;-NRLF 
 
 /ilNArAp 
 
 AND 
 
 ^"'T* f'TV^T /' , ' ~* ". CT" r -'"-' r ^ r " " 1 
 
 HiESTOIG 07ASKOPJ Lii 
 
 
 II 
 
 \i 
 
 JULIANA HORATiA EW1NC; 
 
JULIANA HORATIA EWING'S WORKS 
 
 
 
 VOLUME ONE 
 
 JACKANAPES 
 THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE 
 
 ETC. 
 
He caught at his own reins, and spoke very loud, 
 
 41 Jackanapes ! It won't do. You and Lollo must go o." (p. 49.) 
 
JULIANA HORATIA EWING'S WORKS 
 Hibrarp Cbtttcn 
 
 JACKANAPES 
 
 AND 
 
 THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIANA HORATIA EWING 
 
 Author of " Daddy Darwin's Dovecot ," lt jan of the Windmill " 
 etc. 
 
 WITH A SKETCH OF HER LIFE 
 
 BY HER SISTER 
 HORATIA K. F. GATTY 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY RANDOLPH CALDECOTT 
 AND OTHER ARTISTS 
 
 BOSTON 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
BOSTON 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
" If I might buffet for my lore, or bound my horse for her favors, 
 I could lay on like a butcher, and sit like a Jackanapes, never off I " 
 
 King Henry V.> Act v. Scene *, 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Last noon beheld them full of lusty life, 
 
 Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay, 
 
 The midnight brought the signal sound of strife, 
 
 The morn the marshalling in arms the day 
 
 Battle's magnificently stern array ! 
 
 The thunder-clouds close o'er it, which when rent 
 
 The earth is covered thick with other clay, 
 
 Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent, 
 
 Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent. 
 
 Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine : 
 Yet one would I select from that proud throng. 
 
 To thee, to thousands, of whom each 
 And one as all a ghastly gap did make 
 In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach 
 Forgetfulness were mercy for their sake ; 
 The Archangel's trump, not glory's, must awake 
 Those whom they thirst for. 
 
 BYRON. 
 
 ! WO Donkeys and 
 the Geese lived on 
 the Green, and all 
 other residents of 
 any social stand- 
 ing lived in houses 
 round it. The 
 houses had no 
 names. Every- 
 body's address was 
 "The Green," but 
 the Postman and 
 the people of the 
 place knew where each family lived. As to the rest 
 
 282181 
 
<5"< ; :% ' * .*:" V ' :\ JACKANAPES. 
 
 of the world, what has one to do with the rest of the 
 world when he is safe at home on his own Goose 
 Green? Moreover, if a stranger did come on any 
 lawful business, he might ask his way at the shop. 
 
 Most of the inhabitants were long-lived, early 
 deaths (like that of the little Miss Jessamine) 
 being exceptional; and most of the old people 
 were proud of their age, especially the sexton, 
 who would be ninety-nine come Martinmas, and 
 whose father remembered a man who had carried 
 arrows, as a boy, for the battle of Flodden Field. 
 The Gray Goose and the big Miss Jessamine were 
 the only elderly persons who kept their ages 
 secret. Indeed, Miss Jessamine never mentioned 
 any one's age, or recalled the exact year in which 
 anything had happened. She said that she had 
 been taught that it was bad manners to do so " in 
 a mixed assembly." 
 
 The Gray Goose also avoided dates; but this 
 was partly because her brain, though intelligent, 
 was not mathematical, and computation was be- 
 yond her. She never got farther than " last 
 Michaelmas," " the Michaelmas before that," and 
 "the Michaelmas before the Michaelmas before 
 that." After this her head, which was small, be- 
 came confused, and she said, " Ga, ga ! " and 
 changed the subject. 
 
 - But she remembered the little Miss Jessamine, 
 the Miss Jessamine with the " conspicuous " hair. 
 Her aunt, the big Miss Jessamine, said it was her 
 
WORRYING TIMES. 7 
 
 only fault. The hair was clean, was abundant, 
 was glossy ; but do what you would with it, it never 
 looked quite like other people's. And at church, 
 after Saturday night's wash, it shone like the best 
 brass fender after a spring cleaning. In short, it 
 was conspicuous, which does not become a young 
 woman, especially in church. 
 
 Those were worrying times altogether, and the 
 Green was used for strange purposes. A political 
 meeting was held on it with the village Cobbler in 
 the chair, and a speaker who came by stage-coach 
 from the town, where they had wrecked the bak- 
 ers' shops, and discussed the price of bread. He 
 came a second time by stage ; but the people had 
 heard something about him in the mean while, and 
 they did not keep him on the Green. They took 
 him to the pond and tried to make him swim, 
 which he could not do, and the whole affair was 
 very disturbing to all quiet and peaceable fowls. 
 After which another man came, and preached ser- 
 mons on the Green, and a great many people went 
 to hear him ; for those were " trying times," and 
 folk ran hither and thither for comfort. And then 
 what did they do but drill the ploughboys on the 
 Green, to get them ready to fight the French, and 
 teach them the goose-step ! However, that came 
 to an end at last ; for Bony was sent to St. Helena, 
 and the ploughboys were sent back to the plough. 
 
 Everybody lived in fear of Bony in those days, 
 especially the naughty children, who were kept in 
 
5 JACKANAPES. 
 
 order during the day by threats of " Bony shall 
 have you," and who had nightmares about him in 
 the dark. They thought he was an Ogre in a 
 cocked hat. The Gray Goose thought he was a 
 Fox, and that all the men of England were going 
 out in red coats to hunt him. It was no use to 
 argue the point ; for she had a very small head, 
 and when one idea got into it there was no room 
 for another. 
 
 Besides, the Gray Goose never saw Bony, nor 
 did the children, which rather spoilt the terror of 
 him, so that the Black Captain became more effec- 
 tive as a Bogy with hardened offenders. The 
 Gray Goose remembered his coming to the place 
 perfectly. What he came for she did not pretend 
 to know. It was all part and parcel of the war 
 and bad times. He was called the Black Captain, 
 partly because of himself and partly because of 
 his wonderful black mare. Strange stories were 
 afloat of how far and how fast that mare could go 
 when her master's hand was on her mane and 
 he whispered in her ear. Indeed, some people 
 thought we might reckon ourselves very lucky if 
 we were not out of the frying-pan into the fire, 
 and had not got a certain well-known Gentleman 
 of the Road to protect us against the French. 
 But that, of course, made him none the less useful 
 to the Johnsons' Nurse when the little Miss John- 
 sons were naughty. 
 
 " You leave off crying this minnit, Miss Jane, or 
 
THE BLACK CAPTAIN. 9 
 
 I '11 give you right away to that horrid wicked offi- 
 cer. Jemima ! just look out o' the windy, if you 
 please, and see if the Black Cap'n 's a-coming with 
 his horse to carry away Miss Jane." 
 
 And there, sure enough, the Black Captain 
 strode by, with his sword clattering as if it did not 
 know whose head to cut off first. But he did 
 not call for Miss Jane that time. He went on to 
 the Green, where he came so suddenly upon the 
 eldest Master Johnson, sitting in a puddle on pur- 
 pose, in his new nankeen skeleton suit, that the 
 young gentleman thought judgment had overtaken 
 him at last, and abandoned himself to the howlings 
 of despair. His howls were redoubled when he 
 was clutched from behind and swung over the 
 Black Captain's shoulder ; but in five minutes his 
 tears were stanched, and he was playing with the 
 officer's accoutrements. All of which the Gray 
 Goose saw with her own eyes, and heard after- 
 wards that that bad boy had been whining to 
 go back to the Black Captain ever since, which 
 showed how hardened he was, and that nobody 
 but Bonaparte himself could be expected to do 
 him any good. 
 
 But those were " trying times." It was bad 
 enough when the pickle of a large and respectable 
 family cried for the Black Captain ; when it came 
 to the little Miss Jessamine crying for him, one 
 felt that the sooner the French landed and had 
 done with it, the better. 
 
10 JACKANAPES. 
 
 'I 'he big Miss Jessamine's objection to him was 
 that he was a soldier; and this prejudice was 
 shared by all the Green. " A soldier," as the 
 speaker from the town had observed, " is a blood 
 thirsty, unsettled sort of a rascal, that the peace- 
 able, home-loving, bread-winning citizen can never 
 ;onscientiously look on as a brother till he has 
 beaten his sword into a ploughshare and his spear 
 into a pruning-hook." 
 
 On the other hand, there was some truth in what 
 the Postman (an old soldier) said in reply, that the 
 sword has to cut a way for us out of many a scrape 
 into which our bread-winners get us when they 
 drive their ploughshares into fallows that don't be- 
 long to them. Indeed, whilst our most peaceful 
 citizens were prosperous chiefly by means of cot- 
 ton, of sugar, and of the rise and fall of the money- 
 market (not to speak of such salable matters a? 
 opium, firearms, and "black ivory"), disturbances 
 were apt to arise in India, Africa, and other out- 
 landish parts, where the fathers of our domestic 
 race were making fortunes for their families. And 
 for that matter, even on the Green, we did not 
 wish the military to leave us in the lurch, so long 
 as there was any fear that the French were 
 coming. 1 
 
 1 " The political men declare war, and generally for commercial 
 interests ; but when the nation is thus embroiled with its neigh- 
 bors, the soldier . . . draws the sword at the command of his 
 country. . . . One word as to thy comparison of military and com- 
 mercial pers jits. What manner of men be they who have supplied 
 
OFF FOR GRETNA GREEN. 
 
 It 
 
 To let the Black Captain have little Miss Jessa- 
 mine, however, was another matter. Her aunt 
 would not hear of it ; and then, to crown all, it ap- 
 peared that the Captain's father did not think the 
 
 young lady gooa enough for his son. Never was 
 any affair more clearly brought to a conclusion. 
 
 But those were " trying times ; " and one moon- 
 light night, when the Gray Goose was sound asleep 
 
 the Caffres with the fire-arms and ammunition to maintain theil 
 savage and deplorable wars ? Assuredly they are not military. 
 . . . Cease then, if thou wouldst be counted among the just, 
 to vilify soldiers." W. NAPIER, Lieutenant- General, November. 
 1851. 
 
12 JACKANAPES. 
 
 upon one leg, the Green was rudely shaken under 
 her by the thud of a horse's feet. " Ga, ga ! " said 
 she, putting down the other leg and running away. 
 
 By the time she returned to her place not a 
 thing was to be seen or heard. The horse had 
 passed like a shot. But next day there was hur- 
 rying and skurrying and cackling at a very early 
 hour, all about the white house with the black 
 beams, where Miss Jessamine lived. And when 
 the sun was so low and the shadows so long on the 
 grass that the Gray Goose felt ready to run away 
 at the sight of her own neck, little Miss Jane John- 
 son and her " particular friend " Clarinda sat 
 under the big oak tree on the Green, and Jane 
 pinched Clarinda's little finger till she found that 
 she could keep a secret, and then she told her in 
 confidence that she had heard from Nurse and 
 Jemima that Miss Jessamine's niece had been a 
 very naughty girl, and that that horrid wicked 
 officer had come for her on his black horse and 
 carried her right away. 
 
 "Will she never come back?" asked Clarinda. 
 
 " Oh, no ! " said Jane, decidedly. " Bony never 
 brings people back." 
 
 " Not never no more ? " sobbed Clarinda, for she 
 was weak-minded, and could not bear to think that 
 Bony never, never let naughty people go home 
 again. 
 
 Next day Jane had heard more. 
 
 " He has taken her to a Green." 
 
THE BLACK CAPTAIN GOES TO WAR. 13 
 
 'A Goose Green?" asked Clarinda. 
 
 "No. A Gretna Green. Don't ask so many 
 questions, child," said Jane, who, having no more 
 to tell, gave herself airs. 
 
 Jane was wrong on one point. Miss Jessamine's 
 niece did come back, and she and her husband 
 were forgiven. The Gray Goose remembered it 
 well; it was Michaelmas-tide, the Michaelmas be- 
 fore the Michaelmas before the Michaelmas but, 
 ga, ga! What does the date matter? It was au- 
 tumn, harvest-time, and everybody was so busy 
 prophesying and praying about the crops, that the 
 young couple wandered through the lanes, and got 
 blackberries for Miss Jessamine's celebrated crab 
 and blackberry jam, and made guys of themselves 
 with bryony-wreaths, and not a soul troubled his 
 head about them, except the children and the 
 Postman. The children dogged the Black Cap- 
 tain's footsteps (his bubble reputation as an Ogre 
 having burst) clamoring for a ride on the black 
 mare. And the Postman would go somewhat out 
 of his postal way to catch the Captain's dark eye, 
 and show that he had not forgotten how to salute 
 an officer. 
 
 But they were "trying times." One afternoon 
 the black mare was stepping gently up and down 
 the grass, with her head at her master's shoulder, 
 and as many children crowded on to her silky back 
 as if she had been an elephant in a menagerie; 
 and the next afternoon she carried him away, 
 
14 JACKANAPES, 
 
 sword and sabre-tache clattering war music at her 
 side, and the old Postman waiting for them, rigid 
 with salutation, at the four cross-roads. 
 
 War and bad times ! It was a hard winter ; and 
 the big Miss Jessamine and the little Miss Jessa- 
 mine (but she was Mrs. Black-Captain now) lived 
 
ILL NEWS RIDES POST. 15 
 
 very economically, that they might help their 
 poorer neighbors. They neither entertained nor 
 went into company; but the young lady always 
 went up the village as far as the George and 
 Dragon, for air and exercise, when the London 
 Mail 1 came in. 
 
 One day (it was a day in the following June) it 
 came in earlier than usual, and the young lady was 
 not there to meet it. 
 
 But a crowd soon gathered round the George and 
 Dragon, gaping to see the Mail Coach dressed with 
 flowers and oak-leaves, and the guard wearing a 
 laurel wreath over and above his royal livery. The 
 ribbons that decked the horses were stained and 
 flecked with the warmth and foam of the pace at 
 which they had come, for they had pressed on with 
 the news of Victory. 
 
 Miss Jessamine was sitting with her niece under 
 the oak-tree on the Green, when the Postman put 
 a newspaper silently into her hand. Her niece 
 turned quickly, 
 
 "Is there news?" 
 
 " Don't agitate yourself, my dear," said her aunt. 
 w I will read it aloud, and then we can enjoy it to- 
 
 1 " The Mail Coach it was that distributed over the face of the 
 land, like the opening of apocalyptic vials, the heart-shaking news 
 of Trafalgar, of Salamanca, of Vittoria, of Waterloo. . . . The 
 grandest chapter of our experience, within the whole Mail-Coach 
 service, was on those occasions when we went down from London 
 with the news of Victory. Five years of life it was worth paying 
 down for the privilege of an outside place." DE QUINCEY. 
 
16 JACKANAPES. 
 
 gather ; a far more comfortable method, my love, 
 than when you go up the village, and come home 
 out of breath, having snatched half the news as 
 you run." 
 
 " I am all attention, dear aunt," said the little 
 lady, clasping her hands tightly on her lap. 
 
 Then Miss Jessamine read aloud, she was 
 proud of her reading, and the old soldier stood 
 at attention behind her, with such a blending of 
 pride and pity on his face as it was strange to 
 
 see: 
 
 " DOWNING STREET, 
 June 22, 1815, i A. M." 
 
 " That 's one in the morning," gasped the Post- 
 man ; " beg your pardon, mum." 
 
 But though he apologized, he could not refrain 
 from echoing here and there a weighty word: 
 "Glorious victory," "Two hundred pieces of 
 artillery," " Immense quantity of ammunition," 
 and so forth. 
 
 "The loss of the British Army upon this occasion has 
 unfortunately been most severe. It had not been possible to 
 make out a return of the killed and wounded when Major 
 Percy left headquarters. The names of the officers killed 
 and wounded, as far as they can be collected, are annexed. 
 "I have the honor " 
 
 " The list, aunt ! Read the list ! " 
 
 " My love my darling let us go in and " 
 
 "No. Now! now!" 
 
 To one thing the supremely afflicted are entitled 
 
FIERCE WAR AND FAITHFUL LOVE. 17 
 
 * 
 
 in their sorrow, to be obeyed ; and yet it is the 
 last kindness that people commonly will do them. 
 But Miss Jessamine did. Steadying her voice, as 
 best she might, she read on; and the old soldier 
 stood bareheaded to hear that first Roll of the 
 Dead at Waterloo, which began with the Duke of 
 Brunswick and ended with Ensign Brown. 1 Five- 
 and-thirty British Captains fell asleep that day on 
 the Bed of Honor, and the Black Captain slept 
 among them. 
 
 There are killed and wounded by war, of whom 
 no returns reach Downing Street. 
 
 Three days later, the Captain's wife had joined 
 him, and Miss Jessamine was kneeling by the 
 cradle of their orphan son, a purple-red morsel of 
 humanity, with conspicuously golden hair. 
 
 "Will he live, Doctor?" 
 
 " Live ? God bless my soul, ma'am ! Look at 
 him ! The young Jackanapes ! " 
 
 1 "Brunswick's fated chieftain" fell at Quatre Bras, the day 
 before Waterloo; but this first (very imperfect) list, as it appeared 
 in the newspapers of the day, did begin with his name and end 
 with that of an Ensign Brown. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 And he wandered away and away 
 With Nature, the dear old Nurse. 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 HE Gray Goose remembered quite 
 well the year that Jackanapes 
 began to walk, for it was the 
 year that the speckled hen 
 for the first time in all her 
 motherly life got out of pa- 
 tience when she was sitting. 
 She had been rather proud 
 of the eggs, they were un- 
 usually large, but she never 
 felt quite comfortable on them ; and whether it was 
 because she used to get cramp and go off the nest, 
 or because the season was bad, or what, she never 
 could tell ; but every egg was addled but one, and 
 the one that did hatch gave her more trouble than 
 any chick she had ever reared. 
 
 It was a fine, downy, bright yellow little thing, 
 but it had a monstrous big nose and feet, and such 
 an ungainly walk as she knew no other instance of 
 in her well-bred and high-stepping family. And as 
 to behavior, it was not that it was either quarrelsome 
 
THE YELLOW THING. IQ 
 
 or moping, but simply unlike the rest. When the 
 other chicks hopped and cheeped on the Green 
 about their mother's feet, this solitary yellow brat 
 went waddling off on its own responsibility, and do 
 or cluck what the speckled hen would, it went to 
 play in the pond. 
 
 It was off one day as usual, and the hen was 
 fussing and fuming after it, when the Postman, go- 
 ing to deliver a letter at Miss Jessamine's door, 
 was nearly knocked over by the good lady herself, 
 who, bursting out of the house with her cap just off 
 and her bonnet just not on, fell into his arms, 
 crying, 
 
 " Baby ! Baby ! Jackanapes ! Jackanapes ! " 
 
 If the Postman loved anything on earth, he 
 loved the Captain's yellow-haired child ; so, prop- 
 ping Miss Jessamine against her own door-post, 
 he followed the direction of her trembling fingers 
 and made for the Green. 
 
 Jackanapes had had the start of the Postman by 
 nearly ten minutes. The world the round green 
 world with an oak tree on it was just becoming 
 very interesting to him. He had tried, vigorously 
 but ineffectually, to mount a passing pig the last 
 time he was taken out walking ; but then he was 
 encumbered with a nurse. Now he was his own 
 master, and might, by courage and energy, become 
 the master of that delightful downy, dumpy, yellow 
 thing that was bobbing along over the green grass 
 in front of him. Forward ! Charge ! He aimed 
 
20 
 
 JACKANAPES, 
 
 well, and grabbed it, but only to feel the delicious 
 downiness and dumpiness slipping through his rin- 
 gers as he fell upon his face. " Quawk ! " said the 
 yellow thing, and wabbled off sideways. It was 
 this oblique movement that enabled Jackanapes to 
 
 come up with it , for it was bound for the pond, 
 and therefore obliged to come back into line. He 
 failed again from top-heaviness, and his prey es- 
 caped sideways as before, and, as before, lost ground 
 in getting back to the direct road to the Pond. 
 
THE TWO YELLOW THINGS. 21 
 
 And at the Pond the Postman found them both, 
 one yellow thing rocking safely on the ripples that 
 lie beyond duck-weed, and the other washing his 
 draggled frock with tears because he too had tried 
 to sit upon the Pond and it would n't hold him. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 If studious, copie fair what time hath blurred, 
 Redeem truth from his jawes : if souldier, 
 Chase brave employments with a naked sword 
 Throughout the world. Fool not ; for all may have, 
 If they dare try, a glorious life, or grave. 
 
 In brief, acquit thee bravely : play the man. 
 Look not on pleasures as they come, but go. 
 Defer not the least vertue : life's poore span 
 Make not an ell, by trifling in thy woe. 
 If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains. 
 If well : the pain doth fade, the joy remains. 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT. 
 
 OUNG Mrs. 
 Johnson, who 
 was a mother 
 of many, hard- 
 ly knew which 
 to pity more, 
 Miss Jessamine 
 for having her little ways and her antimacassars 
 rumpled by a young Jackanapes, or the boy him- 
 self for being brought up by an old maid. 
 
 Oddly enough, she would probably have pitied 
 neither, had Jackanapes been a girl. (One is so 
 
WHAT ARE LITTLE BOYS MADE OF? 23 
 
 apt to think that what works smoothest, works to 
 the highest ends, having no patience for the results 
 of friction.) That father in God who bade the 
 young men to be pure and the maidens brave, 
 greatly disturbed a member of his congregation, 
 who thought that the great preacher had made a 
 slip of the tongue. 
 
 "That the girls should have- purity, and the 
 boys courage, is what you would say, good 
 father?" 
 
 " Nature has done that," was the reply ; " I 
 meant what I said." 
 
 In good sooth, a young maid is all the better 
 for learning some robuster virtues than maiden- 
 liness and not to move the antimacassars ; and the 
 robuster virtues require some fresh air and free- 
 dom. As, on the other hand, Jackanapes (who 
 had a boy's full share of the little beast and the. 
 young monkey in his natural composition) was 
 none the worse, at his tender years, for learning 
 some maidenliness, so far as maidenliness means 
 decency, pity, unselfishness, and pretty behavior. 
 
 And it is due to him to say that he was an 
 obedient boy, and a boy whose word could be 
 depended on, long before his grandfather the 
 General came to live at the Green. 
 
 He was obedient ; that is, he did what his great- 
 aunt told him. But oh dear ! oh dear ! the 
 pranks he played, which it had never entered into 
 her head to forbid ! 
 
24 JACKANAPES. 
 
 It was when he had just been put into skeletons 
 (frocks never suited him) that he became very 
 friendly with Master Tony Johnson, a younger 
 brother of the young gentleman who sat in the 
 puddle on purpose. Tony was not enterprising, 
 and Jackanapes led him by the nose. One sum- 
 mer's evening they were out late, and Miss Jessa- 
 mine was becoming anxious, when Jackanapes 
 presented himself with a ghastly face all be- 
 smirched with tears. He was unusually subdued. 
 
 " I 'm afraid," he sobbed, " if you please, I 'm 
 very much afraid that Tony Johnson 's dying in 
 the churchyard." 
 
 Miss Jessamine was just beginning to be dis- 
 tracted, when she smelt Jackanapes. 
 
 " You naughty, naughty boys ! Do you mean 
 to tell me that you've been smoking?" 
 
 " Not pipes," urged Jackanapes ; " upon my 
 honor, aunty, not pipes. Only cigars like Mr. 
 Johnson's ! and only made of brown paper with 
 a very, very little tobacco from the shop inside 
 them." 
 
 Whereupon Miss Jessamine sent a servant to 
 the churchyard, who found Tony Johnson lying 
 on a tombstone, very sick, and having ceased to 
 entertain any hopes of his own recovery. 
 
 If it could be possible that any " unpleasant- 
 ness " could arise between two such amiable neigh- 
 bors as Miss Jessamine and Mrs. Johnson, and if 
 the still more incredible paradox can be that 
 
A DELICATE QUESTION. 25 
 
 ladies may differ over a point on which they are 
 agreed, that point was the admitted fact that 
 Tony Johnson was " delicate ; " and the difference 
 lay chiefly in this: Mrs. Johnson said that Tony 
 was delicate, meaning that he was more finely 
 strung, more sensitive, a properer subject for 
 pampering and petting, than Jackanapes, and that, 
 consequently, Jackanapes was to blame for lead- 
 ing Tony into scrapes which resulted in his being 
 chilled, frightened, or (most frequently) sick. But 
 when Miss Jessamine said that Tony Johnson was 
 delicate, she meant that he was more puling, less 
 manly, and less healthily brought up than Jacka- 
 napes, who, when they got into mischief together, 
 was certainly not to blame because his friend could 
 not get wet, sit a kicking donkey, ride in the 
 giddy-go-round, bear the noise of a cracker, or 
 smoke brown paper with impunity, as he could. 
 
 Not that there was ever the slightest quarrel 
 between the ladies. It never even came near it, 
 except the day after Tony had been so very sick 
 with riding Bucephalus in the giddy-go-round. 
 Mrs. Johnson had explained to Miss Jessamine 
 that the reason Tony was so easily upset was the 
 unusual sensitiveness (as a doctor had explained 
 it to her) of the nervous centres in her family 
 " Fiddlestick ! " So Mrs. Johnson understood 
 Miss Jessamine to say; but it appeared that she 
 only said " Treaclestick? " which is quite another 
 thing, and of which Tony was undoubtedly fond. 
 
2G JACKANAPES. 
 
 It was at the Fair that Tony was made ill by 
 riding on Bucephalus. Once a year the Goose 
 Green became the scene of a carnival. First of 
 all, carts and caravans were rumbling up all along, 
 day and night. Jackanapes could hear them as 
 he lay in bed, and could hardly sleep for speculat- 
 ing what booths and whirligigs he should find 
 fairly established when he and his dog Spitfire 
 went out after breakfast. As a matter of fact, he 
 seldom had to wait so long for news of the Fair. 
 The Postman knew the window out of which 
 Jackanapes's yellow head would come, and was 
 ready with his report. 
 
 " Royal Theayter, Master Jackanapes, in the old 
 place, but be careful o' them seats, sir ; they 're 
 rickettier than ever. Two sweets and a ginger 
 beer under the oak-tree, and the Flying Boats is 
 just a-coming along the road." 
 
 No doubt it was partly because he had already 
 suffered severely in the Flying Boats that Tony 
 collapsed so quickly in the giddy-go-round. He 
 only mounted Bucephalus (who was spotted, and 
 had no tail) because Jackanapes urged him, and 
 held out the ingenious hope that the round-and- 
 round feeling would very likely cure the up-and- 
 down sensation. It did not, however, and Tony 
 tumbled off during the first revolution. 
 
 Jackanapes was not absolutely free from qualms ; 
 but having once mounted the Black Prince, he 
 stuck to him as a horseman should. During the 
 
THE FAIR. 27 
 
 first round he waved his hat, and observed with 
 some concern that the Black Prince had lost an ear 
 since last Fair; at the second, he looked a 
 little pale, but sat upright, though somewhat un- 
 necessarily rigid ; at the third round he shut his 
 eyes. During the fourth his hat fell off, and 
 he clasped his horse's neck. By the fifth he had 
 
 laid his yellow head against the Black Prince's 
 rnane, and so clung anyhow till the hobby-horses 
 stopped, when the proprietor assisted him to 
 alight, and he sat down rather suddenly and said 
 he had enjoyed it very much. 
 
 The Gray Goose always ran away at the first 
 approach of the caravans, and never came back 
 to the Green till there was nothing left of the Fair 
 
28 JACKANAPES. 
 
 but footmarks and oyster-shells. Running away 
 was her pet principle ; the only system, she main- 
 tained, by which you can live long and easily and 
 lose nothing. If you run away when you see 
 danger, you can come back when all is safe. Run 
 quickly, return slowly, hold your head high, and 
 gabble as loud as you can, and you '11 preserve the 
 respect of the Goose Green to a peaceful old age. 
 Why should you struggle and get hurt, if you can 
 lower your head and swerve, and not lose a 
 feather? Why in the world should any one spoil 
 the pleasure of life, or risk his skin, if he can 
 
 help it? 
 
 " ' What's the use ? ' 
 Said the Goose." 
 
 Before answering which one might have to con- 
 sider what world, which life, and whether his skin 
 were a goose-skin; but the Gray Goose's head 
 would never have held all that. 
 
 Grass soon grows over footprints, and the vil- 
 lage children took the oyster-shells to trim their 
 gardens with; but the year after Tony rode 
 Bucephalus there lingered another relic of Fair- 
 time in which Jackanapes was deeply interested. 
 " The Green " proper was originally only part of 
 a straggling common, which in its turn merged 
 mto some wilder waste land where gypsies some- 
 times squatted if the authorities would allow them, 
 especially after the annual Fair. And it was after 
 the Fair that Jackanapes, out rambling by himself, 
 
HOW TO STICK ON. 29 
 
 was knocked over by the Gypsy's son riding the 
 Gypsy's red-haired pony at breakneck pace across 
 the common. 
 
 Jackanapes got up and shook himself, none the 
 worse except for being heels over head in love 
 with the red-haired pony. What a rate he went 
 at ! How he spurned the ground with his nimble 
 feet ! How his red coat shone in the sunshine ! 
 And what bright eyes peeped out of his dark 
 forelock as it was blown by the wind ! 
 
 The Gypsy boy had had a fright, and he was 
 willing enough to reward Jackanapes for not having 
 been hurt, by consenting to let him have a ride. 
 
 " Do you mean to kill the little fine gentleman, 
 and swing us all on the gibbet, you rascal ? " 
 screamed the Gypsy mother, who came up just as 
 Jackanapes and the pony set off. 
 
 " He would get on," replied her son. " It '11 not 
 kill him. He '11 fall on his yellow head, and it 's 
 as tough as a cocoanut." 
 
 But Jackanapes did not fall. He stuck to the 
 red-haired pony as he had stuck to the hobby- 
 horse ; but, oh, how different the delight of this 
 wild gallop with flesh and blood ! Just as his legs 
 were beginning to feel as if he did not feel them, 
 the Gypsy boy cried, " Lollo ! " Round went the 
 pony so unceremoniously that with as little cere- 
 mony Jackanapes clung to his neck ; and he did 
 not properly recover himself before Lollo stopped 
 with a jerk at the place where they had started. 
 
30 JACKANAPES. 
 
 "Is his name Lollo?" asked Jackanapes, his 
 hand lingering in the wiry mane. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " What does Lollo mean? " 
 
 " Red." 
 
 " Is Lollo your pony? " 
 
 "No. My father's." And the Gypsy boy led 
 Lollo away. 
 
 At the first opportunity Jackanapes stole away 
 again to the common. This time he saw the 
 Gypsy father, smoking a dirty pipe. 
 
 "Lollo is your pony, isn't he?" said Jacka- 
 napes. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " He 's a very nice one." 
 
 " He 's a racer." 
 
 " You don't want to sell him, do you? " 
 
 " Fifteen pounds," said the Gypsy father ; and 
 Jackanapes sighed and went home again. That 
 very afternoon he and Tony rode the two donkeys ; 
 and Tony managed to get thrown, and even Jacka- 
 napes's donkey kicked. But it was jolting, clumsy 
 work after the elastic swiftness and the dainty 
 mischief of the red-haired pony. 
 
 A few days later, Miss Jessamine spoke very 
 seriously to Jackanapes. She was a good deal 
 agitated as she told him that his grandfather the 
 General was coming to the Green, and that he 
 must be on his very best behavior during the visit. 
 If it had been feasible to leave off calling him 
 
THE GENERAL. 31 
 
 Jackanapes and to get used to his baptismal name 
 of Theodore before the day after to-morrow 
 (when the General was due), it would have been 
 satisfactory. But Miss Jessamine feared it would 
 be impossible in practice, and she had scruples 
 about it on principle. It would not seem quite 
 truthful, although she had always most fully in- 
 tended that he should be called Theodore when 
 he had outgrown the ridiculous appropriateness of 
 his nickname. The fact was that he had not out' 
 grown it, but he must take care to remember who 
 was meant when his grandfather said Theodore. 
 
 Indeed, for that matter he must take care all 
 along. 
 
 "You are apt to be giddy, Jackanapes," said 
 Miss Jessamine. 
 
 "Yes, aunt," said Jackanapes, thinking of the 
 hobby-horses. 
 
 " You are a good boy, Jackanapes. Thank God, 
 I can tell your grandfather that. An obedient boy, 
 an honorable boy, and a kind-hearted boy. But 
 you are in short, you are a Boy, Jackanapes. 
 And I hope," added Miss Jessamine, desperate 
 with the results of experience, " that the General 
 knows that Boys will be Boys." 
 
 What mischief could be foreseen, Jackanapes 
 promised to guard against. He was to keep his 
 clothes and his hands clean, to look over his cate- 
 chism, not to put sticky things in his pockets, to 
 keep that hair of his smooth (" It 's the wind 
 
32 JACKANAPES. 
 
 that blows it, aunty," said Jackanapes "I '11 send 
 by the coach for some bear's-grease," said Miss 
 Jessamine, tying a knot in her pocket-handker- 
 chief), not to burst in at the parlor door, not to 
 
 talk at the top of his voice, not to crumple his 
 Sunday frill, and to sit quite quiet during the 
 sermon, to be sure to say " sir " to the General, to 
 be careful about rubbing his shoes on the door-mat, 
 and to bring his lesson-books to his aunt at once 
 that she might iron down the dogs'-ears. The 
 
TWO ARE COMPANY. 33 
 
 General arrived ; and for the first day all went well, 
 except that Jackanapes's hair was as wild as usual, 
 for the hair-dresser had no bear's-grease left. He 
 began to feel more at ease with his grandfather, 
 and disposed to talk confidentially with him, as he 
 did with the Postman. All that the General felt, it 
 would take too long to tell ; but the result was the 
 same. He was disposed to talk confidentially with 
 Jackanapes. 
 
 " Mons'ous pretty place this," he said, looking 
 out of the lattice on to the Green, where the grass 
 was vivid with sunset and the shadows were long 
 and peaceful. 
 
 " You should see it in Fair-week, sir," said Jack- 
 anapes, shaking his yellow mop, and leaning back 
 in his one of the two Chippendale arm-chairs in 
 which they sat. 
 
 " A fine time that, eh?" said the General, with a 
 twinkle in his left eye (the other was glass). 
 
 Jackanapes shook his hair once more. " I en- 
 joyed this last one the best of all," he said. 
 " I 'd so much money." 
 
 " By George, it 's not a common complaint in 
 these bad times. How much had ye?" 
 
 " I 'd two shillings. A new shilling aunty gave 
 me, and elevenpence I had saved up, and a penny 
 from the Postman, sir f" added Jackanapes with 
 a jerk, having forgotten it. 
 
 "And how did ye spend it, sir?" inquired the 
 General. 
 
 3 
 
34 JACKANAPES. 
 
 Jackanapes spread his ten fingers on the arms of 
 his chair, and shut his eyes that he might count 
 the more conscientiously. 
 
 " Watch-stand for aunty, threepence. Trumpet 
 for myself, twopence ; that 's fivepence. Gingernuts 
 for Tony, twopence, and a mug with a Grena- 
 dier on for the Postman, fourpence ; that 's eleven- 
 pence. Shooting-gallery a penny ; that 's a shilling. 
 Giddy-go-round, a penny ; that 's one and a penny. 
 Treating Tony, one and twopence. Flying Boats 
 (Tony paid for himself), a penny, one and three- 
 pence. Shooting-gallery again, one and fourpence ; 
 Fat Woman a penny, one and fivepence. Giddy- 
 go-round again, one and sixpence. Shooting-gal- 
 lery, one and sevenpence. Treating Tony, and then 
 he would n't shoot, so I did, one and eightpence. 
 Living Skeleton, a penny no, Tony treated me, 
 the Living Skeleton does n't count. Skittles, a 
 penny, one and ninepence. Mermaid (but when 
 we got inside she was dead), a penny, one and ten- 
 pence. Theatre, a penny (Priscilla Partington, or 
 the Green Lane Murder. A beautiful young lady, 
 sir, with pink cheeks and a real pistol) ; that 's one 
 and elevenpence. Ginger beer, a penny, (I was so 
 thirsty!) two shillings. And then the Shooting- 
 gallery man gave me a turn for nothing, because, 
 he said, I was a real gentleman, and spent my 
 money like a man." 
 
 " So you do, sir, so you do ! " cried the General. 
 " Egad, sir, you spent it like a prince. And now 
 
LOLLO. 35 
 
 I suppose you Ve not got a penny in your 
 pocket?" 
 
 " Yes, I have," said Jackanapes. " Two pennies. 
 They are saving up." And Jackanapes jingled 
 them with his hand. 
 
 " You don't want money except at Fair-times, I 
 suppose?" said the General. 
 
 Jackanapes shook his mop. 
 
 " If I could have as much as I want, I should 
 know what to buy," said he. 
 
 "And how much do you want, if you could 
 get it?" 
 
 " Wait a minute, sir, till I think what twopence 
 from fifteen pounds leaves. Two from nothing 
 you can't, but borrow twelve. Two from twelve, 
 ten, and carry one. Please remember ten, sir, 
 when I ask you. One from nothing you can't, 
 borrow twenty. One from twenty nineteen, and 
 carry one. One from fifteen, fourteen. Fourteen 
 pounds nineteen and what did I tell you to 
 remember?" 
 
 " Ten," said the General. 
 
 " Fourteen pounds nineteen shillings and Ken- 
 pence, then, is what I want," said Jackanapes* 
 
 " God bless my soul ! what for? " 
 
 "To buy Lollo with. Lollo means red, sit 
 The Gypsy's red-haired pony, sir. Oh, he is beau- 
 tiful ! You should see his coat in the sunshine ! 
 You should see his mane ! You should see his 
 tail ! Such little feet, sir, and they go like light- 
 
36 JACKANAPES. 
 
 ning! Such a dear face, too, and eyes like a 
 mouse ! But he 's a racer, and the Gypsy wants 
 fifteen pounds for him." 
 
 " If he 's a racer you could n't ride him. Could 
 you?" 
 
 " No o, sir, but I can stick to him. I did the 
 other day." 
 
 " The dooce you did ! Well, I 'm fond of riding 
 myself; and if the beast is as good as you say, he 
 might suit me." 
 
 " You 're too tall for Lollo, I think," said Jacka- 
 japes, measuring his grandfather with his eye. 
 
 " I can double up my legs, I suppose. We '11 
 have a look at him to-morrow." 
 
 4 
 
 "Don't you weigh a good deal? " asked Jacka- 
 napes. 
 
 " Chiefly waistcoats," said the General, slapping 
 the breast of his military frock-coat. " We '11 have 
 the little racer on the Green the first thing in the 
 morning. Glad you mentioned it, grandson ; glad 
 you mentioned it." 
 
 The General was as good as his word. Next 
 morning the Gypsy and Lollo, Miss Jessamine, 
 Jackanapes and his grandfather and his dog Spit- 
 fire, were all gathered at one end of the Green in 
 a group, which so aroused the innocent curiosity 
 of Mrs. Johnson, as she saw it from one of her 
 upper windows, that she and the children took 
 their early promenade rather earlier than usual. 
 The General talked to the Gypsy, and Jackanapes 
 
A RIDE FOR A RED-HAIRED PONY. 37 
 
 fondled Lollo's mane, and did not know whether 
 he should be more glad or miserable if his grand- 
 father bought him. 
 
 " Jackanapes ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir ! " 
 
 " I Ve bought Lollo, but I believe you were 
 right. He hardly stands high enough for me. If 
 you can ride him to the other end of the Green, 
 I '11 give him to you." 
 
 How Jackanapes tumbled on to Lollo's back he 
 never knew. He had just gathered up the reins 
 when the Gypsy father took him by the arm. 
 
 " If you want to make Lollo go fast, my little 
 gentleman " 
 
 " / can make him go ! " said Jackanapes ; and 
 drawing from his pocket the trumpet he had 
 bought in the Fair, he blew a blast both loud and 
 shrill. 
 
 Away went Lollo, and away went Jackanapes' 
 hat. His golden hair flew out, an aureole from 
 which his cheeks shone red and distended with 
 trumpeting. Away went Spitfire, mad with the 
 rapture of the race and the wind in his silky ears. 
 Away went the geese, the cocks, the hens, and 
 the whole family of Johnson. Lucy clung to her 
 mamma, Jane saved Emily by the gathers of her 
 gown, and Tony saved himself by a somersault. 
 
 The Gray Goose was just returning when Jack- 
 anapes and Lollo rode back, Spitfire panting 
 behind. 
 
38 JACKANAPES. 
 
 " Good, my little gentleman, good ! " said the 
 Gypsy. " You were born to the saddle. You Ve 
 the flat thigh, the strong knee, the wiry back, and 
 the light caressing hand ; all you want is to learn 
 the whisper. Come here ! " 
 
 "What was that dirty fellow talking about, 
 grandson ? " asked the General. 
 
 " I can't tell you, sir. It 's a secret." 
 
 They were sitting in the window again, in the 
 two Chippendale arm-chairs, the General devour- 
 ing every line of his grandson's face, with strange 
 spasms crossing his own. 
 
 " You must love your aunt very much, Jacka- 
 napes ? ' r 
 
 " I do, sir," said Jackanapes, warmly. 
 
ONE THAT MAKES OLD HEARTS FRESH. 39 
 
 "And whom do you love next best to your 
 aunt ? " 
 
 The ties of blood were pressing very strongly 
 on the General himself, and perhaps he thought 
 of Lollo. But love is not bought in a day, even 
 with fourteen pounds nineteen shillings and ten- 
 pence. Jackanapes answered quite readily, " The 
 Postman." 
 
 " Why the Postman?" 
 
 " He knew my father," said Jackanapes, " and 
 he tells me about him and about his black mare. 
 My father was a soldier, a brave soldier. He died 
 at Waterloo. When I grow up I want to be a 
 soldier too." 
 
 " So you shall, my boy ; so you shall." 
 
 " Thank you, grandfather. Aunty does n't want 
 me to be a soldier, lor fear of being killed." 
 
 " Bless my life ! Would she have you get into 
 a feather-bed and stay there? Why, you might 
 be killed by a thunderbolt if you were a butter- 
 merchant ! " 
 
 "So I might. I shall tell her so. What a 
 funny fellow you are, sir ! I say, do you think 
 my father knew the Gypsy's secret ? The 
 Postman says he used to whisper to his black 
 mare." 
 
 " Your father was taught to ride, as a child, by 
 one of those horsemen of the East who swoop 
 and dart and wheel about a plain like swallows 
 in autumn. Grandson! love me a little too. I 
 
40 JACKANAPES. 
 
 can tell you more about your father than the 
 Postman can." 
 
 " I do love you," said Jackanapes. " Before 
 you came I was frightened. I 'd no notion you 
 were so nice." 
 
 " Love me always, boy, whatever I do or leave 
 undone. And God help me ! whatever you 
 do or leave undone, I '11 love you. There shall 
 never be a cloud between us for a day ; no, sir, 
 not for an hour. We 're imperfect enough, all of 
 us we need n't be so bitter; and life is uncertain 
 enough at its safest we need n't waste its oppor- 
 tunities. God bless my soul ! Here sit I, after 
 a dozen battles and some of the worst climates in 
 the world, and by yonder lych gate lies your 
 mother, who did n't move five miles, I suppose, 
 from your aunt's apron-strings, dead in her 
 teens ; my golden-haired daughter, whom I never 
 saw!" 
 
 Jackanapes was terribly troubled. 
 
 " Don't cry, grandfather," he pleaded, his own 
 blue eyes round with tears. " I will love you 
 very much, and I will try to be very good. But 
 I should like to be a soldier." 
 
 " You shall, my boy ; you shall. You Ve more 
 claims for a commission than you know of. 
 Cavalry, I suppose; eh, ye young Jackanapes? 
 Well, well; if you live to be an honor to your 
 country, this old heart shall grow young again 
 with pride for you ; and if you die in the service 
 
A GRANDFATHER'S EMOTION. 41 
 
 of your country egad, sir, it can but break for 
 ye I" 
 
 And beating the region which he said was all 
 waistcoats, as if they stifled him, the old man got 
 up and strode out on to the Green. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for hi! 
 friends. JOHN xv. 13. 
 
 WENTY and odd years later the Gray 
 Goose was still alive, and in full pos- 
 session of her faculties, such as they were. She 
 lived slowly and carefully, and she lived long. So 
 did Miss Jessamine ; but the General was dead. 
 
 He had lived on the Green for many years, dur- 
 ing which he and the Postman saluted each other 
 
COMMISSIONS FOR TWO. 43 
 
 with a punctiliousness that it almost drilled one to 
 witness. He would have completely spoiled Jack- 
 anapes if Miss Jessamine's conscience would have 
 let him; otherwise he somewhat dragooned his 
 neighbors, and was as positive about parish mat- 
 ters as a ratepayer about the army. A stormy- 
 tempered, tender-hearted soldier, irritable with the 
 suffering of wounds of which- he never spoke, 
 whom all the village followed to his grave with 
 tears. 
 
 The General's death was a great shock to Miss 
 Jessamine, and her nephew stayed with her for 
 some little time after the funeral. Then he was 
 obliged to join his regiment, which was ordered 
 abroad. 
 
 One effect of the conquest which the General 
 had gained over the affections of the village was 
 a considerable abatement of the popular preju- 
 dice against "the military." Indeed, the village 
 was now somewhat importantly represented in 
 the army. There was the General himself, and the 
 Postman, and the Black Captain's tablet in the 
 church, and Jackanapes, and Tony Johnson, and a 
 Trumpeter. 
 
 Tony Johnson had no more natural taste for 
 fighting than for riding, but he was as devoted as 
 ever to Jackanapes. And that- was how it came 
 about that Mr. Johnson bought him a commission 
 in the same cavalry regiment that the General's 
 grandson (whose commission had been given him 
 
44 JACKANAPES. 
 
 by the Iron Duke) was in ; and that he was quite 
 content to be the butt of the mess where Jack- 
 anapes was the hero ; and that when Jackanapes 
 wrote home to Miss Jessamine, Tony wrote with 
 the same purpose to his mother, namely, to 
 demand her congratulations that they were on 
 active service at last, and were ordered to the 
 front. And he added a postscript, to the effect 
 that she could have no idea how popular Jack- 
 anapes was, nor how splendidly he rode the won- 
 derful red charger which he had named after his 
 old friend Lollo. 
 
 " Sound Retire ! " 
 
 A Boy Trumpeter, grave with the weight of 
 responsibilities and accoutrements beyond his 
 years, and stained so that his own mother would 
 not have known him, with the sweat and dust of 
 battle, did as he was bid; and then, pushing his 
 trumpet pettishly aside, adjusted his weary legs for 
 the hundredth time to the horse which was a world 
 too big for him, and muttering, " T ain 't a pretty 
 tune," tried to see something of this his first en- 
 gagement before it came to an end. 
 
 Being literally in the thick of it, he could hardly 
 have seen less or known less of what happened in 
 that particular skirmish if he had been at home in 
 England. For many good reasons, including dust 
 and smoke, and that what attention he dared dis- 
 tract from his commanding officer was pretty well 
 
THE BOY TRUMPETER. 
 
 45 
 
 absorbed by keeping his hard-mouthed troop-horse 
 in hand, under pain of execration by his neighbors 
 in the melee. By and by, when the newspapers 
 ame out, if he could get a look at one before it 
 was thumbed to bits, he would learn that the 
 tnemy had appeared from ambush in overwhelm- 
 
 ing numbers, and that orders had been given to 
 fall back, which was done slowly and in good order, 
 the men fighting as they retired. 
 
 Born and bred on the Goose Green, the young- 
 est of Mr. Johnson's gardener's numerous off- 
 spring, the boy had given his family " no peace " 
 till they let him "go for a soldier" with Master 
 
46 JACKANAPES. 
 
 Tony and Master Jackanapes. They consented at 
 last, with more tears than they shed when an elder 
 son was sent to jail for poaching; and the boy was 
 perfectly happy in his life, and full of esprit de 
 corps. It was this which had been wounded by 
 having to sound retreat for " the young gentle- 
 men's regiment," the first time he served with it 
 before the enemy; and he was also harassed by 
 having completely lost sight of Master Tony. 
 There had been some hard fighting before the 
 backward movement began, and he had caught 
 sight of him once, but not since. On the other 
 hand, all the pulses of his village pride had been 
 stirred by one or two visions of Master Jackanapes 
 whirling about on his wonderful horse. He had 
 been easy to distinguish, since an eccentric blow 
 had bared his head without hurting it; for his 
 close golden mop of hair gleamed in the hot sun- 
 shine as brightly as the steel of the sword flash- 
 ing round it. 
 
 Of the missiles that fell pretty thickly, the Boy 
 Trumpeter did not take much notice. First, one 
 can't attend to everything, and his hands were full ; 
 secondly, one gets used to anything; thirdly, 
 experience soon teaches one, in spite of proverbs, 
 how very few bullets find their billet. Far more 
 unnerving is the mere suspicion of fear or even of 
 anxiety in the human mass around you. The Boy 
 was beginning to wonder if there were any dark 
 reason for the increasing pressure, and whether 
 
TONY'S LUCK. 47 
 
 they would be allowed to move back more quickly, 
 when the smoke in front lifted for a moment, and 
 he could see the plain, and the enemy's line some 
 two hundred yards away. And across the plain 
 between them, he saw Master Jackanapes galloping 
 alone at the top of Lollo's speed, their faces to the 
 enemy, his golden head at Lollo's ear. 
 
 But at this moment noise and smoke seemed to 
 burst out on every side ; the officer shouted to him 
 to sound Retire ! and between trumpeting and 
 bumping about on his horse, he saw and heard no 
 more of the incidents of his first battle. 
 
 Tony Johnson was always unlucky with horses, 
 from the days of the giddy-go-round onwards. 
 On this day of all days in the year his own 
 horse was on the sick list, and he had to ride an 
 inferior, ill-conditioned beast, and fell off that, at 
 the very moment when it was a matter of life or 
 death to be able to ride away. The horse fell on 
 him, but struggled up again, and Tony managed 
 to keep hold of it. It was in trying to remount 
 that he discovered, by helplessness and anguish, 
 that one of his legs was crushed and broken, and that 
 no feat of which he was master would get him 
 into the saddle. Not able even to stand alone, 
 awkwardly, agonizingly, unable to mount his res- 
 tive horse, his life was yet so strong within him ! 
 And on one side of him rolled the dust and 
 smoke-cloud of his advancing foes, and on the 
 other, that which covered his retreating friends. 
 
48 JACKANAPES. 
 
 He turned one piteous gaze after them, with a 
 bitter twinge, not of reproach, but of loneliness ; 
 and then, dragging himself up by the side of 
 his horse, he turned the other way and drew out 
 his pistol, and waited for the end. Whether he 
 waited seconds or minutes he never knew, before 
 some one gripped him by the arm. 
 
 " Jackanapes! God bless you ! It 's my left 
 leg. If you could get me on " 
 
 It was like Tony's luck that his pistol went off 
 at his horse's tail, and made it plunge ; but Jack- 
 anapes threw him across the saddle. 
 
 " Hold on anyhow, and stick your spur in. I '11 
 lead him. Keep your head down ; they 're firing 
 high." 
 
 And Jackanapes laid his head down to Lollo's 
 ear. 
 
 It was when they were fairly off, that a sudden 
 upspringing of the enemy in all directions had 
 made it necessary to change the gradual retire- 
 ment of our force into as rapid a retreat as possi- 
 ble. And when Jackanapes became aware of this, 
 and felt the lagging and swerving of Tony's horse, 
 he began to wish he had thrown his friend across 
 his own saddle and left their lives to Lollo. 
 
 When Tony became aware of it, several things 
 came into his head: I. That the dangers of their 
 ride for life were now more than doubled ; 2. That 
 if Jackanapes and Lollo were not burdened with 
 him they would undoubtedly escape; 3. That 
 
A RIDE FOR LIFE. 49 
 
 Jackanapes* life was infinitely valuable, and his 
 Tony's was not ; 4. That this, if he could seize 
 it, was the supremest of all the moments in 
 which he had tried to assume the virtues which 
 Jackanapes had by nature ; and that if he could 
 be courageous and unselfish now 
 
 He caught at his own reins and spoke very 
 loud, 
 
 " Jackanapes ! It won't do. You and Lollo 
 must go on. Tell the fellows I gave you back to 
 them with all my heart. Jackanapes, if you love 
 me, leave me ! " 
 
 There was a daffodil light over the evening sky 
 in front of them, and it shone strangely on Jacka- 
 napes* hair and face. He turned with an odd look 
 in his eyes that a vainer man than Tony Johnson 
 might have taken for brotherly pride. Then he 
 shook his mop, and laughed at him. 
 
 "Leave you? To save my skin? No. Tony, 
 not to save my soul ! " 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Mr. VALIANT summoned. His Will. His last Words. 
 
 Then said he, " I am going to my Father's. . . . My Sword I give to 
 him that shall succeed me in my Pilgrimage, and my Courage and Skill 
 to him that can get it." . . . And as he went down deeper, he said, 
 " Grave, where is thy Victory ? " 
 
 So he passed over, and all the Trumpets sounded for him on the other 
 side. 
 
 BUNYAN : Pilgrim' 's Progress. 
 
 /DOMING out of a 
 \ IJ||m hospital tent, at 
 
 headquarters, the 
 surgeon cannoned 
 against, and re- 
 bounded from, 
 another officer, 
 a sallow man, not 
 young, with a 
 face worn more 
 by ungentle ex- 
 periences than by 
 age, with weary 
 eyes that kept their own counsel, iron-gray hair, 
 and a mustache that was as if a raven had laid 
 its wing across his lips and sealed them. 
 "Well?" 
 " Beg pardon, Major. Did n't see you. Oh, 
 
THE RESULT OF THAT RIDE. 5 1 
 
 compound fracture and bruises. But it's all right; 
 he '11 pull through." 
 
 " Thank God." 
 
 It was probably an involuntary expression ; for 
 prayer and praise were not much in the Major's 
 line, as a jerk of the surgeon's head would have 
 betrayed to an observer. He was a bright little 
 man, with his feelings showing all over him, but 
 with gallantry and contempt of death enough for 
 both sides of his profession; who took a cool 
 head, a white handkerchief, and a case of instru- 
 ments, where other men went hot-blooded with 
 weapons, and who was the biggest gossip, male or 
 female, of the regiment. Not even the Major's 
 taciturnity daunted him. 
 
 " Did n't think he 'd as much pluck about him 
 as he has. He '11 do all right if he does n't fret 
 himself into a fever about poor Jackanapes." 
 
 " Whom are you talking about? " asked the 
 Major, hoarsely. 
 
 " Young Johnson. He" 
 
 " What about Jackanapes? " 
 
 "Don't you know? Sad business. Rode back 
 for Johnson, and brought him in ; but, monstrous 
 ill-luck, hit as they rode. Left lung " 
 
 "Will he recover?" 
 
 " No. Sad business. What a frame what 
 limbs what health and what good looks I 
 Finest young fellow " 
 
 "Where is he?" 
 
52 JACKANAPES. 
 
 " In his own tent," said the surgeon, sadly. 
 The Major wheeled and left him. 
 
 " Can I do anything else for you ? " 
 
 "Nothing, thank you. Except Major! 1 
 wish I could get you to appreciate Johnson." 
 
 " This is not an easy moment, Jackanapes." 
 
 "Let me tell you, sir he never will that if 
 he could have driven me from him, he would be 
 lying yonder at this moment, and I should be safe 
 and sound." 
 
 The Major laid his hand over his mouth, as if to 
 keep back a wish he would have been ashamed 
 to utter. 
 
 " I 've known old Tony from a child. He 's a 
 fool on impulse, a good man and a gentleman in 
 principle. And he acts on principle, which it's 
 not every Some water, please! Thank you, 
 sir. It's very hot, and yet one's feet get uncom- 
 monly cold. Oh, thank you, thank you. He f s no 
 fire-eater, but he has a trained conscience and a 
 tender heart, and he '11 do his duty when a braver 
 and more selfish man might fail you. But he 
 wants encouragement ; and when I 'm gone " 
 
 " He shall have encouragement. You have mr 
 word for it. Can I do nothing else ? " 
 
 "Yes, Major. A favor." 
 
 " Thank you, Jackanapes." 
 
 " Be Lollo's master, and love him as well a? you 
 caa He 's used to it." 
 
HIS LAST WORDS. 53 
 
 " Would n't you rather Johnson had him? " 
 
 The blue eyes twinkled in spite of mortal pain. 
 
 " Tony rides on principle, Major. His legs are 
 bolsters, and will be to the end of the chapter. 
 I could n't insult dear Lollo ; but if you don't 
 care " 
 
 " While I live which will be longer than I de- 
 sire or deserve Lollo shall want nothing but 
 you. I have too little tenderness for My dear 
 boy, you 're faint. Can you spare me for a 
 moment?" 
 
 "No, stay Major!" 
 
 "What? What?" 
 
 " My head drifts so if you would n't mind." 
 
 "Yes! Yes!" 
 
 " Say a prayer by me. Out loud, please ; I am 
 getting deaf." 
 
 " My dearest Jackanapes my dear boy " 
 
 " One of the Church Prayers Parade Service, 
 you know " 
 
 " I s^e. But the fact is God forgive me, 
 Jack?7iapes ! I 'm a very different sort of fellow 
 to some of you youngsters. Look here, let me 
 fetch " 
 
 But Jackanapes' hand was in his, and it would 
 not let go. 
 
 There was a brief and bitter silence. 
 
 " Ton my soul, I can only remember the little 
 one at the end." 
 
 " Please," whispered Jackanapes. 
 
54 JACKANAPES. 
 
 Pressed by the conviction that what little he 
 could do it was his duty to do, the Major, kneel- 
 ing, bared his head, and spoke loudly, clearly, and 
 very reverently, 
 
 " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ " 
 
 Jackanapes moved his left hand to his right one, 
 which still held the Major's 
 
 "The love of God " 
 
 And with that Jackanapes died. 
 
CHAPTER Vt 
 
 Und so ist der blaue Himmel grosser als jedeg 
 Gcwolk darin, und dauerhafter dazu. 
 
 JEAN PAUL RICHTER. 
 
 ACKANAPES' death was sad 
 news for the Goose Green, a 
 sorrow just qualified by honor- 
 able pride in his gallantry and 
 devotion. Only the Cobbler 
 dissented ; but that was his way. 
 He said he saw nothing in it but 
 foolhardiness and vainglory. They might both 
 have been killed, as easy as not; and then where 
 would ye have been? A man's life was a man's 
 life, and one life was as good as another. No one 
 would catch him throwing his away. And, for 
 that matter, Mrs. Johnson could spare a child a 
 great deal better than Miss Jessamine. 
 
 But the parson preached Jackanapes* funeral 
 sermon on the text, " Whosoever will save his life 
 shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for 
 my sake shall find it;" and all the village went 
 and wept to hear him. 
 
56 JACKANAPES. 
 
 Nor did Miss Jessamine see her loss from the 
 Cobbler's point of view. On the contrary, Mrs. 
 Johnson said she never to her dying day should 
 forget how, when she went to condole with her, the 
 old lady came forward, with gentlewomanly self- 
 
 control, and kissed her, and thanked God that her 
 dear nephew's effort had been blessed with success, 
 and that this sad war had made no gap in her 
 friend's large and happy home-circle. 
 
 " But she 's a noble, unselfish woman," sobbed 
 Mrs. Johnson, " and she taught Jackanapes to be 
 the same ; and that 's how it is that my Tony has 
 been spared to me. And it must be sheer good- 
 ness in Miss Jessamine, for what can she know of 
 a mother's feelings ? And I 'm sure most people 
 
LOLLO THE FIRST. 57 
 
 seem to think that if you 've a large family you 
 don't know one from another any more than they 
 do, and that a lot of children are like a lot of store 
 apples, if one 's taken it won't be missed." 
 
 Lollo the first Lollo, the Gypsy's Lollo very 
 aged, draws Miss Jessamine's bath-chair slowly up 
 and down the Goose Green in the sunshine. 
 
 The Ex-postman walks beside him, which Lollo 
 tolerates to the level of his shoulder. If the Post-' 
 man advances any nearer to his head, Lollo quick- 
 ens his pace; and were the Postman to persist in 
 the injudicious attempt, there is, as Miss Jessamine 
 says, no knowing what might happen. 
 
 In the opinion of the Goose Green, Miss Jessa- 
 mine has borne her troubles "wonderfully." In- 
 deed, to-day, some of the less delicate and less 
 intimate of those who see everything from the 
 upper windows say (well, behind her back) that 
 " the old lady seems quite lively with her military 
 beaux again." 
 
 The meaning of this is, that Captain Johnson is 
 leaning over one side of her chair, while by the 
 other bends a brother officer who is staying with 
 him, and who has manifested an extraordinary 
 interest in Lollo. He bends lower and lower, and 
 Miss Jessamine calls to the Postman to request 
 Lollo to be kind enough to stop, while she is 
 fumbling for something which always hangs by her 
 side, and has got entangled with her spectacles. 
 
 It is a twopenny trumpet, bought years ago in 
 
58 JACKANAPES. 
 
 the village fair; and over it she and Captain John- 
 son tell, as best they can, hetween them, the story 
 of Jackanapes' ride across the Goose Green ; and 
 how he won Lollo the Gypsy's Lollo the racer 
 Lollo dear Lollo faithful Lollo Lollo the 
 
 never vanquished Lollo the tender servant of his 
 old mistress. And Lollo's ears twitch at every 
 mention of his name. 
 
 Their hearer does not speak, but he never moves 
 his eyes from the trumpet ; and when the tale is told, 
 he lifts Miss Jessamine's hand and presses his heavy 
 black mustache in silence to her trembling fingers. 
 
DAS SICHTBARE 1ST ' ZElTLlCH. ' 59 
 
 The sun, setting gently to his rest, embroiders 
 the sombre foliage of the oak-tree with threads of 
 gold. The Gray Goose is sensible of an atmos- 
 phere of repose, and puts up one leg for the night. 
 The grass glows with a more vivid green, and, in 
 answer to a ringing call from Tony, his sisters 
 fluttering over the daisies in pale-hued muslins, 
 come out of their ever-open door, like pretty 
 pigeons from a dovecote. 
 
 And if the good gossips' eyes do not deceive 
 them, all the Miss Johnsons and both the officers 
 go wandering off into the lanes, where bryony 
 wreaths still twine about the brambles. 
 
 
 
 A sorrowful story, and ending badly? 
 
 Nay, Jackanapes, for the End is not yet. 
 
 A life wasted that might have been useful? 
 
 Men who have died for men, in all ages, forgive 
 the thought ! 
 
 There is a heritage of heroic example and noble 
 obligation, not reckoned in the Wealth of Nations, 
 but essential to a nation's life; the contempt of 
 which, in any people, may, not dowly, mean even 
 its commercial fall. 
 
 Very sweet are the uses of prosperity, the har- 
 vests of peace and progress, the fostering sunshine 
 of health and happiness, and length of days in the 
 land. 
 
 But there be things oh, sons of what ha? de- 
 served the name of Great Britain, forget it not ! 
 
60 ' JACKANAPES. 
 
 "the good of" which and "the use of" which are 
 beyond all calculation of worldly goods and earthly 
 uses: things such as Love, and Honor, and the 
 Soul of Man, which cannot be bought with a price, 
 and which do not die with death. And they who 
 would fain live happily ever after should not leave 
 these things out of the lessons of their lives. 
 
THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE. 
 
" But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, 
 And think to burst out into sudden blaze, 
 Comes the blind Fury with the abhored shears 
 And slits the thin spun life, ' But not the praise.' " 
 
 Milton. 
 
 " It is a calumny on men to say that they are roused to heroic action by ease, 
 hope of pleasure, recompense, sugar-plums of any kind in this world or the 
 next! In the meanest mortal there lies something nobler. . . . Difficulty, abne- 
 gation, martyrdom, death are the allurements that act on the heart of man. 
 Kindle the inner genial life of him, you have a flame that burns up all lower 
 considerations. . . . Not by nattering our appetites; no, by awakening the Heroic 
 that slumbers in every heart." Carlyle. 
 

CHAPTER I. 
 
 " Arma virumque cano." 
 
 " Man and the horseradish are most biting when grated.'* 
 
 Jean Paul Richter. 
 
 OST annoy- 
 ing I " said 
 the Master of 
 the House. 
 His thick eye- 
 brows were 
 puckered just 
 then with the 
 vexation of 
 his thoughts; 
 but the lines 
 of annoyance 
 on his fore- 
 head were to 
 some extent 
 fixed lines. 
 They helped 
 to make him 
 look oldef 
 than his age 
 he was not 
 forty and 
 
 tney gathered into a fierce frown as his elbow was 
 
 softly touched by his little son, 
 
6 DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI. 
 
 The child was defiantly like his father, even to a 
 knitted brow, for his whole face was crumpled with 
 the vigor of some resolve which he found it hard 
 to keep, and which was symbolized by his holding 
 the little red tip of his tongue betwixt finger and 
 thumb. 
 
 " Put your hands down, Leonard ! Put your tongue 
 in, sir! What are you after? What do you want? 
 What are you doing here? Be off to the nursery, 
 and tell Jemima to keep you there. Your mother 
 and I are busy." 
 
 Far behind the boy, on the wall, hung the portrait 
 of one of his ancestors a youth of sixteen. The 
 painting was by Vandyck, and it was the most valu- 
 able of the many valuable things that strewed and 
 decorated the room. A very perfect example of the 
 great master's work, and uninjured by Time. The 
 young Cavalier's face was more interesting than hand- 
 some, but so eager and refined that, set off as it was 
 by pale-hued satin and falling hair, he might have 
 been called effeminate, if his brief life, which ended 
 on the field of Naseby, had not done more than 
 common to prove his manhood. A coat-of-arms, 
 blazoned in the corner of the painting, had some ap- 
 pearance of having been added later. Below this 
 was rudely inscribed, in yellow paint, the motto 
 which also decorated the elaborate stone mantlepiece 
 opposite Lcetus sorte mea. 
 
 Leonard was very fond of that picture. It was 
 known to his childish affections as " Uncle Rupert." 
 
DULCE ET DECORUM EST PRO PATRIA MORI. 7 
 
 He constantly wished that he could get into the frame 
 and play with the dog the dog with the upturned 
 face and melancholy eyes, and odd resemblance to a 
 long-haired Cavalier on whose faithful head Uncle 
 Rupert's slender fingers perpetually reposed. 
 
 Though not able to play with the dog, Leonard did 
 play with Uncle Rupert the game of trying to get 
 out of the reach of his eyes. 
 
 " I play * Puss-in-the-corner ' with him," the child 
 was wont to explain ; " but whichever corner I get 
 into, his eyes come after me. The dog looks at 
 Uncle Rupert always, and Uncle Rupert always looks 
 at me." 
 
 . ..." To see if you are growing up a good boy 
 and a gallant young gentleman, such as he was." 
 So Leonard's parents and guardians explained the 
 matter to him, and he devoutedly believed them. 
 
 Many an older and less credulous spectator stood 
 in the light of those painted eyes, and acknowledged 
 their spell. Very marvellous was the cunning which, 
 by dabs and streaks of color, had kept the spirit of 
 this long dead youth to gaze at his descendants from 
 a sheet of canvas and stir the sympathy of strangers, 
 parted by more than two centuries from his sorrows, 
 with the mock melancholy of painted tears. For 
 whether the painter had just overdone some trick of 
 representing their liquidness, or whether the boy's 
 eyes had brimmed over as he was standing for his 
 portrait (his father and elder brother had died in the 
 civil war before him), there remains no tradition to 
 
8 WORD AND HONOR. 
 
 tell. But Vandyck never painted a portrait fuller of 
 sad dignity, even in those troubled times. 
 
 Happily for his elders, Leonard invented for him- 
 self a reason for the obvious tears. 
 
