Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1902-07-03
TENNYsoN's FLIGHT.
Poets Father Escaped Dungeon Cell
i'm the Land of the Gar.

| in the Land of the Gar.
My father. said Tennyson, was
a most impulsive man, and spoke out
whatever was uppermost in his mind
Soon after the assassination of the
emperor Paul he went on a tour
through Russia, and stopped at Mos.
COW, where the court resided, and
where Lord ST. Helens was English
| ambassador. He and my father had
been friends at Cambridge, and so my
father had the freedom of the embassy
while in the Russian capital. One
night st. Helens had a grand dinner,
at which were all the foreign embas-
sailors and many Russian notables,
not one of whose names my father had
caught.
in some way it came about that a
guarded allusion was made, during
the dinner, to the death of the late
car. My father,l who caught it, leaned
over, almost across the breast of some
Russian dignitary covered with deco
rations, who sat next to him, and
cried out in his quick, impulsive way,
| Why, st, Heiens, what's the use of
speaking SO gingerly about matter
so notorious? We know well enough
in England that the Emperor Paul was
murdered in the MikhailovsM palace,
and we know exactly who did it..
Count Zoboff knocked him down, and
Benninsen and Count Pahlen strangled
! him.
"An appalling hush fell for a mo-
ment upon the table, and then Lord
st. Helens at once rushed into some
subject discreetly foreign to the sixth
commandment.
It's the custom, as you know"
continued he, ''in Russia not to sit
over the wine, as is usual in England,
but to go into another room where
the samovar is, and there have tea,
or more wine or vodka, and smoke.
As the company rose, Lord st. Helens,
standing by the door as the guests
filed out, gave my father a meaning
look to drop behind the rest. AS my
| father came up to him, he said in q
hurried whisper: Don't go into the
next ROOM but fly for your life. No
| flag can protect you in such coun-
try as this. The man next you, across
| whose breast you leaned, was Count
Pahlen, one of the most powerful
| mobiles in Russia. Zoboff was at the
4, table, too and you have publicly
charged both of them with being as.
sassins. If you don't get away to-
night you'll be inside the dungeons of
st. Peter and st. Paul within 4S
hours. Go to a Scotch merchants,
whom / know, just outside of Odessa
(giving him he nance, and he will
conceal you until can contrive to get
you out of the country, If it be pos
sible. Post tonight--the fastest horses
you can get. I'll keep the company
as late as I can. Don't even stop to
change your clothes
my father rushed away to his hotel,
called up his courier and made him
order four-horse droshky, while he
literally pitched his clothes into his
portmanteau. He posted all night
and the next day still in his evening
clothes, weather bitterly cold; but he
had a clever courier, and found his
Scotchmap, in whose house he lay for
weeks.
st. Helens managed to get mes
sage to him to be on the alert. and
when he heard the horn of the
Queens Messenger blown three times
to be ready to go with the man who
gave the signal At last, one stormy
night, he heard the welcome sound,
and, disguised as a servant of the
messenger, who was being sent home
with dispatches (Which. by the way,
he lost, as he was very drunk, but
which were found by my father, and
for whom an English frigate was
waiting at Odessa, got safe on board
and so back to England. Capt. w.
Gordon McCabe in the Century.