though otherwise to the Saxon engine of government.

'Being abroad one day with my gun, I noticed a group of peasants at work
in a field. Anxious for their counsel towards a bag, I jumped the wall
into the field where they were. What was my astonishment to discover that
I was in the midst of an illicit still! You can imagine my position! I,
an officer holding the King's commission, had, as a private person,
become aware of an offence against the law. My worry was so keen, over
the awkward relationship in which I stood towards the party, that I
expressed it.

'"It is," I said, "frequently my duty to protect preventive men, and if
that duty were ever to bring me this way, you would feel that I had
informed upon you." "No, no," was the answer in chorus, "you only protect
the excise men, that forming part of your duty; you are not an informer
but a protector, and we know you won't tell." They were good enough to
emphasise this vote of confidence with an invitation that I should try
their poteen. Naturally I declined, but in a manner, I hope, calculated
not to wound their feelings.'

This demeanour Sir George Grey carried into his office as a centurion of
soldiers, at a date when the lash still plied viciously in the British
army. He sat on a court-martial which had to try a private soldier for
habitual drunkenness. As the youngest officer present, he was the first
to be asked what the sentence ought to be. He suggested a light
punishment, one that was not perhaps in harmony with ideas then prevalent
as to the best manner of preserving military discipline. To him flogging
was abhorrent, and entertaining that view, he had fallen into debate with
brother officers. The sentence which he proposed caused a roar of
laughter among some of the members of the court-martial. 'Gentlemen,'