 " I believe Uncle Rupert knew that they were going 
 to chop the poor king 's head off, and that 's why he 
 looks as if he were going to cry." 
 
 It was partly because the child himself looked as if 
 he were going to cry and that not fractiously, but 
 despite a struggle with himself that, as he stood 
 before the Master of the House, he might have been 
 that other master of the same house come to life 
 again at six years of age. His long, fair hair, the 
 pliable, nervous fingers, which he had put down as he 
 was bid, the strenuous tension of his little figure un- 
 der a sense of injustice, and, above all, his beautiful 
 eyes, in which the tears now brimmed over the eye- 
 lashes as the waters of a lake well up through the 
 reeds that fringe its banks. He was very very like 
 Uncle Rupert when he turned those eyes on his 
 mother in mute reproach. 
 
 Lady Jane came to his defence. 
 
 " I think Leonard meant to be good. I made him 
 promise me to try and cure himself of the habit 
 of speaking to you when you are speaking to some 
 one else. But, dear Leonard" (and she took the 
 hand that had touched his father's elbow), " I don't 
 think you were quite on honor when you inter- 
 rupted Father with this hand, though you were hold- 
 ing your tongue with the other. That is what we 
 
WORD AND HONOR. 9 
 
 call keeping a promise to the ear and breaking it to 
 the sense." 
 
 All the Cavalier dignity came unstarched in Leon- 
 ard's figure. With a red face, he answered bluntly, 
 " I 'm very sorry. I meant to keep my promise." 
 
 " Next time keep it well, as a gentleman should 
 Now, what do you want? " 
 
 " Pencil and paper, please." J 
 
 "There they are. Take them to the nursery, as 
 Father told you." 
 
 Leonard looked at his father. He had not been 
 spoilt for six years by an irritable and indulgent par- 
 ent without learning those arts of diplomacy in which 
 children quickly become experts. 
 
 " Oh, he can stay," said the Master of the House, 
 " and he may say a word now and then, if he does n't 
 talk too much. Boys can't sit mumchance always 
 can they, Len? There; kiss your poor old father, 
 and get away, and keep quiet." 
 
 Lady Jane made one of many fruitless efforts on 
 behalf of discipline. 
 
 " I think, dear, as you told him to go, he had better 
 go now." 
 
 " He will go, pretty sharp, if he is n't good. Now, 
 for pity's sake, let 's talk out this affair, and let me get 
 back to my work." 
 
 " Have you been writing poetry this morning, 
 Father dear?" Leonard inquired, urbanely. 
 
 He was now lolling against a writing-table of the 
 first empire, where sheets of paper lay like fallen 
 
IO CROSS QUESTIONS 
 
 leaves among Japanese bronzes, old and elaborate 
 candlesticks, grotesque letter-clips and paper-weights, 
 quaint pottery, big seals, and spring flowers in slender 
 -Venetian glasses of many colors. 
 
 " I wrote three lines, and was interrupted four 
 times," replied his sire, with bitter brevity. 
 
 " I think /'// write some poetry. I don't mind be- 
 ing interrupted. May I have your ink?" 
 
 " No, you may not ! " roared the Master of the 
 House and of the inkpot of priceless china 
 which Leonard had seized. " Now, be off to the 
 nursery !" 
 
 " I won't touch anything. I am going to draw out 
 of the window/' said Leonard, calmly. 
 
 He had practised the art of being troublesome to 
 the verge of expulsion ever since he had had a whim 
 of his own, and as skilfully as he played other games. 
 He was seated among the cushions of the oriel win- 
 dow-seat (colored rays from coats-of-arms in the 
 upper panes falling on his fair hair with a fanciful 
 effect of canonizing him for his sudden goodness) 
 almost before his father could reply. 
 
 " I advise you to stay there, and to keep quiet." 
 Lady Jane took up the broken thread of conversation 
 in despair, 
 
 " Have you ever seen him? " 
 
 "Yes; years ago." 
 
 " You know I never saw either. Your sister was 
 much older than you ; was n't she? " 
 
 " The shadows move so on the grass, and the elms 
 
AND CROOKED ANSWERS. II 
 
 have so many branches, I think I shall turn round and 
 draw the fireplace" murmured Leonard. 
 
 " Ten years. You may be sure, if I had been 
 grown up I should never have allowed the marriage 
 I cannot think what possessed my father " 
 
 " / am doing the inscription! I can print Old Eng- 
 lish. What does L. diphthong ;E. T. U. S. mean?" 
 said Leonard. 
 
 " It means joyful, contented, happy. I was at Eton 
 at the time. Disastrous ill-luck ! " 
 
 " Are there any children?" 
 
 " One son. And to crown all, his regiment is at 
 Asholt. Nice family party ! " 
 
 " A young man ! Has he been well brought up? '* 
 
 " What does " 
 
 " Will you hold your tongue, Leonard? Is he 
 likely to have been well brought up? However, he's 
 ' in the Service,' as they say. I wish it did n't make 
 one think of flunkies, what with the word service, 
 and the liveries (I mean uniforms), and the legs, and 
 shoulders, and swagger, and tag-rags, and epaulettes, 
 and the fatiguing alertness and attentiveness of ' men 
 in the Service.' " 
 
 The Master of the House spoke with the pettish 
 accent of one who says what he does not mean, 
 partly for lack of something better to do, and partly 
 to avenge some inward vexation upon his hearers. 
 He lounged languidly on a couch, but Lady Jane sat 
 upright, and her eyes gave an unwonted flash. She 
 came of an ancient Scottish race, that had shed its 
 
12 CROSS QUESTIONS, ETC. 
 
 blood like water on many a battle-field, generations 
 before the family of her English husband had become 
 favorites at the Court of the Tudors. 
 
 " I have so many military belongings, both in the 
 past and the present, that I have a respect for the 
 Service " 
 
 He got up, and patted her head, and smiled. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, my child. Et ego " and he 
 looked at Uncle Rupert, who looked sadly back 
 again : " but you must make allowances for me. 
 Asholt Camp has been a thorn in my side from 
 the first. And now to have the barrack-master, and 
 the youngest subaltern of a marching regiment " 
 
 " He's our nephew, Rupert! " 
 
 " Mine not yours. You Ve nothing to do with 
 him, thank goodness." 
 
 " Your people are my people. Now do not worry 
 yourself. Of course I shall call on your sister at 
 once. Will they be here for some time? " 
 
 " Five years, you may depend. He 's just the sort 
 of man to wedge himself into a snug berth at Ash- 
 olt. You're an angel, Jane; you always are. But 
 fighting ancestors are one thing, a barrack-master 
 brother-in-law is another." 
 
 " Has he done any fighting? " 
 
 " Oh dear, yes ! Bemedalled like that Guy Fawkes 
 General in the pawnbroker's window, that Len was so 
 charmed by. But, my dear, I assure you " 
 
 " / only just want to know what S. O. R. T. E. 
 M. E. A. means? Leonard hastily broke in. "f've 
 
THEN WOULD HE SING ACHIEVEMENTS HIGH 13 
 
 done it all now> and shdrit want to know anything 
 more." 
 
 " Sorte mea is Latin for My fate -, or My lot in life. 
 Lcetus sorte mea means Happy in my lot. It is out 
 family motto. Now, if you ask ancther question, ojff 
 you go ! After all, Jane, you must allow it 's about 
 as hard lines as could be, to have a few ancestral 
 acres and a nice old place in ,one of the quietest, 
 quaintest corners of Old England ; and for Govern- 
 ment to come and plant a Camp of Instruction, as 
 they call it, and pour in tribes of savages in war- 
 paint to build wigwams within a couple of miles of 
 your lodge-gates ! " 
 
 She laughed heartily. 
 
 "Dear Rupert! You are a born poet! You do 
 magnify your woes so grandly. What was the 
 brother-in-law like when you saw him?" 
 
 " Oh, the regular type. Hair cut like a pauper, 
 or a convict" (the Master of the House tossed 
 his own locks as he spoke), "big, swaggering sort of 
 fellow, swallowed the poker and not digestejd it, rather 
 good features, acclimatized complexion, tight fit of 
 hot-red cloth, and general pipeclay." 
 
 " Then he must be the Sapper ! " Leonard announced, 
 as he advanced with a firm step and kindling eyes 
 from the window. "Jemima's other brother is a 
 Gunner. He dresses in blue. But they both pipe- 
 clay their gloves, and I pipeclayed mine this morn- 
 ing, when she did the hearth. You Ve no idea how 
 nasty they look whilst it's wet, but they dry as white 
 
14 AND CIRCUMSTANCE OF CHIVALRY. 
 
 as snow, only mine fell among the cinders. The 
 Sapper is very kind, both to her and to me He 
 gave her a brooch, and he is making me a wooden 
 fort to put my cannon in. But the Gunner is such 
 a funny man ! I said to him, ' Gunner ! why do you 
 wear white gloves?' and he said, 'Young gentleman, 
 why does a miller wear a white hat?' He's very 
 funny. But I think I like the tidy one best of all. 
 He is so very beautiful, and I should think he must 
 be very brave." 
 
 That Leonard was permitted to deliver himself of 
 this speech without a check can only have been due 
 to the paralyzing nature of the shock which it in- 
 flicted on his parents, and of which he himself was 
 pleasantly unconscious. His whole soul was in the 
 subject, and he spoke with a certain grace and direct- 
 ness of address, and with a clear and facile enuncia- 
 tion, which were among the child's most conspicuous 
 marks of good breeding. 
 
 " This is nice ! " said the Master of the House be- 
 tween his teeth with a deepened scowl. 
 
 The air felt stormy, and Leonard began to coax. 
 He laid his curls against his father's arm, and asked, 
 " Did you ever see a tidy one, Father dear? He is a 
 very splendid sort of man." 
 
 "What nonsense are you talking? What do you 
 mean by a tidy one?" 
 
 There was no mistake about the storm now; and 
 Leonard began to feel helpless, and, as usual in such 
 circumstances, turned to Lady Jane. 
 
THEN WOULD HE SING, ETC. 15 
 
 Mother told me ! " he gasped. 
 
 The Master of the House also turned to Lady Jane. 
 
 "Do you mean you have heard of this before?" 
 
 She shook her head, and he seized his son by the 
 shoulder. 
 
 " If that woman has taught you to tell untruths " 
 
 Lady Jane firmly interposed. 
 
 "Leonard never tells untruths, Rupert. Please 
 don't frighten him into doing so. Now, Leonard, 
 don't be foolish and cowardly. Tell Mother quite 
 bravely all about it. Perhaps she has forgotten." 
 
 The child was naturally brave ; but the elements of 
 excitement and uncertainty in his up-bringing were 
 producing their natural results in a nervous and un- 
 equable temperament. It is not the least serious of 
 the evils of being " spoilt," though, perhaps, the 
 most seldom recognized. Many a fond parent justly 
 fears to overdo " lessons," who is surprisingly blind 
 to the brain-fag that comes from the strain to live at 
 grown-up people's level ; and to the nervous exhaust- 
 ion produced in children, no less than in their elders, 
 by indulged restlessness, discontent, and craving for 
 fresh excitement, and for want of that sense of power 
 and repose which comes with habitual obedience to 
 righteous rules and regulations. Laws that can be 
 set at nought are among the most demoralizing of 
 influences which can curse a nation ; and their effects 
 are hardly less disastrous in the nursery. Moreover, 
 an uncertain discipline is apt to take even the spoilt 
 by surprise : and as Leonard seldom fully understood 
 
1 6 WITH BURNISHED BRAND AND MUSKETOON. 
 
 the checks he did receive, they unnerved him. He 
 was unnerved now; and, even with his hand in that 
 of his mother, he stammered over his story with 
 ill-repressed sobs and much mental confusion. 
 
 "W we met him out walking. I m mean we 
 were out walking. He was out riding. He looked 
 like a picture in my t t tales from Froissart. He 
 had a very curious kind of a helmet n not quite 
 a helmet, and a beautiful green feather at least, 
 n not exactly a feather and a beautiful red waist- 
 coat, only n not a real waistcoat, b but 
 
 " Send him to bed ! " roared the Master of the 
 House. " Don't let him prevaricate any more ! " 
 
 " No, Rupert, please ! I wish him to try and give 
 a straight account. Now, Leonard, don't be a baby ; 
 but go on and tell the truth, like a brave boy." 
 
 Leonard desperately proceeded, sniffing as he did 
 so. 
 
 "He c carried a spear, like an old warrior. He 
 truthfully did. On my honor ! One end was on the 
 tip of his foot, and there was a flag at the other end 
 a real fluttering pennon there truthfully was! 
 He does poke with his spear in battle, I do believe ; 
 but he did n't poke us. He was b b beautiful to 
 b b be hold ! I asked Jemima, ' Is he another 
 brother, for you do have such very nice brothers ? r 
 and she said, ' No, he 's ' " 
 
 " Hang Jemima ! " said the Master of the House. 
 " Now listen to me. You said your mother told you. 
 What did she tell you ? " 
 
WITH BURNISHED BRAND AND MUSKETOO<M. 17 
 
 " Je Je Jemima said, ' No, he 's a* Orderly ; f 
 and asked the way I qu quite forget where to 
 I truthfully do. And next morning I asked Mother 
 what does Orderly mean? And she said tidy. So I 
 call him the tidy one. Dear Mother, you truthfully 
 did at least," added Leonard chivalrously, as Lady 
 Jane's face gave no response, " at least, if you've 
 forgotten, never mind : it 's my fault." 
 
 But Lady Jane's face was blank because she was 
 trying not to laugh. The Master of the House did 
 not try long. He bit his lip, and then burst into 
 a peal. 
 
 " Better say no more to him," murmured Lady Jane. 
 " I '11 see Jemima now, if he may stay with you." 
 
 He nodded, and throwing himself back on the 
 couch, held out his arms to the child. 
 
 "Well, that'll do. Put these men out of your 
 head, and let me see your drawing." 
 
 Leonard stretched his faculties, and perceived that 
 the storm was overpast. He clambered on to his 
 father's knee, and their heads were soon bent lovingly 
 together over the much-smudged sheet of paper, on 
 which the motto from the chimney-piece was irregu- 
 larly traced. 
 
 " You should have copied it from Uncle Rupert's 
 picture. It is in plain letters there." 
 
 Leonard made no reply. His head now lay back 
 on his father's shoulder, and his eyes were fixed on 
 the ceiling, which was of Elizabethan date, with fan- 
 tastic flowers in raised plaster-work. But Leonard 
 
 2 
 
1 8 THE LOT IS CAST INTO THE LAP: 
 
 did not see them at that moment. His vision was 
 really turned inwards. Presently he said, " I am try- 
 ing to think. Don't interrupt me, Father, if you 
 please." 
 
 The Master of the House smiled, and gazed com- 
 placently at the face beside him. No painting, no 
 china in his possession, was more beautiful. Sud- 
 denly the boy jumped down and stood alone, with his 
 hands behind his back, and his eyes tightly shut. 
 
 " I am thinking very hard, Father. Please tell me 
 again what our motto means." 
 
 " ' L&tus sorte mea, Happy in my lot.' What are 
 you puzzling your little brains about? " 
 
 " Because I know I know something so like it, and 
 I can't think what! Yes no! Wait a minute! 
 I've just got it! Yes, I remember now: it was my 
 Wednesday text ! " 
 
 He opened wide shining eyes, and clapped his 
 hands, and his clear voice rang with the added note 
 of triumph, as he cried, " ' The lot is fallen unto me 
 in a fair ground. Yea, I have a goodly heritage.' " 
 
 The Master of the House held out his arms without 
 speaking ; but when Leonard had climbed back into 
 them, he stroked the child's hair slowly, and said, " Is 
 that your Wednesday text?" 
 
 " Last Wednesday's. I learn a text every day. 
 Jemima sets them She says her grandmother made 
 her learn texts when she was a little girl. Now, 
 Father dear, I '11 tell you what I wish you would do : 
 and I want you to do it at once this very minute." 
 
THE DISPOSING THEREOF IS OF THE LORD. 19 
 
 " That is generally the date of your desires. What 
 is it?" 
 
 " I don't know what you are talking about, but I 
 know what I want. Now you and I are all alone to 
 our very selves, I want you to come to the organ, and 
 put that text to music like the anthem you made out 
 of those texts Mother chose for you, for the harvest 
 festival. I '11 tell you the words, for fear you don't 
 quite remember them, and I '11 blow the bellows. 
 You may play on all-fours with both your feet and 
 hands ; you may pull out trumpet handle ; you may 
 make as much noise as ever you like you '11 see 
 how I'll blow!" 
 
 
 
 Satisfied by the sounds of music that the two were 
 happy, Lady Jane was in no haste to go back to the 
 library; but when she did return, Leonard greeted 
 her warmly. 
 
 He was pumping at the bellows handle of the 
 chamber organ, before which sat the Master of the 
 House, not a ruffle on his brow, playing with " all- 
 fours," and singing as he played. 
 
 Leonard's cheeks were flushed, and he cried im- 
 patiently, 
 
 " Mother ! Mother dear ! I Ve been wanting you 
 ever so long ! Father has set my text to music, and 
 I want you to hear it ; but I want to sit by him and 
 sing too. So you must come and blow." 
 
 " Nonsense, Leonard ! Your mother must do noth- 
 ing of the sort. Jane ! listen to this ! In a fa ail 
 
2O THE LOT IS CAST, ETC. 
 
 gron nd. Bit of pure melody, that, eh ? The land 
 flowing with milk and honey seems to stretch before 
 one's eyes " 
 
 " No ! Father, that is unfair. You are not to tell 
 her bits in the middle. Begin at the beginning, and 
 Mother dear, will you blow, and let me sing? " 
 
 " Certainly. Yes, Rupert, please. I Ve done it 
 before ; and my back is n't aching to-day. Do let 
 me!" 
 
 "Yes, do let her," said Leonard, conclusively; and 
 he swung himself up into the seat beside his father 
 without more ado. 
 
 " Now, Father, begin ! Mother, listen ! And when 
 it comes to ' Yea? and I pull trumpet handle out, blow 
 as hard as ever you can. This first bit when 
 he only plays is very gentle, and quite easy to 
 blow." 
 
 Deep breathing of the organ filled a brief silence, 
 then a prelude stole about the room. Leonard's eyes 
 devoured his father's face, and the Master of the 
 House looking down on him, with the double com- 
 placency of father and composer, began to sing : 
 
 " ' The lot - the lot is fallen un-to me ; ' " and, his 
 mouth wide-parted with smiles, Leonard sang also : 
 " ' The lot the lot is fallen fallen unto me. 
 
 " ' In a fa air grou nd. 
 
 " ' Yea ! (Now, Mother dear, blow ! and fancy you 
 hear trumpets ! ) 
 
 " ' Yea ! YEA ! I have a good-ly Her i tage ! ' " 
 
 And after Lady Jane had ceased to blow, and the 
 
THE LOT IS CAST, ETC. 21 
 
 musician to make music, Leonard still danced and 
 sang wildly about the room. 
 
 " Isn't it splendid, Mother? Father and I made it 
 together out of my Wednesday text. Uncle Rupert, 
 can you hear it? I don't think you can. I believe 
 you are dead and deaf, though you seem to see." 
 
 And standing face to face with the young Cavalier, 
 Leonard sang his Wednesday text all through : 
 
 " ' The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground ; yea, I 
 have a goodly heritage.' " 
 
 But Uncle Rupert spoke no word to his young 
 kinsman, though he still " seemed to see " through 
 eyes drowned in tears. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 an acre of barren ground ; ling, heath, broom, furze, anything.** 
 
 Tempest, Act i. Scene f 
 
 " Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife 
 To all the sensual world proclaim, 
 One crowded hour of glorious life 
 Is worth an age without a name." 
 
 Scott. 
 
 AKE a High- 
 
 w a y m * n ' s 
 Heath. 
 
 Destroy ev- 
 ery vestige of 
 life with fire 
 and axe, from 
 the pine that 
 has longest 
 been a land- 
 mark, to the 
 smallest beetle 
 smothered in 
 smoking moss. 
 Burn acres 
 of purple and 
 pink heather, 
 
 and pare away the young bracken that springs verdant 
 
 from its ashes. 
 
CAMP AND COMRADES. 23 
 
 Let flame consume the perfumed gorse in all its 
 glory, and not spare the broom, whose more exquisite 
 yellow atones for its lack of fragrance. 
 
 In this common ruin be every lesser flower in- 
 volved: blue beds of speedwell by the wayfarer's 
 path the daintier milkwort, and rougher red rattle 
 down to the very dodder that clasps the heather, 
 let them perish, and the face > of Dame Nature be 
 utterly blackened ! Then : 
 
 Shave the heath as bare as the back of your hand, 
 and if you have felled every tree, and left not so much 
 as a tussock of grass or a scarlet toadstool to break 
 the force of the winds ; then shall the winds come, 
 from the east and from the west, from the north and 
 from the south, and shall raise on your shaven heath 
 clouds of sand that would not discredit a desert in the 
 heart of Africa. 
 
 By some such recipe the ground was prepared for 
 that Camp of Instruction at Asholt which was, as we 
 have seen, a thorn in the side of at least one of its 
 neighbors. Then a due portion of this sandy oasis in 
 a wilderness of beauty was mapped out into lines, with 
 military precision, and on these were built rows of 
 little wooden huts, which were painted a neat and 
 useful black. 
 
 The huts for married men and officers were of vary- 
 ing degrees of comfort and homeliness, but those for 
 single men were like toy-boxes of wooden soldiers; 
 it was only by doing it very tidily that you could (so 
 to speak) put your pretty soldiers away at night when 
 
24 CAMP AND COMRADES. 
 
 you had done playing with them, and get the lid to 
 shut down. 
 
 But then tidiness is a virtue which like Patience 
 is its own reward. And nineteen men who keep 
 themselves clean and their belongings cleaner ; who 
 have made their nineteen beds into easy chairs before 
 most people have got out of bed at all; whose tin 
 pails are kept as bright as average teaspoons (to the 
 envy of housewives and the shame of housemaids ! ) ; 
 who establish a common and a holiday side to the re- 
 versible top of their one long table, and scrupulously 
 scrub both ; who have a place for everything and a 
 discipline which obliges everybody to put everything 
 in its place ; nineteen men, I say, with such habits, 
 find more comfort and elbow-room in a hut than an 
 outsider might believe possible, and hang up a photo 
 graph or two into the bargain. 
 
 But it may be at once conceded to the credit of 
 the camp, that those who lived there thought bet- 
 ter of it than those who did not, and that those 
 who lived there longest were apt to like it best of 
 all. 
 
 It was, however, regarded by different people from 
 very opposite points of view, in each of which was 
 some truth. 
 
 There were those to whom the place and the life 
 were alike hateful. 
 
 They said that, from a soldier's stand-point, the life 
 was one of exceptionally hard work, and uncertain 
 stay, with no small proportion of the hardships and 
 
HARD LINES. 25 
 
 even risks of active service, and none of the more 
 glorious chances of war. 
 
 That you might die of sunstroke on the march, or 
 contract rheumatism, fever, or dysentery, under can- 
 vas, without drawing Indian pay and allowances ; and 
 that you might ruin your uniform as rapidly as in a 
 campaign, and never hope to pin a -ibbon over its 
 inglorious stains. 
 
 That the military society was too large to find 
 friends quickly in the neighborhood, and that as to 
 your neighbors in camp, they were sure to get march- 
 ing orders just when you had learnt to like them. And 
 if you did not like them ! (But for that matter, 
 quarrelsome neighbors are much the same every- 
 where. And a boundary road between two estates 
 will furnish as pretty a feud as the pump of a common 
 back-yard.) 
 
 The haters of the camp said that it had every 
 characteristic to disqualify it for a home ; that it was 
 ugly and crowded without the appliances of civiliza- 
 tion ; that it was neither town nor country, and had the 
 disadvantages of each without the merits of either. 
 
 That it was unshaded and unsheltered, that the 
 lines were monotonous and yet confusing, and every 
 road and parade-ground more dusty than another. 
 
 That the huts let in the frost in winter and the heat 
 in summer, and were at once stuffy and draughty. 
 
 That the low roofs were like a weight upon your 
 head, and that the torture was invariably brought to 
 a climax on the hottest of the dog-days, when they 
 
26 HARD LINES. 
 
 were tarred and sanded in spite of your teeth; a 
 process which did not insure their being water-tight 
 or snow-proof when the weather changed. 
 
 That the rooms had no cupboards, but an unusual 
 number of doors, through which no tall man could 
 pass without stooping. 
 
 That only the publicity and squalor of the back- 
 premises of the " Lines " their drying clothes, and 
 crumbling mud walls, their coal-boxes and slop-pails 
 could exceed the depressing effects of the gardens 
 in front, where such plants as were not uprooted by 
 the winds perished of frost or drought, and where, if 
 some gallant creeper had stood fast and covered 
 the nakedness of your wooden hovel, the Royal 
 Engineers would arrive one morning, with as little an- 
 nouncement as the tar and sand men, and tear down 
 the growth of years before you had finished shaving, 
 for the purpose of repainting your outer walls. 
 
 On the other hand, there were those who had a 
 great affection for Asholt, and affection never lacks 
 arguments. 
 
 Admitting some hardships and blunders, the defend- 
 ers of the Camp fell back successfully upon statistics 
 for a witness to the general good health. 
 
 They said that if the Camp was windy the breezes 
 were exquisitely bracing, and the climate of that 
 particular part of England such as would qualify it 
 for a health-resort for invalids, were it only situated 
 in a comparatively inaccessible part of the Pyrenees, 
 instead of being within an hour or two of London. 
 
SUAS HABITANS AMAT OSTREA VALVAS. 27 
 
 That this fact of being within easy reach of town 
 made the Camp practically at the head-quarters of 
 civilization and refinement, whilst the simple and 
 sociable ways of living, necessitated by hut-life in 
 common, emancipated its select society from rival 
 extravagance and cumbersome formalities. 
 
 That the Camp stood on the borders of the two 
 counties of England which rankTiighest on the books 
 of estate and house-agents, and that if you did not 
 think the country lovely and the neighborhood 
 agreeable you must be hard to please. 
 
 That, as regards the Royal Engineers, it was one 
 of your privileges to be hard to please, since you 
 were entitled to their good offices ; and if, after all, 
 they sometimes failed to cure your disordered drains 
 and smoky chimneys, you, at any rate, did not pay 
 as well as suffer, which is the case in civil life. 
 
 That low doors to military quarters might be re- 
 garded as a practical joke on the part of authorities, 
 who demand that soldiers shall be both tall and up- 
 right, but that man, whether military or not, is an 
 adaptable animal and can get used to anything ; and 
 indeed it was only those officers whose thoughts were 
 more active than their instincts who invariably crushed 
 their best hats before starting for town. 
 
 That huts (if only they were a little higher!) had a 
 great many advantages over small houses, which were 
 best appreciated by those who had tried drawing 
 lodging allowance and living in villas, and which would 
 be fully known if ever the Lines were rebuilt in brick. 
 
28 AUF WIEDER SEHN ! 
 
 That on moonlit nights the airs that fanned the. 
 silent Camp were as dry and wholesome as by day; 
 that the song of the distant nightingale could be 
 heard there; and finally, that from end to end of 
 *his dwelling-place of ten thousand to (on occasion) 
 twenty thousand men, a woman might pass at mid- 
 night with greater safety than in the country lanes of 
 a rural village or a police-protected thoroughfare of 
 the metropolis. 
 
 But, in truth, the Camp's best defence in the hearts 
 of its defenders was that it was a camp, military 
 life in epitome, with all its defects and all its charm ; 
 not the least of which, to some whimsical minds, is, 
 that it represents, as no other phase of society repre- 
 sents, the human pilgrimage in brief. 
 
 Here be sudden partings, but frequent reunions; 
 the charities and courtesies of an uncertain life lived 
 largely in common ; the hospitality of passing hosts 
 to guests who tarry but a day. 
 
 Here, surely, should be the home of the sage as 
 well as the soldier, where every hut might fitly carry 
 the ancient motto, " Dwell as if about to Depart,'* 
 where work bears the nobler name of duty, and 
 where the living, hastening on his business amid 
 " the hurryings of this life," 1 must pause and stand 
 to salute the dead as he is carried by. 
 
 Bare and dusty are the Parade Grounds, but they 
 are thick with memories. Here were blessed the 
 colors that became a young man's shroud that they 
 
 1 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
AUF WIEDER SEHN ! 2Q 
 
 might not be a nation's shame. Here march and 
 music welcome the coming and speed the oarting 
 regiments. On this Parade the rising sun is greeted 
 with gun-fire and trumpet clarions shriller than the 
 cock, and there he sets to a like salute with tuck of 
 drum. Here the young recruit drills, the warrior 
 puts on his medal, the old pensioner steals back 
 to watch them, and the soldiers' children play 
 sometimes at fighting or flag-wagging, 1 but oftener at 
 funerals ! 
 
 1 " Flag-wagging," a name among soldiers' children for " signal- 
 ling." 
 
Ut migraturus habita 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 (" Dwell as if about to Depart ") Old 
 
 House Motto. 
 
 HE barrack* 
 master's wife 
 was standing 
 in the porch 
 of her hut, 
 the sides of 
 which were 
 of the sim- 
 plest trellis- 
 | w o r k of 
 I" crossed fir- 
 poles, thro' 
 which she 
 could watch 
 the proceed- 
 ings of the 
 gardener 
 without bak- 
 ing herself in 
 the sun. Sud- 
 de nly she 
 snatched up 
 a green- 
 lined white 
 umbrella, that had seen service in India, and ran out. 
 
A FUNERAL; AND THIS HATH NOW HIS HEART. 31 
 
 " O'Reilly ! what is that baby doing? There ! that 
 white-headed child crossing the parade with a basket 
 in its little arms ! It 's got nothing on its head. Please 
 go and take it to its mother before it gets sunstroke.'* 
 
 The gardener was an Irish soldier an old soldier, 
 as the handkerchief depending from his cap, to pro- 
 tect the nape of his neck from the sun, bore witness. 
 He was a tall man, and stepped without ceremony 
 over the garden paling to get a nearer view of the 
 parade. But he stepped back again at once, and 
 resumed his place in the garden. 
 
 " He's Corporal Macdonald's child, madam. The 
 Blind Baby, they call him. Not a bit of harm will he 
 get. They 're as hard as nails the whole lot of them. 
 If I was to take him in now, he 'd be out before my 
 back was turned. His brothers and sisters are at the 
 school, and Blind Baby 's just as happy as the day is 
 long, playing at funerals all the time." 
 
 11 Blind ! Is he blind ? Poor little soul ! But he 's 
 got a great round potato-basket in his arms. Surely 
 they don't make that afflicted infant fetch and carry? " 
 
 O'Reilly laughed so heartily, that he scandalized 
 his own sense of propriety. 
 
 " I ask your pardon, madam. But there 's no fear 
 that Blind Baby '11 fetch and carry. Every man in 
 the Lines is his nurse." 
 
 " But what 's he doing with that round hamper as 
 big as himself? " 
 
 " It 's just a make-believe for the Big Drum, madam. 
 The Dead March is his whole delight. Twas only 
 
32 A FUNERAL; AND THIS HATH NOW HIS HEART. 
 
 yesterday I said to his father, 'Corporal,' I says, 
 'we'll live to see Blind Baby a band-master yet/ 1 
 says ; ' it 's a pure pleasure to see him beat out a 
 tune with his closed fist.' " 
 
 "Will I go and borrow a barrow now, madam?" 
 added O'Reilly, returning to his duties. He was 
 always willing and never idle, but he liked change 
 of occupation. 
 
 "No, no. Don't go away. We sha'n't want a 
 wheelbarrow till we Ve finished trenching this border, 
 and picking out the stones. Then you can take 
 them away and fetch the new soil." 
 
 " You 're at a deal of pains, madam, and it 's a 
 poor patch when all 's done to it." 
 
 " I can't live without flowers, O'Reilly, and the 
 Colonel says I may do what I like with this bare 
 strip." 
 
 " Ah ! Don't touch the dirty stones with youi 
 fingers, ma'am. I '11 have the lot picked in no time 
 at all." 
 
 "You see, O'Reilly, you can't grow flowers in sand 
 unless you can command water, and the Colonel tells 
 me that when it's hot here the water supply runs 
 short, and we mayn't water the garden from the 
 pumps." 
 
 O'Reilly smiled superior. 
 
 " The Colonel will get what water he wants, ma'am. 
 Never fear him ! There 's ways and means. Look 
 at the gardens of the Royal Engineers' Lines. In 
 the hottest of summer weather they're as green as 
 
EXPERIENCE KEEPS A DEAR SCHOOL. 33 
 
 Old Ireland; and it's not to be supposed that the 
 Royal Engineers can requisition showers from the 
 skies when they need them, more than the rest of 
 Her Majesty's forces." 
 
 " Perhaps the Royal Engineers do what I mean to do 
 take more pains than usual; and put in soil that 
 will retain some moisture. One can't make poor land 
 yield anything without pains, O'Reilly, and this is like 
 the dry bed of a stream all sand and pebbles." 
 
 " That 's as true a word as ever ye spoke, madam, 
 and if it were not that 't would be taking a liberty, I 'd 
 give ye some advice about gardening in Camp. It 's 
 not the first time I 'm quartered in Asholt, and I 
 know the ways of it." 
 
 " I shall be very glad of advice. You know I have 
 never been stationed here before." 
 
 " 'T is an old soldier's advice, madam." 
 
 " So much the better," said the lady, warmly. 
 
 O'Reilly was kneeling to his work. He now sat 
 back on his heels, and not without a certain dignity 
 that bade defiance to his surroundings he commenced 
 his oration. 
 
 " Please GOD to spare you and the Colonel, madam, 
 to put in his time as Barrack Master at this station, 
 ye '11 see many a regiment come and go, and be mak- 
 ing themselves at home all along. And anny one that 
 knows this place, and the nature of the soil, tear-rs 
 would overflow his eyes to see the regiments come for 
 drill, and betake themselves to gardening. Maybe 
 the boys have marched in footsore and fasting, in the 
 
 3 
 
34 EXPERIENCE KEEPS A DEAR SCHOOL. 
 
 hottest of weather, to cold comfort in empty quarters, 
 and they '11 not let many hours flit over their heads 
 before some of 'em '11 get possession of a load oi 
 green turf, and be laying it down for borders around 
 their huts. It 's the young ones I 'm speaking of; 
 and there ye '11 see them, in the blazing sun, with 
 their shirts open, and not a thing on their heads, 
 squaring and fitting the turfs for bare life, watering 
 them out of old pie-dishes and stable-buckets and 
 whatnot, singing and whistling, and fetching and 
 carrying between the pump and their quarters, just 
 as cheerful as so many birds building their nests in 
 the spring." 
 
