Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/677

Rh allotted to him by his contemporaries, we may be, better than they, qualified to fix his proper and final attitude and elevation. In some measure, when compared with the earlier and later Stewarts, he conforms to their general type. He has his share of their "nonchalance," their uncertain temper, their irregular energy. There is this, besides, that, as he was the first to call himself king of Great Britain, so he was the first to create what is in the main still, both in the eyes of Englishmen and in the eyes of other nationalities, the policy of Great Britain.

 

 From Blackwood's Magazine.

  Next day was a busy one. From before dawn a gang of coolies, working under orders of the commissioner's jemadar, were engaged in filling the bags brought from the adjacent treasury, with earth obtained from a shallow trench dug in the lawn, while water-carts were employed to loosen the hard-baked soil; another party were cutting down the shrubs and bushes in the garden, and an army of tailors from the bazaar were squatting on the veranda floor, sewing bags to supplement the supply already available. Soon the space between the veranda pillars began to be blocked up with the first courses of a strong barrier designed to be seven feet high, loop-holed, and bullet-proof. "You see, my friend," said Yorke, in Hindustani, to the native officer whom he had brought with him, nominally to superintend the operation — "if the roughs in the city rise, the court-house would be a difficult position to hold against a mob, even with my gallant sepoys. So we will retire with the treasure into this post until the regiments from cantonments march to our help." The old soobahdar raised his hand to his cap, and observed, gravely, that the European gentlemen were famous for their skill in military science; and Yorke did not care to pursue the conversation.

While they were thus engaged Falkland and Sparrow rode up, with half-a-dozen mounted orderlies behind them, returning from a ride through the city.

"We have been upholding British rule, you see, as long as it lasts," said Falkland, dismounting; "but the roughs are beginning to show their teeth, are they not, Sparrow? and, what is worse, there were some sepoys in the bazaar, out of uniform, whose manner was most insolent. However, I think we read them a lesson this once, if it was the last time — didn't we. Sparrow?" he added, smiling; and indeed, from the expression on that gentleman's countenance, it seemed as if the morning ride had certainly been exciting.

Yorke longed to ask some question about Olivia, when just then she appeared in the veranda, and invited them to come inside and take some tea. The room into which they followed her, now cut off from the outside air, was hot and stuffy, and filled with the dust thrown up by the work going on outside; the punkah-puller, dispossessed of his usual post in the veranda, was squatting in the room; the servants were moving the furniture, and, among the general disorder, Olivia, dressed in a light morning robe, seemed alone to retain the calm and orderly appearance of other days. Yorke noticed the expression of anxiety that overcame Falkland's face as he looked at his wife; but she seemed determined to express no fear, and, as they drank their tea, every one avoided the subject which was uppermost in their thoughts. As for Yorke, he felt quite angry with himself as he returned to his work, at finding how small a place was now occupied in his mind by the luxury of grief.

The commissioner made a show of doing business in the court-house in the afternoon — driving over as usual for form's sake in his carriage, although the distance was but a few yards. "I hear," said he, taking Yorke aside, before going into court, and after he had spoken a few words of exhortation to the native officers and the guard, "and the information seems reliable, that the regiment left behind in cantonments last night, the 80th, will certainly rise, although the time is not fixed: they are in communication with your regiment and the other one which has marched away. My police in the city are utterly rotten and ready to join. The nawab, who is behaving admirably, notwithstanding strong pressure put on him from the other side, may be able to keep the city quiet with his people; but I doubt it. I have about twenty men I can depend on altogether. But on the other hand, a note has just been brought by a runner, from across the river, to say that they are keeping things square over there, and that a Sikh regiment is under orders for this; it maybe 