Chapter XXX: Sir John Moore

So soon as the first excitement of Roy's arrival began to subside, his thoughts turned in the old direction, towards the Army.

Mr. Bryce took upon himself to act as he knew that the Colonel would have acted if able; and a brief space of time saw Roy being transformed into a smart young subaltern, in the same regiment of infantry where Jack had lately obtained his Captaincy.

"And now," Roy said, not once but a dozen times, to Molly, "the one thing in the world I want is to serve under Moore!"

"Are you in such a hurry to go away from us again?" Molly asked wistfully. But she understood, as she would not have understood five years earlier, and before Roy could speak she added,—"I know. Of course you can't help it. You must wish to go! Only I hope you won't stay away too long."

"We've got to squash Napoleon before anybody can think of stopping at home."

In the beginning of this year, 1808, Moore had returned to England from the Mediterranean, after an absence of nearly two years. Then he had his last holiday. Four months of rest were granted to the hard-worked warrior, who during thirty years had held himself at his Country's service, fighting for her in all parts of the world, and being at least four times severely wounded. At this date he was looked upon by competent judges as the foremost man in the British Army, as the one to whom, above all others, England in her hour of need would turn.

The chief part of his holiday was spent at the quiet Surrey home of his brother, with his mother and sister; and one is glad to know that he had that peaceful interlude before the stormy end. He had had much to try him, and he had gone through heavy battling of more than one description when out in Sicily.

It was during his time there, when acting second in command to old General Fox, brother of Mr. Charles Fox, Prime Minister of England, that the one love affair of Moore came about. The little tale is worth telling, though apart from the course of this story, for it says much as to the character of Moore.

Several times the assertion has been made that Sir John Moore was engaged to Lady Hester Stanhope, niece of Mr. Pitt. This is a mistake. Lady Hester was his friend, and he admired her greatly; but it was as a friend only, not as a lover. On the conclusive authority of General Anderson, who for twenty-one years was with him in the closest possible intercourse, there was but one whom Moore ever seriously wished to marry. That one was—not Lady Hester, but Caroline Fox, daughter of the old General in command at Sicily.

That the niece of Mr. Pitt should have been his most intimate woman-friend, and the niece of Mr. Fox his one and only love, reads curiously in the light of party politics. But Sir John was no party man. The great Minister, Pitt, had for him an unbounded esteem and affection on the one side. And Mr. Fox, on the other, at a time when a movement was astir to make Moore Commander-in-Chief in India, utterly refused to allow him to go. "It was impossible for him," he said, "in the state in which Europe then was, to send to such a distance a General in whom he had such entire confidence." Moore stood outside political warfare, grandly and simply, as representative of his Country.

He had many troubles in Sicily. The object of the British forces being there was to save the Sicilies from the grip of Napoleon. But the tortuous policy of their Sicilian Majesties, the entire lack of honesty and of public spirit, the underhand cabals and oppositions, the weakness and wickedness of the Queen, and the mischief made by one Englishman there, who acted throughout as Sir John's enemy, hindered far more from being done than was done.

Amid all this, however—amid the fighting, the difficulties, the trickeries, the entanglements of Sicilian politics and warfare, Moore fell deeply in love. But he did not marry. He did not even let the girl know that he loved her.

Caroline Fox was very young, not yet eighteen. Moore was already in his forty-sixth year. He did not think it right, at her age, even to give her the choice.

Whether this decision was in the abstract wise, some may question. It is at least conceivable that Caroline Fox herself was already in love with him. Had she been so, it would indeed have been sad that, from a noble sense of duty, he should have denied happiness to her as well as to himself. True, he had not sought her; but he was intimate in the house, and he was a man of extraordinarily attractive power. In such a case it does seem, from the woman's point of view, that she ought to have been allowed to say for herself either Yea or Nay.

That view does not detract from the admiration which his conduct must arouse. Sir John was not of a nature to love lightly, to give up his wishes easily. It was a hard fight. Harder far this conflict than all his battles with the soldiers of Napoleon.

Yet he conquered; and to the young girl herself he said not one word which might have encouraged her affections. To Anderson he explained his reasons with a frank and touching simplicity, the echo of which comes down to us now through ninety years and more.

"She is so young," he said. "Her judgment may be overpowered. The disparity of age is not, perhaps, at present very apparent. My position here, my reputation as a soldier of service, and my intimacy with her father, may influence her to an irretrievable error for her own future contentment. My feelings, therefore, must be suppressed, that she may not have to suppress hers hereafter, with loss of happiness."

Can anything surpass the quiet grandeur of that must?

He was a man in the prime of life, eminently handsome, accomplished, fascinating, the idol of his friends, the darling of his country, with every hope of a splendid career still before him. That such a man, when profoundly in love, should pause to view the question solely with respect to the girl's happiness, not his own—that he should humbly question whether, though he might win her, she might not in after years regret her action and wish herself free;—this, no doubt, is such a hero as has often figured in fiction. Quite an ideal hero! So some may object.

But the whole is true. There is no idealising in the question. John Moore, actually and literally, less than one hundred years ago, loved and decided thus. The grandeur of this man was that he thought always of others before himself, that he lived for duty. Where duty pointed or seemed to point down a pathway, no matter how hard and thorny the road, there unhesitatingly he walked. Questions as to the wisdom of his decision do not touch the splendour of his self-sacrificing conduct.

