When He Wrote These Lines, The First Relief Had Just Taken Place, And The
Second Defence Of Lucknow Was Beginning.
The end of the month saw Sir
Colin Campbell's advance to the second - the real - relief of Lucknow.
Of
Sir Colin, Yule wrote and spoke with warm regard: "Sir Colin was
delightful, and when in a good humour and at his best, always reminded me
very much, both in manner and talk, of the General (i.e. General White,
his wife's father). The voice was just the same and the quiet gentle
manner, with its underlying keen dry humour. But then if you did happen to
offend Sir Colin, it was like treading on crackers, which was not our
General's way."
When Lucknow had been relieved, besieged, reduced, and finally remodelled
by the grand Roads and Demolitions Scheme of his friend Napier, the latter
came down to Allahabad, and he and Yule sought diversion in playing quoits
and skittles, the only occasion on which either of them is known to have
evinced any liking for games.
Before this time Yule had succeeded his friend Baker as de facto
Secretary to Government for Public Works, and on Baker's retirement in
1858, Yule was formally appointed his successor.[43] Baker and Yule had,
throughout their association, worked in perfect unison, and the very
differences in their characters enhanced the value of their co-operation;
the special qualities of each friend mutually strengthened and completed
each other. Yule's was by far the more original and creative mind, Baker's
the more precise and, at least in a professional sense, the more
highly-trained organ. In chivalrous sense of honour, devotion to duty, and
natural generosity, the men stood equal; but while Yule was by nature
impatient and irritable, and liable, until long past middle age, to
occasional sudden bursts of uncontrollable anger, generally followed by
periods of black depression and almost absolute silence,[44] Baker was the
very reverse. Partly by natural temperament, but also certainly by severe
self-discipline, his manner was invincibly placid and his temper
imperturbable.[45] Yet none was more tenacious in maintaining whatever he
judged right.
Baker, whilst large-minded in great matters, was extremely conventional in
small ones, and Yule must sometimes have tried his feelings in this
respect. The particulars of one such tragic occurrence have survived.
Yule, who was colour-blind,[46] and in early life whimsically obstinate in
maintaining his own view of colours, had selected some cloth for trousers
undeterred by his tailor's timid remonstrance of "Not quite your usual
taste, sir." The result was that the Under-Secretary to Government
startled official Calcutta by appearing in brilliant claret-coloured
raiment. Baker remonstrated: "Claret-colour! Nonsense, my trousers are
silver grey," said Yule, and entirely declined to be convinced. "I think I
did convince him at last," said Baker with some pride, when long after
telling the story to the present writer. "And then he gave them up?"
"Oh, no," said Sir William ruefully, "he wore those claret-coloured
trousers to the very end." That episode probably belonged to the Dalhousie
period.
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