to the British Government in India. The first rising, terrible in its
suddenness, was at Meerut, where a maddened crowd of sepoys, thirsting
for the blood of all Europeans, seized the arms and ammunition, released
their prisoners, murdered whoever resisted them, and then made for
Delhi, at which place all the rebels from the country round were
assembling. Within Delhi, the native regiments joined the mutineers;
Europeans were ruthlessly massacred, and though the tiny garrison made a
magnificent defence, expecting every hour to be relieved by a strong
British force, they at last had to realise that resistance was useless
and that each one must escape for his life as best he could.
To Lawrence, just starting for his holiday, came the well-known message
from Delhi, "The sepoys have come in from Meerut, and are burning
everything. We must shut up," followed by a second telegram which told
that Delhi was in the hands of the rebels. Strange to say nothing was
being done from Meerut, where there was a fairly large force of British
troops, to avenge the murderous outbreak.
John Lawrence, however, was a man of action, and his younger colleagues
were not a whit less determined. At all costs Delhi must be
regained--that was the first move unanimously agreed on; but every
hour's delay meant danger, for each day brought recruits to the rebels,
and the disarming of the doubtful native troops must be carried out at
once if it were not to be too late. Lawrence had a twofold task. He
must make safe and hold secure for England the Punjab, that vast
inflammable province containing more than thirty thousand sepoys, for
which work he knew he could rely on Chamberlain, Nicholson, and
Edwardes; but more than this, he must put forth every power to assist in
the retaking of Delhi. When at last an army of about three thousand men
took up their stand on a ridge outside Delhi, they knew that within the
walls of the city at least a hundred thousand foes awaited them, with
numbers of guns and an unlimited supply of ammunition. Overwhelming
indeed were the odds against them. But one fact gave them confidence.
Behind them lay the road leading to the Punjab and to the man whom they
knew would send along it, to their help, his best officers, his best
troops, ample supplies and ammunition, who would never cease watching,
working, and urging until once more the British flag waved over Delhi.
For twelve weary weeks the struggle waged, and Lawrence strained every
nerve. The position in the Punjab was highly critical; only the
ceaseless vigour of its Chief Commissioner, and his strong, fearless
policy, held in check the rebellion all ready to break out. Had the
Punjab failed, nothing but disaster could have overtaken the Delhi Field
Force. But John Lawrence never doubted, never despaired, even when
there reached him the appalling news of the Cawnpore massacre, followed
by the tidings from beleaguered Lucknow, where Henry Lawrence had fallen
at his post with the dying request that on his tomb might be recorded
the words: "He tried to do his duty."
At last the tide turned. Delhi was saved, and though all was not yet
won, Lawrence knew that the crisis was over. But that moment was
clouded, for the man who, above all others, had brought about the
capture of Delhi, was no more. John Nicholson had fallen in the
proudest hour of his life, and when the news came to Lawrence he
completely broke down.
"He was a glorious soldier," he said. "He seems to have been specially
raised up for this juncture, and so long as British rule shall endure in
India his fame shall never perish; without him, Delhi could not have
fallen."
It was a generous tribute and a just one. But we must never forget that
behind John Nicholson was John Lawrence.
"Not a bayonet or a rupee has reached Delhi from Calcutta or England,"
wrote Edwardes. "It has been recovered by Lawrence and his resources.
Honour, all honour to Coachman John, and honour, too, to the team that
pulled the coach. He alone was at the helm, and bore all the
responsibility on his own shoulders"!
The district of which Delhi was the capital was at once handed over to
the Punjab Government, and Lawrence hurried thither in a mail-cart, that
law and order might be restored without delay. His policy was just what
might have been expected of him--a generous combination of strength,
mercy, and justice; and within six months he was able to report that
"perfect order reigned throughout the Delhi territory."
It was just at this juncture that Colin Campbell arrived in India as
Commander-in-Chief.
"When will you be ready to start?" Lord Palmerston had asked him in
offering the command.
"To-morrow!" said the soldier promptly. And on the morrow he started.
He had distinguished himself in the Crimea. There he had held the
command of the Highland Brigade, a post of all others for which he was
fitted. A Highlander himself, he perfectly understood how to handle the
men of his own race, and the advance on the Alma was splendidly made by
his troops, who exhibited such rare courage combined with perfect
coolness that when Lord Raglan rode up to compliment their commander,
"his eyes filled with tears and his countenance quivered."
"The army is watching you, make me proud of the Highland Brigade,"
Campbell said to his men on the day of Balaclava. "Remember," he added,
"there is no retreat from here! You die where you stand."
"Aye, aye, Sir Colin; we'll do that!" was the answer.
Rarely has a more touching farewell order been issued than that from
Campbell to his men, when at the end of the campaign he was about to
return to England. Part of it ran thus:--
"A long farewell! I am now old, and shall not be called to serve any
more; and nothing will remain to me but the memory of my campaigns, and
the memory too of the enduring, hardy, generous soldiers with whom I
have been associated.... When you go home you will tell the story of
your immortal advance up the heights of Alma, and you may speak of the
old brigadier who led you and who loved you so well.... And the
bagpipes will never sound near me without carrying me back to those
bright days when I was at your head and wore the bonnet you gained for
me, and the honourable decorations on my breast, many of which I owe to
your conduct. Brave soldiers, kind comrades, farewell!"
But the old soldier had not done yet, and he promptly left England for
India, where he arrived at the darkest hour, before the fall of Delhi,
and when Havelock had been foiled in his brave attempt to relieve
Lucknow.
Sir Colin and John Lawrence were old friends, and the Commander-in-Chief
at once wrote: "It will be a matter of real gratification to me if we
exchange our plans and ideas from time to time.... I am thankful you
were in the Punjab to face the storm."
The chief concentrated all his energy on bringing order and organisation
out of chaos at Calcutta, so that efficient reinforcements, properly
equipped, might be speedily got together, and meanwhile Outram went to
the assistance of Havelock. "Outram is a fine soldier and a fine man,"
Lawrence had written of him affectionately, and this "Bayard of India,
who had served that country for forty years in war and council," as it
is recorded in the Abbey, showed himself full worthy of the highest
praises that could be bestowed on him. When he reached Cawnpore with
reinforcements which would make possible the relief of Lucknow, he
refused, though the senior officer, to take the command. Havelock had
borne the heat and burden of the day, Havelock must be the hero when the
hour of victory was at hand. "I cheerfully waive my rank and accompany
the force to Lucknow, tendering my services to Brigadier-General
Havelock as a volunteer," he said, with a fine chivalry which was
characteristic of one "who ever esteemed others better than himself, who
was valiant, self-denying, and magnanimous--in all the true knight!"
The column forced its way into Lucknow, but even so, it was impossible
to fully relieve the garrison. Once inside the walls Outram took over
the command, and made the best of the position directly he realised that
for the present he could only reinforce, not relieve. But Colin
Campbell was on his way with the army of about five thousand men which
he had collected after great efforts. A miscellaneous force indeed it
was: Lancers, Sikhs, Punjab infantry, the Queen's, and the 93rd
Highlanders, which the Commander-in-Chief had formed up, so that he
might address them, and the Highlanders burst into cheers at the sight
of their beloved General.
"You are my own lads," he said to them; "I rely on you to do yourselves
and me credit."
"Aye, aye! Sir Colin," answered a voice from the ranks; "ye ken us, and
we ken you. We'll bring the women and bairnies out of Lucknow, or we'll
leave our ain banes there!"