 " A very pretty picture, O'Reilly. Why should it 
 bring tears to your eyes? An old soldier like you 
 must know that one would never have a home in 
 quarters at all if one did not begin to make it at 
 once." 
 
 " True for you, madam. Not a doubt of it. But 
 it goes to your heart to see labor thrown away ; and 
 it 's not once in a hundred times that grass planted 
 like that will get hold of a soil like this, and the boys 
 themselves at drill all along, or gone out under can* 
 vas in Bottomless Bog before the week's over, as 
 likely as not." 
 
 " That would be unlucky. But one must take one's 
 luck as it comes. And you Ve not told me, now, 
 what you do advise for Camp Gardens." 
 
 " That 's just what I 'm coming to, ma'am. See the 
 old soldier! What does he do? Turns the bucket 
 
BEANS IN THE MUD 'LL GROW LIKE WOOD. 35 
 
 upside down outside his hut, and sits on it, with a cap 
 on his head, and a handkerchief down his back, and 
 some tin tacks, and a ball of string: trust a soldier's 
 eye to get the lines straight every one of them 
 beginning on the ground and going nearly up to the- 
 reof." 
 
 " For creepers, I suppose? What does the ok 
 soldier plant? " 
 
 "Beans, madam scarlet runners. These are th< 
 things for Asholt. A few beans are nothing in you-, 
 baggage. They like a warm place, and when they 'r 
 on the sunny side of a hut they've got it, and nt 
 mistake. They're growing while you're on duty. 
 The flowers are the right soldier's color; and when U 
 comes to the beans, ye may put your hand out of the 
 window and gather them, and no trouble at all." 
 
 " The old soldier is very wise ; but I think I must 
 have more flowers than that. So I plant, and if they 
 die I am very sorry; and if they live, and other 
 people have them, I try to be glad. One ought to 
 learn to be unselfish, O'Reilly, and think of one's 
 successors." 
 
 " And that 's true, madam ; barring that I never 
 knew any one's successor to have the same fancies as 
 himself: one plants trees to give shelter, and the rcxt 
 cuts them down to let in the air." 
 
 " Well, I suppose the only way is to be prepared 
 for the worst. The rose we planted yesterday by the 
 porch is a great favorite of mine ; but the /"Jolonel 
 calls it ' Marching Orders/ It used to grow c i/er my 
 
36 BRING FLOWERS THAT SAD EMBROIDERY WEAR. 
 
 window in my old home, and I have planted it by 
 every home I have had since; but the Colonel says 
 whenever it settled and began to flower the regiment 
 got the route." 
 
 "The Colonel must name it again, madam," said 
 O'Reilly, gallantly, as he hitched up the knees of his 
 trousers, and returned to the border. "It shall be 
 ' Standing Orders ' now, if soap and water can make 
 it blossom, and I 'm spared to attend to it all the time. 
 Many a hundred roses may you and the Colonel pluck 
 from it, and never one with a thorn ! " 
 
 "Thank you, O'Reilly; thank you very much. 
 Soapy water is very good for roses, I believe?" 
 
 " It is so, madam. I put in a good deal of my 
 time as officer's servant after I was in the Connaught 
 Rangers, and the Captain I was with one time was as 
 fond of flowers as yourself. There was a mighty fine 
 rose-bush by his quarters, and every morning I had to 
 carry out his bath to it. He used more soap than 
 most gentlemen, and when he sent me to the town 
 for it 'It 's not for myself, O'Reilly,' he 'd say, ' so 
 much as for the Rose. Bring large tablets/ he 'd say, 
 * and the best scented ye can get The roses '11 be 
 the sweeter for it.' That was his way of joking, and 
 never a smile on his face. He was odd in many of 
 his ways, was the Captain, but he was a grand soldier 
 entirely; a good officer, and a good friend to his 
 men, and to the wives and children no less. The 
 regiment was in India when he died of cholera, in 
 twenty-four hours, do what I would. ' Oh, the cramp 
 
BRING FLOWERS THAT SAD EMBROIDERY WEAR. 37 
 
 in my legs, O'Reilly ! ' he says. ' GOD bless ye, 
 Captain,' says I ; ' never mind your legs ; I 'd manage 
 the cramp, sir,' I says, ' if I could but keep up your 
 heart.' ' Ye '11 not do that, O'Reilly,' he says, ' for all 
 your goodness ; I lost it too long ago.' That was his 
 way of joking, and never a smile on his face. 'Twas 
 a pestilential hole we were in, and that 's the truth ; 
 and cost Her Majesty more in lives than would have 
 built healthy quarters and given us every comfort; 
 but the flowers throve there if we did n't, and the 
 Captain's grave was filled till ye could n't get the 
 sight of him for roses. He was a good officer, and 
 beloved of his men ; and better master never a man 
 had ! " 
 
 As he ceased speaking, O'Reilly drew his sleeve 
 sharply across his eyes, and then bent again [to his 
 work, which was why he failed to see what the Bar- 
 rack Master's wife saw, and did not for some moments 
 discover that she was no longer in the garden. The 
 matter was this : 
 
 The Barrack Master's quarters were close to the 
 Iron Church, and the straight road that ran past both 
 was crossed, just beyond the church, by another 
 straight road, which finally led out to and joined a 
 country highway. From this highway an open car- 
 riage and pair were being driven into the camp as a 
 soldier's funeral was marching to church. The band 
 frightened the horses, who were got past with some 
 difficulty, and having turned the sharp corner, were 
 coming rapidly towards the Barrack Master's hut 
 
$8 BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER. 
 
 when Blind Baby, excited by the band, strayed from 
 his parade-ground, tumbled, basket and all, into the 
 ditch that divided it from the road, picked up himself 
 and his basket, and was sturdily setting forth across 
 the road just as the frightened horses came plunging 
 to the spot. 
 
 The Barrack Master's wife was not very young t 
 and not very slender. Rapid movements were not 
 easy to her. She was nervous also, and could never 
 afterwards remember what she did with herself in 
 those brief moments before she became conscious 
 that the footman had got to the horses' heads, and 
 that she herself was almost under their feet, with Blind 
 Baby in her arms. Blind Baby himself recalled her 
 to consciousness by the ungrateful fashion in which 
 he pummelled his deliverer with his fists and howled 
 for his basket, which had rolled under the carriage to 
 add to the confusion. Nor was he to be pacified till 
 O'Reilly took him from her arms. 
 
 By this time men had rushed from every hut and 
 kitchen, wash-place and shop, and were swarming to 
 the rescue, and through the whole disturbance, like 
 minute-guns, came the short barks of a black puppy, 
 which Leonard had insisted upon taking with him to 
 show to his aunt despite the protestations of his 
 mother : for it was Lady Jane's carriage, and this was 
 how the sisters met. 
 
 They had been sitting together for some time, so 
 absorbed by the strangeness and the pleasure of theii 
 
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER. 39 
 
 new relations that Leonard and his puppy had slipped 
 away unobserved, when Lady Jane, who was near the 
 window, called to her sister-in-law : " Adelaide, tell 
 me, my dear, is this Colonel Jones?" She spoke 
 with some trepidation. It is so easy for those unac- 
 quainted with uniforms to make strange blunders. 
 Moreover, the Barrack Master, though soldierly look- 
 ing, was so, despite a very unsoldierly defect. He 
 was exceeding stout, and as he approached the 
 miniature garden-gate, Lady Jane found herself gazv 
 ing with some anxiety to see if he could possibly get 
 through. 
 
 But O'Reilly did not make an empty boast when 
 he said that a soldier's eye was true. The Colonel 
 came quite neatly through the toy entrance, knocked 
 nothing down in the porch, bent and bared his head 
 with one gesture as he passed under the drawing-room 
 doorway, and bowing again to Lady Jane, moved 
 straight to the side of his wife. 
 
 Something in the action a mixture of dignity 
 and devotion, with just a touch of defiance went to 
 Lady Jane's heart. She went up to him and held out 
 both her hands : " Please shake hands with me, 
 Colonel Jones. I am so very happy to have found 
 a sister ! " In a moment more she turned round, 
 saying: "I must show you your nephew. Leon- 
 ard ! " But Leonard was not there. 
 
 " I fancy I have seen him already," said the Colonel. 
 " If he is a very beautiful boy, very beautifully dressed 
 in velvet, he 's with O'Reilly, watching the funeral." 
 
40 TOLL FOR THE BRAVE! 
 
 Lady Jane looked horrified, and Mrs. Jones looked 
 much relieved. 
 
 " He 's quite safe if he f s with O'Reilly. But give 
 me my sunshade, Henry, please; I dare say Lady 
 Jane would like to see the funeral too." 
 
 It is an Asholt amenity to take care that you miss 
 no opportunity of seeing a funeral. It would not 
 have occurred to Lady Jane to wish to go, but as her 
 only child had gone she went willingly to look for him. 
 As they turned the corner of the hut they came 
 straight upon it, and at that moment the "Dead 
 March" broke forth afresh. 
 
 The drum beat out those familiar notes which 
 strike upon the heart rather than the ear, the brass 
 screamed, the ground trembled to the tramp of feet 
 and the lumbering of the gun-carriage, and Lady 
 Jane's eyes filled suddenly with tears at the sight of 
 the dead man's accoutrements lying on the Union 
 Jack that serves a soldier for a pall. As she dried 
 them she saw Leonard. 
 
 Drawn up in accurate line with the edge of the 
 road, O'Reilly was standing to salute , and as near to 
 the Irish private as he could squeeze himself stood 
 the boy, his whole body stretched to the closest 
 possible imitation of his new and deeply-revered 
 friend, his left arm glued to his side, and the back of 
 his little right hand laid against his brow, gazing at 
 the pathetic pageant as it passed him with devouring 
 eyes. And behind them stood Blind Baby, beating 
 upon his basket. 
 
TOLL FOR THE BRAVE! 41 
 
 For the basket had been recovered, and Blind 
 Baby's equanimity also; and he wandered up and 
 down the parade again in the sun, long after the 
 soldier's funeral had wailed its way to the graveyard, 
 over the heather-covered hill. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ** My mind is in the anomalous condition of hating war, and loving 
 its discipline, which has been an incalculable contribution to the sen- 
 timent of duty . - . the devotion of the common soldier to his 
 leader (the sign for him of hard duty) is the type of all higher de 
 votedness, and is full of promise to other and better generations." 
 
 George Eliot. 
 
 OUR sister is 
 as nice as 
 nice can be, 
 Rupert; and I 
 like the Bar- 
 rack Master 
 very much, 
 too. He is 
 stout ! But he 
 is very active 
 and upright, 
 and his man- 
 ners to his wife 
 are wonderful- 
 ly pretty. Do 
 you know, 
 there is some- 
 thing to me 
 most touching 
 in the way 
 these two have 
 knocked 
 about the 
 world togeth- 
 er, and seem 
 so happy with 
 
BIRTH 'S GUDE, BUT BREEDING 'S BETTER. 43 
 
 so little. Cottagers could hardly live more simply, 
 and yet their ideas, or at any rate their experiences, 
 seem so much larger than one's own." 
 
 " My dear Jane ! if you Ve taken them up from the 
 romantic point of view all is, indeed, accomplished. 
 I know the wealth of your imagination, and the riches 
 of its charity. If, in such a mood, you will admit 
 that Jones is stout, he must be fat indeed ! Never 
 again upbraid me with the price that I paid for that 
 Chippendale arm-chair. It will hold the Barrack 
 Master." 
 
 "Rupert! I cannot help saying it it ought to 
 have held him long ago. It makes me miserable to 
 think that they have never been under our roof." 
 
 " Jane ! Be miserable if you must ; but, at least, be 
 accurate. The Barrack Master was in India when I 
 bought that paragon of all Chips, and he has only 
 come home this year. Nay, my dear ! Don't be 
 vexed. I give you my word, I 'm a good deal more 
 ashamed than I like to own to think how Adelaide 
 has been treated by the family with me as its head. 
 Did you make my apologies to-day, and tell her that 
 I shall ride out to-morrow and pay my respects to 
 her and Jones?" 
 
 " Of course. I told her you were obliged to go to 
 town, and I would not delay to call and ask if I could 
 be of use to them. I begged them to come here till 
 their quarters are quite finished; but they won't. 
 They say they are settled. I could not say much, 
 because we ought to have asked them sooner. He 
 
44 BIRTH 'S GUDE, BUT BREEDING 'S' BETTER. 
 
 is rather on his dignity with us, I think, and no 
 wonder." 
 
 " He 's disgustingly on his dignity ! They both 
 are. Because the family resented the match at rirst, 
 they have refused every kind of help that one would 
 have been glad to give him as Adelaide's husband, if 
 only to secure their being in a decent position. 
 Neither interest nor money would he accept, and 
 Adelaide has followed his lead. She has very little 
 of her own, unfortunately; and she knows how my 
 father left things as well as I do, and never would 
 accept a farthing more than her bare rights. I tried 
 some dodges, through Quills ; but it was of no use. 
 The vexation is that he has taken this post of Barrack 
 Master as a sort of pension, which need never have 
 been. I suppose they have to make that son an 
 allowance. It's not likely he lives on his pay. I 
 can't conceive how they scrub along." 
 
 And as the Master of the House threw himself into 
 the paragon of all Chips, he ran his fingers through 
 hair, the length and disorder of which would have 
 made the Barrack Master feel positively ill, with a 
 gesture of truly dramatic despair. 
 
 " Your sister has made her room look wonderfully 
 pretty. One would never imagine those huts could 
 look as nice as they do inside. But it's like play- 
 ing with a doll's house. One feels inclined to ex- 
 amine everything, and to be quite pleased that the 
 windows have glass in them, and will really open 
 and shut." 
 
NON EADEM MIRAMUR. 45 
 
 The Master of the House raised his eyebrows 
 funnily. 
 
 "You did take rose-colored spectacles with you to 
 the Camp ! " 
 
 Lady Jane laughed. 
 
 " I did not see the Camp itself through them. 
 What an incomparably dreary place it is ! It makes 
 me think of little woodcuts in missionary reports 
 * Sketch of a Native Settlement' rows of little 
 black huts that look, at a distance, as if one must 
 creep into them on all-fours ; nobody about, and an 
 iron church on the hill." 
 
 " Most accurately described ! And you wonder 
 that I regret that a native settlement should have 
 been removed from the enchanting distance of mis- 
 sionary reports to become my permanent neighbor." 
 
 " Well, I must confess the effect it produces on me 
 is to make me feel quite ashamed of the peace and 
 pleasure of this dear old place, the shade and green- 
 ery outside, the space above my head, and the lovely 
 things before my eyes inside (for you know, Rupert, 
 how I appreciate your decorative tastes, though I 
 have so few myself. I only scolded about the Chip 
 because I think you might have got him for less) 
 when so many men bred to similar comforts, and who 
 have served their country so well, with wives I dare 
 say quite as delicate as I am, have to be cooped up 
 in those ugly little kennels in that dreary place " 
 
 " What an uncomfortable thing a Scotch conscience 
 is ! " interrupted the Master of the House. " By-the 
 
46 NON EADEM MIRAMUR. 
 
 bye, those religious instincts, which are also character- 
 istic of your race, must have found one redeeming 
 feature in the Camp, the * iron church on the hill ; ' 
 especially as I imagine that it is puritanically ugly ! " 
 
 " There was a funeral going into it as we drove 
 into Camp, and I wanted to tell you the horses were 
 very much frightened." 
 
 "Richards fidgets those horses; they're quiet 
 enough with me." 
 
 "They did not like the military band." 
 
 " They must get used to the band and to other mili- 
 tary nuisances. It is written in the stars, as I too 
 clearly foresee, that we shall be driving in and out of 
 that Camp three days a-week. I can't go to my club 
 without meeting men I was at school with who are 
 stationed at Asholt, and expect me to look them up. 
 As to the women, I met a man yesterday who is 
 living in a hut, and expects a Dowager Countess and 
 her two daughters for the ball. He has given up his 
 dressing-room to the Dowager, and put two barrack- 
 beds into the coal-hole for the young ladies, he says. 
 It 's an insanity ! " 
 
 " Adelaide told me about the ball. The Camp 
 seems very gay just now. They have had theatricals ; 
 and there is to be a grand Field Day this week." 
 
 " So our visitors have already informed me. They 
 expect to go. Louisa Mainwaring is looking hand- 
 somer than ever, and I have always regarded her as 
 a girl with a mind. I took her to see the peep I 
 have cut opposite to the island, and I could not 
 
FIELD DAYS. 47 
 
 imagine why those fine eyes of hers looked so blank. 
 Presently she said, * I suppose you can see the Camp 
 from the little pine-wood?' And to the little pine- 
 wood we had to go. Both the girls have got stiff 
 necks with craning out of the carriage window to 
 catch sight of the white tents among the heather as 
 they came along in the train." 
 
 " I suppose we must take them to the Field Day ; 
 but I am very nervous about those horses, Rupert." 
 
 " The horses will be taken out before any firing be- 
 gins. As to bands, the poor creatures must learn, 
 like their master, to endure the brazen liveliness of 
 military music. It 's no fault of mine that our nerves 
 are scarified by any sounds less soothing than the 
 crooning of the wood pigeons among the pines ! " 
 
 No one looked forward to the big Field Day with 
 keener interest than Leonard ; and only a few privi- 
 leged persons knew more about the arrangements 
 for the day than he had contrived to learn. 
 
 O'Reilly was sent over with a note from Mrs. Jones 
 to decline the offer of a seat in Lady Jane's carriage 
 for the occasion. She was not very well. Leonard 
 waylaid the messenger (whom he hardly recognized 
 as a tidy one ! ), and O'Reilly gladly imparted all that 
 he knew about the Field Day : and this was a good 
 deal. He had it from a friend a corporal in the 
 Head Quarters Office. 
 
 As a rule, Leonard only enjoyed a limited popu- 
 larity with his mother's visitors. He was very pretty 
 and very amusing, and had better qualities even than 
 
48 OLD SOLDIERS. 
 
 these ; but he was restless and troublesome. On this 
 occasion, however, the young ladies suffered him to 
 trample their dresses and interrupt their conversation 
 without remonstrance. He knew more about the 
 Field Day than any one in the house, and, standing 
 jtmong their pretty furbelows and fancy-work in stiff 
 military attitudes, he imparted his news with an un- 
 successful imitation of an Irish accent. 
 
 " O'Reilly says the March Past '11 be at eleven 
 o'clock on the Sandy Slopes." 
 
 "Louisa, is that Major O'Reilly of the Rifles?" 
 
 " I don't know, dear. Is your friend O'Reilly in 
 the Rifles, Leonard?" 
 
 " I don't know. I know he 's an owld soldier he 
 told me so." 
 
 " Old, Leonard ; not owld. You must n't talk like 
 that." 
 
 " I shall if I like. He does, and I mean to." 
 
 " I dare say he did, Louisa. He 's always joking." 
 
 "No, he isn't. He didn't joke when the funeral 
 went past. He looked quite grave, as if he was say- 
 ing his prayers, and stood so" 
 
 " How touching ! " 
 
 " How like him ! " 
 
 " How graceful and tender-hearted Irishmen are ! " 
 
 " I stood so, too. I mean to do as like him as 
 ever I can. I do love him so very very much ! " 
 
 " Dear boy ! " 
 
 " You good, affectionate little soul ! " 
 
 " Give me a kiss, Leonard dear." 
 
OLD SOLDIERS. 49 
 
 " No, thank you. I 'm too old for kissing. He 's 
 going to march past, and he 's going to look out for 
 iae with the tail of his eye, and I 'm going to look 
 out for him." 
 
 " Do, Leonard ; and mind you tell us when you see 
 him coming." 
 
 "I can't promise. I might forget. But perhaps 
 you can know him by the good-conduct stripe on his 
 arm. He used to have two ; but he lost one all along 
 of St. Patrick's Day." 
 
 " That can't be your partner, Louisa ! " 
 
 " Officers never have good-conduct stripes." 
 
 " Leonard, you ought not to talk to common sol- 
 diers. You 've got a regular Irish brogue, and you 're 
 learning all sorts of ugly words. You'll grow up 
 quite a vulgar little boy, if you don't take care." 
 
 " I don't want to take care. I like being Irish, and 
 I shall be a vulgar little boy too, if I choose. But 
 when I do grow up, I am going to grow into an owld, 
 owld, Owld Soldier ! " 
 
 Leonard made this statement of his intentions in 
 his clearest manner. After which, having learned 
 that the favor of the fair is fickleness, he left the 
 ladies, and went to look for his Black Puppy. 
 
 The Master of the House, in arranging for his visit- 
 ors to go to the Field Day, had said that Leonard 
 was not to be of the party. He had no wish to en- 
 courage the child's fancy for soldiers : and as Leonard 
 was invariably restless out driving, and had a trick of 
 kicking people's shins in his changes of mood and 
 
 4 
 
JO LOVE ME, LOVE My DOG. 
 
 position, he was a most uncomfortable element in a 
 carriage full of ladies. But it is needless to say that 
 he stoutly resisted his father's decree ; and the child's 
 disappointment was so bitter, and he howled and wept 
 himself into such a deplorable condition, that the 
 young ladies sacrificed their own comfort and the 
 crispness of their new dresses to his grief, and peti- 
 tioned the Master of the House that he might be 
 allowed to go. 
 
 The Master of the House gave in. He was accus* 
 tomed to yield where Leonard was concerned. But 
 the concession proved only a prelude to another 
 struggle. Leonard wanted the Black Puppy to go 
 too. 
 
 On this point the young ladies presented no peti- 
 tion. Leonard's boots they had resolved to endure, 
 but not the dog's paws. Lady Jane, too, protested 
 against the puppy, and the matter seemed settled ; 
 but at the last moment, when all but Leonard were in 
 the carriage, and the horses chafing to be off, the 
 child made his appearance, and stood on the en- 
 trance-steps with his puppy in his arms, and an- 
 nounced, in dignified sorrow, " I really cannot go if 
 my Sweep has to be left behind." 
 
 With one consent the grown-up people turned to 
 look at him. 
 
 Even the intoxicating delight that color gives can 
 hardly exceed the satisfying pleasure in which beau- 
 tiful proportions steep the sense of sight ; and one is 
 often at fault to find the law that has been so exqui- 
 
LOVE ME, LOVE MY DOG. 51 
 
 sitely fulfilled, when the eye has no doubt of its own 
 satisfaction. 
 
 The shallow stone steps, on the top of which Leon- 
 ard stood, and the old doorway that framed him, had 
 this mysterious grace, and, truth to say, the boy's 
 beauty was a jewel not unworthy of its setting. 
 
 A holiday dress of crimson velvet, with collar and 
 ruffles of old lace, became him very quaintly ; and as 
 he laid a cheek like a rose-leaf against the sooty head 
 of his pet, and they both gazed piteously at the car 
 riage, even Lady Jane's conscience was stifled by 
 motherly pride. He was her only child, but as he 
 had said of the Orderly, " a very splendid sort of 
 one." 
 
 The Master of the House stamped his foot with an 
 impatience that was partly real and partly, perhaps, 
 affected. 
 
 "Well, get in somehow, if you mean to. The 
 horses can't wait all day for you." 
 
 No ruby-throated humming-bird could have darted 
 more swiftly from one point to another than Leonard 
 from the old gray steps into the carriage. Little boys 
 can be very careful when they choose, and he trode 
 on no toes and crumpled no finery in his flitting. 
 
 To those who know dogs, it is needless to say that 
 the puppy showed an even superior discretion. It 
 bore throttling without a struggle. Instinctively con- 
 scious of the alternative of being shut up in a stable 
 for the day, and left there to bark its heart out, it 
 shrank patiently into Leonard's grasp, and betrayed 
 
52 THE BEETLE IS A BEAUTY 
 
 no sign of life except in the strained and pleading 
 anxiety which a puppy's eyes so often wear. 
 
 "Your dog is a very good dog, Leonard, I must 
 say," said Louisa Mainwaring ; " but he 's very ugly. 
 I never saw such legs ! " 
 
 Leonard tucked the lank black legs under his 
 velvet and ruffles. "Oh, he's all right," he said. 
 " He '11 be very handsome soon. It 's his ugly mouth." 
 
 " I wonder you did n't insist on our bringing Uncle 
 Rupert and his dog to complete the party," said the 
 Master of the House. 
 
 The notion tickled Leonard, and he laughed so 
 heartily that the puppy's legs got loose, and required to 
 be tucked in afresh. Then both remained quiet for 
 several seconds, during which the puppy looked as 
 anxious as ever; but Leonard's face wore a smile of 
 dreamy content that doubled its loveliness. 
 
 But as the carriage passed the windows of the 
 library a sudden thought struck him, and dispersed 
 his repose. 
 
 Gripping his puppy firmly under his arm, he sprang 
 to his feet regardless of other people's and wav- 
 ing his cap and feather above his head he cried aloud, 
 " Good-bye, Uncle Rupert ! Can you hear me ? 
 Uncle Rupert, I say ! I am Icstus sorte meal " 
 
 All the Camp was astir. 
 
 Men and bugles awoke with the dawn and the birds, 
 and now the women and children of all ranks were on 
 the alert. (Nowhere does so large and enthusiastic a 
 
IN THE EYES OF ITS MOTHER. 53 
 
 crowd collect " to see the pretty soldiers go by," as 
 in those places where pretty soldiers live.) 
 
 Soon after gun-fire O'Reilly made his way from 
 his own quarters to those of the Barrack Master, 
 opened the back-door by some process best known 
 to himself, and had been busy for half an hour in 
 the drawing-room before his proceedings woke the 
 Colonel. They had been as noiseless as possible; 
 but the Colonel's dressing-room opened into the 
 drawing-room, his bedroom opened into that, and 
 all the doors and windows were open to court the 
 air. 
 
 "Who's there?" said the Colonel from his pillow. 
 
 " 'T is O'Reilly, Sir. I ask your pardon, Sir ; but 
 I heard that the Mistress was not well. She '11 be 
 apt to want the reclining-chair, Sir; and 'twas dam- 
 aged in the unpacking. I got the screws last night, 
 but I was busy soldiering 1 till too late ; so I come in 
 this morning, for Smith 's no good at a job of the 
 kind at all. He 's a butcher to his trade." 
 
 " Mrs. Jones is much obliged to you for thinking 
 of it, O'Reilly." 
 
 "'Tis an honor to oblige her, Sir. I done it sound 
 and secure. 'T is as safe as a rock ; but I 'd like to 
 nail a bit of canvas on from the porch to the other 
 side of the hut, for shelter, in case she 'd be sitting 
 out to taste the air and see the troops go by. T will 
 not take me five minutes, if the hammering would n't 
 
 1 " Soldiering " a barrack term for the furbishing up of accou 
 trements, etc 
 
54 FAIR LAUGHS THE MORN, 
 
 be too much for the Mistress. 'T is a hot day, Sir, 
 for certain, till the guns bring the rain down." 
 
 " Put it up, if you Ve time." 
 
 " I will, Sir. I left your sword and gloves on the 
 kitchen-table, Sir; and I told Smith to water the 
 rose before the sun 's on to it." 
 
 With which O'Reilly adjusted the cushions of the 
 invalid-chair, and having nailed up the bit of canvas 
 outside, so as to form an impromptu veranda, he ran 
 back to his quarters to put himself into marching 
 order for the Field Day. 
 
 The Field Day broke into smiles of sunshine too 
 early to be lasting. By breakfast time the rain came 
 down without waiting for the guns ; but those most 
 concerned took the changes of weather cheerfully, 
 as soldiers should. Rain damages uniforms, but it 
 lays dust; and the dust of the Sandy Slopes was 
 dust indeed ! 
 
 After a pelting shower the sun broke forth again, 
 and from that time onwards the weather was " Queen's 
 Weather," and Asholt was at its best. The sandy 
 Camp lay girdled by a zone of the verdure of early 
 summer, which passed by miles of distance, through 
 exquisite gradations of many blues, to meet the soft 
 threatening^ of the changeable sky. Those lowering 
 and yet tender rain-clouds which hover over the 
 British Isles, guardian spirits of that scantly recog- 
 nized blessing a temperate climate ; Naiads of the 
 waters over the earth, whose caprices betwixt storm 
 and sunshine fling such beauty upon a landscape as 
 
AND SOFT THE ZEPHYR BLOWS. 55 
 
 has no parallel except in the common simile of a fair 
 face quivering between tears and smiles. 
 
 Smiles were in the ascendant as the regiments 
 began to leave their parade-grounds, and the surface 
 of the Camp (usually quiet, even to dulness) sparkled 
 with movement. Along every principal road the 
 color and glitter of marching troops rippled like 
 streams, and as the band of one regiment died away 
 another broke upon the excited ear. 
 
 At the outlets of the Camp eager crowds waited 
 patiently in the dusty hedges to greet favorite regi- 
 ments, or watch for personal friends amongst the 
 troops ; and on the ways to the Sandy Slopes every 
 kind of vehicle, from a drag to a donkey-cart, and 
 every variety of pedestrian, from an energetic tourist 
 carrying a field-glass to a more admirably energetic 
 mother carrying a baby, disputed the highway with 
 cavalry in brazen breastplates, and horse-artillery 
 whose gallant show was drowned in its own dust. 
 
 Lady Jane's visitors had expressed themselves as 
 anxious not to miss anything, and troops were still 
 pouring out of the Camp when the Master of the 
 House brought his skittish horses to where a " block " 
 had just occurred at the turn to the Sandy Slopes. 
 
 What the shins and toes of the visitors endured 
 whilst that knot of troops of all arms disentangled 
 itself and streamed away in gay and glittering lines, 
 could only have been concealed by the supreme 
 powers of endurance latent in the weaker sex; for 
 with the si^ht of every fresh regiment Leonard 
 
56 STAND FAST, CRAIGELLACHIE I 
 
 changed his plans for his own future career, and with 
 every change he forgot a fresh promise to keep quiet, 
 and took by storm that corner of the carriage which 
 for the moment offered the best point of view. 
 
 Suddenly, through the noise and dust, and above 
 the dying away of conflicting bands into the distance, 
 there came another sound a sound unlike any other 
 the skirling of the pipes; and Lady Jane sprang 
 up and put her arms about her son, and bade him 
 watch for the Highlanders, and if Cousin Alan 
 looked up as he went past to cry " Hurrah for 
 Bonnie Scotland!" 
 
 For this sound and this sight the bagpipes and 
 the Highlanders a sandy-faced Scotch lad on the 
 tramp to Southampton had waited for an hour past, 
 frowning and freckling his face in the sun, and exas- 
 perating a naturally dour temper by reflecting on the 
 probable pride and heartlessness of folk who wore 
 such soft complexions and pretty clothes as the ladies 
 and the little boy in the carriage on the other side of 
 the road. 
 
 But when the skirling of the pipes cleft the air his 
 cold eyes softened as he caught sight of Leonard's 
 face, and the echo that he made to Leonard's cheer 
 was caught up by the good-humored crowd, who 
 gave the Scotch regiment a willing ovation as it 
 swung proudly by. After which the carriage moved 
 on, and for a time Leonard sat very still. He was 
 thinking of Cousin Alan and his comrades; of the 
 tossing plumes that shaded their fierce eyes ; of the 
 
STAND FAST, CRAIGELLACHIE ! 57 
 
 swing of kilt and sporran with their unfettered limbs ; 
 of the rhythmic tread of their white feet and the flutter- 
 ing ribbons on the bagpipes; and of Alan's hand- 
 some face looking out of his most becoming bravery. 
 
 The result of his meditations Leonard announced 
 with his usual lucidity : 
 
 " I am Scotch, not Irish, though O'Reilly is the 
 nicest man I ever knew. But I must tell him that I 
 really cannot grow up into an Owld Soldier, because 
 I mean to be a young Highland officer, and look at 
 ladies with my eyes like this and carry my sword 
 so!" 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Oh that a man might know the end of this day's business ere 
 comes ! " 
 
 Julius Casar. 
 
 EARS of liv- 
 ing amongst 
 soldiers had 
 increased, 
 rather than 
 diminished, 
 Mrs. Jones's 
 relish for the 
 sights and 
 sounds of mil 
 itary life. 
 
 The charm 
 of novelty is 
 proverbially 
 great, bufe 
 it is not so 
 powerful as 
 
 spell which 
 
 drew the retired tallow-chandler back to "shop" on 
 melting-days, and which guided the choice of the 
 sexton of a cemetery who only took one holiday 
 
THERE'S TROUBLE IN THE AIR. 59 
 
 trip in the course of seven years, and then he went 
 to a cemetery at some distance to see how they man- 
 aged matters there. And, indeed, poor humanity may 
 be very thankful for the infatuation, since it goes 
 far to make life pleasant in the living to plain folk 
 vho do not make a point of being discontented. 
 
 In obedience to this law of nature, the Barrack 
 Master's wife did exactly what O'Reilly had expected 
 her to do. As she could not drive to the Field Day, 
 she strolled out to see the troops go by. Then the 
 vigor derived from breakfast and the freshness of the 
 morning air began to fail, the day grew hotter, the 
 camp looked dreary and deserted, and, either from 
 physical weakness or from some untold cause, a 
 nameless anxiety, a sense of trouble in the air, began 
 to oppress her. 
 
 Wandering out again to try and shake it off, it was 
 almost a relief, like the solving of a riddle, to find 
 Blind Baby sitting upon his Big Drum, too low- 
 spirited to play the Dead March, and crying because 
 all the bands had " gone right away." Mrs. Jones 
 made friends with him, and led him off to her hut for 
 consolation, and he was soon as happy as ever, stand- 
 ing by the piano and beating upon his basket in 
 time to the tunes she played for him. But the day 
 and the hut grew hotter, and her back ached, and 
 the nameless anxiety reasserted itself, and was not 
 relieved by Blind Baby's preference for the Dead 
 March over every other tune with which she tried 
 to beguile him. 
 
fo THERE'S TROUBLE IN THE AIR. 
 
