Macartney

“ Don't you touch Macartney's mob, or you 'll rue it. There's death somewheres, but it doesn't point to none o' you."
"Macartney probably," said another man, who was leaning against the slab wall, and intently watching the girl in the doorway. "Come, Gran, don't be croaking; if the cards ain't lucky, put 'em away till they are."
He looked cleaner and smarter than the other three—Nellie's brothers, who were young fellows, little over twenty. ”

“ MACARTNEY, GEORGE, Earl Macartney (1737–1806) , diplomatist and colonial governor, born in Ireland on 14 May 1737, was only son of George Macartney of Lissanoure, co. Antrim, who married in 1732 Elizabeth, youngest daughter of the Rev. John Winder, prebendary of Kilrain and vicar of Carmony. At the age of thirteen George matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated M.A. in 1759. He entered as a student at the Middle Temple, but not seeking a call to the bar, he travelled for some time on the continent. ”

“ Shortly afterwards, in order to clear up the affairs of my inheritance, I presented myself before Sir John Macartney, the English Minister, at his weekly levee in the Palazzo C——. A bluff, soldierly man, of Irish birth and English opinions, he received me with particular civility, in which curiosity may perhaps have played its part. He deplored my loss of an excellent father, rejoiced in my gain of an excellent estate, hoped I should return to England, cry for King George, hunt the country, and keep a good head of game. He alluded, as delicately as he could, to religious differences. ”

“ Sir Halliday Macartney, on his return to the Chinese Legation from the Foreign Office, proceeded to the bedside of the Minister Kung Ta Jen, and explained to him that Lord Salisbury had insisted upon the release of Sun Yat Sen.
It is not for me to discuss the behaviour of Sir Halliday Macartney; I leave that to public opinion and to his own conscience. In his own mind, I have no doubt, he has reasons for his action; but they seem scarcely consistent with those of a sane man, let alone the importance of the position he occupies. ”

“ In 1774 he was made governor of Toome Castle, a sinecure worth 1,000l. a year, which he sold to pay debts contracted during his embassy to Russia.
In 1775 Macartney was appointed captain-general and governor of the Caribbee islands (Grenada, the Grenadines and Tobago) , and in 1776 was raised to the Irish peerage as Baron Macartney, of Lissanoure. He was on his post at Grenada in 1779 when that island was attacked, and after a gallant defence was captured by the French (cf. his papers in Brit. Mus. Egerton MS. 2135 ff. 54–72) . ”

“ Macartney took his seat in the Irish House of Peers in 1788, was made custos rotulorum of Antrim, a trustee of the linen manufacture, a member of the Irish privy council, and a colonel of yeomanry. In 1792 he was created Earl Macartney and Viscount Macartney of Dervock in the peerage of Ireland. ”

“ She's free and red-handed somewhere, if no one ever found out who railroaded her and Van Ruyne's emeralds out of the United States!"
What sent Dudley into a blazing rage was beyond me. But he fairly yelled at Macartney.
"Free she may be, but when you say 'red-handed' you say a lie! If Jimmy Van Ruyne was fool enough to think so, it was because no Van Ruyne ever could see a. b. spelled ab. D'ye know him? Well," as Macartney shook his head, "he's a rotter, if ever there was one! Got more money than he knows what to do [Pg 130] with and always chasing after women. ”

“ Macartney returned casually. Dudley always did work himself up over things that were none of his business, [Pg 139] and the Valenka argument evidently had not struck his superintendent as anything out of the ordinary. He nodded and went out. Paulette strayed to the fireplace, and I saw her handful of papers blaze up before she moved away. I was thankful when that signature of Tatiana Paulina Valenka was off the earth, even if Macartney had gone out of the room. Paulette said good night, and went out on his heels. ”

“ Half a mile farther on were food [Pg 275] and shelter in the Halfway shack—and it might as well have been in Heaven, for with Macartney's men cached in it I naturally could not take her there. Behind that, twenty-seven miles off, was Caraquet; but even a girl with a trained body like Paulette's could never make twenty-seven miles on top of all we'd done.
"It's no question of wanting you," I exclaimed angrily. "It is that I don't know what to do. But want you—when do you suppose I haven't wanted you, ever since the night I first saw you by Dudley's fire? ”

