dear Jack, I know well how glad you are. And I would not hold you
back." Polly spoke courageously, though she looked white.
"I knew well that you would bid me God-speed. And you will think of me.
Think especially on Sunday—in church. Eh, dear? Polly, no letter from
Verdun?"
Polly looked sadly at her brother.
"I have not writ to him lately, Jack. I cannot tell how to write. What
shall I do? I have none but you to advise me. And if he should no
longer care—if he should by now have forgot me?"
"He is not that sort. Trust him, Polly."
"It is so long—five years and more. And no letter from him of later
date than the summer of 1806! Jack, sometimes I wonder—why does he not
ask me to go out to him there. If he asked me I would go. And sure, if
he indeed wished it, he might send me some little word—by some private
hand—"
Jack was silent, thinking.
"And there is that French girl, whom Roy is so fond of—always with
them, as one of themselves."
"But trust him still, Polly dear," urged Jack. "I cannot know, neither
can you, how things are yet a while; only I do truly believe that Den
is no man to change, nor to be fickle in his likings. Whether you write
or do not write, trust him still!"