 And when he had gone back to his own Parade, 
 with a large piece of cake and many assurances that 
 
 the bands would undoubtedly return, and the day 
 wore on, and the hut became like an oven (in the ab- 
 sence of any appliances to mitigate the heat), the 
 Barrack Master's wife came to the hasty conclusion 
 that Asholt was hotter than India, whatever ther- 
 mometers might say; and, too weary to seek for 
 breezes outside, or to find a restful angle of the re- 
 clining-chair inside, she folded her hands in her lap 
 and abandoned herself to the most universal remedy 
 for most ills patience. And Patience was its own 
 reward, for she fell asleep. 
 
 Her last thoughts as she dozed off were of her hus- 
 l>.m<l and her son, wishing that they were safe home 
 
 again, that she might assure herself that it was not on 
 their account that there was trouble in the air. Then 
 she dreamed of being roused by the Colonel's voice 
 saying, "I have bad news to tell you " and 
 was really awakened by straining in her dream to 
 discover what hindered him from completing his 
 sentence. 
 
 She had slept some time it was now afternoon^ 
 and the air was full of sounds of the returning bands. 
 She went out into the road and saw the Barrack Mas- 
 ter (he was easy to distinguish at some distance ! ) 
 pause on his homeward way, and then she saw her 
 son running to join his father, with his sword under 
 his arm ; and they came on together, talking as 
 came. 
 
ROOSE THE FAIR DAY AT E'EN. 6 1 
 
 And as soon as they got within earshot she said, 
 " Have you bad news to tell me?" 
 
 The Colonel ran up and drew her hand within 
 his arm. 
 
 " Come indoors, dear Love." 
 
 "You are both well?' 1 
 
 " Both of us. Brutally so." 
 
 " Quite well, dear Mother." f 
 
 Her son was taking her other hand Into caressing 
 care ; there could be no doubt about the bad news. 
 
 " Please tell me what it is." 
 
 "There has been an accident " 
 
 "To whom?" 
 
 " To your brother's child ; that jolly little chap " 
 
 "Oh, Henry! how?" 
 
 " He was standing up in the carriage, I believe, 
 with a dog in his arms. George saw him when he 
 went past did n't you ? " 
 
 " Yes. I wonder he did n't fall then. I fancy some 
 one had told him it was our regiment. The dog was 
 struggling, but he would take off his hat to us " 
 
 The young soldier choked, and added with diffi- 
 culty, " I think I never saw so lovely a face. Poof 
 little cousin ! " 
 
 " And he overbalanced himself?" 
 
 " Not when George saw him. I believe it was 
 
 when the Horse Artillery were going by at the 
 
 gallop. They say he got so much excited, and th* 
 
 .dog barked, and they both fell. Some say there were 
 
 people moving a drag, and some that he fell under the 
 
62 ROOSE THE FAIR DAY AT E'EN. 
 
 horse of a patrol. Anyhow, I'm afraid he's very 
 much hurt. They took him straight home in an am- 
 bulance-wagon to save time. Erskine went with him. 
 I sent off a telegram for them for a swell surgeon 
 from town, and Lady Jane promised a line if I send 
 over this evening. O'Reilly must go after dinner and 
 wait for the news." 
 
 O'Reilly, sitting stiffly amid the coming and going 
 of the servants at the Hall, was too deeply devoured 
 by anxiety to trouble himself as to whether the foot- 
 man's survey of his uniform bespoke more interest 
 or contempt. But when just after gun-fire had 
 sounded from the distant camp Jemima brought 
 him the long-waited-for note, he caught the girl's 
 hand, and held it for some moments before he was 
 able to say, "Just tell me, miss; is it good news or 
 bad that I'll be carrying back in this bit of paper?" 
 And as Jemima only answered by sobs, he added, 
 almost impatiently, "Will he live, dear? Nod your 
 head if ye can do no more." 
 
 Jemima nodded, and the soldier dropped her hand, 
 drew a long breath, and gave himself one of those 
 shakes with which an Irishman so often throws off 
 care. 
 
 "Ah, then, dry your eyes, darlin'; while there's 
 life there 's hope." 
 
 But Jemima sobbed still. 
 
 " The doctor from London says he may live a 
 good while, but but he's to be a cripple all his 
 days ! " 
 
PORCELAIN OR BRICK YET BOTH CLAY. 63 
 
 "Now wouldn't I rather be meeting a tiger this 
 evening than see the mistress's face when she gets 
 that news ! " 
 
 And O'Reilly strode back to the camp. 
 
 Going along through a shady part of the road in 
 the dusk, seeing nothing but the red glow of the pipe 
 with which he was consoling himself, the soldier 
 stumbled against a lad sleeping >on the grass by the 
 roadside. It was the tramping Scotchman, and as he 
 sprang to his feet the two Kelts broke into a fiery dia- 
 logue that seemed as if it could only come to blows. 
 
 It did not. It came to the good-natured soldier's 
 filling the wayfarer's pipe for him. 
 
 " Much good may it do ye ! And maybe the next 
 time a decent man that's hastening home on the 
 wings of misfortune stumbles against ye, ye '11 not be 
 so apt to take offence." 
 
 " I ask your pardon, man ; I was barely wakened, 
 and I took ye for one of these gay red-coats bluster- 
 ing hame after a bloodless battle on the Field Day, as 
 they ca' it." 
 
 "Bad luck to the Field Day! A darker never 
 dawned ; and would n't a bloodier battle have spared 
 a child?" 
 
 " Your child ? What 's happened to the bairn ? " 
 
 " My child indeed ! And his mother a lady of title, 
 no less." 
 
 "What's got him?" 
 
 " Fell out of the carriage, and was trampled into a 
 cripple for all the days of his life. He that had set 
 
64 PORCELAIN OR BRICK YET BOTH CLAY. 
 
 as fine a heart as ever beat on being a soldier ; and a 
 grand one he 'd have made. ' Sure 't is a nobleman 
 ye '11 be/ says I. ' T is an owld soldier I mean to 
 be, O'Reilly/ says he. And " 
 
 "Fond of the soldiers his mother a leddy? 
 Man ! Had he a braw new velvet coat and the face 
 of an angel on him?" 
 
 " He had so." 
 
 "And I that thocht they'd all this warld could offer 
 them ! A cripple ? Ech, sirs ! " 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 * I will do it ... for I am weak by nature, and very timorous, 
 Unless where a strong sense of duty holdeth and supporteth me. 
 There God acteth, and not His creature." Lady Jane Grey. 
 
 EONARD was 
 to some extent a 
 spoiled child. 
 But it demands 
 a great deal of 
 unselfish fore- 
 sight, and of self- 
 discipline, to do 
 more for a beau- 
 tiful and loving 
 pet than play 
 with it. 
 
 And if his 
 grace and beau- 
 ty and high spin 
 its had been 
 strong tempta- 
 tions to give 
 him everything he desired, and his own way above 
 all, how much greater were the excuses for indulging 
 every whim when the radiant loveliness of health had 
 faded to the wan wistfulness of pain, when the young 
 
66 THE TYRANNY OF THE WEAK. 
 
 limbs bounded no more, and when his boyish hopes 
 and hereditary ambitions were cut off by the shears of 
 a destiny that seemed drearier than death? 
 
 As soon as the poor child was able to be moved 
 his parents took a place on the west coast of Scot- 
 land, and carried him thither. 
 
 The neighborhood of Asholt had become intoler- 
 able to them for some time to come, and a soft 
 climate and sea-breezes were recommended for his 
 general health. 
 
 Jemima's dismissal was revoked. Leonard flatly, 
 and indeed furiously, refused to have any other nurse. 
 During the first crisis a skilled hospital nurse was en- 
 gaged, but from the time that he fully recovered con- 
 sciousness he would receive help from no hands but 
 those of Jemima and Lady Jane. 
 
 Far older and wiser patients than he become ruth- 
 less in their demands upon the time and strength of 
 those about them; and Leonard did not spare his 
 willing slaves by night or by day. It increased their 
 difficulties and his sufferings that the poor child was 
 absolutely unaccustomed to prompt obedience, and 
 disputed the Doctor's orders as he had been accus- 
 tomed to dispute all others. 
 
 Lady Jane's health became very much broken, but 
 Jemima was fortunately possessed of a sturdy body 
 and an inactive mind, and with a devotion little less 
 than maternal she gave up both to Leonard's service. 
 
 He had a third slave of his bed-chamber a black 
 one the Black Puppy, from whom he had resolutely 
 
THE TYRANNY OF THE WEAK. 6? 
 
 refused to part, and whom he insisted upon having 
 upon his bed, to the Doctor's disgust. When months 
 passed, and the Black Puppy became a Black Dog, 
 large and cumbersome, another effort was made to 
 induce Leonard to part with him at night; but he 
 only complained bitterly. 
 
 " It is very odd that there cannot be a bed big 
 enough for me and my dog. I am an invalid, and I 
 ought to have what I want." 
 
 So The Sweep remained as his bedfellow. 
 
 The Sweep also played the part of the last straw 
 in the drama of Jemima*s life; for Leonard would 
 allow no one but his own dear nurse to wash his own 
 dear dog; and odd hours, in which Jemima might 
 have snatched a little rest and relaxation, were spent 
 by her in getting the big dog's still lanky legs into a 
 tub, and keeping him there, and washing him, and 
 drying and combing him into fit condition to spring 
 back on to Leonard's coverlet when that imperious 
 little invalid called for him. 
 
 It was a touching manifestation of the dog's intelli- 
 gence that he learned with the utmost care to avoid 
 jostling or hurting the poor suffering little body of 
 his master. 
 
 Leonard's fourth slave was his father. 
 
 But the Master of the House had no faculty for 
 nursing, and was by no means possessed of the pa- 
 tience needed to persuade Leonard for his good, So 
 he could only be with the child when he was fit to be 
 read or played to, and later on, when he was able to 
 
68 TO EACH HIS SUFFERINGS. 
 
 be out of doors. And at times he went away out 
 of sight of his son's sufferings, and tried to stifle 
 the remembrance of a calamity and disappoint- 
 ment, whose bitterness his own heart alone fully 
 knew. 
 
 After the lapse of nearly two years Leonard sud- 
 denly asked to be taken home. He was tired of the 
 shore, and wanted to see if The Sweep remembered 
 the park. He wanted to see if Uncle Rupert would 
 look surprised to see him going about in a wheel- 
 chair. He wanted to go to the Camp again, now the 
 doctor said he might have drives, and see if O'Reilly 
 was alive still, and his uncle, and his aunt, and his 
 cousin. He wanted father to play to him on their 
 own organ, their very own organ, and no, thank 
 you ! he did not want any other music now. 
 
 He hated this nasty place, and wanted to go home. 
 If he was going to live he wanted to live there, and 
 if he was going to die he wanted to die there, and 
 have his funeral his own way, if they knew a General 
 and could borrow a gun-carriage and a band. 
 
 He did n't want to eat or to drink, or to go to sleep, 
 or to take his medicine, or to go out and send The 
 Sweep into the sea, or to be read to or played to ; he 
 wanted to go home home home ! 
 
 The upshot of which was, that before his parents 
 had time to put into words the idea that the agonizing 
 associations of Asholt were still quite unendurable, 
 they found themselves congratulating each other on 
 having got Leonard safely home before he had cried 
 
TO EACH HIS SUFFERINGS. 69 
 
 himself into convulsions over twenty- four hours' 
 delay. 
 
 For a time, being at home seemed to revive him. 
 He was in less pain, in better spirits, had more appe- 
 tite, and was out a great deal with his dog and his 
 nurse. But he fatigued himself, which made him 
 fretful, and he certainly grew^more imperious every 
 day. 
 
 His whim was to be wheeled into every nook and 
 corner of the place, inside and out, and to show them 
 to The Sweep. And who could have had the heart 
 to refuse him anything in the face of that dread afflio 
 tion which had so changed him amid the unchanged 
 surroundings of his old home? 
 
 Jemima led the life of a prisoner on the tread-mill, 
 When she was n't pushing him about she was going 
 errands for him, fetching and carrying. She wag 
 " never off her feet." 
 
 He moved about a little now on crutches, though 
 he had not strength to be very active with them, a*, 
 some cripples are. But they became ready instru-- 
 ments of his impatience to thump the floor with one 
 end, and not infrequently to strike those who offended 
 him with the other. 
 
 His face was little less beautiful than of old, but it 
 looked wan and weird; and his beauty was of&A 
 marred by what is more destructive of beauty <,*\en 
 than sickness the pinched lines of peevishness and 
 ill-temper. He suffered less, but he looked wore 
 unhappy, was more difficult to please, and more 
 
70 STERN DAUGHTER OF THE 
 
 impatient with all efforts to please him. But then, 
 though nothing is truer than that patience is its own 
 reward, it has to be learned first. And, with children, 
 what has to be learned must be taught. 
 
 To this point Lady Jane's meditations brought her 
 one day as she paced up and down her own morning- 
 room, and stood before the window which looked 
 down where the elm-trees made long shadows on the 
 grass ; for the sun was declining, greatly to Jemima's 
 relief, who had been toiling in Leonard's service 
 through the hottest hours of a summer day. 
 
 Lady Jane had a tender conscience, and just now 
 it was a very uneasy one. She was one of those 
 somewhat rare souls who are by nature absolutely 
 true. Not so much with elaborate avoidance of 
 lying, or an aggressive candor, as straight-minded, 
 single-eyed, clear-headed, and pure-hearted; a soul 
 to which the truth and reality of things, and the 
 facing of things, came as naturally as the sham of 
 them and the blinking of them comes to others. 
 
 When such a nature has strong affections it is no 
 light matter if love and duty come into conflict. 
 They were in conflict now, and the mother's heart 
 was pierced with a two-edged sword. For if she 
 truly believed what she believed, her duty towards 
 Leonard was not only that of a tender mother to a 
 suffering child, but the duty of one soul to another 
 soul, whose responsibilities no man might deliver 
 him from, nor make agreement unto GOD that he 
 should be quit of them. 
 
VOICE OF GOD! O DUTY1 71 
 
 And if the disabling of his body did not stop the 
 developing, one way or another, of his mind ; if to 
 learn fortitude and patience under his pains was not 
 only his highest duty but his best chance of happi- 
 ness ; then, if she failed to teach him these, of what 
 profit was it that she would willingly have endured 
 all his sufferings ten times over that life might be all 
 sunshine for him? 
 
 And deep down in her truthful soul another 
 thought rankled. No one but herself knew how 
 the pride of her heart had been stirred by Leonard's 
 love for soldiers, his brave ambitions, the high spirit 
 and heroic instincts which he inherited from a long 
 line of gallant men and noble women. Had her 
 pride been a sham ? Did she only care for the cour- 
 age of the battle-field ? Was she willing that her son 
 should be a coward, because it was not the trumpet's 
 sound that summoned him to fortitude? She had 
 strung her heart to' the thought that, like many a 
 mother of her race, she might live to gird on his 
 sword; should she fail to help him to carry his cross? 
 
 At this point a cry came from below the window, 
 and looking out she saw Leonard, beside himself 
 with passion, raining blows like hail with his crutch 
 upon poor Jemima; The Sweep watching matters 
 nervously from under a garden seat. 
 
 Leonard had been irritable all day, and this was 
 the second serious outbreak. The first had sent the 
 Master of the House to town with a deeply-knitted 
 brow. 
 
72 HE THAT THOLES, OVERCOMES. 
 
 Vexed at being thwarted in some slight matter, 
 when he was sitting in his wheel-chair by the side of 
 his father in the library, he had seized a sheaf of 
 papers tied together with amber-colored ribbon, and 
 had torn them to shreds. It was a fair copy of the 
 first two cantos of The Soul's Satiety, a poem on which 
 the Master of the House had been engaged for some 
 years. He had not touched it in Scotland, and was 
 now beginning to work at it again. He could not 
 scold his cripple child, but he had gone up to London 
 in a far from comfortable mood. 
 
 And now Leonard was banging poor Jemima with 
 his crutches ! Lady Jane felt that her conscience 
 had not roused her an hour too soon. 
 
 The Master of the House dined in town, and 
 Leonard had tea with his mother in her very own 
 room ; and The Sweep had tea there too. 
 
 And when the old elms looked black against the 
 primrose-colored sky, and it had been Leonard's 
 bed-time for half an hour past, the three were to- 
 gether still. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Jemima, I am very sorry, and 
 I '11 never do so any more. I did n't want to beg your 
 pardon before, because I was naughty, and because 
 you trode on my Sweep's foot. But I beg your par- 
 don now, because I am good at least I am better, 
 and I am going to try to be good." 
 
 Leonard's voice was as clear as ever, and his man- 
 ner as direct and forcible. Thus he contrived to say 
 
HE THAT THOLES, O'ERCOMES. 73 
 
 so much before Jemima burst in (she was putting 
 him to bed). 
 
 " My lamb ! my pretty ! You 're always good " 
 "Don't tell stories, Jemima; and please don't con- 
 tradict me, for it makes me cross ; and if I am cross 
 I can't be good ; and if I am not good all to-morrow 
 I am not to be allowed to go downstairs after dinner. 
 And there 's a V. C. coming to dinner, and I do want 
 to see him more than I want anything else in all the 
 world." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 * What is ihere in the world to distinguish virtues from dishonor, 
 or that can rry,ke anything rewardable, but the labor and the danger, 
 the pain and '.he difficulty ? " Jeremy Taylor. 
 
 HE V. C. did 
 
 not look like 
 a bloodthirsty 
 warrior. He 
 had a smooth, 
 oval, olivart 
 face, and 
 dreamy eyes. 
 He was not 
 very big, and 
 he was abso- 
 lutely unpre- 
 tending. He 
 was a young 
 man, and only 
 by the cour- 
 tesy of his 
 manners es- 
 caped the im- 
 putation of being a shy young man. 
 
 Before the campaign in which he won his cross he 
 was most distinctively known in society as having a 
 
THE COURAGE TO BEAR, 75 
 
 very beautiful voice and a very charming way of 
 singing, and yet as giving himself no airs on the sub- 
 ject of an accomplishment which makes some men 
 almost intolerable by their fellow-men. 
 
 He was a favorite with ladies on several accounts, 
 large and small. Among the latter was his fastidious 
 choice in the words of the songs he sang, and sang 
 with a rare fineness of enunciation. 
 
 It is not always safe to believe that a singer means 
 what he sings ; but if he sing very noble words with 
 justness and felicity, the ear rarely refuses to flatter 
 itself that it is learning some of the secrets of a noble 
 heart. 
 
 Upon a silence that could be felt the last notes of 
 such a song had just fallen. The V. C.'s lips were 
 closed, and those of the Master of the House (who 
 had been accompanying him) were still parted with 
 a smile of approval, when the wheels of his chair and 
 some little fuss at the drawing-room door announced 
 that Leonard had come to claim his mother's promise. 
 And when Lady Jane rose and went to meet him, the 
 V. C. followed her. 
 
 ''There is my boy, of whom I told you. Leonard, 
 this is the gentleman you have wished so much to 
 see." 
 
 The V. C., who sang so easily, was not a ready 
 speaker, and the sight of Leonard took him by sur- 
 prise, and kept him silent. He had been prepared 
 to pity and be good-natured to a lame child who had 
 a whim to see him ; but not for this vision of rare 
 
76 AND THE COURAGE TO DARE 
 
 beauty, beautifully dressed, with crippled limbs lapped 
 in Eastern embroideries by his color-loving father, and 
 whose wan face and wonderful eyes were lambent with 
 an intelligence so eager and so wistful, that the creat- 
 ure looked less like a morsel of suffering humanity 
 than like a soul fretted by the brief detention of an 
 all-but-broken chain. 
 
 " How do you do, V. C.? I am \ ery glad to see 
 you. I wanted to see you more than anything in the 
 world. I hope you don't mind seeing me because I 
 have been a coward, for I mean to be brave now; 
 and that is why I wanted to see you so much, because 
 you are such a very brave man. The reason I was 
 a coward was partly with being so cross when my 
 back hurts, but particularly with hitting Jemima with 
 my crutches, for no one but a coward strikes a woman. 
 She trode on my dog's toes. This is my dog. Please 
 pat him ; he would like to be patted by a V. C. He 
 is called The Sweep because he is black. He lives 
 with me all along. I have hit kirn, but I hope I shall 
 not be naughty again any more. I wanted to grow 
 up into a brave soldier, but I don't think, perhaps, 
 that I ever can now; but mother says I can be a 
 brave cripple. I would rather be a brave soldier, but 
 I 'm going to try to be a brave cripple. Jemima says 
 there 's no saying what you can do till you try. Please 
 show me your Victoria Cross." 
 
 " It 's on my tunic, and that 's in my quarters in 
 Camp. I 'm so sorry." 
 
 " So am I. I knew you lived in Camp, I like the 
 
ARE REALLY ONE ANP THE SAME. 77 
 
 Camp, and I want you to tell me about your hut. 
 Do you know my uncle, Colonel Jones? Do you 
 know my aunt, Mrs. Jones? And my cousin, Mr. 
 Jones? Do you know a very nice Irishman, with 
 one good-conduct stripe, called O'Reilly? Do you 
 know my cousin Alan in the Highlanders? But I 
 believe he has gone away. I have so many things I 
 want to ask you, and oh ! those, ladies are coming 
 after us ! They want to take you away. Look at 
 that ugly old thing with a hook-nose and an eye-glass, 
 and a lace shawl and a green dress ; she 's just like 
 the Poll Parrot in the housekeeper's room. But she 's 
 looking at you. Mother ! Mother dear ! Don't let 
 them take him away. You did promise me, you 
 know you did, that if I was good all to-day I should 
 talk to the V. C. I can't talk to him if I can't have 
 him all to myself. Do let us go into the library, and 
 be all to ourselves. Do keep those women away, 
 particularly the Poll Parrot. Oh, I hope I sha'n't be 
 naughty ! I do feel so impatient ! I was good, you 
 know I was. Why does n't James come and show 
 my friend into the library, and carry me out of my 
 chair?' 1 
 
 "Let me carry you, little friend, and we'll run 
 away together, and the company will say, 'There 
 goes a V. C. running away from a Poll Parrot in a 
 lace shawl ! ' " 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! You are nice and funny. But can 
 you carry me? Take off this thing! Did you ever 
 carry anybody that had been hurt?" 
 
78 COURAGE TO BEAR AND DARE. 
 
 " Yes, several people much bigger than you." 
 
 "Men?" 
 
 " Men." 
 
 " Men hurt like me, or wounded in battle?" 
 
 "Wounded in battle." 
 
 " Poor things ! Did they die ? " 
 
 " Some of them." 
 
 "I shall die pretty soon, I believe. I meant 
 to die young, but more grown-up than this, and 
 in battle. About your age, I think. How old are 
 you?" 
 
 " I shall be twenty-five in October." 
 
 "That's rather old. I meant about Uncle Rupert's 
 age. He died in battle. He was seventeen. You 
 carry very comfortably. Now we 're safe ! Put me 
 on the yellow sofa, please. I want all the cushions, 
 because of my back. It 's because of my back, you 
 know, that I can't grow up into a soldier. I don't 
 think I possibly can. Soldiers do have to have such 
 very straight backs, and Jemima thinks mine will never 
 be straight again ' on this side the grave.' So I Ve got 
 to try and be brave as I am ; and that 's why I wanted 
 to see you. Do you mind my talking rather more 
 than you ? I have so very much to say, and I 've 
 only a quarter of an hour, because of its being long 
 past my bed-time, and a good lot of that has gone." 
 
 " Please talk, and let me listen." 
 
 " Thank you. Pat The Sweep again, please. He 
 thinks we 're neglecting him. That 's why he gets up 
 and knocks you with his head." 
 
TIS GOOD FOR MEN TO LOVE 79 
 
 " Poor Sweep ! Good old dog ! " 
 
 " Thank you. Now should you think that if I am 
 very good, and not cross about a lot of pain in my 
 back and my head really a good lot that that 
 would count up to be as brave as having one wound 
 if I'd been a soldier ?" 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " Mother says it would, and I think it might. Not 
 a very big wound, of course, but a poke with a spear, 
 or something of that sort. It is very bad sometimes, 
 particularly when it keeps you awake at night." 
 
 " My little friend, that would count for lying out all 
 flight wounded on the field when the battle 's over. 
 Soldiers are not always fighting." 
 
 " Did you ever lie out for a night on a battle- 
 field?" 
 
 " Yes, once." 
 
 " Did the night seem very long? " 
 
 " Very long ; and we were very thirsty." 
 
 " So am I sometimes, but I have barley-water and 
 lemons by my bed, and jelly, and lots of things. 
 You 'd no barley-water, had you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Nothing?" 
 
 " Nothing till the rain fell, then we sucked our 
 clothes." 
 
 " It would take a lot of my bad nights to count up 
 to that ! But I think when I 'm ill in bed I might 
 count that like being a soldier in hospital?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
8O THEIR PRESENT PAINS, UPON EXAMPLE s 
 
 "I thought no matter how good I got to be 
 nothing could ever count up to be as brave as a real 
 battle, leading your men on and fighting for your 
 country, though you know you may be killed any 
 minute. But Mother says, if I could try very hard 
 and think of poor Jemima as well as myself, and keep 
 brave in spite of feeling miserable, that then (particu- 
 larly as I sha'n't be very long before I do die) it would 
 be as good as if I 'd lived to be as old as Uncle Rupert, 
 and fought bravely when the battle was against me, 
 and cheered on my men, though I knew I could 
 never come out of it alive. Do you think it could 
 count up to that? Do you? Oh, do answer me, and 
 don't stroke my head ! I get so impatient. You Ve 
 been in battles do you? " 
 
 "I do, I do." 
 
 " You're a V. C., and you ought to know. I sup- 
 pose nothing not even if I could be good always, 
 from this minute right away till I die nothing could 
 ever count up to the courage of a V. C.?" 
 
 " GOD knows it could, a thousand times over ! " 
 
 " Where are you going? Please don't go. Look 
 at me. They're not going to chop the Queen's head 
 off, are they?" 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! What are you thinking about?" 
 
 "Why, because Look at me again. Ah ! you've 
 winked it away, but your eyes were full of tears; and 
 the only other brave man I ever heard of crying was 
 Uncle Rupert, and that was because he knew they 
 were going to chop the poor King's head off." 
 
SO IS THE SPIRIT EASED. 8 1 
 
 " That was enough to make anybody cry." 
 
 " I know it was. But do you know now, when I 'm 
 wheeling about in my chair and playing with him, 
 and he looks at me wherever I go ; sometimes for a 
 bit I forget about the King, and I fancy he is sorry 
 for me. Sorry, I mean, that I can't jump about, and 
 creep under the table. Under the table was the only 
 place where I could get out of the sight of his eyes. 
 Oh, dear ! There 's Jemima." 
 
 " But you are going to be good? " 
 
 " I know I am. And I 'm going to do lessons 
 again. I did a little French this morning a story. 
 Mother did most of it; but I know what the French 
 officer called the poor old French soldier when he 
 went to see him in a hospital." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Mon brave. That means ' my brave fellow.' A 
 nice name, wasn't it? " 
 
 " Very nice. Here 's Jemima." 
 
 " I 'm coming, Jemima. I 'm not going to be 
 naughty; but you may go back to the chair, for this 
 officer will carry me. He carries so comfortably. 
 Come along, my Sweep. Thank you so much. You 
 have put me in beautifully. Kiss me, please 
 Good night, V. C." 
 
 " Good night, mon brave." 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " ' I am a man of no strength at all of body, nor yet of mind ; but 
 would, if I could, though I can but crawl, spend my life in the pil- 
 grims' way. When I came at the gate that is at the head of the way, 
 the lord of that place did entertain me freely, . . . gave me such 
 things that were necessary for my journey, and bid me hope to the 
 end. . . . Other brunts I also look for ; but this I have resolved on, 
 to wit, to run when I can, to go when I cannot run, and to creep when 
 I cannot go. As to the main, I thank Him that loves me, I am fixed ; 
 my way is before me, my mind is beyond the river that has no bridge, 
 though I am as you see.' 
 
 " And behold Mr. Ready-to- 
 halt came by with his crutches in 
 his hand, and he was also going on 
 Pilgrimage." 
 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 ND if we tie it with the 
 amber-colored ribbon, 
 then every time I have it 
 out to put in a new Poor 
 Thing, I shall remember 
 how very naughty I was, 
 and how I spoilt your 
 poetry." 
 
 "Then we'll certainly 
 tie it with something else," 
 said the Master of the 
 House, and he jerked 
 away the ribbon with a 
 gesture as decisive as his 
 words. " Let bygones be 
 bygones. If / forget it, you need n't remember it ! " 
 
THE BOOK OF POOR THINGS. 83 
 
 "Oh, but, indeed, I ought to remember it; and I do 
 think I better had to remind myself never, never to 
 be so naughty again ! " 
 
 " Your mother's own son ! " muttered the Master ot 
 the House; and he added aloud: "Well, I forbid you 
 to remember : t so there! It'll be naughty if you 
 do. Here 's some red ribbon. That should please 
 you, as you 're so fond of soldiers." 
 
 Leonard and his father were seated side by side at 
 a table in the library. The dog lay at their feet. 
 
 They were very busy; the Master of the House 
 working under Leonard's direction, who, issuing his 
 orders from his wheel-chair, was so full of anxiety and 
 importance, that when Lady Jane opened the library- 
 door he knitted his brow and put up one thin little 
 hand, in a comically old-fashioned manner, to dep- 
 recate interruption. 
 
 " Don't make any disturbance, Mother dear, if you 
 please. Father and I are very much engaged." 
 
 "Don't you think, Len, it would be kind to let 
 poor Mother see what we are doing, and tell her 
 about it?" 
 
 Leonard pondered an instant. 
 
 "Well I don't mind." 
 
 Then, as his mother's arm came round him, he 
 added, impetuously: 
 
 " Yes, I should like to. You can show, Father 
 dear, and /// do all the explaining." 
 
 The Master of the House displayed some sheets of 
 paper, tied with ribbon, which already contained a 
 
84 THE BOOK OF POOR THINGS. 
 
 good deal of his handiwork, including a finely-illumi- 
 nated capital L on the title-page. 
 
 " It is to be called the Book of Poor Things, 
 Mother dear. We 're doing it in bits first ; then it 
 will be bound. It's a collection a collection of 
 Poor Things who've been hurt, like me; or blind> 
 like the organ-tuner; or had their heads no, not 
 their heads, they could n't go on doing things after 
 that had their legs or their arms chopped off in 
 battle, and are very good and brave about it, and 
 manage very, very nearly as well as people who have 
 got nothing the matter with them. Father doesn't 
 think Poor Things is a good name. He wanted to 
 call it Masters of Fate, because of some poetry. 
 What was it, Father?" 
 
 " ' Man is man and Master of his Fate,' " quoted 
 the Master of the House. 
 
 " Yes, that 's it. But I don't understand it so well 
 as Poor Things. They are Poor Things, you know, 
 and of course we shall only put in brave Poor 
 Things: not cowardly Poor Things. It was all my 
 idea, only Father is doing the ruling, and printing, 
 and illuminating for me. I thought of it when the 
 Organ-tuner was here." 
 
 "The Organ-tuner?" 
 
 " Yes, I heard the organ, and I made James carry 
 me in, and put me in the arm-chair close to the organ. 
 And the tuner was tuning, and he looked round, and 
 James said, ( It 's the young gentleman,' and the 
 Tuner said, ' Good morning, Sir,' and I said, ' Good 
 
SWEET ARE THE USES OF ADVERSITY. 85 
 
 morning, Tuner; go on tuning, please, for I want to 
 see you do it.' And he went on; and he dropped 
 a tin thing, like a big extinguisher, on to the floor ; 
 and he got down to look for it, and he felt about in 
 such a funny way that I burst out laughing. I did n't 
 mean to be rude ; I could n't help it. And I said, 
 'Can't you see it? It's just under the table.' And 
 he said, ' I can't see anything, Sir ; I 'm stone blind.' 
 And he said, perhaps I would be kind enough to 
 give it him. And I said I was very sorry, but I 
 had n't got my crutches, and so I could n't get out of 
 my chair without some one to help me. And he 
 was so awfully sorry for me, you can't think ! He 
 said he did n't know I was more afflicted than he was ; 
 but I was awfully sorry for him, for I Ve tried shutting 
 my eyes ; and you can bear it just a minute, but then 
 you must open them to see again. And I said, ' How 
 can you do anything when you see nothing but black- 
 ness all along? ' And he says he can do well enough 
 as long as he 's spared the use of his limbs to earn 
 his own livelihood. And I said, ' Are there any more 
 blind men, do you think, that earn their own liveli- 
 hood? I wish I could earn mine!' And he said, 
 : There are a good many blind tuners, Sir/ And I 
 said, ' Go on tuning, please : I like to hear you do it.' 
 And he went on, and I did like him so much. Do 
 you know the blind tuner, Mother dear? And don't 
 you like him very much? I think he is just what 
 you think very good, and I think V.C. would think it 
 nearly as brave as a battle to be afflicted and go on 
 
86 SWEET ARE THE USES OF ADVERSITY. 
 
 earning your own livelihood when you can see nothing 
 but blackness all along. Poor man ! " 
 
 " I do think it very good of him, my darling, and 
 very brave." 
 
 " I knew you would. And then I thought perhaps 
 there are lots of brave afflicted people poor things ! 
 and perhaps there never was anybody but me who 
 was n't. And I wished I knew their names, and I 
 asked the Tuner his name, and he told me. And 
 then I thought of my book, for a good idea a col- 
 lection, you know. And I thought perhaps, by 
 degrees, I might collect three hundred and sixty-five 
 Poor Things, ail brave. And so I am making Father 
 rule it like his Diary, and we Ve got the Tuner's name 
 down for the First of January ; and if you can think 
 of anybody else you must tell me, and if I think 
 they 're afflicted enough and brave enough, I '11 put 
 them in. But I shall have to be rather particu- 
 lar, for we don't want to fill up too fast. Now, 
 Father, I Ve done the explaining, so you can show 
 your part. Look, Mother, has n't he ruled it 
 well ? There 's only one tiny mess, and it was The 
 Sweep shaking the table with getting up to be 
 patted." 
 
