However, they must submit to the
toil and the jeers they had laid up for themselves, by their behaviour.
As they were exhausted, I granted them leave to remain for the night at a
pa, some miles distant from Auckland. Next day they forwarded me a
penitent letter, through Selwyn, if I remember aright.
'The folks of Auckland had all turned out to witness the sport, and were
very proud of the successful result. They were convinced, most of them,
that they had something to do with bringing it about. A picture of the
scene was painted to commemorate it. What worried me, was that I was made
to look so young beside my officers--younger really than I was. Earlier,
Peel had said of me, on the same text, that youth ought to be no bar to
public employment, and that, anyhow, it was a fault which was always
mending.'
Sir George Grey had established New Zealand with peace, and an ever
rising prosperity. The two fondled these isles, as the Pacific Ocean
lapped their shores. 'On your arrival,' wrote the Maoris in one of their
many farewell addresses to him, 'the rain was beating, and the wind
blowing fiercely; and then you lifted up your voice to calm the raging
elements.'
England needed his spell elsewhere.
XII IN THE QUEEN'S NAME
The example of one gallant-minded, stout cadet, was maybe with Carlyle
when he pictured the Queen in Council to pick out some other, still
unoccupied, and adjure him in royal words:
'Young fellow, if there do be in you potentialities of governing, a
gradual finding, leading, and coercing to a noble goal, how sad it is
that that should be all lost.
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