Magnificently they kept their word. When it came to the last assault,
Sikhs and Highlanders positively raced with each other to be first
through the breach, and seemed impervious alike to the heavy fire poured
on them, or the desperate hand-to-hand struggle. Over five hundred
killed and wounded made up their casualty list; but the women and the
bairnies were saved. And though Sir Colin longed to make a second
decisive attack on the enemy, he held back with great self-control,
deeming it his first duty to withdraw all the sick with the women and
children in safety to Alumbagh, a feat difficult enough under any
circumstances, and requiring all his available troops. Hardly had he
accomplished this than news came that Cawnpore, with its tiny garrison,
was once more surrounded by the enemy, and was, so the message said, "at
its last gasp."
"How dare you say of her Majesty's troops that they are at their last
gasp," thundered the chief. And forthwith made for the entrenchments,
where his very presence saved the situation.
[Illustration: WEST TRANSEPT.]
All this while John Lawrence had not relaxed his efforts, and just at
this moment he sent the welcome intelligence to Sir Colin that he had
three thousand cavalry and twelve guns waiting for him. With those and
other welcome reinforcements the chief was able to make his final attack
on Lucknow, which continued fiercely during nineteen days, but which
ended in complete victory for the British troops, though they were but a
force of 30,000 against 120,000 of the rebels. With the fall of Lucknow
the burning flames of the Mutiny may be said to have been extinguished;
what remained was the smouldering of the fire. To Sir Colin the Queen
wrote an autograph letter which thrilled him with pride, part of which
ran thus:--
"The Queen has had many proofs already of Sir Colin Campbell's devotion
to his Sovereign and his country, and he has now greatly added to the
debt of gratitude which both owe him. But Sir Colin must bear one
reproof from his Queen, and this is, that he exposes himself too much.
His life is most precious, and she entreats that he will neither put
himself where his noble spirit would urge him to be--foremost in
danger--nor fatigue himself so as to injure his health."
A little later her Majesty signified her intention of conferring on him
a peerage.
"We dinna ken hoo tae address ye, Sir Colin, now that the Queen has made
ye a lord!" said one of the Highlanders sadly.
"Just call me Sir Colin, John, the same as in the old times: I like the
old name best," was the answer.
Although Lucknow was taken in the March of 1858, it was more than two
years before Sir Colin Campbell was able to return to England, having
finished his work; and then after three years spent at home, surrounded
by "honour, love, and troops of friends," the old warrior passed away
from the battle-field of life.
Lawrence, now a baronet, and greatly worn out by the heavy strain he had
been through, had reached England in 1859, where he found the British
public eager to shower honours on one whom they held to be the saviour
of India. His great modesty led him to shrink from it all.
"If I was placed in a position of extreme danger and difficulty," he
declared, "I was also fortunate in having around me some of the ablest
civil and military officers in India. And I hope that some rewards will
be extended to those who so nobly shared with me the perils of the
struggle, and by whose aid my efforts were crowned with success."
He settled down to work as a member of the Council of India, and Lord
Derby, then at the India Office, was deeply impressed not only by his
great ability but by his "heroic simplicity." "Even if his opportunity
had never come," he declared, "you would always have felt that you were
in the presence of a man capable of accomplishing great things, and
capable also of leaving the credit of them to any one who chose to take
it."
The death of Outram was a great sorrow to Lawrence, and he it was who
went to the Dean to beg that his old friend should be buried in the
Abbey, as the one place worthy of him. He too made all the arrangements
for the funeral, and it was at his suggestion that the sergeants of
Outram's old regiment carried their beloved leader to his grave.
Quite unexpectedly the Government called on him to return to India as
Viceroy, and though he would far rather have remained in England, he
felt that he ought to go. To him the call of duty was ever the one call
to which the heart of every true man must unfailingly respond. His
appointment was for five years, and during this time he remained at his
post, carrying out the policy of his life, by which he desired "to avoid
complications, to consolidate our power in India, to give to its people
the best government we can, to organise our administration in every
department on a system which will combine economy with efficiency, and
so to make our Government strong and respected."
"I do not wish to shorten my term of office, nor do I wish to prolong
it," he said in answer to the question as to what his feelings were now
that he was about to deliver over the government of the country.