 " He has ruled it beautifully. But what a hand- 
 some L ! " 
 
 " Oh, I forget ! Wait a minute, Father ; the ex- 
 plaining is n't quite finished. What do you think 
 that L stands for, Mother dear?" 
 
 " For Leonard, I suppose." 
 
NOBLESSE OBLIGE. 87 
 
 "No, no! What fun! You're quite wrong. 
 Guess again." 
 
 " Is it not the Tuner's name? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! He 's in the first of January I told you 
 so. And in plain printing. Father really could n't 
 illuminate three hundred and sixty-five poor things ! " 
 
 " Of course he could n't. It was silly of me to 
 think so." 
 
 " Do you give it up? " 
 
 " I must. I cannot guess." 
 
 "It's the beginning of ' Lcetus sorte mea! Ah, 
 you know now ! You ought to have guessed without 
 my telling you. Do you remember? I remember, 
 and I mean to remember. I told Jemima that very 
 night. I said, ' It means Happy with my fate, and 
 in our family we have to be happy with it, whatever 
 sort of a one it is.' For you told me so. And I told 
 the Tuner, and he liked hearing about it very much. 
 And then he went on tuning, and he smiled so when 
 he was listening to the notes, I thought he looked 
 very happy ; so I asked him, and he said, Yes, he was 
 always happy when he was meddling with a musical 
 instrument. But I thought, most likely all brave 
 poor things are happy with their fate, even if they 
 can't tune ; and I asked Father, and he said, * Yes/ 
 and so we are putting it into my collection partly 
 for that, and partly when the coat-of-arms is done, 
 to show that the book belongs to me. Now, Father 
 dear, the explaining is really quite finished this time, 
 and you may do all the rest of the show-off yourself ! " 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 St. George ! a stirring life they lead. 
 That have such neighbors near." 
 
 Marmion. 
 
 H, Jemima! 
 Jemima! I 
 know you are 
 very kind, and 
 I do mean not 
 to be impa- 
 tient; but 
 either you 're 
 telling stories 
 or you're 
 talking non- 
 sense, and 
 that 's a fact. 
 How can you 
 say that that 
 blue stuff is 
 a b e a u t i f u 1 
 match, and 
 
 will wash the exact color, and that you 're sure I 
 shall like it when it 's made up with a cord and tas- 
 sels, when it 's not the blue I want, and when you 
 know the men in hospital have n't any tassels to their 
 
A BLUE DRESSING-GOWN. 89 
 
 dressing-gowns at all ! You 're as bad as that horrid 
 shopman who made me so angry. If I had not been 
 obliged to be good, I should have liked to hit him 
 hard with my crutch, when he kept on saying he 
 knew I should prefer a shawl-pattern lined with crim- 
 son, if I would let him send one. Oh, here comes 
 Father! Now, that's right; he'll know. Father 
 dear, is this blue pattern the same color as that?" 
 
 " Certainly not. But what 's the matter, my child ?" 
 
 " It 's about my dressing-gown ; and I do get so 
 tired about it, because people will talk nonsense, and 
 won't speak the truth, and won't believe I know what 
 I want myself. Now, I '11 tell you what I want. Do 
 you know the Hospital Lines? " 
 
 "In the Camp? Yes." 
 
 " And you 've seen all the invalids walking about 
 in blue dressing-gowns and little red ties? " 
 
 " Yes. Charming bits of color." 
 
 " Hurrah ! that 's just it ! Now, Father dear, if 
 you wanted a dressing-gown exactly like that 
 would you have one made of this?" 
 
 " Not if I knew it ! Crude, coarse, staring please 
 don't wave it in front of my eyes, unless you want to 
 make me feel like a bull with a red rag before him ! " 
 
 " Oh, Father dear, you are sensible ! (Jemima, 
 throw this pattern away, please ! ) But you 'd have 
 felt far worse if you 'd seen the shawl-pattern lined 
 with crimson. Oh, I do wish I could have been a 
 bull that was n't obliged to be l&tus for half a minute, 
 to give that shopman just one toss ! But I believe 
 
QO A BLUE DRESSING-GOWN. 
 
 the best way to do will be as O'Reilly says get 
 Uncle Henry to buy me a real one out of store, and 
 have it made smaller for me. And I should like it 
 ' out of store.' " 
 
 From this conversation it will be seen that Leonard's 
 military bias knew no change. Had it been less 
 strong it could only have served to intensify the pain 
 of the heartbreaking associations which anything 
 connected with the troops now naturally raised in his 
 parents' minds. But it was a sore subject that fairly 
 healed itself. 
 
 The Camp had proved a more cruel neighbor than 
 the Master of the House had ever imagined in his 
 forebodings ; but it also proved a friend. For if the 
 high, ambitious spirit, the ardent imagination, the 
 vigorous will, which fired the boy's fancy for soldiers 
 and soldier-life, had thus led to his calamity, they 
 found in that sympathy with men of hardihood and 
 lives of discipline, not only an interest that never 
 failed and that lifted the sufferer out of himself, but a 
 constant incentive to those virtues of courage and 
 patience for which he struggled with touching con- 
 scientiousness. 
 
 Then, without disparagement to the earnestness of 
 his efforts to be good, it will be well believed that his 
 parents did their best to make goodness easy to him. 
 His vigorous individuality still swayed the plans of 
 the household, and these came to be regulated by 
 those of the Camp to a degree which half annoyed 
 and half amused its Master. 
 
MILITARY MANOEUVRES, pi 
 
 The Asholt Gazette was delivered as regularly as 
 the Times ; but on special occasions, the arrange- 
 ments for which were only known the night before, 
 O'Reilly, or some other Orderly, might be seen wend- 
 ing his way up the Elm Avenue by breakfast time, 
 " with Colonel Jones' compliments, and the Orders of 
 the Day for the young gentleman." And so many 
 were the military displays at which Leonard contrived 
 to be present, that the associations of pleasure and 
 alleviation with Parades and Manoeuvres came at last 
 almost to blot out the associations of pain connected 
 with that fatal Field Day. 
 
 He drove about a great deal, either among air- 
 cushions in the big carriage or in a sort of perambu- 
 lator of his own, which was all too easily pushed by 
 any one, and by the side of which The Sweep walked 
 slowly and contentedly, stopping when Leonard 
 stopped, wagging his tail when Leonard spoke, and 
 keeping sympathetic step to the invalid's pace with 
 four sinewy black legs, which were young enough and 
 strong enough to have ranged for miles over the 
 heather hills and never felt fatigue. A true Dog 
 Friend ! 
 
 What the Master of the House pleasantly called 
 "Our Military Mania," seemed to have reached its 
 climax during certain July manoeuvres of the regi- 
 ments stationed at Asholt, and of additional troops 
 who lay out under canvas in the surrounding country. 
 
 Into this mimic campaign Leonard threw himself 
 heart and soul. His camp friends furnished him 
 
92 MILITARY MANCEUVRES. 
 
 with early information of the plans for each day, so 
 far as the generals of the respective forces allowed 
 them to get wind, and with an energy that defied his 
 disabilities he drove about after " the armies," and 
 then scrambled on his crutches to points of vantage 
 where the carriage could not go. 
 
 And the Master of the House went with him. 
 
 The house itself seemed soldier-bewitched. Order- 
 lies were as plentiful as rooks among the elm-trees. 
 The staff clattered in and out, and had luncheon at 
 unusual hours, and strewed the cedar-wood hall with 
 swords and cocked hats, and made low bows over 
 Lady Jane's hand, and rode away among the trees. 
 
 These were weeks of pleasure and enthusiasm for 
 Leonard, and of not less delight for The Sweep ; but 
 they were followed by an illness. 
 
 That Leonard bore his sufferings better helped to 
 conceal the fact that they undoubtedly increased; 
 and he over-fatigued himself and got a chill, and had 
 to go to bed, and took The Sweep to bed with him. 
 
 And it was when he could play at no " soldier- 
 game," except that of " being in hospital," that he 
 made up his mind to have a blue dressing-gown of 
 regulation color and pattern, and met with the diffi' 
 culties aforesaid in carrying out his whim. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 * Fills the room up of my absent child, 
 Lies in his bed, walks up and down with mej 
 Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, 
 Remembers me of all his gracious parts, 
 Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form." 
 
 King John, Act iii 
 
 ONG years after 
 they were written, 
 a bundle of letters 
 lay in the drawer 
 of a cabinet in 
 Lady Jane's morn- 
 ing-room, carefully 
 kept, each in its 
 own envelope, and 
 every envelope 
 stamped with the 
 post-mark of Ash- 
 olt Camp. 
 
 They were in 
 Leonard's hand- 
 writing. A childish 
 hand, though good 
 for his age, but 
 round and clear as 
 his own speech. 
 After much coaxing and considering, and after 
 consulting with the doctors, Leonard had been al 
 
 **> 
 
94 LIFE IS MADE UP OF LITTLE THINGS. 
 
 lowed to visit the Barrack Master and his wife. After 
 his illness he was taken to the sea-side, which he 
 liked so little that he was bribed to stay there by the 
 promise that, if the Doctor would allow it, he should, 
 on his return, have the desire of his heart, and be 
 permitted to live for a time " in Camp," and sleep in 
 a hut. 
 
 The Doctor gave leave. Small quarters would 
 neither mar nor mend an injured spne; and if he 
 felt the lack of space and luxuries to which he was 
 accustomed, he would then be content to return 
 home. 
 
 The Barrack Master's hut only boasted one spare 
 bed-chamber for visitors, and when Leonard and his 
 dog were in it there was not much elbow-room. A 
 sort of cupboard was appropriated for the use of Je- 
 mima, and Lady Jane drove constantly into Camp to 
 see her son. Meanwhile he proved a very good cor- 
 respondent, as his letters will show for themselves. 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 "BARRACK MASTER'S HUT, 
 
 " The Camp, Asholt 
 * MY DEAR, DEAR M OTHER, 
 
 " I hope you are quite well, and Father also. I 
 am very happy, and so is The Sweep. He tried sleeping on 
 my bed last night, but there was not room, though I gave 
 him as much as ever I could. So he slept on the floor. It 
 is a camp bed, and folds up, if you want it to. We have 
 nothing like it. It belonged to a real General. The General 
 
LIFE IS MADE UP OF LITTLE THINGS- 95 
 
 is dead. Uncle Henry bought it at his sale. You always 
 have a sale if you die, and your brother-officers buy your 
 things to pay your debts. Sometimes you get them very 
 cheap. I mean the things. 
 
 " The drawers fold up, too. I mean the chest of drawers, 
 and so does the wash-hand-stand. It goes into the corner, 
 and takes up very little room. There could n't be a bigger 
 one, or the door would not open the one that leads into 
 the kitchen. The other door leads into a passage. I like 
 having the kitchen next me. You can hear everything. 
 You can hear O'Reilly come in the morning, and I call to 
 him to open my door, and he says, ' Yes, sir,' and opens it, 
 and lets The Sweep out for a run, and takes my boots. And 
 you can hear the tap of the boiler running with your hot 
 water before she brings it, and you can smell the bacon 
 frying for breakfast. 
 
 " Aunt Adelaide was afraid I should not like being woke 
 \ip so early, but I do. I waked a good many times. First 
 with the gun. It 's like a very short thunder, and shakes you. 
 And then the bugles play. Father would like them! And 
 then right away in the distance trumpets. And the air 
 comes in so fresh at the window. And you pull up the 
 clothes, if they Ve fallen off you, and go to sleep again. 
 Mine had all fallen off, except the sheet, and The Sweep was 
 lying on them. Was n't it clever of him to have found them 
 in the dark ? If I can't keep them on, I 'm going to have 
 campaigning blankets ; they are sewed up like a bag, and 
 you get into them. 
 
 " What do you think I found on my coverlet when I went 
 to bed? A real, proper, blue dressing-gown, and -a crimson 
 tie ! It came out of store, and Aunt Adelaide made it 
 smaller herself. Wasn't it kind of her? 
 
9<5 CHURCH PARADE. 
 
 "I have got it on now. Presently I am going to dress 
 properly, and O'Reilly is going to wheel me down to the 
 stores. It will be great fun. My cough has been pretty bad, 
 but it 's no worse than it was at home. 
 
 " There 's a soldier come for the letters, and they are 
 obliged to be ready. 
 
 " I am, your loving and dutiful son, 
 
 " LEONARD. 
 
 " P.S. Uncle Henry says his father was very old-fash- 
 ioned, and he always liked him to put ' Your dutiful son,' so 
 I put it to you. 
 
 "All these crosses mean kisses, Jemima told me." 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 "... I WENT to church yesterday, though it was only 
 Tuesday. I need not have gone unless I liked, but I liked. 
 There is service every evening in the Iron Church, and Aunt 
 Adelaide goes, and so do I, and sometimes Uncle Henry. 
 There are not very many people go, but they behave very 
 well, what there are. You can't tell what the officers belong 
 to in the afternoon, because they are in plain clothes ; but 
 Aunt Adelaide thinks they were Royal Engineers, except one 
 Commissariat one, and an A. D. C. , and the Colonel of a 
 regiment that marched in last week. You can't tell what the 
 ladies belong to unless you know them. 
 
 " You can always tell the men. Some were Barrack Ser- 
 geants, and some were Sappers, and there were two Gunners, 
 and an Army Hospital Corps, and a Cavalry Corporal who 
 came all the way from the barracks, and sat near the door, 
 and said very long prayers to himself at the end. And there 
 
CHURCH PARADE. 97 
 
 some schoolmasters, and a man with gray hair and no 
 uniform, who mends the roofs and teaches in the Sunday 
 School, and I forget the rest. Most of the choir are Sappers 
 and Commissariat men, and the boys are soldiers' sons. The 
 Sappers and Commissariat belong to our Brigade. 
 
 " There is no Sexton to our Church. He 's a Church 
 Orderly. He has put me a kind of a back in the corner of 
 one of the Officers' Seats, to make me, comfortable in church, 
 and a very high footstool. I mean to go every day, and as 
 often as I can on Sundays, without getting too much tired. 
 
 " You can go very often on Sunday mornings if you want 
 to. They begin at eight o'clock, and go on till luncheon. 
 There 's a fresh band, and a fresh chaplain, and a fresh 
 sermon, and a fresh congregation every time. Those are 
 Parade Services. The others are Voluntary Services, and I 
 thought that meant for the Volunteers ; but O'Reilly laughed, 
 and said, ' No, it only means that there 's no occasion to go 
 to them at all' he means unless you like. But then I do 
 like. There's no sermon on week days. Uncle Henry is 
 very glad, and so am I. I think it might make my back 
 ache. 
 
 " I am afraid, dear Mother, that you won't be able to 
 understand all I write to you from the Camp ; but if you 
 don't, you must ask me and I '11 explain. 
 
 "When I say our quarters, remember I mean our hut; 
 and when I say rations it means bread and meat, and I 'm 
 not quite sure if it means coals and candles as well. But I 
 think I'll make you a Dictionary if I can get a ruled book 
 from the Canteen. It would make this letter too much to go 
 for a penny if I put all the words in I know. Cousin George 
 tells me them when he comes in after mess. He told me the 
 Camp name for Iron Church is Tin Tabernacle ; but Aunt 
 
 7 
 
98 CHURCH PARADE. 
 
 Adelaide says it 's not, and I 'm not to call it so, so I don't 
 But that 's what he says. 
 
 " I like Cousin George very much. I like his uniform. 
 He is very thin, particularly round the waist. Uncle Henry 
 is very stout, particularly round the waist. Last night 
 George came in after mess, and two other officers out of his 
 regiment came too. And then another officer came in. 
 And they chaffed Uncle Henry, and Uncle Henry does n't 
 mind. And the other officer said, * Three times round a 
 Subaltern once round a Barrack Master.' And so they got 
 Uncle Henry's sword-belt out of his dressing-room, and 
 George and his friends stood back to back, and held up their 
 jackets out of the way, and the other officer put the belt right 
 round them, all three, and told them not to laugh. And 
 Aunt Adelaide said, ' Oh ! ' and ' you '11 hurt them.' And 
 he said, 'Not a bit of it.' And he buckled it. So that 
 shows. It was great fun. 
 
 " I am, your loving and dutiful Son, 
 
 " LEONARD. 
 
 " P.S. The other officer is an Irish officer at least, I 
 think so, but I can't be quite sure, because he won't speak 
 the truth. I said, ' You talk rather like O'Reilly ; are you 
 an Irish soldier?* And he said, 'I'd the misfortune to be 
 quartered for six months in the County Cork, and it was the 
 ruin of my French accent. 1 So I said, ' Are you a French- 
 man ? ' and they all laughed, so I don't know. 
 
 "P.S. No. 2. My back has been very bad, but Aunt 
 Adelaide says I have been very good. This is not meant for 
 swagger, but to let you know. 
 
 (" Swagger means boasting. If you 're a soldier, swagger 
 is the next worst thing to running away.) 
 
WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK, 99 
 
 " P.S. No. 3. I know another officer now. I like him. 
 He is a D. A. Q. M. G. I would let you guess that if you 
 could ever find it out, but you could n't. It means D eputy- 
 Assistant- Quarter-Master- General. He is not so grand as 
 you would think ; a plain General is really grander. Uncle 
 Henry says so, and he knows." 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 "... I HAVE seen V. C. I have seen him twice. I 
 have seen his cross. The first time was at the Sports. Aunt 
 Adelaide drove me there in the pony carriage. We stopped 
 at the Enclosure. The Enclosure is a rope, with a man 
 taking tickets. The Sports are inside ; so is the tent, with 
 tea; so are the ladies, in awfully pretty dresses, and the 
 officers walking round them. 
 
 "There's great fun outside, at least, I should think so. 
 There 's a crowd of people, and booths, and a skeleton man. 
 I saw his picture. I should like to have seen him, but Aunt 
 Adelaide didn't want to, so I tried to be Icetus without. 
 
 "When we got to the Enclosure there was a gentleman 
 taking his ticket, and when he turned round he was V. C. 
 Was n't it funny ? So he came back and said, ' Why, here 's 
 my little friend ! ' And he said, ' You must let me carry 
 you.' And so he did, and put me among the ladies. But 
 the ladies got him a good deal. He went and talked to lots 
 of them, but I tried to be Icetus without him ; and then 
 Cousin George came, and lots of others, and then the V. C. 
 came back and showed me things about the Sports. 
 
 " Sports are very hard work : they make you so hot and 
 tired ; but they are very nice to watch. The races were 
 great fun, particularly when they fell in the water, and the 
 
100 THEN COMES THE TUG-OF-WAR. 
 
 men in sacks who hop, and the blindfolded men with wheel- 
 barrows. Oh, they were so funny ! They kept wheeling 
 into each other, all except one, and he went wheeling and 
 wheeling right away up the field, all by himself and all 
 wrong ! I did laugh. 
 
 " But what I liked best were the tent-pegging men, and 
 most best of all, the Tug-of-War. 
 
 " The Irish officer did tent-pegging. He has the dearest 
 pony you ever saw. He is so fond of it, and it is so fond of 
 him. He talks to it in Irish, and it understands him. He 
 cut off the Turk's head, not a real Turk, a sham Turk, and 
 not a whole one, only the head stuck on a pole. 
 
 " The Tug-of-War was splendid ! Two sets of men pulling 
 at a rope to see which is strongest. They did pull ! They 
 pulled so hard, both of them, with all their might and main, 
 that we thought it must be a drawn battle. But at last one 
 set pulled the other over, and then there was such a noise 
 that my head ached dreadfully, and the Irish officer carried 
 me into the tent and gave me some tea. And then we went 
 home. 
 
 " The next time I saw V. C. was on Sunday at Parade Ser- 
 vice. He is on the Staff, and wears a cocked hat. He came 
 in with the General and the A. D. C. , who was at church on 
 Tuesday, and I was so glad to see him. 
 
 " After church, everybody went about saying ' Good morn- 
 ing/ and ' How hot it was in church ! ' and V. C. helped me 
 with my crutches, and showed me his cross. And the Gen- 
 eral came up and spoke to me, and I saw his medals, and he 
 asked how you were, and I said, ' Quite well, thank you/ 
 And then he talked to a lady with some little boys dressed 
 like sailors. She said how hot it was in church, and he said, 
 * I thought the roof was coming off with that last hymn. 1 
 
WHEN GREEK "wTS'OKE 'rC. IOI 
 
 And she said, ' My little boys call it the Tug-of-War Hymn ; 
 they are very fond of it.' And he said, 'The men seem very 
 fond of it.' And he turned round to an officer I didn't 
 know, and said, l They ran away from you that last verse but 
 one.' And the officer said, ' Yes, sir, they always do ; so I 
 stop the organ and let them have it their own way.' 
 
 "I asked Aunt Adelaide, 'Does that officer play the 
 organ ? ' And she said, ' Yes, and he trains the choir. 
 He's coming in to supper.' So he came. If the officers 
 stay sermon on Sunday evenings, they are late for mess. So 
 the Chaplain stops after Prayers, and anybody that likes to go 
 out before sermon can. If they stay sermon, they go to 
 supper with some of the married officers instead of dining 
 at mess. 
 
 " So he came. I liked him awfully. He plays like 
 Father, only I think he can play more difficult things. 
 
 " He says, * Tug-of-War Hymn ' is the very good name 
 for that hymn, because the men are so fond of it they all sing, 
 and the ones at the bottom of the church ' drag over ' the 
 choir and the organ. 
 
 " He said, * I Ve talked till I 'm black in the face, and all 
 to no purpose. It would try the patience of a saint.' So I 
 said, ' Are you a saint ? ' And he laughed and said, ' No, 
 I'm afraid not; I'm only a kapellmeister.' So I call him 
 ' Kapellmeister.' I do like him. 
 
 " I do like the Tug-of-War Hymn. It begins, ' The Son of 
 GOD goes forth to war.' That 's the one. But we have it to 
 a tune of our own, on Saints' Days. The verse the men tug 
 with is, * A noble army, men and boys.' I think they like it, 
 because it 's about the army ; and so do I. 
 
 " I am, your loving and dutiful son, 
 
 " LEONARD. 
 
102 A SOLDIER SAINT. 
 
 " P.S. I call the ones with cocked hats and feathers, 
 'Cockatoos.' There was another Cockatoo who walked 
 away with the General. Not very big. About the bigness of 
 the stuffed General in that Pawnbroker's window ; and I do 
 think he had quite as many medals. I wanted to see them. 
 I wish I had. He looked at me. He had a very gentle 
 face ; but I was afraid of it. Was I a coward ? 
 
 "You remember what these crosses are, don't you? I 
 told you." 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 " THIS is a very short letter. It 's only to ask you to 
 send my book of Poor Things by the Orderly who takes 
 this, unless you -are quite sure you are coming to see me 
 to-day. 
 
 " A lot of officers are collecting for me, and there 's one 
 in the Engineers can print very well, so he '11 put them in. 
 
 " A Colonel with only one arm dined here yesterday. 
 You can't think how well he manages, using first his knife 
 and then his fork, and talking so politely all the time. He 
 has all kinds of dodges, so as not to give trouble and do 
 everything for himself. I mean to put him in. 
 
 " I wrote to Cousin Alan, and asked him to collect for me. 
 I like writing letters, and I do like getting them. Uncle 
 Henry says he hates a lot of posts in the day. I hate posts 
 when there 's nothing for me. I like all the rest. 
 
 " Cousin Alan wrote back by return. He says he can 
 only think of the old chap, whose legs were cut off in battle : 
 
 ' And when his legs were smitten off, 
 He fought upon his stumps 1' 
 
A SOLDIER SAINT. IO3 
 
 It was very brave, if it 's true. Do you think it is ? He 
 did not tell me his name. 
 
 " Your loving and dutiful son, 
 
 " LEONARD. 
 
 " P.S. I am latus sorte mea, and so is The Sweep." 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 " THIS letter is not about a Poor Thing. It 's about a 
 saint a soldier saint which I and the Chaplain think 
 nearly the best kind. His name was Martin, he got to be a 
 Bishop in the end, but when he first enlisted he was only a 
 catechumen. Do you know what a catechumen is, dear 
 Mother ? Perhaps if you 're not quite so high-church as the 
 engineer I told you of, who prints so beautifully, you may not 
 know. It means when you Ve been born a heathen, and are 
 going to be a Christian, only you Ve not yet been baptized. 
 The engineer has given me a picture of him, St. Martin I 
 mean, and now he has printed underneath it, in beautiful thick 
 black letters that you can hardly read if you don't know 
 what they are, and the very particular words in red, ' Martin 
 yet but a Catechumen ! ' He can illuminate too, though 
 not quite so well as Father, he is very high- church, and I 'm 
 high-church too, and so is our Chaplain, but he is broad as 
 well. The engineer thinks he 's rather too broad, but Uncle 
 Henry and Aunt Adelaide think he 's quite perfect, and so 
 do I, and so does everybody else. He comes in sometimes, 
 but not very often because he 's so busy. He came the other 
 night because I wanted to confess. What I wanted to con- 
 fess was that I had laughed in church. He is a very big 
 man, and he has a very big surplice, with a great lot of gathers 
 
104 MARTIN YET BUT A CATECHUMEN! 
 
 behind, which makes my engineer very angry, because it 's 
 the wrong shape, and he preaches splendidly, the Chap- 
 lain I mean, straight out of his head, and when all the sol- 
 diers are listening he swings his arms about, and the surplice 
 gets in his way, and he catches hold of it, and oh ! Mother 
 dear, I must tell you what it reminded me of. When I was 
 very little, and Father used to tie a knot in his big pocket- 
 handkerchief and put his first finger into it to make a head 
 that nodded, and wind the rest round his hand, and stick out 
 his thumb and another finger for arms, and do the 'Yea- 
 verily-man ' to amuse you and me. It was last Sunday, and 
 a most splendid sermon, but his stole got round under his 
 ear, and his sleeves did look just like the Yea-verily-man, 
 and I tried not to look, and then I caught the Irish officer's 
 eye and he twinkled, and then I laughed, because I remem- 
 bered his telling Aunt Adelaide ' That 's the grandest old 
 Padre that ever got up into a pulpit, but did ye ever see a 
 man get so mixed up with his clothes ? ' I was very sorry 
 when I laughed, so I settled I would confess, for my engineer 
 thinks you ought always to confess, so when our Chaplain 
 came in after dinner on Monday, I confessed, but he only 
 laughed, till he broke down Aunt Adelaide's black and gold 
 chair. He is too big for it, really. Aunt Adelaide never 
 lets Uncle Henry sit on it. So he was very sorry, and Aunt 
 Adelaide begged him not to mind, and then in came my 
 engineer in war-paint (if you look out war-paint in the Can- 
 teen Book I gave you, you '11 see what it means) . He was 
 in war-paint because he was Orderly Officer for the evening, 
 and he 'd got his sword under one arm, and the picture 
 under the other, and his short cloak on to keep it dry, be- 
 cause it was raining. He made the frame himself; he can 
 make Oxford frames quite well, and he 's going to teach me 
 
MARTIN YET BUT A CATECHUMEN! 1 05 
 
 how to. Then I said, ' Who is it ? ' so he told me, and now 
 I 'm going to tell you, in case you don't know. Well, St. 
 Martin was born in Hungary, in the year 316. His father 
 and mother were heathens, but when he was about my age 
 he made up his mind he would be a Christian. His father 
 and mother were so afraid of his turning into a monk, that as 
 soon as he was old enough they enlisted him in the army, 
 hoping that would cure him of wanting to be a Christian, but 
 it did n't Martin wanted to be a Christian just as much as 
 ever ; still he got interested with his work and his comrades, 
 and he dawdled on only a Catechumen, and did n't make full 
 profession and get baptized. One winter his corps was quar- 
 tered at Amiens, and on a very bitter night, near the gates, 
 he saw a half-naked beggar shivering with the cold. (I asked 
 my engineer, ' Was he Orderly Officer for the evening ? ' but 
 he said, ' More likely on patrol duty, with some of his com- 
 rades.' However, he says he won't be sure, for Martin was 
 Tribune, which is very nearly a Colonel, two years afterwards, 
 he knows.) When Martin saw the Beggar at the gate, he 
 pulled out his big military cloak, and drew his sword, and 
 cut it in half, and wrapped half of it round the poor Beggar 
 to keep him warm. I know you '11 think him very kind, but 
 wait a bit, that 's not all. Next night when Martin the sol- 
 dier was asleep he had a vision. Did you ever have a vision ? 
 I wish I could ! This was Martin's vision. He saw Christ 
 cur Lord in Heaven, sitting among the shining hosts, and 
 wearing over one shoulder half a military cloak, and as Mar- 
 tin saw Him he heard Him say, ' Behold the mantle given to 
 Me by Martin yet but a Catechumen ! ' After that vision 
 he did n't wait any longer ; he was baptized at once. 
 
 " Mother dear, I Ve told you this quite truthfully, but I 
 can't tell it you so splendidly as my engineer did, standing 
 
106 ON GOD AND GODLIKE MEN 
 
 with his back to the fire and holding out his cape, and draw- 
 ing his sword to show me how Martin divided his cloak with 
 the beggar. Aunt Adelaide is n't afraid of swords, she is too 
 used to them, but she says she thinks soldiers do things in 
 huts they would never think of doing in big rooms, just to 
 show how neatly they can manage, without hurting anything. 
 The Chaplain broke the chair, but then he is n't exactly a 
 soldier, and the D. A. Q. M. G. that I told you of, comes in 
 sometimes and says, ' I beg your pardon, Mrs. Jones, but I 
 must,' and puts both his hands on the end of the sofa, and 
 lifts his body till he gets his legs sticking straight out. They 
 are very long legs, and he and the sofa go nearly across the 
 room, but he never kicks anything, it 's a kind of athletics ; 
 and there 's another officer who comes in at one door and 
 Catherine-wheels right across to the farthest corner, and he 
 is over six foot, too, but they never break anything. We do 
 laugh. 
 
 " I wish you could have seen my engineer doing St. Mar- 
 tin. He had to go directly afterwards, and then the Chaplain 
 came and stood in front of me, on the hearth-rug, in the fire- 
 light, just where my engineer had been standing, and he took 
 up the picture, and looked at it. So I said, ' Do you know 
 about St. Martin ? ' and he said he did, and he said, ' One of 
 the greatest of those many Soldiers of the Cross who have 
 also fought under earthly banners.' Then he put down the 
 picture, and got hold of his elbow with his hand, as if he was 
 holding his surplice out of the way, and said, ' Great, as well 
 as good, for this reason : he was one of those rare souls to 
 whom the counsels of GOD are clear, not to the utmost of 
 the times in which he lived but in advance of those times. 
 Such men are not always popular, nor even largely successful 
 in their day, but the light they hold lightens more generations 
 
WE BUILD OUR TRUST. IO/ 
 
 of this naughty world, than the pious tapers of commoner 
 men. You know that Martin the Catechumen became Mar- 
 tin the Saint do you know that Martin the Soldier became 
 Martin the Bishop ? and that in an age of credulity and 
 fanaticism, that man of GOD discredited some relics very 
 popular with the pious in his diocese, and proved and ex- 
 posed them to be those of an executed robber. Later in life 
 it is recorded of Martin, Bishop of Tours, that he lifted his 
 voice in protest against persecutions for religion, and the 
 punishment of heretics. In the nineteenth century we are 
 little able to judge, how great must have been the faith of 
 that man in the GOD of truth and of love.' It was like a 
 little sermon, and I think this is exactly how he said it, for 
 I got Aunt Adelaide to write it out for me this morning, and 
 she remembers sermons awfully well. I Ve been looking St. 
 Martin out in the calendar ; his day is the nth of November. 
 He is not a Collect, Epistle, and Gospel Saint, only one of 
 the Black Letter ones; but the nth of November is going 
 to be on a Sunday this year, and I am so glad, for I Ve asked 
 our Chaplain if we may have the Tug-of-War Hymn for St. 
 Martin and he has given leave. 
 
 "It's a long way off; I wish it came sooner. So now, 
 Mother dear, you have time to make your arrangements as 
 you like, but you see that whatever happens, 7 must be in 
 Camp on St. Martin's Day. 
 
 " Your loving and dutiful son, 
 
 " LEONARD." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have 
 kept the faith. Henceforth 1 " 
 
 i Tim. ir. 7. 
 
 *~f T was Sunday. 
 Sunday, the 
 tenth of No- 
 vember St. 
 Martin's Day. 
 Though it 
 was in No- 
 vember, a 
 summer day. 
 A day of that 
 Little Sum- 
 mer which alternately claims St. Luke 
 and St. Martin as its patrons, and is 
 apt to shine its brightest when it can 
 claim both on the feast of All 
 Saints. 
 
 Sunday in camp. With curious points of likeness 
 and unlikeness to English Sundays elsewhere. Like 
 in that general aspect of tidiness and quiet, of gravity 
 and pause, which betrays that a hard-working and 
 very practical people have thought good to keep 
 much of the Sabbath with its Sunday. Like, too, in 
 
SAINT MARTIN'S DAY. 109 
 
 the little groups of children, gay in Sunday best, and 
 grave with Sunday books, trotting to Sunday school. 
 
 Unlike, in that to see all the men about the place 
 washed and shaved is not, among soldiers, peculiar to 
 Sunday. Unlike, also, in a more festal feeling pro- 
 duced by the gay gatherings of men and officers on 
 Church Parade (far distant be the day when Parade 
 Services shall be abolished!), and by the exhilarat- 
 ing sounds of the Bands with which each regiment 
 marched from its parade-ground to the church. 
 
 Here and there small detachments might be met 
 making their way to the Roman Catholic church in 
 camp, or to places of worship of various denomina- 
 tions in the neighboring town ; and on Blind Baby's 
 Parade (where he was prematurely crushing his Sun- 
 day frock with his drum-basket in ecstatic sympathy 
 with the bands), a corporal of exceptional views was 
 parading himself and two privates of the same de- 
 nomination, before marching the three of them to 
 their own peculiar prayer-meeting. 
 
