On his way up to Iceland he went to see Holyrood in Edinburgh, and, visiting Queen Mary's room, exclaimed, "No wonder she sighed for France." He went to the Levée held there by Lord Airlie (the present Earl's father).
The Old Story of shooting People, and a Newer One.
Before I finish with Syria, there is a question I want to set at rest on behalf of both Richard and myself. During my husband's life, from his journey to Mecca in 1853, till his death in 1890, a period of thirty-seven years, a story was current about him, which he had no idea of, and when he did hear it, treated it as a good joke—that when he was on the road to Mecca he killed two Mohammedans, who suspected him of being a Frank and a Christian. He told me it was absolutely false; and, if any one knew what a horror he had of any one taking the life of anything, they would not doubt it for a moment. He would not allow even an animal to be killed, saying that "we had no right to destroy life." One of his greatest remorses was shooting a monkey in his younger days; "it cried like a child," he said, "and I can never forget it." This story did happen to two Englishmen, who were travelling in the desert about this time; and who, in consequence of their unfortunate necessity, never appeared before the public, nor gave an account of their travels.
Now, I mention this incident in connection with Syria (instead of Mecca), because, after my husband died, his mantle in this respect descended upon my shoulders. Mrs. Mentor Mott had assured me on leaving Syria "that I did not leave a single enemy behind me," but it issued from the British Syrian schools long afterwards, that the cause of my husband's recall was that I had shot two men, and wounded a third, because they did not stand up and salute me, and that I was afterwards abandoned and neglected; though it never reached my ears till five days after Richard's death, and that through a missionary's letter to the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, owing, I suppose, to my being a Catholic. He waited twenty years, till my husband could not contradict it, and then did not lose a single instant in publishing this utter fabrication. The fact is, these missionaries get to know a little Syrian Christian Arabic—some more, some less—and perhaps unintentionally they get hold of some wonderful stories, and make mistakes and mischief. This is the true story.
It was in a time of great excitement between Moslems and Christians. I was riding through a village of about thirty-five thousand Moslems. There was a feud between two local Shaykhs, the two principal men of the village. The Consulate favoured one and not the other, who were bullies. I rode through this village alone, having sent the men in attendance on me to do a commission. The son of the unfriendly Shaykh, a youth of twenty-two, wanted to commence the row by attacking me—spat at me, and tried to pull me off my horse. This in the East means volumes, my position there being that of a very great personage. If I had been cowardly, fainted, and screamed, there would not have been a Christian left alive by the evening in that village. In fact, as it was, all the villagers were upon their knees in deprecation of the outrage, but were afraid to interfere with the village bully; so I reined in my horse, and slashed him across the face with my hunting-whip, and he howled and roared as if he were about five years old. The noise brought my men up sharply, whom he had not seen, having thought I was alone; seeing what was going on, they flung themselves upon him, and I think he was very sorry for himself when they had done with him. There was a general scuffle, in which somebody's pistol went off in his belt, because they have the bad habit of keeping the trigger down on the hammer, instead of at half-cock; but the ball fortunately went into a wall, and nobody was hurt.
When I got home, a strong body of people from the village came up to tell me that the youth, to revenge his beating, had collected all the most riotous people of the village and was coming up at night to burn our house (Sir Richard Wood's house in the Anti-Lebanon, by the way, which he lent to Richard). I had not enough people about me for defence, my husband having ridden a little distance in the desert and taken most of our men; so I sent a mounted messenger over to the Wali, and the next morning at dawn I was horrified at my husband's confidential Afghan, in full kawwás uniform, armed to the teeth, coming to tell me that my horse was saddled at the door, and that I must get up and ride down to the plain; he would explain as we went. I found the plain covered with troops, who saluted me as I rode down, and then the Colonel rode up to me, and told me that the Wali had ordered him to burn and sack the village. I told him that if he did such a thing my husband and I would leave the country at once; that these things were quite contrary to our English ideas. He said, "Then I put myself at your orders." I told him that since he was so kind as to let me have what I wanted, he was to assemble the principal Moslems of the village, and to bind them over by an oath not to touch the Christians, who were chiefly very poor, Greek Orthodox by religion, and Fellahín of the Anti-Lebanon, and he should take the youth and put him in prison for a while—say, a month.
This was carried out, and at my request he drew off the troops, and there was great rejoicing in the village. For this conduct, for which the writer to the Newcastle Daily Chronicle has induced many people to believe that my husband was recalled, I received a complimentary letter from the Consul-General, Mr. Eldridge, who did not like me because I hated his way with Richard, and the thanks of the Governor-General, the Wali Rashíd Pasha, for having saved them a great deal of trouble, both then and in the expected riot which Richard prevented. Richard was also very pleased with me. I should be ashamed to mention these things, but I do not mean to die and to leave any attack upon my husband not cleared up, nor any on myself, if I happen to hear of them.
When the youth was let out of prison, he became my most devoted servant. The year after we left, his mother, who was very fond of me, did some trifling thing which he had forbidden her; they say it was selling eggs in the market. His father was absent, and, be the offence what it may, we received a letter to tell us that he called his mother into the courtyard, assembled the household, and with his own hands he strangled her, and buried her in the courtyard under the stones. I never heard whether his father said anything when he came home, but I did hear that while she was dying, she extended her arms to our house, and that she called piteously, "Ah, Ya Sitti! ah, Ya Sitti! if thou wert here this abomination never could have been done."