George Augustus Henty

“ Frank shouted, and the party ran in among the trees.
"Get in among that undergrowth with Anna," he said to Bertha.
"Gather there, Dominique, with your men. We shall want you directly. They are sure to make a rush at first.
"Now, lads, one of you take that tree; the other the one to the right," and he placed himself behind one between them. On glancing round he saw that George had already posted his two men, and had taken up his station between them.
"All hands kneel down," he said. "These bushes will hide us from their sight. If we stand up we may be hit by shots from behind." ”

“ When the gates are open in the morning I will go; for I have a friend within the city who will, methinks, receive me."
The tone of voice, and the addressing of himself as good fellow, at once convinced the man that the woman before him was no common wayfarer.
"Come in," he said; "Geoffrey Ward is not a man to shut his doors in a woman's face on a night like this, nor does he need payment for such small hospitality. Come hither, Madge!" he shouted; and at his voice a woman came down from the [Pg 3] upper chamber. "Sister," he said, "this is a wayfarer who needs shelter for the night ”

“ He may be a great general, but he is no politician. No real statesman would throw away solid advantages in order to gratify personal pique."
"He considers Augustus the author of this league against him," Charlie said. "He and the czar had no grounds at all of quarrel against him."
"We talked over that, the last time we met," the doctor said with a laugh, "and I told you then that a foothold on the Baltic was so necessary to Russia, that she would have accepted the alliance of the Prince of Darkness himself to get it. As to Augustus, I don't defend him. ”

“ They found that there would be a train in half an hour, and by nine o'clock they arrived in town.
Before they had landed the bargeman had scrawled on a piece of paper, "Your boat was picked up by the Sarah and Jane. Will bring her back on return trip. No damage done. William Atkins." This he had handed to the boys, and they now got an envelope and directed it to "James Kitson, Waterman, Gravesend," and posted it, and then set out to walk home.
"It's not been the sort of day we expected," George said; "but it's been good fun, hasn't it?"
"Grand!" Bill agreed. ”

“ Caps were thrown up recklessly, at the risk of never being recovered, and the people literally roared as the general, looking in good health, though older and greyer than when Henty last saw him in 1859, rode along the ranks of the seven thousand or so of volunteers that he was about to review and passed on, waving his hand in reply to the cheering, as if thoroughly appreciating the greeting, much as he did during his reception in London. ”

“ Giles said. “You will be getting yourself into sore trouble. You are growing too masterful altogether, and have none of the quiet demeanour and peaceful air which becomes an honest citizen. In another six months you will be apprenticed, and then I hope we shall hear no more of these doings.”
“My father is talking of apprenticing me, Master Geoffrey,” Walter said that evening. “I hope that you will, as you were good enough to promise, talk with him about apprenticing me to your craft rather than to his. I should never take to the making of bows, though, indeed, I like well to use them ”

“ Very delighted was George as in his best suit—for he and Bill had two suits each now—he stepped out of the train at Croydon and walked to the workhouse. His mother had told him that she would meet him at the gate at half-past two, and punctually at the time he was there. A few minutes later Mrs. Andrews came out, not dressed as he had seen her at Christmas, in the infirmary garb, but in her own clothes. George gave a cry of delight as he ran forward to meet her.
"My darling mother! and you are looking quite yourself again." ”

“ The young generation which has read his books and had its imagination fired will contain, of course, only a small percentage of soldiers, but the sense of grit and the dogged indomitable spirit to be derived from such works will stand in good stead to all, whether the battle be faced in the humdrum of daily life or actually with the forces of the king. Henty’s was a grand influence for good in times of easy belittlement and cheap disparaging criticism of many of those elemental virtues which are nevertheless supreme in the making of a nation. ”

“ Journalists who marry, and have sons to push forward in the world, and who also have to meet ordinary expenses, have not much money to waste, even if they are successful war correspondents. Henty’s yachting desires, therefore, for a long time were not wholly gratified, and he had to occupy himself with the pen, which industriously built up the long series of books that made his name so well known to the rising generation. Nevertheless his yachting moved by degrees, and he gave full vent to his inventive powers with this little half-decked canoe. ”

“ To come back, after this long digression on the life of a war correspondent, to the Ashanti campaign, upon which the subject of this memoir had now embarked, it may be taken quite as a matter of course that two such men as Henry Stanley and George Henty, bound on the same mission on behalf of the New York Herald and the London Standard, should be on intimate terms together, the more especially as they were both men who loved being afloat, and in the pursuit of business let nothing in the way of danger stand in their way. ”

“ I am your nearest male relative, and as such would fain confer with you touching the future of young Mistress Edith, your daughter. She is now nigh thirteen years of age, and is the heiress of broad lands; is it not time that she were betrothed to one capable of taking care of them for her, and leading your vassals to battle in these troubled times?”
“Thanks, Sir James, for your anxiety about my child,” Dame Vernon said coldly. “She is a ward of the king. I am in no way anxious that an early choice should be made for her ”

“ There is a well-known old proverb, for which we have to thank one of the old Roman writers, who spread their Latin and their works through the civilised world, that a poet is born, not made, and it applies equally to the story-teller or writer of narrative. Henty was a story-teller from quite early days; for, following up his boyish attempts, the days came when, as a married man, with his children gathering round his fireside, it became a custom for them to come and say the familiar good-night, with the appeal to father to tell them a story. ”

“ I think Miss Penrose must have chosen it herself, don't you?"
"It certainly looks like it, George," Mrs. Andrews replied, smiling. "I do not think any grownup person would have chosen mince-pies and toffee as appropriate for sick boys."
"Yes; but she must have known we were not badly burned, mother; and besides, you see, she put in currant-jelly to make drinks, and there are the oranges too. I vote that we have an orange and some toffee at once, Bill."
"I have tasted oranges," Bill said, "lots of them in the market, but I never tasted toffee." ”