"It was a proud moment for me," he added, "when I walked up the steps of
this house, feeling that without political interest or influence I had
been chosen to fill the highest office under the Crown, the Viceroy of
the Queen. But it will be a happier moment for me when I walk down the
steps with the feeling that I have tried to do my duty."
On his return home he was made a peer, and for some years he devoted
himself untiringly to public and philanthropic work, acting as Chairman
to the London School Board until his failing eyesight and his broken
health put an end to his public life. "It is overpowering to see him
thus laid low and worn out," wrote one who saw him daily. "But to us he
seems grander than ever in his affliction, and we realise the truth that
'he who ruleth his spirit is greater than he who taketh a city.'"
Ten years after he had left India the end came, and Honest John, as he
was affectionately called, was carried to the Abbey, to be buried there
with all the honour that was his due.
*CHAPTER XXI*
*DICKENS, BROWNING, AND TENNYSON*
It is impossible to wander round the Poets' Corner without a longing
that the Abbey could claim as her own all the great singers and seers
who have made the literature of our country. Chaucer and Spenser indeed
we have, with other writers of the Elizabethan and Stuart periods; but
many familiar names are missing altogether, or marked only by a bust or
slab. John Philips, Matthew Prior, John Gay, and Thomas Campbell--these
were the last poets buried in Westminster for many a long day.
Shakespeare, Milton, Goldsmith, Coleridge, Burns, Keble, Wordsworth,
Thackeray, Matthew Arnold, Kingsley, Ruskin, have monuments, and so we
have their names; but how many a one is there for whom we look in vain
in this national temple of honour. Langland, Herrick, Herbert, Sidney,
Pope, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Bunyan, Sir Thomas More, Defoe, and Swift
are unknown English writers so far as the Abbey is concerned.
Towards the latter end of the nineteenth century, however, there came a
change. Macaulay and Grote, historians, were both buried within its
walls, and when Charles Dickens died in 1870, Dean Stanley at once
suggested Westminster to his family, who declined the offer. Then there
appeared an article in the _Times_ declaring that the Abbey was the one
place worthy to receive so distinguished a writer. Still his family
hesitated, and at last only consented on the condition that the ceremony
should be entirely private. So it came to pass that, one evening after
dark, when the Abbey was closed, a grave was dug in the Poets' Corner
close to Thackeray's bust, and in the early summer morning the funeral
took place in solitary simplicity. But in a few hours the news had
spread, and before the day was over thousands of persons had been to
take a last look at the grave of the writer they loved, many of them the
very poorest people, who yet brought with them a few flowers or some
other humble token of remembrance.
There was no aspect of their life he had not understood and sympathised
with, for his boyhood's days had been spent in their midst. His father,
unable to pay his debts, had been cast into prison at Marshalsea, so the
Dickens family had settled in the neighbourhood, little Charles
supporting himself by pasting labels on to blacking-pots, and making the
acquaintance of all those queer people and odd characters with whom his
writings have taught us to be familiar. "David Copperfield" is to a
great extent an autobiography of Charles Dickens himself, who started
life "a prey to the cruel chances of the London streets, and who, for
all the care that was taken of him, might easily have become a little
robber or vagabond, but for the mercy of God," to use his own words.
However, brighter days were in store for him, for the elder Dickens
managed to get clear of his debts and became Parliamentary reporter to
the _Morning Herald_; and Charles, after a few years at school, during
which he had managed to learn as much as was possible, decided to take
up newspaper work, though in many ways stage life was what attracted him
most. "I was always an actor and a writer from a mere baby," he said.
Fortunately regular work was offered him on the staff of the _Morning
Chronicle_, and before long he had made his name as the "best
Parliamentary reporter in the Peers' Gallery." From henceforward he
determined that writing should be his career, and under the name of Boz
he launched a book of Sketches, "illustrating everyday life and everyday
people," into the world. The sketches were just what they claimed to
be, but it was a master-hand that had drawn them, and these everyday
people were described with such a perfect touch that the general public,
delighted and greatly entertained, at once set the young author on a
pedestal of popularity.