 The Brigade for the Iron Church paraded early 
 (the sunshine and sweet air seemed to promote alac 
 rity). And after the men were seated their officers 
 still lingered outside, chatting with the ladies and the 
 Staff, as these assembled by degrees, and sunning 
 themselves in the genial warmth of St. Martin's Little 
 Summer. 
 
 The V. C. was talking with the little boys in sailor 
 suits and their mother, when the officer who played 
 the organ came towards them. 
 
1 10 SAINT MARTIN'S DAY. 
 
 " Good morning, Kapellmeister ! " said two or three 
 voices. 
 
 Nicknames were common in the camp, and this one 
 had been rapidly adopted. 
 
 " Ye look cloudy this fine morning, Kapellmeister ! " 
 cried the Irish officer. " Got the toothache?" 
 
 The Kapellmeister shook his head, and forced a 
 smile which rather intensified than diminished the 
 gloom of a countenance which did not naturally lend 
 itself to lines of levity. Was he not a Scotchman and 
 also a musician? His lips smiled in answer to the 
 chaff, but his sombre eyes were fixed on the V. C. 
 They had as some eyes have an odd, summoning 
 power, and the V. C. went to meet him. 
 
 When he said, " I was in there this morning," the 
 V. C. 's eyes followed the Kapellmeister's to the Bar- 
 rack Master's hut, and his own face fell. 
 
 " He wants the Tug-of-War Hymn," said the Kapell- 
 meister. 
 
 " He 's not coming to church? " 
 
 "Oh, no; but he's set his heart on hearing the 
 Tug-of-War Hymn through his bedroom window; 
 and it seems the Chaplain has promised we shall have 
 it to-day. It's a most amazing thing," added the 
 Kapellmeister, shooting out one arm with a gesture 
 common to him when oppressed by an idea, " it 's 
 a most amazing thing ! For I think, if I were in my 
 grave, that hymn as these men bolt with it might 
 make me turn in my place of rest ; but it 's the last 
 thing I should care to hear if I were ill in bed ! 
 
ES GILT AM ENDE DOCK NUR VORWARTS1 III 
 
 However, he wants it, poor lad, and he asked me to 
 ask you if you would turn outside when it begins, and 
 sing so that he can hear your voice and the words." 
 " Oh, he can never hear me over there ! " 
 " He can hear you fast enough ! It 's quite close. 
 He begged me to ask you, and I was to say it 's his 
 last Sunday." 
 
 There was a pause. The V. G. looked at the little 
 " Officers' Door," which was close to his usual seat, 
 which always stood open in summer weather, and 
 half in half out of which men often stood in the crush 
 of a Parade Service. There was no difficulty in the 
 matter except his own intense dislike to anything 
 approaching to display. Also he had become more 
 attached than he could have believed possible to the 
 gallant-hearted child whose worship of him had been 
 flattery as delicate as it was sincere. It was no small 
 pain to know that the boy lay dying a pain ne 
 would have preferred to bear in silence. 
 "Is he very much set upon it?" 
 "Absolutely." 
 
 "Is she is Lady Jane there?" 
 "All of them. He can't last the day out." 
 "When will it be sung that hymn, I mean?" 
 " I Ve put it on after the third Collect." 
 "All right." 
 
 The V. C. took up his sword and went to his seat, 
 and the Kapellmeister took up his and went to the 
 organ. 
 
112 BEYOND THE VEIL. 
 
 In the Barrack Master's Hut my hero lay dying. 
 His mind was now absolutely clear, but during the 
 night it had wandered wandered in a delirium that 
 was perhaps some solace of his sufferings, for he had 
 believed himself to be a soldier on active service, 
 bearing the brunt of battle and the pain of wounds ; 
 and when fever consumed him, he thought it was the 
 heat of India that parched his throat and scorched his 
 skin, and called again and again in noble raving to 
 imaginary comrades to keep up heart and press 
 forward. 
 
 About four o'clock he sank into stupor, and the 
 Doctor forced Lady Jane to go and lie down, and 
 the Colonel took his wife away to rest also. 
 
 At Gun-fire Leonard opened his eyes. For some 
 minutes he gazed straight ahead of him, and the Mas- 
 ter of the House, who sat by his bedside, could not be 
 ^ure whether he were still delirious or no ; but when 
 their eyes met he saw that Leonard's senses had re- 
 turned to him, and kissed the wan little hand that was 
 feeling about for The Sweep's head in silence that he 
 almost feared to break. 
 
 Leonard broke in by saying, " When did you bring 
 Uncle Rupert to Camp, Father dear?" 
 
 "Uncle Rupert is at home, my darling; and you 
 are in Uncle Henry's hut." 
 
 " I know I am ; and so is Uncle Rupert. He is at 
 the end of the room there. Can't you see him?" 
 
 " No, Len ; I only see the wall, with your text on 
 it that poor old Father did for you." 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL. 113 
 
 "My 'Goodly heritage/ you mean? I can't see 
 that now. Uncle Rupert is in front of it. I thought 
 you put him there. Only he's out of his frame, and 
 -it's very odd!" 
 f What's odd, my darling?" 
 
 " Some one has wiped away all the tears from his 
 eyes." 
 
 . v 
 
 " Hymn two hundred and sixty-three : ' Fight the 
 good fight of faith.' " 
 
 The third Collect was just ended, and a prolonged 
 and somewhat irregular Amen was dying away among 
 the Choir, who were beginning to feel for their hymn- 
 books. 
 
 The lack of precision, the "dropping shots" style 
 in which that Amen was delivered, would have been 
 more exasperating to the Kapellmeister, if his own 
 attention had not been for the moment diverted by 
 anxiety to know if the V. C. remembered that the 
 time had come. 
 
 As the Chaplain gave out the hymn, the Kapell- 
 meister gave one glance of an eye, as searching as 
 it was sombre, round the corner of that odd little 
 curtain which it is the custom to hang behind an 
 organist; and this sufficing to tell him that the V. C. 
 had not forgotten, he drew out certain very vocal 
 stops, and bending himself to manual and pedal, gave 
 forth the popular melody of the " Tug-of-War " hymn 
 with a precision indicative of a resolution to have it 
 sung in strict time, or know the reason why. 
 
114 *F THOU BEAR THY CROSS 
 
 Ana as nine hundred and odd men rose to their feet 
 with some clatter of heavy boots and accoutrements 
 the V. C. turned quietly out of the crowded church, 
 and stood outside upon the steps, bare-headed in the 
 sunshine of St. Martin's Little Summer, and with 
 the tiniest of hymn-books between his fingers and 
 thumb. 
 
 Circumstances had made a soldier of the V. C. , 
 but by nature he was a student. When he brought 
 the little hymn-book to his eyes to get a mental grasp 
 of the hymn before he began to sing it, he committed 
 the first four lines to an intelligence sufficiently trained 
 to hold them in remembrance for the brief time that 
 it would take to sing them. Involuntarily his active 
 brain did more, and was crossed by a critical sense of 
 the crude, barbaric taste of childhood, and a wonder 
 what consolation the suffering boy could find in these 
 gaudy lines : 
 
 " The Son of GOD goes forth to war, 
 
 A kingly crown to gain ; 
 His blood-red banner streams afar : 
 Who follows in His train ? 
 
 But when he brought the little hymn book to his eyes 
 to take in the next four lines, they startled him with 
 the revulsion of a sudden sympathy ; and lifting his 
 face towards the Barrack Master's Hut, he sang as 
 he rarely sang in drawing-rooms, even words the most 
 felicitous to melodies the most sweet sang not only 
 to the delight of dying ears, but so that the Kapell- 
 meister himself heard him, and smiled as he heard : 
 
IT WILL BEAR THEE. 1*5 
 
 " Who best can drink His cup ol woe 
 
 Triumphant over pain, 
 Who patient bears His cross below, 
 He follows in His train." 
 
 On each side of Leonard's bed, like guardian angel^ 
 knelt his father and mother. At his feet lay The Sweep> 
 who now and then lifted a long, melancholy nose and 
 anxious eyes. 
 
 At the foot of the bed stood the Barrack Master. 
 He had taken up this position at the request of the 
 Master of the House, who had avoided any further 
 allusion to Leonard's fancy that their Naseby Ances- 
 tor had come to Asholt Camp, but had begged his 
 big brother-in-law to stand there and blot out Uncle 
 Rupert's Ghost with his substantial body. 
 
 But whether Leonard perceived the ruse, forgot 
 Uncle Rupert, or saw him all the same, by no word 
 or sign did he ever betray. 
 
 Near the window sat Aunt Adelaide, with her 
 Prayer-book, following the service in her own orderly 
 and pious fashion, sometimes saying a prayer aloud 
 at Leonard's bidding, and anon replying to his oft- 
 repeated inquiry: " Is it the third Collect yet, Aunty 
 dear?" 
 
 She had turned her head, more quickly than usual, 
 to speak, when, clear and strenuous ^n vocal stops, 
 came the melody of the " Tug-of-War" hymn. 
 
 "There! There it is! Oh, good Kapellmeister! 
 Mother dear, please go to the window and see if V. C 
 
Il6 THUS TO THE STARS 
 
 is there, and wave your hand to him. Father dear, 
 lift me up a little, please. Ah, now I hear him! 
 Good V. C. ! I don't believe you '11 sing better than 
 that when you 're promoted to be an angel. Are the 
 men singing pretty loud? May I have a little of that 
 stuff to keep me from coughing, Mother dear? You 
 know I am not impatient ; but I do hope, please GOD, 
 I sha'n't die till I Ve just heard them tug that verse 
 once more ! " 
 
 The sight of Lady Jane had distracted the V. C.'s 
 thoughts from the hymn. He was singing mechanic- 
 ally, when he became conscious of some increasing 
 pressure and irregularity in the time. Then he re- 
 membered what it was. The soldiers were beginning 
 to tug. 
 
 In a moment more the organ stopped, and the V. C. 
 found himself, with over three hundred men at his 
 back, singing without accompaniment, and in unison 
 
 " A noble army men and boys, 
 
 The matron and the maid, 
 Around their Saviour's throne rejoice, 
 In robes of white arrayed." 
 
 The Kapellmeister conceded that verse to the 
 shouts of the congregation; but he invariably re- 
 claimed control over the last. 
 
 Even now, as the men paused to take breath after 
 their " tug," the organ spoke again, softly, but seraph- 
 ically, and clearer and sweeter above the voices be- 
 
THUS TO THE STARS! 
 
 hind him rose the voice of the V. C., singing to his 
 little friend 
 
 " They climbed the steep ascent of Heaven, 
 Through peril, toil, and pain " 
 
 The men sang on; but the V. C. stopped, as if he 
 had been shot. For a man's -hand had come to the 
 Barrack Master's window and pulled the white blind 
 down. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 ' Hs that hath found some fledged-bird's nest may know 
 At first sight, if the bird be flown ; 
 But what fair dell or grove he sings in now, 
 That is to him unknown." Henry Vaughan. 
 
 RUE to its 
 character as 
 an emblem oi 
 human life, 
 the Camp 
 stands on, 
 with all its 
 little manners 
 and customs, 
 whilst the 
 men who gar- 
 rison it pass 
 rapidly away. 
 Strange as 
 the vicissi- 
 tudes of a 
 whole gener- 
 ation else- 
 where, are 
 the changes 
 and chances 
 that a few 
 years bring to 
 
 those wrio were stationed there together. 
 
UNWORLDLY WISE. 119 
 
 To what unforeseen celebrity (or to a dropping out 
 of one's life and even hearsay that once seemed quite 
 as little likely) do one's old neighbors sometimes 
 come ! They seem to pass in a few drill seasons as 
 other men pass by lifetimes. Some to foolishness 
 and forgetfulness, and some to fame. This old ac- 
 quaintance to unexpected glory; that dear friend 
 alas ! to the grave. And some GOD speed them ! 
 to the world's end and back, following the drum 
 till it leads them Home again, with familiar faces 
 little changed with boys and girls, perchance, very 
 greatly changed and with hearts not changed at all. 
 Can the last parting do much to hurt such friendships 
 between good souls, who have so long learnt to say 
 farewell ; to love in absence, to trust through silence, 
 and to have faith in reunion? 
 
 The Barrack Master's appointment was an unusually 
 permanent one ; and he and his wife lived on in Asholt 
 Camp, and saw regiments come and go, as O'Reilly 
 had prophesied, and threw out additional rooms and 
 bow-windows, and took in more garden, and kept 
 a cow on a bit of Government grass beyond the 
 stores, and with the man who did the roofs, the 
 church orderly, and one or two other public char- 
 acters came to be reckoned among the oldest 
 inhabitants. 
 
 George went away pretty soon with his regiment. 
 He was a good, straightforward young fellow, with a 
 dogged devotion to duty, and a certain provincialism 
 of intellect, and general John Bullishness, which he 
 
I2O UNWORLDLY WISE. 
 
 inherited from his father, who had inherited it from 
 his country forefathers. He inherited eqtfally a 
 certain romantic, instinctive, and immovable high- 
 mindedness, not invariably characteristic of much 
 more brilliant men. 
 
 He had been very fond of his little cousin, and 
 Leonard's death was a natural grief to him. The 
 funeral tried his fortitude, and his detestation of 
 *' scenes," to the very uttermost. 
 
 Like most young men who had the honor to know 
 her, George's devotion to his beautiful and gracious 
 aunt, Lady Jane, had had in it something of the 
 nature of worship ; but now he was almost glad he 
 was going away, and not likely to see her face for a 
 long time, because it made him feel miserable to see 
 her, and he objected to feeling miserable both on 
 principle and in practice. His peace of mind was 
 assailed, however, from a wholly unexpected quarter, 
 and one which pursued him even more abroad than 
 at home. 
 
 The Barrack Master's son had been shocked by his 
 cousin's death; but the shock was really and truly 
 greater when he discovered, by chance gossip, and 
 certain society indications, that the calamity which 
 left Lady Jane childless had made him his Uncle's 
 presumptive heir. The almost physical disgust which 
 the discovery that he had thus acquired some little 
 social prestige produced in this subaltern of a march- 
 ing regiment must be hard to comprehend by persons 
 jf more imagination and less sturdy independence. 
 
GOOD NEWS FROM HOME. 121 
 
 or by scholars in the science of success. But man 
 differs widely from man, and it is true. 
 
 He had been nearly two years in Canada when 
 " the English mail " caused him to fling his fur cap 
 into the air with such demonstrations of delight as 
 greatly aroused the curiosity of his comrades, and, 
 as he bolted to his quarters without further explana- 
 tion than " Good news from home ! " a rumor was for 
 some time current that " Jones had come into his 
 fortune." 
 
 Safe in his own quarters, he once more applied 
 himself to his mother's letter, and picked up the 
 thread of a passage which ran thus : 
 
 " Your dear father gets very impatient, and I long to be 
 back in my hut again and see after my flowers, which I can 
 trust to no one since O'Reilly took his discharge. The little 
 conservatory is like a new toy to me, but it is very tiny, and 
 your dear father is worse than no use in it, as he says himself. 
 However, I can't leave Lady Jane till she is quite strong. 
 The baby is a noble little fellow and really beautiful which 
 I know you won't believe, but that 's because you know noth- 
 ing about babies: not as beautiful as Leonard, of course 
 that could never be but a fine, healthy, handsome boy, 
 with eyes that do remind one of his darling brother. I know, 
 dear George, how greatly you always did admire and appre- 
 ciate your Aunt. Not one bit too much, my son. She is the 
 noblest woman I have ever known. We have had a very 
 happy time together, and I pray it may please GOD to spare 
 this child to be the comfort to her that you are and have 
 been to 
 
 "Your loving MOTHER." 
 
*22 GOOD NEWS FROM HOME. 
 
 This was the good news from home that had sent 
 the young subaltern's fur cap into the air, and that 
 now sent him to his desk ; the last place where, as a 
 rule, he enjoyed himself. Poor scribe as he was, how- 
 ever, he wrote two letters then and there : one to his 
 mother, and one of impetuous congratulations to his 
 uncle, full of messages to Lady Jane. 
 
 The Master of the House read the letter more than 
 once. It pleased him. 
 
 In his own way he was quite as unworldly as his 
 nephew, but it was chiefly from a philosophic con- 
 tempt for many things that worldly folk struggle for, 
 and a connoisseurship in sources of pleasure not pur- 
 chasable except by the mentally endowed, and not 
 even valuable to George, as he knew. And he was a 
 man of the world, and a somewhat cynical student of 
 character. 
 
 After the third reading he took it, smiling, to Lady 
 Jane's morning-room, where she was sitting, looking 
 rather pale, with her fine hair " coming down " over a 
 tea-gown of strange tints of her husband's choosing, 
 and with the new baby lying in her lap. 
 
 He shut the door noiselessly, took a footstool to her 
 feet, and kissed her hand. 
 
 "You look like a Romney, Jane, an unfinished 
 Romney, for you are too white. If you've got a 
 headache, you sha'n't hear this letter, which I know 
 you 'd like to hear." 
 
 "I see that I should. Canada post-marks. It's 
 George." 
 
MORE PRECIOUS THAN RUBIES. 123 
 
 M Yes ; it 's George. He 's uproariously delighted at 
 the advent of this little chap." 
 
 " Oh, I knew he 'd be that. Let me hear what he 
 says." 
 
 The Master of the House read the letter. Lady 
 [ane's eyes filled with tears at the tender references to 
 Leonard, but she smiled through them. 
 
 " He 's a dear, good fellow." 
 
 " He is a dear, good fellow. It 's a most born/ in- 
 tellect, but excellence itself. And I 'm bound to say," 
 added the Master of the House, driving his hands 
 through the jungle of his hair, " that there is a certain 
 excellence about a soldier when he is a good fellow 
 ihat seems to be a tiungferse." 
 
 After meditating on this matter for some moments, 
 he sprang up and vigorously rang the bell. 
 
 "Jane, you 're terribly white ; you can bear nothing. 
 Nurse is to take that brat at once, and I 'm going to 
 carry you into the garden." 
 
 Always much given to the collection and care of 
 precious things, and apt also to change his fads and to 
 pursue each with partiality for the moment, the 
 Master of the House had, for some time past, been 
 devoting all his thoughts and his theories to the pres- 
 ervation of a possession not less valuable than the 
 paragon of Chippendale chairs, and much more de- 
 structible he was taking care of his good wife. 
 
 Many family treasures are lost for lack of a little 
 timely care and cherishing, and there are living " ex- 
 amples" as rare as most bric-a-brac, and quite as 
 
124 I LIST NO MORE THE TUCK OF DRUM. 
 
 perishable. Lady Jane was one of them, and after 
 Leonard's death, with no motive for keeping up, she 
 sank into a condition of weakness so profound that it 
 became evident that, unless her failing forces were 
 fostered, she would not long be parted from her son. 
 
 Her husband had taken up his poem again, to di- 
 vert his mind from his own grief; but he left it 
 behind, and took Lady Jane abroad. 
 
 Once roused, he brought to the task of coaxing her 
 back to life an intelligence that generally insured the 
 success of his aims, and he succeeded now. Lady 
 Jane got well ; out of sheer gratitude, she said. 
 
 Leonard's military friends do not forget him. They 
 are accustomed to remember the absent. 
 
 With the death of his little friend the V. C. quits 
 these pages. He will be found in the pages of 
 history. 
 
 The Kapellmeister is a fine organist, and a few 
 musical members of the congregation, of all ranks, 
 have a knack of lingering after Even-song at the Iron 
 Church to hear him "play away the people." But 
 on the Sunday after Leonard's death the congrega- 
 tion rose and remained en masse as the Dead March 
 from Saul spoke in solemn and familiar tones the 
 requiem of a hero's soul. 
 
 Blind Baby's father was a Presbyterian, and disap- 
 proved of organs, but he was a fond parent, and his 
 blind child had heard tell that the officer who played 
 the organ so grandly was to play the Dead March on 
 the Sabbath evening for the little gentleman that died 
 
I LIST NO MORE THE TUCK OF DRUM. 125 
 
 on the Sabbath previous, and he was wild to go and 
 hear it. Then the service would be past, and the 
 Kapellmeister was a fellow-Scot, and the house of 
 mourning has a powerful attraction for that serious 
 race, and for one reason or another Corporal Mac- 
 donald yielded to the point of saying, " Aweel, if 
 you 're a gude bairn, I '11 tak ye to the kirk door, 
 and ye may lay your lug at the -chink, and hear what 
 ye can." 
 
 But when they got there the door was open, and 
 Blind Baby pushed his way through the crowd, as if 
 the organ had drawn him with a rope, straight to the 
 Kapellmeister's side. 
 
 It was the beginning of a friendship much to Blind 
 Baby's advantage, which did not end when the child 
 had been sent to a Blind School, and then to a col- 
 lege where he learnt to be a tuner, and " earned his 
 own living." 
 
 Poor Jemima fretted so bitterly for the loss of the 
 child she had nursed with such devotion, that there 
 was possibly some truth in O'Reilly's rather compli- 
 cated assertion that he married her because he could 
 not bear to see her cry. 
 
 He took his discharge, and was installed by the 
 Master of the House as lodge-keeper at the gates 
 through which he had so often passed as "a tidy 
 one." 
 
 Freed from military restraints, he became a very 
 untidy one indeed, and grew hair in such reckless 
 abundance that he came to look like an ourang-ou- 
 
126 WHAT IS HOME, AND WHERE/ 
 
 tang with an unusually restrained figure and excep- 
 tionally upright carriage. 
 
 He was the best of husbands every day in the year 
 but the seventeenth of March ; and Jemima enjoyed 
 herself very much as she boasted to the wives of less 
 handy civilians that " her man was as good as a 
 woman about the house, any day." (Any day, that 
 is, except the seventeenth of March.) 
 
 With window-plants cunningly and ornamentally 
 enclosed by a miniature paling and gate, as if the win- 
 dow-sill were a hut garden ; with colored tissue-paper 
 fly-catchers made on the principle of barrack-room 
 Christmas decorations ; with shelves, brackets, Oxford 
 frames, and other efforts of the decorative joinery of 
 O'Reilly's evenings; with a large, hard sofa, chairs, 
 elbow-chairs, and antimacassars; and with a round 
 table in the middle the Lodge parlor is not a room 
 to live in, but it is almost bewildering to peep into, 
 and curiously like the shrine of some departed saint, 
 so highly framed are the photographs of Leonard's 
 lovely face, and so numerous are his relics. 
 
 The fate of Leonard's dog may not readily be 
 guessed. 
 
 The gentle reader would not deem it unnatural 
 were I to chronicle that he died of a broken heart. 
 Failing this excess of sensibility, it seems obvious that 
 he should have attached himself immovably to Lady 
 Jane, and have lived at ease and died full of dignity in 
 his little master's ancestral halls. He did go back 
 there for a short time, but the day after the funeral he 
 
BUT WITH THE LOVING. 12; 
 
 disappeared. When word came to the household that 
 he was missing and had not been seen since he was 
 let out in the morning, the butler put on his hat and 
 hurried off with a beating heart to Leonard's grave. 
 
 But The Sweep was not there, dead or alive. He 
 was at that moment going at a sling trot along the 
 dusty road that led into the Camp. Timid persons, 
 imperfectly acquainted with dogs, avoided him ; he 
 went so very straight, it looked like hydrophobia ; men 
 who knew better, and saw that he was only " on ur- 
 gent private affairs," chaffed him as they passed, and 
 some with little canes and horseplay waylaid and 
 tried to intercept him. But he was a big dog, and 
 made himself respected, and pursued his way. 
 
 His way was to the Barrack Master's hut. 
 
 The first room he went into was that in which 
 Leonard died. He did not stay there three minutes. 
 Then he went to Leonard's own room, the little one 
 next to the kitchen, and this he examined exhaust- 
 ively, crawling under the bed, snuffing at both doors, 
 and lifting his long nose against hope to investigate 
 impossible places, such as the top of the military 
 chest of drawers. Then he got on to the late Gen- 
 eral's camp bed and went to sleep. 
 
 He was awakened by the smell of the bacon fry- 
 ing for breakfast, and he had breakfast with the 
 family. After this he went out, and was seen by dif- 
 ferent persons at various places in the Camp, the Gen- 
 eral Parade, the Stores, and the Iron Church, still 
 searching. 
 
128 WHAT IS HOME, ETC. 
 
 He was invited to dinner in at least twenty different 
 barrack-rooms, but he rejected all overtures till he 
 met O'Reilly, when he turned round and went back 
 to dine with him and his comrades. 
 
 He searched Leonard's room once more, and not 
 finding him, he refused to make his home with the 
 Barrack Master ; possibly because he could not make 
 up his mind to have a home at all till he could have 
 one with Leonard. 
 
 Half-a-dozen of Leonard's officer friends would 
 willingly have adopted him, but he would not own 
 another master. Then military dogs are apt to attach 
 themselves exclusively either to commissioned or to 
 non-commissioned soldiers, and The Sweep cast in his 
 lot with the men, and slept on old coats in corners of 
 barrack-rooms, and bided his time. Dogs' masters 
 do get called away suddenly and come back again. 
 The Sweep had his hopes, and did not commit him- 
 self. 
 
 Even if, at length, he realized that Leonard had 
 passed beyond this life's outposts, it roused in him 
 no instincts to return to the Hall. With a somewhat 
 sublime contempt for those shreds of poor mortality 
 laid to rest in the family vault, he elected to live 
 where his little master had been happiest in Asholt 
 Camp. 
 
 Now and then he became excited. It was when a 
 fresh regiment marched in. On these occasions he 
 invariably made so exhaustive an examination of the 
 regiment and its baggage, as led to his being more 
 
NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. I2Q 
 
 c>r less forcibly adopted by half-a-dozen good-natured 
 soldiers who had had to leave their previous pets 
 behind them. But when he found that Leonard had 
 not returned with that detachment, he shook off every- 
 body and went back to O'Reilly. 
 
 When O'Reilly married, he took The Sweep to the 
 Lodge, who thereupon instituted a search about the 
 house and grounds ; but it was' evident that he had 
 not expected any good results, and when he did not 
 f.nd Leonard he went away quickly down the old 
 Elm Avenue. As he passed along the dusty road 
 that led to Camp for the last time, he looked back 
 now and again with sad eyes to see if O'Reilly was not 
 coming too. Then he returned to the Barrack Room, 
 where he was greeted with uproarious welcome, and 
 eventually presented with a new collar by subscrip- 
 tion. And so, rising with gun-fire and resting with 
 " lights out," he lived and died a soldier's Dog. 
 
 The new heir thrives at the Hall. He has brothers 
 and sisters to complete the natural happiness of his 
 home, he has good health, good parents, and is having 
 a good -education. He will have a goodly heritage. 
 He is developing nearly as vigorous a fancy for sol- 
 diers as Leonard had, and drills his brothers and sis- 
 ters with the help of O'Reilly. If he wishes to make 
 arms his profession he will not be thwarted, for the 
 Master of the House has decided that it is in many 
 respects a desirable and wholesome career for an eldest 
 son. Lady Jane may yet have to buckle on a hero's 
 
 9 
 
130 
 
 NOT LOST, BUT GONE BEFORE. 
 
 sword. Brought up by such a mother in the fear of 
 GOD, he ought to be good, he may live to be great, 
 it 's odds if he cannot be happy. But never, not in 
 the " one crowded hour of glorious " victory, not in 
 years of the softest comforts of a peaceful home, by 
 no virtues and in no success shall he bear more fitly 
 than his crippled brother bore the ancient motto 
 of their house: 
 
 "lUtus Sorte 
 
JULIANA HORATIA EWING 
 AND HER BOOKS. 
 
I 
 
ALL hearts grew warmer in the presencfe 
 Of one who, seeking not his own, 
 
 Gave freely for the love of giving, 
 Nor reaped for self the harvest sown. 
 
 Thy greeting smile was pledge and prelude 
 Of generous deeds and kindly words : 
 
 In thy large heart were fair guest-chambers, 
 Open to sunrise and the birds. 
 
 The task was thine to mould and fashion 
 Life's plastic newness into grace ; 
 
 To make the boyish heart heroic, 
 And light with thought the maiden's face. 
 
 O friend ! if thought and sense avail not 
 To know thee henceforth as thou art, 
 
 That all is well with thee forever 
 I trust the instincts of my heart. 
 
 Thine be the quiet habitations, 
 
 Thine the green pastures, blossom-sown, 
 And smiles of saintly recognition, 
 
 As sweet and tender as thy own. 
 
 Thou com'st not from the hush and shadow 
 To meet us, but to thee we come ; 
 
 With thee we never can be strangers, 
 And where thou art must still be home. 
 
 A Memorial. JOHN G. WHITTIER, 
 
PART I. 
 
 5n JHemortam 
 JULIANA HORATIA, 
 
 SECOND DAUGHTER OF THE REV. ALFRED GATTY, D.D., AND 
 MARGARET, HIS WIFE, 
 
 BORN AT ECCLESFIELD, YORKSHIRE, AUGUST 3, 184!, 
 MARRIED JUNE I, 1867, TO ALEXANDER EWING, MAJOR, A.P.D., 
 
 DIED AT BATH, MAY 13, 1885, 
 BURIED AT TRULL, SOMERSET, MAY l6, 1885. 
 
 HAVE promised the children to write something 
 for them about their favorite story-teller, JULIANA 
 HORATIA EWING, because I am sure they will like 
 to read it. 
 
 I well remember how eagerly I devoured the Life of my 
 favorite author, Hans Christian Andersen ; how anxious I 
 was to send a subscription to the memorial statue of him, 
 which was placed in the centre of the Public Garden at 
 Copenhagen, where children yet play at his feet ; and, still 
 further, to send some flowers to his newly filled grave by the 
 hand of one who, more fortunate than myself, had the chance 
 of visiting the spot. 
 
 I think that the point which children will be most anxious 
 to know about Mrs. Ewing is how she wrote her stories. 
 
6 WE HAVE NOT WINGS, WE CANNOT SOAR, 
 
 Did she evolve the plots and characters entirely out of her 
 own mind, or were they in any way suggested by the occur- 
 rences and people around her? 
 
 The best plan .of answering such questions will be for me 
 to give a list of her stories in succession as they were written, 
 and to tell, as far as I can, what gave rise to them in my 
 sister's mind; in doing this we shall find that an outline 
 biography of her will naturally follow. Nearly all her writ- 
 ings first appeared in the pages of "Aunt Judy's Magazine," 
 and as we realize this fact we shall see how close her con- 
 nection with it was, and cease to wonder that the Magazine 
 should end after her death. 
 
 Those who lived with my sister have no difficulty in trac- 
 ing likenesses between some of the characters in her books 
 and many whom she met in real life ; but let me say, once 
 for all, that she never drew " portraits " of people, and even 
 if some of us now and then caught glimpses of ourselves 
 under the clothing she had robed us in, we only felt ashamed 
 to think how unlike we really were to the glorified beings 
 whom she put before the public. 
 
 Still less did she ever do with her pen, what an artistic 
 family of children used to threaten to do with their pencils 
 when they were vexed with each other, namely, to " draw 
 you ugly." 
 
 It was one of the strongest features in my sister's character 
 that she "received but what she gave," and threw such a 
 halo of sympathy and trust round every one she came in 
 contact with, that she seemed to see them " with larger other 
 eyes than ours," and treated them accordingly. On the 
 whole, I am sure this was good in its results, though the pain 
 occasionally of awakening to disappointment was acute ; but 
 she generally contrived to cover up the wound with some 
 
BUT WE HAVE FEET TO SCALE AND CLIMB. 7 
 
 new shoot of hope. On those in whom she trusted I think 
 her faith acted favorably. I recollect one friend, whose con- 
 science did not allow him to rest quite easily under the rosy 
 light through which he felt he was viewed, saying to her: 
 " It 's the trust that such women as you repose in us men, 
 which makes us desire to become more like what you believe 
 us to be." 
 
 If her universal sympathy sometimes led her to what we 
 might hastily consider "waste her time " on the petty inter- 
 ests and troubles of people who appeared to us unworthy, 
 what were we that we should blame her ? The value of each 
 soul is equal in God's sight ; and when the books are opened 
 there may be more entries than we now can count of hearts 
 comforted, self-respect restored, and souls raised by her help 
 to fresh love and trust in God, ay, even of old sins and 
 deeds of shame turned into rungs on the ladder to heaven 
 by feet that have learned to tread the evil beneath them. It 
 was this well-spring of sympathy in her which made my 
 sister rejoice as she did in the teaching of the now Chaplain- 
 General, Dr. J. C. Edghill, when he was yet attached to the 
 iron church in the South Camp, Aldershot. " He preaches 
 the gospel of Hope," she said ; hope, that is, in the latent 
 power which lies hidden even in the worst of us, ready to 
 take fire when touched by the Divine flame, and burn up its 
 old evil into a light that will shine to God's glory before men. 
 I still possess the epitome of one of these " hopeful " sermons, 
 which she sent me in a letter after hearing the chaplain 
 preach on the two texts : "What meanest thou, O sleeper? 
 arise, call upon thy God; " "Awake, thou that sleepest, and 
 arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." 
 
 It has been said that, in his story of " The Old Bachelor's 
 Nightcap," Hans Andersen recorded something of his own 
 
8 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 career. I know not if this be true, but certainly in her story 
 of " Madam Liberality " l Mrs. Ewing drew a picture of her 
 own character that can never be surpassed. She did this 
 quite unintentionally, I know, and believed that she was only 
 giving her own experiences of suffering under quinsy, in 
 combination with some record of the virtues of one whose 
 powers of courage, uprightness, and generosity under ill- 
 health she had always regarded with deep admiration. Pos- 
 sibly the virtues were hereditary, certainly the original 
 owner of them was a relation; but, however this may be, 
 Madam Liberality bears a wonderfully strong likeness to my 
 sister, and she used to be called by a great friend of ours the 
 " little body with a mighty heart," from the quotation which 
 appears at the head of the tale. 
 
