SUDAN
I was disappointed when the Gazette for the Nile Expedition came out, less for myself than for those who had worked so hard while under my command, and I appealed to Lord Wolseley in their behalf, who replied on the 27th August, “I could not get my way,—the most notable omission from the list being yourself.”
In spite of my being temporarily better early in May, Surgeon-General Lithgow sent me down the Nile on the 6th. As I passed Korosko the Ababdehs handed me a sword which the Sheiks then in Cairo had left for me, and a silver-mounted riding stick for Lady Wood, and they came to see me off the day I left the capital.
Lord Wolseley had expressed astonishment on my declining his offer of the Frontier command, but on seeing my thin body and haggard face, was so startled that he tried to send me off to England the day I reached Cairo. This I earnestly represented was not necessary, as it was important that I should spend a few days in order to settle matters at the Egyptian War Office.
CHAPTER XLIII
1885–6–7–8—COLCHESTER DISTRICT
The Land League—Mr. Wrench—Life at Colchester—Useless Sentries—Reforms in Canteens—Nett profit trebled in twelve months—3rd Class shots—An unusual Inspection—My last lie—Visit to Corunna—Albuera.
I reached London on the 19th of June, lighter in body than I had been for many years, and I did not recover entirely from intestinal troubles till late in the year. I was no sooner home than I had some interesting correspondence with Mr. Wrench, my brother-in-law’s agent at Clones in the north of Ireland. Since I assumed supervision of the estate in 1867, we had lived on amicable terms with the tenants, but in 1880 the Land League had formed branches in the north of Ireland, and most of the Clones tenantry joined the League, in 1885–6.
One farmer quarrelled with the League agents, who ordered his labourers to leave him, and the tenant appealed to Mr. Wrench for permission to hire the pig-carriers, who on the weekly market day carried pigs from the carts to the weighbridge, earning enough to enable them to remain idle for the rest of the week. Mr. Wrench observed, “I don’t care what the men do, but you cannot have them on market day,” and they worked for the former Land Leaguer. The local agent now wrote a demand to Mr. Wrench to dismiss the men from the pig-carrying job, which being referred to me was summarily refused. The League ordered that no pig buyer should go to Clones market, and as it was not only a question of principle, but also of the tolls of the market, worth £300 a year, we issued a notice that we would buy all pigs at a fair rate which were not sold on market days. As trouble was anticipated, Colonel E. Saunderson, M.P., and some of his friends attended the next market, to support Mr. Wrench, but the Boycott was carried out without violence.
Mr. Wrench endeavoured to obtain buyers from Belfast, Drogheda, Newry, and other towns, but the League was too firmly established to enable him to succeed, and on the 23rd October I received the following telegram:—“Sending you 642 pigs next week—Wrench.”