The "Pickwick Papers," which followed shortly afterwards, increased his
reputation and established his position. Here was a writer bubbling
over with a fresh, keen sense of humour, and in every page of his book
the humour came out, never strained or forced, always natural, kindly,
and infectious. From "Pickwick" he turned to quite a different style,
for in "Oliver Twist" he gave to the world a brilliant picture of the
"dregs of life." The subject was sad enough, and Dickens, before all
things a truthful writer, did not seek to conceal anything, and yet so
wonderful was his sympathy with all humanity, even the most degraded,
that he never failed to recognise goodness and nobleness however deep
down they might be hidden away. He saw below the surface, and in all
that he wrote he forced his readers to think the better of mankind.
Dickens went on from one success to another; he thoroughly understood
his public and his own line, and his great heart was so full, so
responsive, so in tune with the tender emotions which belong to all men
and women in common, that he never grew stale or dull. Master alike of
pathos and of humour, he appealed direct to the hearts of his readers.
"Nicholas Nickleby," "The Old Curiosity Shop," "Martin Chuzzlewit," "The
Christmas Books," "Dombey & Son," "David Copperfield," "Bleak House,"
and "The Tale of Two Cities," in their turn won for him countless
friends and admirers from every class of life in England and in America,
for all his characters were living people, and though he never moralised
or lectured, he always purified and uplifted.
"Do not harden your hearts," was his message to the world. "Sympathise,
pity, help, understand, love. Laugh if you will, so long as you laugh
not in scorn; but love always, love everywhere."
A gravestone in Westminster is his only monument there, but that was by
his own desire. To a great crowd assembled in the Abbey on the Sunday
after his funeral, Dean Stanley read aloud these words from his will,
"sacred words," he said, "which come with a new meaning and a deeper
force, because they come from the lips of a lost friend, because they
are the most solemn utterance of lips now for ever closed in the
grave":--
"'I direct that my name be inscribed in plain English letters on my
tomb.... I conjure my friends on no account to make me the subject of
any monument, memorial, or testimonial whatever. I rest my claims to be
remembered of my country upon my published works, and to be remembered
of my friends upon their experience of me in addition thereto.... And I
exhort my dear children humbly to try to guide themselves by the
teaching of the New Testament in its broad spirit, and to put no faith
in any man's narrow construction of its letter here or there.'"
It was in this "broad spirit" of Christ's Teaching that Dickens lived
and wrote. He tore down the veil that hid the lives of the poor and
suffering from the lives of the rich and prosperous. The remembrance of
those dark sights and scenes of his boyhood never passed away from him.
"They pierce through my happiness, they haunt me day and night," he
said. He could never rest till he had lifted up his voice in the cause
of those "little ones" whom he loved and in whom he could recognise so
much that was beautiful and true. Kindness, tenderness, sympathy,
generosity, and divine pity, these were the stones with which he built
up his monument, and they are stones which shall endure through the ages
to come, a glorious memorial of him "who loved, with a rare and touching
love, his friends, his country, and his fellow-men."
Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson, the greatest poets of our
generation, lie side by side, underneath Chaucer's monument, and to both
of them was given a stately public funeral, which showed how honoured a
place they held in the hearts of their countrymen. For more than fifty
years Browning had been writing, and only very slowly, very gradually
had he made his way in the public favour. He was not, except on
occasions, a sweet singer; his rhymes did not flow gracefully and
easily; his thoughts were great, but his words were clumsy; to himself
what he taught was as clear as the day, but to his readers it was often
sadly confused and hard to understand. Nor did he ever aim at winning
popularity or success. He wrote more for the future than for the
present, and he was quite content to wait.
"Were you never discouraged," a friend asked him once, "at the
indifference of the public, and the enmity of the critics?"
"_Never_," was his emphatic answer.