Mutineer

“ They walked day after day in front of the line of their men’s muskets on parade, not knowing when these iron tubes would break into red flame and flying bullets. They lay down night after night, knowing that the Sepoys in every hut were discussing the exact manner and time of their murder. Yet each man kept an untroubled brow, and went patiently the round of his duty, thanking God when he had no wife and child at the station to fall under the tender mercies of the mutineers. ”

“ The raising of that flag, the booming of those guns, were the signal of the deathblow of the Indian mutiny. Over one hundred thousand rebels were still in arms against the British government, but the heart of the insurrection was gone. It was no longer a war, it was a rebellion. There was no longer a head, a center, or a common aim. Each body of mutineers fought for themselves—for life rather than for victory. ”

“ Before utterly and unreservedly condemning this undoubtedly savage action, I would beg the reader to remember that in this Mutiny war no quarter was given on either side. We looked, and rightly looked, upon the mutineers, not as honest enemies, but as foul and cruel murderers for whom to die by the sword was too good a fate, and whose only fit end was on the gallows. If they had confined themselves to a revolt against the Government, and in attempting it had slaughtered their officers and all men who tried to suppress it, they would not have placed themselves outside the pale of mercy ”

“ Work for such a force, and under such a leader, was quickly found. The siege train intended to breach the walls of Delhi was slowly creeping along the road from the Punjaub, and with unusual daring a great force of mutineers marched from Delhi to intercept this convoy. The movement was detected, and on August 25 Nicholson, with 1600 infantry, 400 cavalry, and a battery of field guns, set out to cut off the Sepoy force. ”

“ It would be easy to write, or sing, a new and more wonderful Odyssey made up of the valiant combats, the wild adventures, and the distressful wanderings of little groups of Englishmen and Englishwomen, upon whom the tempest of the Mutiny broke.
Forbes-Mitchell, for example, tells the story of Robert Tucker, the judge at Futtehpore. Tucker was a great hunter, and also, like many Indian officials, an earnestly religious man, with an antique sense of duty. When the Mutiny broke out he despatched every European to Allahabad, but refused to move himself. ”

“ On this I asked him, "Were you in Cawnpore when the Mutiny broke out?" To which he replied: "No, thank God! I was in my home in Rohilcund; and my hands are unstained by the blood of any one, excepting those who have fallen in the field of battle. I knew that the storm was about to burst, and had gone to place my wife and children in safety, and I was in my village when I heard the news of the mutinies at Meerut and Bareilly. I immediately hastened to join the Bareilly brigade, and marched with them for Delhi. ”

“ Practically, it would be quite as easy to bind the winds after they had burst out of the bag of Æolus, as to control cavalry once launched in pursuit. What else could possibly be expected? The enemy, if mounted, scatters in flight in all directions, and at racing pace. If they are to be overtaken and destroyed the pursuers also must scatter, and at still greater speed. A very few minutes will cover miles of country with a rapidly extending fan of more or less isolated swiftly-moving groups. Such, at any rate, was our frequent experience during the [131] Mutiny campaigns. ”

“ With one whole-hearted rush those three thousand fighters could have swarmed into the Residency against all the efforts of the few Europeans and natives who resisted them. But that rush was never made by the assailants as a mass. Not once in the history of the Mutiny did the sepoys adopt the “do or die” method that characterized the British troops in nearly every action of the campaign.
When the moon rose on the night of the 21st a sharp-eyed sentry saw a man creeping across the broken [Pg 238] ground in front of the Bailey Guard. ”

“ Remember old Mr. Mutimer; he was a perfect gentleman. I have no doubt the family is really a very good one. Indeed, I am all but sure that I remember the name in Hampshire; there was a Sir something Mutimer—I’m convinced of it. No one really belonging to the working class ever bore himself as Mr. Mutimer does. Haven’t you noticed the shape of his hands, my dear?’
‘I’ve only noticed that they are very large, and just what you would expect in a man who had done much rough work.’
Mrs. Waltham laughed noisily.
‘My dear child, how can you be so perverse? The shape of the fingers is perfect. ”

