BAGPIPES AT LUCKNOW--A BEWILDERED BÂBOO--THE FORCED MARCH TO CAWNPORE--OPIUM--WYNDHAM'S MISTAKE
Since commencing these reminiscences, and more particularly during my late visit to Lucknow and Cawnpore, I have been asked by several people about the truth of the story of the Scotch girl and the bagpipes at Lucknow, and in reply to all such inquiries I can only make the following answer.
About the time of the anniversary dinner in celebration of the relief of Lucknow, in September, 1891, some writers in the English papers went so far as to deny that the Seventy-Eighth Highlanders had their bagpipes with them at Lucknow, and in _The Calcutta Statesman_ of the 18th of October, 1891, I wrote a letter contradicting this assertion, which with the permission of the editor I propose to republish in this chapter. But I may first mention that on my late visit to Lucknow a friend showed me a copy of the original edition of _A Personal Narrative of the Siege of Lucknow_, by L. E. R. Rees, one of the surviving defenders, which I had never before seen, and on page 224 the following statement is given regarding the entry of Havelock's force. After describing the prevailing excitement the writer goes on to say: "The shrill tones of the Highlanders' bagpipes now pierced our ears; not the most beautiful music was ever more welcome or more joy-bringing," and so on. Further on, on page 226: "The enemy found some of us dancing to the sounds of the Highlanders' pipes. The remembrance of that happy evening will never be effaced from my memory." While yet again, on page 237, he gives the story related by me below about the Highland piper putting some of the enemy's cavalry to flight by a blast from his pipes. So much in proof of the fact that the Seventy-Eighth Highlanders had their bagpipes with them, and played them too, at the first relief of Lucknow.
I must now devote a few remarks to the incident of Jessie Brown, which Grace Campbell has immortalised in the song known as _Jessie's Dream_. In the _Indian Empire_, by R. Montgomery Martin, vol. ii. page 470, after denying that this story had its origin in Lucknow, the author gives the following foot-note: "It was originally a little romance, written by a French governess at Jersey for the use of her pupils; which found its way into a Paris paper, thence to the _Jersey Times_, thence to the London _Times_, December 12th, 1857, and afterwards appeared in nearly all the journals of the United Kingdom." With regard to this remark, I am positive that I heard the story in Lucknow in November, 1857, at the same time as I heard the story about the piper frightening the enemy's _sowars_ with his bagpipes; and it appears a rather far-fetched theory about a French governess inventing the story in Jersey. What was the name of this governess, and, above all, why go for its origin to such an out-of-the-way place as Jersey? I doubt very much if it was possible for the news of the relief of Lucknow to have reached Jersey, and for the said French governess to have composed and printed such a romance in time for its roundabout publication in _The Times_ of the 12th of December, 1857. This version of the origin of _Jessie's Dream_ therefore to my thinking carries its own refutation on the face of it, and I should much like to see the story in its original French form before I believe it.