The Romance of a Pro-Consul Part 13

'Immediately my friends heard of the vacancy,' he narrated, 'they proposed that I should stand for it. I did so, an independent Liberal, and I was ostracised by the party leaders, who had another candidate they wanted to get in. I suppose I was too advanced altogether, and indeed I preached a kind of new gospel. It included emigration; a handmaid to federation when the Colonies had ripened. Then I was for free education, and disestablishment all round, as a necessary thing in relation to Christianity--in fact as one of its main doctrines. Farther, I advocated Irish Home Rule, even drafting a short Bill, and in fine I was for a variety of innovations.'

Apart from all else, he understood that his Liberal rival was required in the House of Commons, to help Cardwell with military affairs. Anyhow, he gathered that impression from a visit which Mr. A. J. Mundella, journeying over from Nottingham, paid him at Newark. The encounter supplied a good story, and its manner was Sir George Grey in a characteristic mood. This was how he gravely met Mr. Mundella's gentle overture, 'Now, won't you withdraw from the contest?'

'Yes, I quite see the difficulty. You want somebody to a.s.sist Cardwell.

However well your suggestion might obviate the difficulty, I have an alternative which I think would equally suit. I had a military training, I did very creditably as a student at Sandhurst, I served with the colours, and I attained the rank of captain. I shall be glad to show you my papers, proving my knowledge of military affairs; and altogether, if your War Minister requires somebody to prompt him, I don't see why I should not fill the place as satisfactory as another. 'Oh,' exclaimed Mr.

Mundella, 'there's no use in coming to you with anything, for you always make a joke of it.' So they parted, and laughing, over the years, at the incident, Sir George said: 'You know Mundella was a capital fellow, of sterling ability and many qualities, but I'm afraid he was never a humorist.'

Sir George was not to be member for Newark, since, in the long run, to save the loss of a Liberal seat, he retired. His committee put it to him that this was the rule of the road, and he felt it no sacrifice to quit the field. The tribes had to be, pacified, but how different the methods in primitive and civilised society! Two tribes fell out during his first Governors.h.i.+p of New Zealand, and they must settle their difference by combat. Sir George deprecated such things, as not being conducive to the welfare of the Colony. No sooner did he hear of the duel, than he ordered a wars.h.i.+p to up-steam and carry him to the spot. He was put ash.o.r.e, when the day was breaking, at a point still sixteen miles from the combatants.

He obtained a, horse for himself, another for an orderly, and the pair were given rein.

'I believe,' he told, 'that our first mounts proved not very good, only, at a farm on the way, we were able to replace them with better. Our ride was across rough country, innocent of roads, but we reached our destination just as the campaign opened for the day. I waited a minute to master the state of parties, then galloped straight between them, and called out "Stop! Stop!" Amazed at my appearance, they just shouted along their ranks "Te Kuwana"--the Maori effort to say "The Governor."

'As I had ridden into the fusilade, a chief was shot in the neck, with the penalty that he could never afterwards turn his head. Happily he was not looking over his shoulder at the moment, for that would have been an awkward position in which to be left. My plunge into the battle was a little risky, but I calculated that the Maoris would, most likely, be glad of an excuse to stop fighting. Combatants who fall out easily, generally are. They regard as a benefactor, anybody who can rescue them from their sc.r.a.pe, with due form of ceremony and guarantee of dignity. My order to the Maoris, desiring peace, was obeyed.'

This is the Sir George Grey whose doings you follow with the keenest tingle of interest--Grey, Pro-Consul. But his other activities all grouped round this signature, and they are to be read with it. From England he went back to New Zealand, thinking he could best influence the Old World from the sh.o.r.es of the New World. He sat himself down in the remote solitude of Kawau, among his books, and every morning his heart beat round the Empire, a morning drum.

Twice Governor of New Zealand, he was yet to be its Prime Minister, a record which is unique. Being asked to work in New Zealand domestic politics, he replied: 'I will be a messenger if in that capacity I can usefully serve the State.' Yet, once more, you turn to the romance maker and discover him taking down, by the lake side of Rotorua, that of Hine- Moa. He rescued it, a Hero and Leander legend, with a variation, from the Maori ages, and placed it, a pearl, among his other delvings from Polynesian mythology. The story captured him, with its naive charm, when first he heard it from the lips of a chief, and many should know it.

''Tis odd,' he made the comment, 'how frequently like incidents occur in the mythology of diverse races. By what means were they communicated? As I have pointed out, in my compilation of Maori legends, there is one of Maui, which recalls to you the finding of Arthur, in Tennyson's "Idylls of the King." The same legendary idea occurs; a child cradled by the sea, none knowing that it had any other parent.'

'Now, O Governor,' spoke the Maori chief, 'look round you and listen to me, far there is something worth seeing here.' Sir George was sitting on the very spot where sat Hine-Moa, the great ancestress of the tribe, when she swam the lake to join her sweetheart Tutanekai. She was a maiden of rare beauty and high rank, and many young men desired to wed her. She found escape from these perplexities in a long swim to her choice, Tutanekai. But the Maori chief goes forward with the idyll, and must be followed word for word, as Sir George wrote:--

At the place where she landed there is a hot spring, separated from the lake only by a narrow ledge of rooks. Hine-Moa got into this to warm herself, for she was trembling all over, partly from the cold, after swimming in the night across the wide lake of Rotorua, and partly also, perhaps, from modesty at the thought of meeting Tutanekai.

