CHAPTER II.

AWFUL CONDITION OF GIB--GRANDFATHER STABBED--A VENDETTA--THE DUKE WAS THE BEST-HATED MAN ON THE ROCK.

The scene of our story shifts away now to a far-off land.

In imagination I walk or wander with my gallant grandfather from point to point of the most famous rock that history can boast of. It is almost the first name that a child learns to lisp at school, when commencing to learn geography, and has been so for the last hundred years.

Personally speaking, when I myself first visited it, many years ago, I was astonished at everything I saw around me and above me. I had been taught to believe that it was but a lonesome rock, like a lion couchant, almost isolated from everything worth beholding; a rock that, though armed, was of no use to us, but only held in a spirit of bravado, a kind of clenched fist held up as a menace before the face of any or every other nation in the world, a John Bull fist, a British fist, saying as well as words could express it:

"Here I am, and I've come to stay, and the fate of the foe that would dare to face me is a foregone conclusion."

But I did not quite understand this. We Britons are proud of our great history, it is true, proud of our associations with an almost forgotten past, and with these may, and doubtless does, mingle a little romance. We bear no great goodwill for the iconoclast, the snivelling, snarling, unpatriotic idiot who would smash the people's idols, and trample them in the dust, who would hardly leave us a museum of antiquities, or relics that fathers may point to with pride, as he tells his children the story of the half-forgotten past. These relics may sometimes be but symbols, as, for instance, says the great Carlyle, "the clouted shoe that the peasants bore aloft as ensign in their Bauernkrieg, or Peasant's War. Or the wallet and staff, round which the Netherland Gueux, glorying in that nickname of beggars, heroically rallied, and prevailed, though against King Philip himself. _In_trinsic, significance these had, not only _ex_trinsic, as the accidental standard of multitudes, more or less sacredly uniting together, in which union itself there is ever something mystical, and borrowing of the god-like. Under a like category, too, stand or stood the stupidest heraldic coats of arms; military banners everywhere. Nevertheless, through all there glimmers something of a divine idea; as, through military banners themselves, the divine idea of duty, of heroic daring, in some instances of freedom, of right."

But these iconoclasts would tear the shot-rent standards or flags, around which so many heroes bled and fell, from the very walls of Windsor Castle itself; but a few years ago they would have deprived us of that nation's pride, the grand old ship _Victory_, on whose blood-slippery deck the hero Nelson fell. And they would deprive us of Gibraltar also.

Yet, though we Britons are thus proud of our blood-stained symbols and relics, we are also just, and would retain no portion of any nation's territory it has a legal right to, and would not use against ourselves, or hand over to our enemies.

If you disarm a burglar, are you to give him back the pistol with which he tried to blow your brains out? Or are you to hand it over to the burglar's friend, who must be your foe?

No, and so we shall stick to Gibraltar.

What we have we mean to hold, Though pretended friends at home may scowl: Though blood be shed, And men fall dead, And savage foes around us howl, Still, what we have we'll stick to, As in the dashing days of old.

I am not at all proud of my composition, reader. The verse may be doggerel, but there is truth in it.

Well, I had not been a day in Gibraltar, or Gib as we call it for short, before I found out it was by no means so barren a rock as had been represented.

There is a great town there now, though the streets be narrow, and here you may meet people of all nationalities, and in almost every garb, from the felt-hatted cute and clever Yankee to the Arab himself, or even the dastardly Turk. Vegetables of almost all sorts grow here. It is the paradise of fruit, and on the mountain-slopes, as well as in the cultivated gardens, grow flowers of every hue and shape.

Both the Horse Guards and the Duke of York placed unbounded confidence in the Duke of Kent. His former good conduct as a soldier, his hatred of intoxicants, and his skill as a disciplinarian, all told in his favour, and unlimited powers were placed in his hands. He was expected to reduce the Rock to a condition of greater sobriety, and to restore discipline. Nay, more, he was commanded to do so.

Hard indeed and thankless was the task he had before him.

Put not your trust in princes, nor in those in high places, either. Fine clothes never make the man. As true and loyal a heart may beat beneath a jacket of fustian as beneath the ermine-trimmed robes of a peer.

Kings and queens, or their ministers, make many "nobles." Nature makes a few, but she takes infinitely more pains with them than does royalty, and I know to which category I would rather belong. It may be treason to speak thus, but it is also the truth. And having said so boldly, I shall be all the more readily believed when I say also that I consider the Duke of Kent to have been one of the grand men of the early part of this century.

"Much exertion"--thus spoke the Horse Guards, or the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of York--"will be necessary on your part, in order to restore a due degree of discipline among the troops."

