In reply to this the beater, in desperation, burst out with all the abuse he had uttered. Whereupon the Basha, taking from his wallet four ‘metskal’ (then worth some three Spanish dollars), presented them to the beater, saying, ‘Take this. I know you were anxious on account of your dogs, and for the success of the sport. I pardon your abuse of me.’
After his retirement from his official position, Sir John lived little more than seven years, dividing his time between Morocco and Europe, returning, as has been said, for the winter to his beloved ‘Ravensrock,’ enjoying his sport to the end, and at intervals jotting down his ‘Scraps from my Note-book’ as a slight record of his life. ‘I feel,’ he says, referring to the appearance of some of his stories in Murray’s Magazine, ‘like a dwarf amongst tall men. Never mind. If my relatives and friends are pleased and amused, I shall continue to unwind the skein of my life till I reach my infancy.’ Among the last of the notes made by Sir John in his ‘Note-book’ was the following, which may be appropriately introduced at the close of this sketch of his career.
Body and Soul.
‘The death of the aged is always easy,’ said the F’ki Ben Yahia, ‘compared with the death of the young.’
‘This arises,’ continued the F’ki, ‘from the willingness with which the immortal soul is glad to flee from an aged body, corrupted by a long residence in this world, and from disgust at the sin and wickedness into which it has been plunged by the depravity of the body. Whereas, the young body and soul are loth to part; for the soul rejoices in the innocent enjoyments of youth and the harmless pleasures of this world, and to separate them is, as it were, to separate the young damsel from her first pure love.’
‘Oh, merciful God!’ exclaimed the F’ki, ‘put away the corruption of my body, and teach me to follow the purer inspiration of the soul which was breathed into me by Thee, O Almighty and Incomprehensible God!’
In Berwickshire, at Wedderburn Castle, a place then rented by him, Sir John Hay Drummond Hay died on the evening of Monday, Nov. 27, 1893.
He was buried in the churchyard of Christ Church, Duns. A few days after the funeral one of the family received a letter from a member of the British Legation at Tangier, in which he mentioned that on going to the Legation on the morning of Nov. 27, he was surprised to see the British flag at half-mast, and, calling to the kavass in charge, reprimanded him for his carelessness, directing him to take the flag down.
The kavass excused himself, saying that, while hauling down the flag the previous evening, the halyard had broken, and he had consequently been unable to lower the flag further; but that he had sent for a man to swarm the mast and repair the halyard and thus release the flag. This however, the writer added, was not accomplished till next morning.
Thus it happened that while the man was passing away who for forty years had represented Great Britain in Morocco, the British flag remained at half-mast.