Whilst the maiden was thus warming herself in the hot spring, Tutanekai happened to feel thirsty and said to his servant, 'Bring me a little water.' So his servant went to fetch water for him, and drew it from the lake in a calabash, close to the spot where Hine-Moa was sitting.

The maiden, who was frightened, called out to him in a gruff voice like that of a man: 'Whom is that water for?

He replied, 'It's for Tutanekai.'

'Give it here then,' said Hine-Moa. And he gave her the water and she drank, and, having finished drinking, she purposely threw down the calabash and broke it.

Then the servant asked her, 'What business had you to break the calabash of Tutanekai?' but Hine-Moa did not say a word in answer.

The servant then went back, and Tutanekai said to him, 'Where is the water I told you to bring me?'

So he answered, 'Your calabash was broken.'

And his master asked him, 'Who broke it?' And he answered, 'The man who is in the bath.'

And Tutanekai said to him, 'Go back again, then, and fetch me some water.'

He therefore took a second calabash and went back and drew water in the calabash from the lake and Hine-Moa again said to him, 'Whom is that: water for?' So the slave answered as before, 'For Tutanekai.' And the maiden again said, 'Give it to me, for I am thirsty.' And the slave gave it to her and she drank and purposely threw down the calabash and broke it. And these occurrences took place repeatedly between those two persons.

At last the slave went again to Tutanekai, who said to him, 'Where is the water for me?' And his servant answered, 'It is all gone; your calabashes have been broken.'

'By whom?' said his master.

'Didn't I tell you that there is a man in the bath?' answered the servant.

'Who is the fellow?' said Tutanekai.

'How can I tell?' replied the slave. 'Why, he's a stranger.'

'Didn't he know the water was for me?' said Tutanekai. 'How did the rascal dare to break my calabashes! Why, I shall die from rage!'

Then Tutanekai threw on some clothes and caught hold of his club, and away he went and came to the bath and called out 'Where's that fellow who broke my calabashes?'

And Hine-Moa knew the voice, that the sound of it was that of the beloved of her heart; and she hid herself under the overhanging rocks of the hot spring. But her hiding was hardly a real hiding; rather a bashful concealing of herself from Tutanekai that he might not find her at once, only after trouble and careful search for her.

So he went feeling about, along the banks of the hot spring, searching everywhere, whilst she lay coyly hid under the ledges of the rocks, peeping out, wondering when she should be found.

At last he caught hold of a hand and cried out, 'Hullo, who's this?'

And Hine-Moa answered: 'It's I, Tutanekai.'

And he said: 'But who are you? Who's I?' Then she spoke louder, and said: 'It's I, 'tis Hine-Moa.'

And he said: 'Ho! ho! ho! Can such in very truth be the case? Let us two, then, go to my house.'

And she answered 'Yes.'

And she rose up in the water as beautiful as the wild white hawk, and stepped upon the edge of the bath as graceful as the shy white crane. And he threw garments over her, and took her, and they proceeded to his house and reposed there, and thenceforth, according to the ancient laws of the Maoris, they were man and wife.

XVIII A FATHER OF FEDERATION

Mr Gladstone and Sir George Grey ploughed different seas, under charter from the English-speaking race. One flew his pennant in the nearer waters, the other in the farther. Now and then they met, but briefly, as s.h.i.+ps do which pa.s.s in the night.

'What I saw of Mr. Gladstone,' said Sir George, 'was mostly at official gatherings, or gatherings arising out of official life. One session, however, during which I was in England, we dined almost every Wednesday evening at the same London house.

'Mr. Gladstone was always a most charming personality, and I recall his friendliness in walking up with me to the hall of ceremonies, when I received the honorary degree at Cambridge. He also was to have the honour conferred upon him that day, and it was considerate on his part to convoy me along, as I knew few people at Cambridge, the result of absence from England.

'As to public affairs, I suspect that he and I held widely different views, at all events on some subjects. Like everybody else, I recognised in him a commanding figure, but I am bound to say that his greatness seemed to me to lie in carrying out ideas, after they had been suggested by others, rather than in working them out himself.'

Sir George meant that Mr. Gladstone's genius as a statesman, was constructive more than creative, the fas.h.i.+oner of progress. For himself, a solitary idea sufficed to keep his heart warm, even in the colds of age--the federation of the English-speaking people. In one of the last letters he received from David Livingstone, there was the request, 'Write me often, because you cheer me up.' It was always possible to cheer Sir George up on federation; that set him aglow.

There were few to listen when he first preached the federal idea; he cried in the wilderness, but he did not cease to cry. He waited long for the echoes to come back, and they did come, with interest, too, when negotiations for an Anglo-American treaty of arbitration went afoot.

Then, the negotiations tumbled through, whereat he said: 'Oh, the road may be a gradual one, with hills and stops, but there it lies, traced by destiny, and in the fulness of time it will be trodden.'

Peering into the twentieth century, one who would never see it, he foretold that its great problem would be this of Anglo-Saxon federation.

It was not for us to dip into the future, farther than we could reasonably behold, but so far we were not only ent.i.tled, but bound, to go. He doubted whether any question, equal in importance to federation, had ever before engaged the attention of so large a portion of mankind.

On that account he put forward with diffidence, the views which, after much reflection, he had formed upon it.

By Anglo-Saxon federation, he understood joint action, in the interests of mankind, on the part of those owning allegiance to the English tongue.

Forms and methods might take care of themselves, so the thing itself was begotten. Yet that could only be, if the ties sought to be woven were elastic, free and freedom-giving. He wanted a golden chain, binding men to men the Anglo-Saxon world over, but a curb-chain nowhere.