“ In the case of the Mutiny we recall with pride the deeds of Nicholson and Havelock, and are never weary of the old stories of the siege of Delhi and the relief of Lucknow. All honour to those who quitted themselves like men; but I am afraid there are many episodes of the Mutiny which are little creditable to the British, whether civilians or soldiers. A great many individuate were found unequal to the occasion; and this is true of every war and probably of the majority of actions. ”

“ It was drawn up in parade order, on a plain a few miles south of the Dilkusha. Three thousand four hundred men faced him, and the smallness of the number is eloquent of the magnitude of their task. Indeed, that is one of the salient features of each main episode of the Mutiny. Nicholson at Delhi, Havelock at Cawnpore and on the way to Lucknow, Colin Campbell in the pending action, and Sir Hugh Rose in many a hard fought battle in Central India, one and all were called on to attack and defeat ten times the number of sepoys. ”

“ After leaving Lohunga, the first place of note which we reached was Futtehpore, seventy-two miles from Allahabad. At Futtehpore I met some native Christians whom I had first seen in Allahabad, and who were, or had been, connected with mission work, and could speak English. They had returned from Allahabad to look after property which they had been obliged to abandon when they fled from Futtehpore on the outbreak of the Mutiny. These men all [Pg 11] knew Dr. Duff, or had heard of him, and were most anxious to talk to Dr. Duff's countrymen, as they called the Highlanders. ”

“ The impression left on my mind was that they were either afraid or ashamed to talk about the Mutiny.
In the second chapter of these reminiscences it may be [Pg 272] remembered I asked if any reader could let me know whether Major A. H. S. Neill, commanding the Second Regiment Central India Horse, who was shot on parade by Sowar Mazar Ali at Augur, Central India, on the 14th March, 1887, was a son of General Neill of Cawnpore fame. The information has not been forthcoming [53] ”

“ If what Bligh states with regard to the conduct of the master and the carpenter be true, it was such, on several occasions, as to provoke a man much less irritable than himself. He thus speaks of the latter, when in the ship and in the midst of the mutiny. ”

“ In spite of all the evidence that was brought on his side, the dastardly spirit of politics has persisted in making Mutimer a sort of historical character, a type of the hypocritical demagogue, to be cited whenever occasion offers. Would it be possible to attach a more evil significance to a man’s name than that which Mutimer bears, and will continue to bear, among certain sections of writing and speechifying vermin? It is a miserable destiny. If every man who achieves notoriety paid for his faults in this way, what sort of reputations would history consist of? ”

“ If John Lawrence had to disband or suppress 36,000 mutinous Sepoys in the Punjaub, he was able to enlist from Ghoorkas and Sikhs and the wild tribes on the Afghan borders more than another 36,000 to take their places. He fed the scanty and gallant force which kept the British flag flying before Delhi with an ever-flowing stream of native soldiers of sufficient fidelity. At the time of the Mutiny there were 38,000 British soldiers in a population of 180,000,000. If the Mutiny had been indeed a “national” uprising, what chances of survival would the handful of British have had? ”

“ The smooth anterior edge of the carapace distinguishes muticus from all other American kinds except ater and some individuals of T. s. emoryi. T. muticus resembles only ater and ferox in usually lacking a well-defined, contrasting pattern of blackish marks on the dorsal surface of the limbs. T. muticus resembles ferox and differs from spinifer and ater in lacking a gritty or "sandpapery" carapace on adult males. Adult males of T. muticus calvatus and some individuals of T. m. muticus from the Colorado River in Texas further resemble ferox in having postocular stripes with thick black borders. ”

“ If, however, the recollection of the 'sunny isle' and its 'smiling women' had really tempted the men to mutiny, Bligh would himself not be free from blame, for having allowed them to indulge for six whole months among this voluptuous and fascinating people ”

