He looked at me for a moment with a stern, hard face, then he said:
"By God, I'll do it!" There was no profanity in this assertion. It was the strongest way he could put it; and we dropped on our knees on the deck and began to pray. In a minute or two half a dozen others joined us. Then it seemed as if everybody around us was on his knees; and then, when I felt the atmosphere of the crowd and the reverence of it, I called on others to pray; half a dozen others responded, and then this man, above the roar of the wind through the sails and the creaking of the boats' davits, prayed to God to make him a new man.
Creedan had been drafted from the ship in a detachment for the front, and when we met on the desert, we entered into a compact which stipulated that if either of us fell on the field of battle, the survivor was to take charge of the deceased's effects, and visit his people.
The arrival of the troops in England was the occasion for an unusual demonstration. We were banqueted and paraded, and all kinds of honours were showered upon us. As we marched through the streets in our sand-coloured uniforms, we were supposed to be heroes—heroes every one. What a farce the whole thing seemed to me! Nevertheless, I was inconsistent enough to actually enjoy whatever the others were getting.
Having purchased my discharge by the payment of £20 I was at liberty to leave at my pleasure; I was offered a lucrative position in the officers' mess which was one of the best in the British Army. This I accepted and held for a year.
My furlough, after a short visit to Ireland, I spent in Oxford. The University and its colleges and the town had a wonderful fascination for me, but I think, as I look back at it and try to sum up its influence upon me, that the personality of the "Master of Balliol"—Benjamin Jowett—was the greatest and the most permanent thing I received.
I had been striving for years to slough off from my tongue a thick Irish brogue, and had not succeeded very well. The elegance and the chasteness of Jowett's English did more for me in this respect than my years of pruning. I have never heard such English, and behind this master language of a master mind, there was a man, a gentleman! I wrote Dr. Jowett a note one day, asking for an interview. It may have been the execrable handwriting that interested him; but I had a most polite note in return, stating the hour at which he would be glad to see me. I remember attempting in a very awkward, childish way to explain to him something of my ambition to make progress in my studies, and how poorly prepared I was and how handicapped in various ways. He rose from his seat, took down a book from a shelf, consulted it and put it back, and then he told me in a few words of a Spanish soldier who had entered the University of Paris at the age of thirty-three and became an influence that was world-wide. This, by way of encouragement. The model held up had very little effect upon me, but this personal interview, this close touch with the man who himself was a model, was a great inspiration to me, and remains with me one of the most pleasant memories of my life.
My first lecture was given in the town hall at my home town in Ireland during the first week of my after-campaign furlough. The townspeople filled the hall, more out of curiosity than to hear the lecture, for when the cobbler's son had left the town a few years before he couldn't read his own name.
The Vicar presided. Ministers of other denominations were present. The Young Men's Christian Association was very much in evidence at the lecture. School teachers of the Sunday School where I taught, were present. The class of little boys I had gathered off the streets was there; but personally I had gone after the newsboys of the town, and I had arranged that they should sit in a row of front seats. Indeed, I bribed some of them to be present.
My lecture was on Gordon and Khartoum. I described our life on the desert and told something of the war-game as I had seen it played. At the close of the lecture, the usual perfunctory vote of thanks was moved, and several prominent men of the town made the seconding of the vote an excuse for a speech. Curiously enough, I had had an experience with one of these men when I was a newsboy, and in my reply to this vote of thanks I told the story: