Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1902-06-20

somewhat differently related
in the life Of Tennyson, Is
part of the Personal Recol
lectio1s of Tennyson by Captain W.
Gordon McCabe, published in the Cen
tury. The laureate is speaking:
MY father" he said, was most
impulsive man, and spoke whatever
was uppermost In his mind. Soon
after the assassination of the Emperor
Paul he went ON a tour through Rus
sia, and stopped at Moscow, 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 1t
thu Russian capital. One night st.
Helens had grand dinner, at which
were all the foreign ambassadors and
many Russian notables, not one Of
whose names my father had caught.
"In some way it came about that q
guarded allusion was made, during
the dinner, to the death of the late
car. My father, who caught it, lean
ed over, almost across the breast of
some Russian dignitary covered with
decorations, who sat next to him, and
cried out in his quick, impulsive way,
why, st. Helens, what's the use Of
speaking so ginge:ly about n matter
so notorious? We now well enough
in England that the Emperor Paul was
murdered in the Mikhailovski Palace,
and We know exactly who did it.
Count Zoboff knocked him down, and
Benningsen and Count Pahlen strang-
led him.
"An appalling hush fell for n moment
upon the table, and then Lord st.
Helens at once rushed into some sub
ject discreetly foreign to the sixth
commandment.
ITS the custom, as you know" con-
tinued he, sin Russia not to sit over
the wine, rs is usual in England, but
to go into another room where the
samovar is, and there have tea, or
more wine and vodka and to smoke.
AS the company rose, Lord st. Helens,
standing by the door as the guests filed
out. gave my father q meaning look
to drop behind the rest. AS my father
came up to him, he said in n hurried
whisper: Don't go into the next room,
bat fly for your life. No flag can pro-
tect you in such country 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 table, too, and you
have publically charged both of them
with being assassins. If you don't get
away tonight, you'll be inside the
dungeons of st. Peter and st. Paul
within forty-eight hours. Go to u
Scotch merchants, whom / know,
just outside of odessa giving him the
name), and he will conceal you until
can contrive to get you out of the
country, If it be possible. Post to-
night-the fastest horses you can get.
III keep the company as late as
can. Don't even stop to change your
clothes
my father rushed away to his no.
tel, called up his courier, and made
him order q 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 fond his Scotch
man. in whose house he lay perdue
for weeks.
'St. Helens managed t, 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, dis
guised 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"