And the Duke of Kent left England on the 27th of April, 1802, to take command of the historic fort, determined to do his duty, and relying on the promise that he would be supported by the high authorities at home.

Put not your trust in princes!

Arrived at Gib, the Duke commenced work at once.

There were all kinds of reforms to make among the rock scorpions, as soldiers who had been here a long time were called. Even the officers, as well as the men, were simply giving themselves up entirely to having what the Americans call a real good time of it. If drunkenness and every vice that follows in its train could be called happiness, then these men were happy.

It was then considered no crime to be intoxicated while _off_ duty. But officers were too unsteady sometimes to walk straight or talk plainly, even on parade. This state of things led to much illness among all hands, in addition to extreme slovenliness.

It has been said that, even in the public streets, the men, and sometimes their superiors, might be seen at any hour of the day so clothed as to resemble a roving horde of lawless plunderers, rather than drilled and organised soldiers.

I can believe that.

It is, however, stated that the Duke laboured cheerfully seventeen hours a day.

This is an exaggeration.

My grand-dad, however, has assured me that, what with office work and other duties, he himself was never harder worked even while campaigning.

It is sad to have to add that the Duke came to Gib with the character of a martinet and a man who carried discipline, even over his officers, to the extent of positive tyranny. This is not true. I have what _I_ consider good authority for stating that he was a man of mild mien, though bold and brave as a lion when occasion demanded it.

Swearing and the use of terribly vulgar expressions were considered quite the thing in those days. A bad word was never heard on the Duke's lips. He would reason with his officers rather than lose his temper and scold them for what he considered conduct--in private life--that did not accord with the grand old title of "gentleman."

He was as fair also in his dealings with the sergeants or men, or between officers and men, as any judge could have been.

I will give but one instance of this. My grandfather, who now in a great measure took his ideas of strict discipline from the Duke himself, one day when on duty did a daring thing. He found two friends--not males--of an officer of pretty high rank quarrelling and fighting near the door of the officers' mess. I am sorry to say that neither was sober, but glad to add they did not belong to my gallant progenitor's company. He, however, had them both arrested and confined to separate rooms, placing a sentry at the door of each compartment. The wrath of the officer, when this was reported to him, knew no bounds.

"I'll do for your career," he cried.

My grand-dad answered never a word, but he was reported to the Duke as having been guilty of insubordinate, almost mutinous conduct.

Some men would have taken that officer's word, and a really painstaking sergeant would have been lost to the company. Not so the kindly Duke. He investigated the case, with the result that the officer was quietly but sternly reprimanded.

Returning from town about a week after this with letters for headquarters, just in the dusk of the evening, two men rushed suddenly out from a drinking-booth, and attacked my grandfather might and main. The sergeant, however, had not forgotten the use of his fists, and one of the would-be assassins speedily found himself in the filthy gutter. He would have settled the other fellow just as quickly, but a third Spaniard appeared upon the scene.

The _mêlée_ now became general--a kind of civil and military riot. It might have been bad indeed for the sergeant, had not Drake himself appeared on the scene, and with a few of his men speedily cleared the decks. But grandfather had been wounded with a stiletto, and, although he insisted on carrying the letters to headquarters, he lost so much blood that it was weeks before he was able to resume duty.

"That looked like a vendetta,* Sergeant, did it not?" said the Duke quietly when he resumed work.

* Act of revenge.

"I'm afraid, your Royal Highness," was the reply, "I'm afraid I dare not say so."

"Humph!" said the Duke. "You see, Sergeant, one may do what is right, and yet receive no reward in this world."

As the Duke therefore was no favourite, even the officers did as much as they could to thwart all his endeavours to curb vice and drunkenness.

His Royal Highness, however, was not to be curbed, and many of his reforms were excellent indeed. He diminished the number of wine-shops by one-half--humanely, however. It is not said, even by his enemies, that he turned the families of wine-shopkeepers adrift to starve. In fact it was quite the reverse, for he often supported some of them out of his own pocket. He weeded out the worst of those dens, especially those that were down narrow lanes, and in which foul murder itself was often committed. Nor would he have wine-shops near to the barracks or guardrooms.

Idleness is oftentimes the parent of vice, just as sorrow may be the parent of genius, hard work, and fame. The Duke was a man of the world, and knew this. He therefore instituted extra drills and dress parades, and even confinement to barracks after the second evening gun-fire.

He also established regimental canteens, and made many other reforms that soon began to work for the good not only of the soldiers, but of the civilians themselves.

All these reforms took time and very hard work, and though the Duke got himself well hated by the Rock scorpions--both officers and men--he persevered and did his duty right honourably and according to his light.

It is no wonder, therefore, that he became about the best-hated man on the Rock.

All this could have but one ending.

_The men mutinied at last._