He never did propose for that young girl. Whether he would have done so in after years cannot now be decided. In 1806, when this hard conflict was fought out, less than three years of his fair life on earth remained.

After his four months' holiday at home—just at the close of which Roy Baron reached London—Moore was despatched on another expedition to Sweden. It was an expedition rendered especially trying to its Commander, and abortive in itself, by the crazy conduct of the King of Sweden, who, not long after, went mad and had to be deposed. Moore, when setting sail for England, wrote to his mother: "This campaign in Sweden has proved the most painful to me I ever served."

One trial followed another in these later years of his life. The heaviest of all was yet to come.

In the autumn of 1807, when Italy, Holland, Prussia, Austria, and Russia had been all either conquered or humiliated and crushed, Portugal next fell a victim to the rapacious Conqueror; and Portugal was made a steppingstone to the conquest of Spain. Before the end of May 1808, when Sir John Moore was sailing for Sweden, the French army entered Madrid, declaring the whole country subject to the Emperor of the French, and proclaiming Joseph Buonaparte king.

Then it was that the tide of Napoleon's successes reached high-water mark. From this date, it may be said, the retreat of the waters began on land, as their fall had earlier begun upon the ocean—at first imperceptibly, for a long while fitfully, yet with accelerating speed.

Again and again the Spaniards had fought on the side of the French against the English. But now at last the spell seemed to be broken; now at last their eyes were opened. "As a man," it was declared, Spain had risen against the Emperor; and a burst of enthusiasm, of generous and vehement sympathy, rushed through the length and breadth of England. A passionate longing to be led against the enemy pervaded all ranks in the Army.

By the time that Moore got home from Sweden, Sir Arthur Wellesley had already been sent to Portugal, with a force of nine thousand men; and the eleven thousand, who had returned from the fruitless errand to Sweden, were at once ordered to Portsmouth en route for Portugal.

An evening or two later Jack rushed in upon the Bryce circle, in hot haste.

"Jack! Hallo, man—what's up now? Something out of the common, to judge from the looks of you," declared Mr. Bryce, sitting near the window, in flowered waistcoat, velvet tights, and silver-buckled shoes.

"How d'you all do? How d'you do, ma'am? Find yourself well, Polly? All right, Molly? Heard the news?"

"What news?" from all four.

"Sir John Moore is ordered off to Spain. And our regiment is under orders too!"

"Oh!" from Molly. "And if Roy should be taken prisoner!"

"Or if he should not!" suggested Mr. Bryce. "Nay, child, we'll permit no doleful foretellings. What's up, jack? 'Tis no ill news to you to be ordered to the seat of war."

"Ill news, sir! No!" with sufficient energy.

"Yet you look uncommon like to a thunder-cloud. What's wrong?"

"Could wish nothing better than to go, sir. Every man in the Army is wild to be off. But I'm angry, I'll admit. 'Tis a fact that, after serving in Sicily and in Sweden as Chief in command, Sir John Moore is now to be in a subordinate position as third."

"Yet the King and the Duke of York are ever his friends," mused Mr. Bryce. "And Lord Castlereagh esteems him highly."

"So say all. But there's Sir Arthur Wellesley in command of one army, gone to Spain; and Sir John till now in command of another; and both of 'em to be under Sir Hew Dalrymple; and till he gets to Portugal, Sir Harry Burrard is to act for him. Moore—the foremost and most brilliant officer England has ever owned—to be under Burrard and Dalrymple! Has the world gone crazed? But he'll rise to the top—small fear!"

"What says Sir John himself?"

Jack's face broke into a smile.

"Well, sir, it must go no further. Sir John was summoned to the presence of Lord Castlereagh to receive orders. And those who were in waiting in the anteroom heard sounds of a stormy interview. Sir John said after to a friend—so I am told—that he had had it out with the Ministers, and he was glad he had, for he would now think no more about the matter."

"Jack, shall we soon see Roy?" asked Molly.

Jack had little doubt that Roy would look in. Everything was to be done in a terrific hurry; and he had come himself to say good-bye there and then; but Roy would certainly appear before starting for Portugal. A few minutes later he called Polly into the little boudoir, and said: "That's a brave Poll. No tears and no wailings. 'Tis as should be."

"Dear Jack, I know well how glad you are. And I would not hold you back." Polly spoke courageously, though she looked white.

"I knew well that you would bid me God-speed. And you will think of me. Think especially on Sunday—in church. Eh, dear? Polly, no letter from Verdun?"

Polly looked sadly at her brother.

"I have not writ to him lately, Jack. I cannot tell how to write. What shall I do? I have none but you to advise me. And if he should no longer care—if he should by now have forgot me?"

"He is not that sort. Trust him, Polly."

"It is so long—five years and more. And no letter from him of later date than the summer of 1806! Jack, sometimes I wonder—why does he not ask me to go out to him there. If he asked me I would go. And sure, if he indeed wished it, he might send me some little word—by some private hand—"

Jack was silent, thinking.

"And there is that French girl, whom Roy is so fond of—always with them, as one of themselves."

"But trust him still, Polly dear," urged Jack. "I cannot know, neither can you, how things are yet a while; only I do truly believe that Den is no man to change, nor to be fickle in his likings. Whether you write or do not write, trust him still!"