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Updated: May 3, 2025
The beginning of a new school-quarter, the crowd of fresh faces, the greetings of old friends, and a remove into a much more difficult Form, rather distracted my mind from the incidents of my journey, to which it was recalled by the receipt of a note from Mr. Aulif, saying that he would be at Harrow by 2.30 on Saturday afternoon, the 21st of September.
As I read it, my heart gave a jump a sudden thrill of delicious excitement. My friend Mr. Aulif must be the Fenian agent who had organized these raids, and I, who had always dreamed romance, had now been brought into actual contact with it. The idea of communicating my suspicions to anyone never crossed my mind. I felt instinctively that this was a case where silence was golden.
Boyhood is sensitive to sarcasm, and I felt an uncomfortable twinge as Mr. Aulif glanced round our place of arms and said, "A gallant corps, I am sure, if not numerically strong. But this is your School corps only. Doubtless the citizens of the place also have their corps?"
Ask McClellan. Ask General Grant. He is the greatest General in the world, and has sacrificed his career for Freedom." "Is his name Aulif?" "No; his name is Cluseret." Next day at déjuner I was full of my evening's adventure; but my host and hostess received it with mortifying composure. "Nothing could be more likely," said my cousin Evelyn. "General Cluseret was here, though he did not stay long.
"I fear, sir, you have made a mistake," said Aulif, bowed rather stiffly to my companion, and hurried back into the drawing-room. My companion looked surprised. "The General seems put out I wonder why. He and I are the greatest allies. Let me tell you, my friend, that he is the man that the Revolution will have to rely on when the time comes for rising. Ask them at Saint-Cyr. Ask Garibaldi.
Aulif, I thought that the reason why he did not arrange for our School-armoury to be attacked was that he would not abuse the confidence of a boy who had trusted him. Perhaps it really was that the rifles were too few and the risks too many. The year 1870 found me still a Harrow boy, though a tall one; and I spent the Easter holidays with my cousins, the Brentfords, in Paris.
Fortunately, none of my school-fellows had seen Mr. Aulif or heard of his visit; and the old caretaker of the drill-shed had been too much gratified by talk and tip to entertain an unworthy thought of "that pleasant-spoken gentleman." As I looked back on my journey from Scotland, and my walk round Harrow with Mr.
Two years and a half had made no difference in him. He was Mr. Aulif, as active and fresh as ever, and, before I had time to reflect on my course, I had impulsively seized him by the hand. "Don't you remember me?" I cried. He only stared. "My name is George Russell, and you visited me at Harrow."
He tore a leaf out of a pocket-book, scrawled on it, in a backward-sloping hand, "H. Aulif," and handed it to me, saying, "I do not add an address, for I shall be moving about. But I will write you a line very soon, and fix a day for my visit."
In the Public Schools contest at Wimbledon we carried off the Ashburton Challenge Shield five times in succession, and in 1865 and 1866 we added to it Lord Spencer's Cup for the best marksman in the school-teams. All this, and a good deal more to the same effect, I told Mr. Aulif with becoming spirit, and proudly led the way to our "Armoury."
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