“ One need not here point to the long roll of famous names. These pages are devoted to one alone.
Henty takes a very modest view of his own prowess, and says of his life at Westminster: “Boating or cricket—you had your choice; but once made, you had to be perfect in one or the other. Fellows rowed then and played cricket then. They had to.”
The Thames was their course. There was no Saint Thomas’s Hospital then, and the boat-houses were on the banks. The river was pretty handy to the great school, and at the sight of the Westminster crews the boatmen used to come across to fetch the boys. ”

“ In popularity he may be reckoned to have passed W.H.G. Kingston and R.M. Ballantyne, while he was, as it were, quite level with Captain Mayne Reid and Jules Verne; the last-named writer’s skeleton frameworks rather than romances had deservedly an enormous vogue, partly because of their tremendous scope, and also on account of the fillip they gave to the imagination of the young reader. With such a man as Henty it seems like begging the question to speak of “atmosphere” ”

“ Still with the head-quarters of Garibaldi, and in the midst of the heat of an Italian July, Henty writes again in the midst of warfare, with all day long the boom of cannon and the sharp crack of musketry sounding in his ears. And as he writes, he says, the confusion outside, the talking of innumerable Garibaldians under the window of the humble room of which he thinks himself fortunate to call himself master for the time, the rumbling of carts, the shouting of the drivers, and the occasional call of the bugle, all remind him that he is in the midst of war on a large scale. ”

“ Small wonder, indeed, that Henty, who knew of what the world was capable and what men could accomplish, held in light esteem the narrow but loud-talking cult which condemns patriotism, scoffs at civic merit, and would reduce society to an unsatisfactory incoherent brew. He was one of those whose influence makes for the greatness of England, an England which will fight, if duty really calls, at one of those crises in a nation’s life which show which is the true worth and which the base. ”

“ Bill said cheerfully; "this is a regular venture, this is; but I say, shan't we have to pay a lot for the boat?"
"Yes," George assented mournfully; "but perhaps the man will let us off cheap when he sees we couldn't help it. He looked a good-tempered sort of chap. Come, let us set to work. Every minute it is taking us further away."
They set steadily to work. The boat was a large and heavy one, and their progress was by no means rapid.
"How thick it's getting!" George exclaimed suddenly. [Pg 101]
"Aint it just!" Bill assented. "My eye, George, I can't see the barges!" ”

“ Judging from Henty’s nature and the steadiness and constancy of his life in the pursuit of the career which he chose, it could not have been lightly that he came to the decision that from the way in which he had entered the army there did not seem to be any future for him worthy of his attention, for the British army has always been marked by the way in which birth and money have been the stepping-stones to promotion. ”

“ Does yer want to find a crib?" he asked doubtfully, examining his companion.
"Well, yes," George said. "I want to find some quiet place where I can sleep, cheap, you know."
"Out of work?" the boy inquired.
"Yes. I haven't got anything to do at present. I am looking for a place, you know."
"Don't know no one about?"
"No; I have just come in from Croydon."
The boy shook his head.
"Don't know nothing as would suit," he said. "Why, yer'd get them clothes and any money yet had walked off with the wery fust night."
"I should not get a room to myself, I suppose, [Pg 14] even for fourpence?" ”

“ It was all we could do to stop it then; but if they hadn't done what they did the planing-shop would have been alight from end to end, and the floors above it too, before the first engine arrived, and then nothing could have saved the whole lot. I can tell you, Mrs. Andrews, that there isn't a man on the works, nor the wife of a man, who doesn't feel that they owe these two lads their living through the winter. I don't know what Mr. Penrose will say about it, but I know what we all feel."
"Why, George," Mrs. ”

“ It was a wild time, in which no man’s life was safe, and in the absence of law and order an Englishman bound to investigate and report upon the proceedings of the ill-governed city dare hardly call his soul his own.
During this period Henty’s letters teem with information, all showing his keen observation of minutiae. He describes the gathering and marching down the Rue de Rivoli of one of the first armies of the Commune, an army the more dangerous to the republic through so many trained fighting men of the regular army having joined its ranks. ”

“ I will go with yer to the door, and then yer will see a ladder in the corner; if yer whip up that yer'll find it all right up there."
"But you are coming too, aint you?" George asked.
"Oh, no, I aint a-coming. Yer don't want a chap like me up there. I might pick yer pocket, yer know; besides I aint your sort."
"Oh, nonsense!" George said. "I should like to have you with me, Bill; I should really. Be [Pg 20] sides, what's the difference between us? We have both got to work for ourselves and make our way in the world."
"There's a lot of difference. Yer don't talk the way as I do ”

“ After obtaining a little food, Henty rode over to where he could leave his horse and go down into the ravine. Here fatigue parties were engaged in the work of burial; and in plain simple words Henty describes the scene as shocking—certainly his picture is too dreadful to be dwelt upon.
In good time that morning there was a tremendous burst of cheering, for two of the prisoners had come in with proposals from the king; and the embassage reported that Theodore had returned after the battle to say to them with a noble simplicity: “My people have been out to fight yours. ”

“ G. A. Henty, on the other hand, though he has been dead for years now, seems to stand before us still, with his great beard, his great pipe, his great body, and his breezy personality. Henty loved clubs and literary gatherings. The Savage was his particular stronghold, when he had said good-bye to war-correspondenting in distant lands. He was the typical chairman there, with his Father Christmas beard, and his volumes of smoke, and his bluff personality. ”