“ I liked Muttra’s face at once; she has a particularly open, honest look, staring straight at one with her great dark eyes like a fawn, and she has, too, a very bright fresh colour, and a pleasant cheerful voice. I paid, then, little attention to Asr’s rudeness, and asked the little girl to walk with me round their garden, which she did, showing me the few things there were to be seen, and explaining about the well, and the way they drew the water. ”

“ He had never lost sight of his relatives in London, and had made for them such modest provision as suited his view of the fitness of things. To leave wealth to young men of the working class would have seemed to him the most inexcusable of follies; if such were to rise at all, it must be by their own efforts and in consequence of their native merits; otherwise, let them toil on and support themselves honestly. From secret sources he received information of the capabilities and prospects of Joseph Mutimer’s children, and the items of his will were regulated accordingly. ”

“ But I have heard a few of them say they like mutton; but even if fond of it, they will never purchase it, for fear of the scoffs of their neighbours. I do not intend to keep any sheep till I am better prepared for them. Wool sells, on a small scale, for half a dollar a lb., without much regard to its fineness, which is the reason why sheep are higher than mutton, as a sheep of fifty lbs. weight will fetch from two dollars fifty cents to three dollars; whereas, at five cents per lb., the very top price for mutton, the same sheep would only fetch two dollars fifty cents. ”

“ Mutton is largely consumed in the country, and is killed, dressed, and cooked in a speedy and simple manner. The sheep being hung by its hind legs to a tree, its throat is cut, and the blood is received into a bowl and mixed with salt, in which state it is thought to be a very great delicacy. ”

“ The domestic Anglo-Saxon is a mutton-eater. Let his offshoots here and elsewhere follow suit. There is no such timber to repair the waste of the human frame. It is a fuel easily combustible in the visceral grate of the stomach. The mutton-eater is eupeptic. His dreams are airy and lightsome. Somnus descends smiling to his nocturnal pillow, and not clad in the portentous panoply of indigestion, which rivals a guilty conscience in its night visions. The mutton department of Quincy Market is all that it should be. ”

“ I'd told Muttons the proofs was weak—they was—and the only chanct was to make the nephew confiss, so the Englishman gint figured a lime-light rise from the dead be a pile of scrap-iron would be a ixcellint and splendiferous manner of eggin' him into doin' of it. If nothin' ilse, it would be makin' him look like he was guilty be scarin' him into a blitherin' idiot afore the girl, whilst Muttons, bein' on, would show up fine like he was wan of thim heroes, and maybe pile it on a bit be tryin' to save the young man. ”

“ The grounds of this preference will be understood when I explain that English farmers who manufacture mutton as a primary product kill their sheep as soon as they are full grown, when a year old or less. They can not afford to feed a sheep for two years longer merely to improve its flavor without adding to its weight. Country gentlemen who do not care for expense occasionally regale their friends on a haunch or saddle of three-year-old mutton, as a rare and costly luxury. ”

“ And yet a great change has overtaken us; and although we do not enjoy ourselves less, at least we take our pleasure differently. We need pickles nowadays to make Wednesday’s cold mutton please our Friday’s appetite; and I can remember the time when to call it red venison, and tell myself a hunter’s story, would have made it more palatable than the best of sauces. To the grown person, cold mutton is cold mutton all the world over; not all the mythology ever invented by man will make it better or worse to him ”

“ That's a pretty hard name for it, Matt. I've been in ships, man and boy, for thirty years, and this is the first time any one ever accused me of mutiny. We just think we know what ought to be done and are goin' ahead and doin' it. You'll be able to tell the cap'n, when you next see him, that you couldn't help yourself. Speake, Clackett and me are banking on it that the cap'n'll say we did just right. ”

“ Mutimer looked on a tempest of savage faces—a sight which might have daunted any man in his position. Fists were shaken at him, curses were roared at him from every direction. It was clear that the feeling of the mob was hopelessly against him; his explanations were ridiculed. A second man was reared on others’ shoulders; but instead of speaking from the place where he was, he demanded to be borne forward and helped to a standing on the cart. This was effected after a brief struggle with Mutimer’s supporters. ”