“ I have invariably maintained it; and I can say to the whole world, which I now do to you upon the honour of a gentleman, that from my arrival in India to this hour, I have never accepted for my own benefit a single pagoda, a diamond, or even a shawl, but restricted myself most scrupulously to the receipt of salary alone, and to the rigid obser- vance of all my covenants — so help me God!" Lord Macartney remained in India more than three years after this time, when he returned to England, with hands untainted. ”

“ As for his gang, the very bunk-house men he had told me to order out of the assay office, were just Macartney's own gang from Skunk's Misery, come over when they had silenced Thompson forever; at Macartney's elbow whenever he chose to murder the lot of us and commandeer the La Chance mine. I wished, irrelevantly, that Dunn and Collins had got to [Pg 188] Macartney, instead of being killed on the way; they might have been chancy young devils about stealing gold, but they would never have stood for murdering old Thompson! ”

“ The spectacle of Sir Halliday Macartney fussing and fuming in the Times like an Englishman, when he ought to hold his peace like a Chinaman, can only suggest to the authorities at Pekin that their English representative here is a rather incompetent person. ”

“ They jumped over a ditch into a place called the Nursery, and prepared for the combat. The Duke of Hamilton, turning to General Macartney, said, "Sir, you are the cause of this, let the event be what it will." Lord Mohun did not wish that the seconds should engage, but the duke insisted that "Macartney should have a share in the dance." All being ready, the two principals took up their positions, and fought with swords so desperately, that after a short time they both fell down mortally wounded. ”

“ To suppose, that, under such an impression, our leading men would have hesitated to prevent it, would be to suppose their intellects weak, and their hearts corrupt and inhuman. I fancy it will be difficult to fasten on Lord Macartney either the one or the other; for he was wise and humane: those whom the disappointment of unreasonable expectations, or the malevolence of party, have induced to suspect his Lordship’s heart, have been forced by his conduct to revere his talents; and the breath of calumny has never touched the humanity of Sir Edward Hughes. ”

“ I know what brought the wolves to howl around this house, if I don't know how you shoved Dudley out to them. I know it was a home-made raid you had down at the assay office, and—I've been to Skunk's Misery!"
"Well?" said Macartney thickly. [Pg 206]
"Well enough! I have Thompson's deuce of hearts you didn't see was missing, when you gave me back his pack! With any luck I'll pay you out for that, and our four mill men, and Dudley; not here, where you can fight and die quick, but outside—where they've things like gallows! Oh, you would, would you?" ”

“ But it had to be stopped, or heaven knew whom Dudley would be accusing next.
"For God's sake, Wilbraham, shut up," said Macartney curtly. "You make me sick. [Pg 127] Isn't it enough to have the old man dead, without saying innocent people killed him!"
"Yes, if they are innocent," Dudley returned so quietly that it surprised both of us. "But I tell you this, Macartney, and Stretton too—if any one within a hundred miles of this mine did murder Thompson, Billy Jones or any one else, it'll come out!" and he jerked his head around. "Don't you think so, Paulette?" ”

“ As the popular delirium subsided, and men began to reason coolly upon the subject, they disbelieved the assertions of Colonel Hamilton that Macartney had stabbed the duke, although it was universally admitted that he had been much too busy and presuming. Hamilton was shunned by all his former companions, and his life rendered so irksome to him, that he sold out of the Guards and retired to private life, in which he died heart-broken four years afterwards.
General Macartney surrendered about the same time, and was tried for murder in the Court of King's Bench. ”

“ Doctor Macartney, who has gone to the seaside for a couple of months with her family, and who was quite ready, for a smart pecuniary consideration, to let her neatly appointed house even to the reckless Lefroys for the time being. ”

