The cut of the Paget hat was an
heirloom for the next generation or two, and the gallant
Marquis' boots and tightly-strapped trousers were patterns of
polish and precision.
The limp was perceptible; but of which
leg, was, in spite of careful investigation, beyond my
diagnosis. His presence provoked my curiosity, till one fine
day it became too strong for resistance. While he was busily
engaged in conversation with my mother, I, watching for the
chance, sidled up to his chair, and as soon as he looked
away, rammed my heel on to his toes. They were his toes.
And considering the jump and the oath which instantly
responded to my test, I am persuaded they were abnormally
tender ones. They might have been made of corns, certainly
not of cork.
Another discovery I made about this period was, for me at
least, a 'record': it happened at Quidenham - my grandfather
the 4th Lord Albemarle's place.
Some excursion was afoot, which needed an early breakfast.
When this was half over, one married couple were missing. My
grandfather called me to him (I was playing with another
small boy in one of the window bays). 'Go and tell Lady
Maria, with my love,' said he, 'that we shall start in half
an hour. Stop, stop a minute. Be sure you knock at the
door.' I obeyed orders - I knocked at the door, but failed
to wait for an answer. I entered without it. And what did I
behold? Lady Maria was still in bed; and by the side of Lady
M. was, very naturally, Lady M.'s husband, also in bed and
fast asleep. At first I could hardly believe my senses. It
was within the range of my experience that boys of my age
occasionally slept in the same bed. But that a grown up man
should sleep in the same bed with his wife was quite beyond
my notion of the fitness of things. I was so staggered, so
long in taking in this astounding novelty, that I could not
at first deliver my grandfathers message. The moment I had
done so, I rushed back to the breakfast room, and in a loud
voice proclaimed to the company what I had seen. My tale
produced all the effect I had anticipated, but mainly in the
shape of amusement. One wag - my uncle Henry Keppel - asked
for details, gravely declaring he could hardly credit my
statement. Every one, however, seemed convinced by the
circumstantial nature of my evidence when I positively
asserted that their heads were not even at opposite ends of
the bed, but side by side upon the same pillow.
A still greater soldier than Lord Anglesey used to come to
Holkham every year, a great favourite of my father's; this
was Lord Lynedoch. My earliest recollections of him owe
their vividness to three accidents - in the logical sense of
the term: his silky milk-white locks, his Spanish servant
who wore earrings - and whom, by the way, I used to confound
with Courvoisier, often there at the same time with his
master Lord William Russell, for the murder of whom he was
hanged, as all the world knows - and his fox terrier Nettle,
which, as a special favour, I was allowed to feed with
Abernethy biscuits.
He was at Longford, my present home, on a visit to my father
in 1835, when, one evening after dinner, the two old
gentlemen - no one else being present but myself - sitting in
armchairs over the fire, finishing their bottle of port, Lord
Lynedoch told the wonderful story of his adventures during
the siege of Mantua by the French, in 1796. For brevity's
sake, it were better perhaps to give the outline in the words
of Alison. 'It was high time the Imperialists should advance
to the relief of this fortress, which was now reduced to the
last extremity from want of provisions. At a council of war
held in the end of December, it was decided that it was
indispensable that instant intelligence should be sent to
Alvinzi of their desperate situation. An English officer,
attached to the garrison, volunteered to perform the perilous
mission, which he executed with equal courage and success.
He set out, disguised as a peasant, from Mantua on December
29, at nightfall in the midst of a deep fall of snow, eluded
the vigilance of the French patrols, and, after surmounting a
thousand hardships and dangers, arrived at the headquarters
of Alvinzi, at Bassano, on January 4, the day after the
conferences at Vicenza were broken up.
'Great destinies awaited this enterprising officer. He was
Colonel Graham, afterwards victor at Barrosa, and the first
British general who planted the English standard on the soil
of France.'
This bare skeleton of the event was endued 'with sense and
soul' by the narrator. The 'hardships and dangers' thrilled
one's young nerves. Their two salient features were ice
perils, and the no less imminent one of being captured and
shot as a spy. The crossing of the rivers stands out
prominently in my recollection. All the bridges were of
course guarded, and he had two at least within the enemy's
lines to get over - those of the Mincio and of the Adige.
Probably the lagunes surrounding the invested fortress would
be his worst difficulty. The Adige he described as beset
with a two-fold risk - the avoidance of the bridges, which
courted suspicion, and the thin ice and only partially frozen
river, which had to be traversed in the dark. The vigour,
the zest with which the wiry veteran 'shoulder'd his crutch
and show'd how fields were won' was not a thing to be
forgotten.
Lord Lynedoch lived to a great age, and it was from his house
at Cardington, in Bedfordshire, that my brother Leicester
married his first wife, Miss Whitbread, in 1843. That was
the last time I saw him.
Perhaps the following is not out of place here, although it
is connected with more serious thoughts:
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