“ As you peruse you may find it difficult to believe that Macartney himself—James Adolphus, that remarkable solicitor—could have possessed a quivering, winged soul fit to be stript, and have hidden it so deep. But he did though, and the inference is that everybody does. As for the lady, that is not so hard of belief. It very seldom is—with women. They sit so [Pg 2] much at windows, that pretty soon their eyes become windows themselves—out of which the soul looks darkling, but preening ”

“ They were to do nothing now, before Paulette and Marcia, if their first instructions had been to ambush inside the shack to dispose of me when I got back from the Halfway,—which I had not been meant to do. I did not drop my gun hand, or fling the truth at Macartney. But I made no [Pg 200] move to pick up Marcia. I said, "How d'ye mean Dudley's killed? Who killed him?"
"Wolves!" If Macartney meant me to think he was too sick to answer properly he was not, for he spoke suddenly to the bunk-house men. "There is no good in your waiting round, or looking any more. They've got Mr. ”

“ By this witness, supported by two others, we see no mention of General Macartney stabbing the Duke, as represented in the illustration, and as it was currently reported at the time. Macartney fled; but Col. Hamilton remained, stood his trial, and was found guilty of manslaughter. He accused Macartney of the foul deed, and great was the hue and cry after him. The Duchess was naturally enraged, and offered a reward of £300 for his apprehension, the Government supplementing her offer by an additional £500, but Macartney got away safely. ”

“ If it was not intended to deport Sun Yat Sen to China, why was he kept a prisoner? Sir Halliday Macartney is in the pitiable position of an Englishman who is forced by his official obligations to palliate in London what would be the ordinary course of justice at Canton. A purely Chinese emissary would have said nothing. Having failed in his manœuvre, he would have accepted the consequences of defeat with the fatalism of his race and native climate. ”

“ Thenceforward he resided at 32 Avenue Road, Regent's Park, London, and died there on 1 Dec. 1891. He was buried at Harlow in Essex. A memorial service was held on the same day at Melbourne, when his old comrade, Dean Macartney, himself ninety-three years of age, who had come out with him in 1848, preached the sermon. ”

“ I [Pg 170] said: "All right," and pocketed Thompson's cards. Then I did up Macartney's arm, and the two of us went up the road to Dudley. He and his dry nurse, Baker, who'd promptly arrived from the bunk house, stumped straight back to the assay office with Macartney to fuss over the men who'd been killed. I was making for my own room, to see if Thompson's resurrected cards would shed any light on his crazy scrawls, when I heard a poker drop in the living room. Somebody was in there, raking up the fire.
Charliet had gone after Macartney, with Dudley and Baker. ”

“ He saw, from time to time, many men, of whose capacities we know he had the highest opinion, shut out from the hospital by the mere circumstance of their not having been apprentices; and two of these were the late Professor Macartney, of Dublin, and the present distinguished Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Professor Owen. And here we must pause to record one of our numerous obligations to the perceptivity and justice of Abernethy. ”

“ Barrow, Lord Macartney's private secretary, arrived at the drostdy of Graaff-Reinet, and met with a friendly reception from a body of farmers who had assembled purposely to welcome him. On the following morning Mr. Gerotz transferred the office and the records, and he assumed the duties of landdrost. ”

“ However that may be, he was captured and confined in a most outrageous manner in the London Legation, whatever plausible piffle may be put forward by Sir Halliday Macartney, or any servile prevaricator; and it is due to Dr. Cantlie, Sun's friend and teacher in Hong Kong, that one of the best men China has ever produced was rescued by British justice from the toils of treacherous mandarindom. All who know Dr. Cantlie—and he is well known in many parts of the world—agree that a more upright, honourable and devoted benefactor of humanity has never breathed. ”

“ We don't know about Macartney. [Pg 272] If he's alive he has a stable full of horses, and he knows where we're running to. He may try to cut us off." I half lied; he could not cut us off, since horses would be of no use to him in the heavy snow, and on foot it would take him two days to go round Lac Tremblant to the Halfway, where crossing the lolly could bring us in two hours. But I had no mind to air my real reason for haste.
I should have known Paulette was too shrewd for me. "I'm a fool—Lac Tremblant never bears, of course," she said quite quietly. "Go on, Mr. Stretton. ”