 The same friend is now a bishop in another hemisphere 
 from ours, but he will ever be reckoned a " great " friend. 
 Our bonds of friendship were tied during hours of sorrow in 
 the house of mourning, and such as these are not broken by 
 after-divisions of space and time. Mrs. Ewing named him 
 " Jachin," from one of the pillars of the Temple, on account 
 of his being a pilhr of strength at that time to us. 
 
 All my earliest recollections of Julie (as I must call her) 
 picture her as at once the projector and manager of all our 
 nursery doings. Even if she tyrannized over us by always 
 arranging things according to her own fancy, we did not 
 rebel, we relied so habitually and entirely on her to originate 
 every fresh plan and idea ; and I am sure that in our turn 
 we often tyrannized over her by reproaching her when any of 
 what we called her "projukes " ended in " mulls," or when 
 she paused for what seemed to us a longer five minutes than 
 
 1 Reprinted in " A Great Emergency." 
 
NURSERY TALES. 9 
 
 usual in the middle of some story she was telling, to think 
 what the next incident should be. 
 
 It amazes me now to realize how unreasonable we were in 
 our impatience, and how her powers of invention ever kept 
 pace with our demands. These early stories were influenced 
 to some extent by the books that she then liked best to read, 
 Grimm, Andersen, and Bechstein's fairy tales ; to the last 
 writer I believe we owed her story about a Wizard, which 
 was one of our chief favorites. Not that she copied Bech- 
 stein in any way, for we read his tales too, and would not 
 have submitted to anything approaching a recapitulation ; 
 but the character of the little Wizard was one which fasci- 
 nated her, and even more so, perhaps, the quaint picture of 
 him, which stood at the head of the tale ; and she wove 
 round this skeleton idea a rambling romance from her own 
 fertile imagination. 
 
 I have specially alluded to the picture, because my sister's 
 artistic as well as literary powers were so strong that through 
 all her life the two ever ran side by side, each aiding and 
 developing the other, so that it is difficult to speak of them 
 apart. 
 
 Many of the stories she told us in childhood were inspired 
 by some fine woodcuts in a German "ABC book," that 
 we could none of us then read, and in later years some of 
 her best efforts were suggested by illustrations, and written 
 to fit them. I know, too, that in arranging the plots and 
 wording of her stories she followed the rules that are pursued 
 by artists in composing their pictures. She found great 
 difficulty in preventing herself from " overcrowding her 
 canvas " with minor characters, owing to her tendency to 
 throw herself into complete sympathy with whatever creature 
 she touched j and, sometimes, particularly in tales which 
 
10 WINDMILLS. 
 
 came out as serials, when she wrote from month to month, 
 and had no opportunity of correcting the composition as a 
 whole, she was apt to give undue prominence to minor 
 details, and throw her high lights on to obscure corners, in- 
 stead of concentrating them on the central point. These 
 artistic rules kept her humor and pathos like light and 
 shade duly balanced, and made the lights she " left out " 
 some of the most striking points of her work. 
 
 But to go back to the stories she told us as children. 
 Another of our favorite ones related to a Cavalier who hid in 
 an underground passage connected with a deserted Wind- 
 mill on a lonely moor. It is needless to say that, as we 
 were brought up on Marryat's " Children of the New Forest," 
 and possessed an aunt who always went into mourning for 
 King Charles on January 30, our sympathies were entirely 
 devoted to the Stuarts' cause ; and this persecuted Cavalier, 
 with his big hat and boots, long hair and sorrows, was our 
 best beloved hero. We would always let Julie tell us the 
 " Windmill Story " over again, when her imagination was at 
 a loss for a new one. Windmills, I suppose from their pic- 
 turesqueness, had a very strong attraction for her. There 
 were none near our Yorkshire home, so, perhaps, their rarity 
 added to their value in her eyes ; certain it is that she was 
 never tired of sketching them, and one of her latest note- 
 books is full of the old mill at Frimley, Hants, taken under 
 various aspects of sunset and storm. Then Holland, with 
 its low horizons and rows of windmills, was the first foreign 
 land she chose to visit, and the " Dutch Story," one of her 
 earliest written efforts, remains an unfinished fragment ; while 
 "Jan of the Windmill" owes much of its existence to her 
 early love for these quaint structures. 
 
 It was not only in the matter of fairy tales that Julie reigned 
 
DEEP MEANING IN CHILDISH PLAY II 
 
 supreme in the nursery, she presided equally over our games 
 and amusements. In matters such as garden-plots, when 
 she and our eldest bister could each have one of the same 
 size, they did so ; but, when it came to there being one bower, 
 devised under the bending branches of a lilac bush, then the 
 laws of seniority were disregarded, and it was "Julie's 
 Bower." Here, on benches made of narrow boards laid 
 on inverted flower-pots, we sat and listened to her stories ; 
 here was kept the discarded dinner-bell, used at the funerals 
 of our pet animals, and which she introduced into "The 
 Burial of the Linnet." Near the Bower we had a chapel, 
 dedicated to Saint Christopher, and a sketch of it is still ex- 
 tant, which was drawn by our eldest sister, who was the chief 
 builder and care-taker of the shrine ; hence started the funeral 
 processions, both of our pets and of the stray birds and beasts 
 we found unburied. In " Brothers of Pity " l Julie gave 
 her hero the same predilection for burying that we had 
 indulged in. 
 
 She invented names for the spots that we most frequented 
 in our walks, such as "The Mermaid's Ford," and "St. 
 Nicholas." The latter covered a space including several 
 fields and a clear stream, and over this locality she certainly 
 reigned supreme ; our gathering of violets and cowslips, or 
 of hips and haws for jam, and our digging of earth-nuts were 
 limited by her orders. I do not think she ever attempted 
 to exercise her prerogative over the stream ; I am sure that, 
 whenever we caught sight of a dark tuft of slimy Batracho- 
 spermum in its clear depths, we plunged in to secure it for 
 mother, whether Julie or any other Naiad liked it or no ! 
 But " the splendor in the grass and glory in the flower " that 
 we found in St. Nicholas was very deep and real, thanks 
 1 Brothers of Pity, and other Tales of Beasts and Men. 
 
12 PRIVATE THEATRICALS. 
 
 to all she wove around the spot for us. Even in childhood 
 she must have felt, and imparted to us, a great deal of what 
 she put into the hearts of the children in "Our Field." 1 To 
 me this story is one of the most beautiful of her compositions, 
 and deeply characteristic of the strong power she possessed 
 of drawing happiness from little things, in spite of the hin- 
 drances caused by weak health. Her fountain of hope and 
 thankfulness never ran dry. 
 
 Some of the indoor amusements over which Julie exercised 
 great influence were our theatricals. Her powers of imitation 
 were strong; indeed, my mother's story of "Joachim the 
 Mimic " was written, when Julie was very young, rather to 
 check this habit which had early developed in her. She al- 
 ways took what may be called the " walking gentleman's " 
 part in our plays. Miss Corner's Series came first, and then 
 Julie was usually a Prince ; but after we advanced to farces, 
 her most successful character was that of the commercial 
 traveller, Charley Beeswing, in "Twenty Minutes with a 
 Tiger." " Character " parts were what she liked best to 
 take, and in later years, when aiding in private theatricals at 
 Aldershot Camp, the piece she most enjoyed was " Helping 
 Hands," in which she acted Tilda, with Captain F. G. 
 Slade, R. A. as Shockey, and Major Ewing as the blind 
 musician. 
 
 The last time she acted was at Shoeburyness, where she 
 was the guest of her friends Colonel and Mrs. Strangways, 
 and when Captain Goold-Adams and his wife also took part 
 in the entertainment. The terrible news of Colonel Strang- 
 ways' and Captain Goold-Adams's deaths from the explosion 
 at Shoebury in February, 1885, reached her while she was 
 very ill, and shocked her greatly ; though she often alluded 
 1 A Great Emergency, and other Tales. 
 
PARISH WORK. 13 
 
 to the help she got from thinking of Colonel Strangways' 
 unselfishness, courage, and submission during his last hours, 
 and trying to bear her own sufferings in the same spirit. She 
 was so much pleased with the description given of his grave 
 being lined with moss, and lilac crocuses, that when her own 
 had to be dug it was lined in a similar way. 
 
 But let us go back to her in the nursery, and recall how. 
 in spite of very limited pocket-money, she was always the 
 presiding genius over birthday and Christmas-tree gifts ; 
 and the true Saint Nicholas who filled the stockings that 
 the " little ones " tied, in happy confidence, to their bed- 
 posts. 
 
 As she emerged from the nursery and began to take an 
 interest in our village neighbors, her taste for " projects " was 
 devoted to their interests. It was her energy that established 
 a lending library in 1859, which still remains a flourishing 
 institution ; but all her attempts were not crowned with equal 
 success. She often recalled, with great amusement, how, the 
 first day on which she distributed tracts as a District Visitor, 
 an old lady of limited ideas and crabbed disposition called in 
 the evening to restore the tract which had been lent to her, 
 remarking that she had brought it back and required no 
 more, as, " My 'usband does not attend the public 'ouse, 
 and we Ve no unrewly children ! " 
 
 My sister had also a class for young women, which was 
 held in the vicarage because she was so often prevented by 
 attacks of quinsy from going to the school ; indeed, at this 
 time, as the mother of some of her ex-pupils only lately 
 remarked, " Miss Julie were always cayling." 
 
 The first stories that she published belong to this so-to- 
 speak " parochial " phase of her life, when her interests were 
 chiefly divided between the nursery and the village. "A 
 
14 TRAVELS. 
 
 Bit of Green " came out in the " Monthly Packet " in July, 
 1861; "The Blackbird's Nest" in August, 1861 ; " Mel- 
 chior's Dream" in December, 1861 ; and these three tales, 
 with two others, which had not been previously published 
 (" Friedrich's Ballad " and "The Viscount's Friend"), were 
 issued in a volume called " Melchior's Dream and other 
 Tales," in 1862. The proceeds of the first edition of this 
 book gave Madam Liberality the opportunity of indulg- 
 ing in her favorite virtue. She and her eldest sister, who 
 illustrated the stories, first devoted the " tenths " of their 
 respective earnings for letterpress and pictures to buying 
 some hangings for the sacrarium of Ecclesfield Church, and 
 then Julie treated two of her sisters, who were out of health, 
 to Whitby for change of air. Three years later, out of some 
 other literary earnings, she took her eldest brother to Ant- 
 werp and Holland, to see the city of Rubens's pictures, and 
 the land of canals, windmills, and fine sunsets. The expe- 
 dition had to be conducted on principles which savored 
 more of strict integrity and economy than of comfort, 
 for they went in a small steamer from Hull to Antwerp; 
 but Julie feasted her eyes and brain on all the fresh sights 
 and sounds she encountered, and filled her sketch-book with 
 pictures. 
 
 " It was at Rotterdam," wrote her brother, " that I left her 
 with her camp-stool and water-colors for a moment in the 
 street, to find her, on my return, with a huge crowd round 
 her, behind and before, a baker's man holding back a blue 
 veil that would blow before her eyes, and she sketching 
 down an avenue of spectators, to whom she kept motion- 
 ing with her brush to stand aside. Perfectly unconscious 
 she was of how she looked, and I had great difficulty 
 in getting her to pack up and move on. Every quaint 
 
MAY THE OPEN HAND BE FULLEST! 15 
 
 Dutch boat, every queer street, every peasant in gold 
 ornaments, was a treasure for her note-book. We were very 
 happy ! " 
 
 I doubt, indeed, whether her companion has experienced 
 greater enjoyment during any of his later and more luxurious 
 visits to the same spots ; the first sight of a foreign country 
 must remain a unique sensation. 
 
 It was not the intrinsic value of Julie's gifts to us that 
 made them so precious, but the wide-hearted spirit which 
 always prompted them. Out of a moderate income she 
 could only afford to be generous from her constant habit of 
 thinking first for others, and denying herself. It made little 
 difference whether the gift was elevenpence-three-farthings' 
 worth of modern Japanese pottery, which she seized upon as 
 just the right shape and color to fit some niche on one of our 
 shelves, or a copy of the edition de luxe of " Evangeline," 
 with Frank Dicksee's magnificent illustrations, which she 
 ordered one day to be included in the parcel of a sister, who 
 had been judiciously laying out a small sum on the purchase 
 of cheap editions of standard works, not daring to look into 
 the tempting volume for fear of coveting it. When the carrier 
 brought home the unexpectedly large parcel that night, it 
 was difficult to say whether the receiver or the giver was the 
 happier. 
 
 My turn came once to be taken by Julie to the sea for rest 
 (June, 1874), and then one of the chief enjoyments lay in 
 the unwonted luxury of being allowed to choose my own 
 route. Freedom of choice to a wearied mind is quite as 
 refreshing as ozone to an exhausted body. Julie had none of 
 the petty tyranny about her which often mars the generosity 
 of otherwise liberal souls, who insist on giving what they wish 
 rather than what the receiver wants. 
 
15 AS MUCH GREATNESS IN GRATITUDE 
 
 I was told to take out Bradshaw's map, and go exactly 
 where I desired, and, oh ! how we did pore over the various 
 railway lines, but at last chose Dartmouth for a destination, 
 as being old in itself, and new to us, and really a " long way 
 ^ff." We were neither of us disappointed ; we lived on the 
 quay, and watched the natives living in boats on the harbor, 
 as is their wont ; and we drove about the deep Devon lanes, all 
 nodding with foxgloves, to see the churches with finely carved 
 screens that abound in the neighborhood, our driver being a 
 more than middle-aged woman, with shoes down at heel, 
 and a hat on her head. She was always attended by a 
 black retriever, whom she called "Naro," and whom Julie 
 sketched. I am afraid, as years went on, I became unscru- 
 pulous about accepting her presents, on the score that she 
 " liked " to give them ! and I only tried to be, at any rate, 
 a gracious receiver. 
 
 There was one person, however, whom Julie found less 
 easy to deal with, and that was a relation, whose liberality 
 even exceeded her own. When Greek met Greek over 
 Christmas presents, then came the tug of war indeed ! The 
 Relation's ingenuity in contriving to give away whatever 
 plums were given to her was quite amazing, and she gen- 
 erally managed to baffle the most careful restrictions which 
 were laid upon her ; but Julie conquered at last, by yielding 
 as often happens in this life. 
 
 " It 's no use," Julie said to me, as she got out her bit of 
 cardboard (not for a needle-book this time) ; " I must make 
 her happy in her own way. She wants me to make her a 
 sketch for somebody else, and I Ve promised to do it." 
 
 The sketch was made, the last Julie ever drew, but it 
 still rests among the receiver's own treasures. She was so 
 much delighted with it, she could not make up her mind to 
 
AS IN GENEROSITY. 1 7 
 
 give it away, and Julie laughed many times with pleasure as 
 she reflected on the unexpected success that had crowned 
 her final effort. 
 
 I spoke of " Melchior's Dream," and must revert to it again, 
 for though it was written when my sister was only nineteen, I 
 do not think she has surpassed it in any of her later domes- 
 tic tales. Some of the writing in the introduction may be 
 rougher and less finished than she was capable of in after- 
 years, but the originality, power, and pathos of the Dream 
 itself are beyond doubt. In it, too, she showed the talent 
 which gives the highest value to all her work, that of teach- 
 ing deep religious lessons without disgusting her readers by 
 any approach to cant or goody-goodyism. 
 
 During the years 1862 to 1868, we kept up a MS. maga- 
 zine, and, of course, Julie was our principal contributor. 
 Many of her poems on local events were genuinely witty, 
 and her serial tales the backbone of the periodical. The 
 best of these was called " The Two Abbots : a Tale of 
 Second Sight," and in the course of it she introduced a 
 hymn, which was afterwards set to music by Major Ewing, 
 and published in Boosey's Royal Edition of " Sacred Songs," 
 under the title " From Fleeting Pleasures." 
 
 While speaking of her hymns, I may mention that, on 
 several occasions, she helped us by writing or adapting 
 hymns to be sung by our school-children at their Whitsun- 
 tide festal services, when " new hymns " had to be provided 
 every year. Two of those that my sister wrote, in the re- 
 spective years 1864 and 1866, shall be given here, as they 
 are not published elsewhere, and I think other children 
 besides our Ecclesfield ones may like to sing them. The 
 first was written to the tune of Hymn 50 in the present 
 edition of " Hymns, Ancient and Modern/' 
 
 3 
 
1 8 WHITSUNTIDE HYMN. 
 
 I. 
 
 Come down ! come down ! O Holy Ghost ! 
 
 As once of old Thou didst come down, 
 In fiery tongues at Pentecost, 
 
 The apostolic heads to crown. 
 
 Come down ! though now no flame divine, 
 Nor heaven-sent Dove our sight amaze ; 
 
 Our Church still shows the outward sign 
 Thou truly givest inward grace. 
 
 Come down ! come down ! on infancy ; 
 
 The babes whom JESUS deigned to love. 
 God give us grace by faith to see, 
 
 Above the font, the mystic Dove. 
 
 Come down ! come down ! on kneeling bands 
 Of those who fain would strength receive ; 
 
 And in the laying on of hands 
 Bless us beyond what we believe. 
 
 Come down ! not only on the saint, 
 Oh, struggle with the hard of heart, 
 
 With wilful sin and inborn taint, 
 
 Till lust, and wrath, and pride depart 1 
 
 Come down ! come down, sweet Comforter! 
 
 It was the promise of the Lord. 
 Come down ! although we grieve Thee sore, 
 
 Not for our merits but His Word. 
 
 Come down ! come down ! not what we would 
 But what we need, oh, bring with Thee ! 
 
 Turn life's sore riddle to our good ; 
 
 A little while, and we shall see. Amen. 
 
VINCIT QUI PATITUR. 19 
 
 The second hymn is in the same metre as " The Pilgrims 
 of the Night," and was written to fit the flowery tune to 
 which the latter was originally attached. 
 
 II. 
 
 Long, long ago with vows too much forgotten, 
 
 The cross of Christ was sealed on every brow ; 
 Ah ! slow of heart, that shun tne Christian conflict, 
 Rise up at last ! The accepted time is now. 
 Soldiers of JESUS ! Blest who endure ; 
 Stand in the battle ! the victory is sure. 
 
 Hark ! hark ! the Saviour's voice to each is calling: 
 " I bore the Cross of Death in pain for thee; 
 
 On thee the Cross of daily life is falling : 
 
 Children, take up the Cross and follow ME ! " 
 Soldiers of JESUS ! Blest who endure, etc. 
 
 Strive as God's saints have striven in all ages ; 
 
 Press those slow steps where firmer feet have trod: 
 For us their lives adorn the sacred pages, 
 
 For them a crown of glory is with God. 
 Soldiers of JESUS ! Blest who endure, etc. 
 
 Peace ! peace ! sweet voices bring an ancient story 
 
 (Such songs angelic melodies employ), 
 " Hard is the strife, but unconceived the glory : 
 
 Short is the pain, eternal is the joy," 
 Soldiers of JESUS ! Blest who endure, etc. 
 
 On, Christian souls ! all base temptations spurning, 
 
 Drown coward thoughts in Faith's triumphant 
 Since JESUS suffered, our salvation earning, 
 Shall we not toil, that we may rest with Him ? 
 Soldiers of JESUS ! Blest who endure, 
 Stand in the battle ! the victory is sure. Amen 
 
20 AUNT JUDY. 
 
 My sister published very few of the things which she wrote 
 to amuse us in our MS. " Gunpowder Plot Magazine," for 
 they chiefly referred to local and family events ; but " The 
 Blue Bells on the Lea" was an exception. The scene of 
 this is a hill-side near our old home, and Mr. Andre's fan- 
 tastic and graceful illustrations to the verses when they came 
 out as a book, gave her full satisfaction and delight. 
 
 In June, 1865, she contributed a short parochial tale, 
 "The Yew Lane Ghosts," l to the " Monthly Packet," and 
 during the same year she gave a somewhat sensational story, 
 called " The Mystery of the Bloody Hand," to " London 
 Society." Julie found no real satisfaction in writing this kind 
 of literature, and she soon discarded it ; but her first attempt 
 showed some promise of the prolific power of her imagina- 
 tion, for Mr. Shirley Brooks, who read the tale impartially, 
 not knowing who had written it, wrote the following criti- 
 cism : " If the author has leisure and inclination to make a 
 picture instead of a sketch, the material, judiciously treated, 
 would make a novel, and I especially see in the character 
 and sufferings of the Quaker, previous to his crime, matter 
 for effective psychological treatment. The contrast between 
 the semi-insane nature and that of the hypocrite might be 
 powerfully worked up ; but these are mere suggestions from 
 an old craftsman, who never expects younger ones to see 
 things as veterans do." 
 
 In May, 1866, my mother started " Aunt Judy's Magazine 
 for Children," and she called it by this title because "Aunt 
 Judy " was the nickname we had given to Julie while she 
 was yet our nursery story-teller, and it had been previously 
 used in the titles of two of my mother's most popular books, 
 Aunt Judy's Tales," and "Aunt Judy's Letters." 
 1 Melchior's Dream, and other Tales. 
 
VISITS TO GRENOSIDE. 21 
 
 After my sister grew up, and began to publish stories of 
 her own, many mistakes occurred as to the authorship of 
 these books. It was supposed that the Tales and Letters 
 were really written by Julie, and the introductory portions 
 that strung them together by my mother. This was a com- 
 plete mistake ; the only bits that Julie wrote in either of the 
 books were three brief tales, in imitation of Andersen, called 
 " The Smut," " The Crick," and " The Brothers," which were 
 included in "The Black Bag" in "Aunt Judy's Letters." 
 
 Julie's first contribution to "Aunt Judy's Magazine " was 
 "Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances," 1 and between May, 
 1866, and May, 1867, the first three portions of "Ida," 
 "Mrs. Moss," and "The Snoring Ghosts" came out. In 
 these stories I can trace many of the influences which sur- 
 rounded my sister while she was still the " always cayling Miss 
 Julie," suffering from constant attacks of quinsy, and in the 
 intervals reviving from them with the vivacity of Madam 
 Liberality, and frequently going away to pay visits to her 
 friends for change of air. 
 
 We had one great friend to whom Julie often went, as she 
 lived within a mile of our home, but on a perfectly different 
 soil to ours. Ecclesfield is built on clay, but Grenoside, the 
 village where our friend lived, is on sand, and much higher 
 in altitude. From it we have often looked down at Eccles- 
 field lying in fog, while at Grenoside the air was clear and 
 the sun shining. Here my sister loved to go, and from the 
 home where she was so welcome and tenderly cared for, 
 she drew (though no facts] yet much of the coloring which 
 is seen in Mrs. Overtheway, a solitary life lived in the fear 
 of God ; enjoyment of the delights of a garden ; with tender 
 treasuring of dainty china and household goods for the sake 
 1 Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances, and other Tales. 
 
22 GONE INTO THE WORLD OF LIGHT. 
 
 of those to whom such relics had once belonged. Years 
 after our friend had followed her loved ones to their better 
 home, and had bequeathed her egg-shell brocade to my 
 sister, Julie had another resting-place in Grenoside, to which 
 she was as warmly welcomed as to the old one, during days 
 of weakness and convalescence. Here, in an atmosphere 
 of cultivated tastes and loving appreciation, she spent many 
 happy hours, sketching some of the villagers at their pictu- 
 resque occupations of carpet-weaving and clog-making, or 
 amusing herself in other ways. This home, too, was broken 
 up by death, but Mrs. Ewing looked back to it with great 
 affection, and when, at the beginning of her last illness, 
 while she still expected to recover, she was planning a visit 
 to her Yorkshire home, she sighed to think that Grenoside 
 was no longer open to her. 
 
 On June i, 1867, my sister was married to Alexander 
 Ewing, A.P.D., son of the late Alexander Ewing, M.D., of 
 Aberdeen, and a week afterwards they sailed for Fredericton, 
 New Brunswick, where he was to be stationed. 
 
 A gap now occurred in the continuation of " Mrs. Over- 
 theway's Remembrances." The first contributions that Julie 
 sent from her new home were "An Idyl of the Wood," 1 
 and " The Three Christmas Trees." In these tales the expe- 
 riences of her voyage and fresh surroundings became appar- 
 ent; but in June, 1868, "Mrs. Overtheway" was continued 
 by the story of " Reka Dom." 
 
 In this Julie reverted to the scenery of another English 
 home where she had spent a good deal of time during her 
 girlhood. The winter of 1862-63 was passed by her at Clyst 
 St. George, near Topsham, with the family of her kind friend, 
 Rev. H. T. Ellacombe ; and she evolved Mrs. Overtheway's 
 1 Reprinted in " The Brownies, and other Tales." 
 
HOME IN THE DEAR OLD CAMP. 23 
 
 " River House " J out of the romance roused by the sight of 
 quaint old houses, with quainter gardens, and strange names 
 that seemed to show traces of foreign residents in days gone 
 by. Reka Dom was actually the name of a house IP 
 Topsham, where a Russian family had once lived. 
 
 For the descriptions of Father and Mother Albatross and 
 their island home, in the last and most beautiful tale of " Ker- 
 guelen's Land," she was indebted to her husband, a wide 
 traveller and very accurate observer of nature. 
 
 To the volume of "Aunt Judy's Magazine " for 1869 she 
 only sent " The Land of Lost Toys," a short but very brilliant 
 domestic story, the wood described in it being the Upper 
 Shroggs, near Ecclesfield, which had been a very favorite 
 haunt in her childhood. In October, 1869, she and Major 
 Ewing returned to England, and from this time until May, 
 1877, he was stationed at Aldershot. 
 
 While living in Fredericton my sister formed many close 
 friendships. It was here she first met Colonel and Mrs. 
 Strangways. In the society of Bishop Medley and his wife 
 she had also great happiness, and with the former she and 
 Major Ewing used to study Hebrew. The cathedral services 
 were a never-failing source of comfort, and at these her 
 husband frequently played the organ, especially on occasions 
 
 1 On the evening of our arrival at Fredericton, New Brunswick, 
 which stands on the River St. John, we strolled down out of the prin- 
 cipal street, and wandered on the river shore. We stopped to rest 
 opposite to a large old house, then in the hands of workmen. There 
 was only the road between this house and the river, and on the banks 
 one or two old willows. We said we should like to make our first 
 home in some such spot. Ere many weeks were over, we were estab- 
 lished in that very house where we spent the first year, or more, of 
 our time in Fredericton. We called it Reka Dom, the River House 
 A. E. 
 
24 PET ANIMALS, 
 
 when anthems, which he had written at the bishop's request, 
 were sung. 
 
 To the volume of "Aunt Judy's Magazine " for 1870 she 
 gave "Amelia and the Dwarfs," and "Christmas Crackers," 1 
 "Benjy in Beastland," * and eight "Old-fashioned Fairy 
 Tales." "Amelia" is one of her happiest combinations of 
 real child-life and genuine fairy lore. The dwarfs inspired 
 Mr. Cruikshank to one of his best water color sketches : who 
 is the happy possessor thereof I do not know, but the wood- 
 cut illustration very inadequately represents the beauty and 
 delicacy of the picture. 
 
 While speaking of the stories in this volume of "Aunt 
 Judy's Magazine," I must stop to allude to one of the strong- 
 est features in Julie's character, namely, her love for animals. 
 She threw over them, as over everything she touched, all 
 the warm sympathy of her loving heart, and it always seemed 
 to me as if this enabled her almost to get inside the mind of 
 her pets, and know how to describe their feelings. 
 
 Another beast friend whom Julie had in New Brunswick 
 was the bear of the 22d Regiment, and she drew a sketch 
 of him " with one of his pet black dogs, as I saw them, i8th 
 September, 1868, near the Officers' Quarters, Fredericton, 
 N. B. The bear is at breakfast, and the dog occasionally 
 licks his nose when it comes up out of the bucket." 
 
 The pink-nosed bull-dog in "Amelia" bears a strong like- 
 ness to a well-beloved Hector whom she took charge of 
 in Fredericton while his master had gone on leave to be mar- 
 ried in England. Hector, too, was " a snow-white bull-dog 
 (who was certainly as well-bred and as amiable as any living 
 creature in the kingdom)," with a pink nose that " became 
 
 1 Both reprinted in " The Brownies, and other Tales." 
 
 2 Reprinted in " Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales." 
 
A FAVORITE DOG. 25 
 
 crimson with increased agitation." He was absolutely gen- 
 tle with human beings, but a hopeless adept at fighting with 
 his own kind ; and many of my sister's letters and note-books 
 were adorned with sketches of Hector as he appeared swollen 
 about the head, and subdued in spirits, after some desperate 
 encounter ; or, with cards spread out in front of him playing, 
 as she delighted to make him do, at " having his fortune 
 told." But, instead of the four Que~ens standing for four ladies 
 of different degrees of complexion, they represented his four 
 favorite dishes of, (i.) Welsh rabbit ; (2.) Blueberry pudding ; 
 (3.) Pork sausages ; (4.) Buckwheat pancakes and molasses; 
 and " the fortune " decided which of these dainties he was to 
 have for supper. 
 
 Shortly before the Ewings started from Fredericton, they 
 went into the barracks, whence a battalion of some regiment 
 had departed two days before, and there discovered a large 
 black retriever who had been left behind. It is needless to 
 say that this deserted gentleman entirely overcame their 
 feelings ; he was at once adopted, named Trouve", and 
 brought home to England, where he spent a very happy life, 
 chiefly in the South Camp, Aldershot, his one danger there 
 being that he was such a favorite with the soldiers they over- 
 fed him terribly. Never did a more benevolent disposition 
 exist ; his broad forehead and kind eyes, set widely apart, 
 did not belie him ; there was a strong strain of Newfound- 
 land in his breed, and a strong likeness to a bear in the way 
 his feathered paws half crossed over each other in walking. 
 Trouve appears as Nox in " Benjy," and there is a 
 glimpse of him in The Sweep, who ended his days as a 
 " soldier's dog " in " The Story of a Short Life." Trouve" 
 did, in reality, end his days at Ecclesfield, where he is buried 
 near Rough, the broken-haired bull-terrier, who is the 
 
26 VARIOUS STORIES, 
 
 real hero in "Benjy." Among the various animal friends 
 whom Julie had, either of her own or belonging to others, 
 none is lovelier than the golden-haired collie, Rufus, who 
 was at once the delight and distraction of the last year of her 
 life at Taunton, by the tricks he taught himself of very gently 
 extracting the pins from her hair, and letting it down at in- 
 convenient moments ; and of extracting, with equal gentle- 
 ness, from the earth the labels that she had put to the various 
 treasured flowers in her " Little Garden," and then tossing 
 them in mid-air on the grass-plot. 
 
 A very amusing domestic story by my sister, called " The 
 Snap Dragons " came out in the Christmas number of the 
 "Monthly Packet" for 1870, and it has not yet been pub- 
 lished separately. 
 
 " Timothy's Shoes " 1 appeared in " Aunt Judy's " volume for 
 1871. This was another story of the same type as " Amelia," 
 and it was also illustrated by Mr. Cruikshank. I think the 
 Marsh Julie had in her mind's eye, with a "long and steep 
 bank," is one near the canal at Aldershot, where she herself 
 used to enjoy hunting for kingcups, bog-asphodel, sundew, 
 and the like. The tale is a charming combination of humor 
 and pathos, and the last clause, where " the shoes go home," 
 is enough to bring tears to the eyes of every one who loves 
 the patter of childish feet. 
 
 The most important work that she did this year (1871) 
 was "A Flat-Iron for a Farthing," which ran as a serial 
 through the volume of " Aunt Judy's Magazine." It was very 
 beautifully illustrated by Helen Paterson (now Mrs. Allingham), 
 and the design where the " little ladies," in big beaver bon- 
 nets, are seated at a shop-counter buying flat-irons, was af- 
 terwards reproduced in water-colors by Mrs. Allingham, and 
 1 Reprinted in " Lob Lie-by-lhe-Fire, and other Tales." 
 
THE LITTLE LADIES. 2J 
 
 exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Water-colors 
 (1875), where it attracted Mr. Ruskin's attention. 1 Eventu- 
 ally, a fine steel engraving was done from it by Mr. Stodart. 
 It is interesting to know that the girl friend who sat as a 
 model for Polly to Mrs. Allingham is now herself a well- 
 known artist, wnose pictures are hung in the Royal Academy. 
 
 The scene of the little girls in beaver bonnets was really 
 taken from an incident of Julie's, childhood, when she and 
 her " duplicate " (my eldest sister) being the nearest in age, 
 size, and appearance, of any of the family, used to be dressed 
 exactly alike, and were inseparable companions : their flat- 
 irons, I think, were bought in Matlock. Shadowy glimpses 
 of this same " duplicate " are also to be caught in Mrs. 
 Overtheway's Fatima, and Madam Liberality's Darling. 
 When " A Flat-Iron " came out in its book form it was dedi- 
 cated " To my dear Father, and to his sister, my dear Aunt 
 Mary, in memory of their good friend and nurse, E. B., obiit 
 3 March, 1872, set. 83 ; " the loyal devotion and high integ- 
 rity of Nurse Bundle having been somewhat drawn from the 
 " E. B." alluded to. Such characters are not common, and 
 they grow rarer year by year. We do well to hold them in 
 everlasting remembrance. 
 
 1 The drawing, with whatever temporary purpose executed, is for- 
 ever lovely ; a thing which I believe Gainsborough would have given 
 one of his own pictures for, old-fashioned as red-tipped daisies are, 
 and more precious than rubies. Ruskirfs Notes on some of iht 
 Pictures at the Royal Academy. 1875. 
 
PART II. 
 
 THE meadows gleam with hoarfrost white > 
 
 The day breaks on the hill ; 
 The widgeon takes its early flight 
 
 Beside the frozen rill. 
 From village steeples far away 
 
 The sound of bells is borne, 
 As one by one each crimson ray 
 
 Brings in the Christmas morn. 
 Peace to all ! the church bells say, 
 For Christ was born on Christmas day. 
 Peace to all ! 
 
 Here some will those again embrace 
 
 They hold on earth most dear ; 
 There some will mourn an absent face 
 
 They lost within the year. 
 Yet peace to all who smile or weep 
 
 Is rung from earth to sky ; 
 But most to those to-day who keep 
 
 The feast with Christ on high. 
 Peace to all ! the church bells say, 
 For Christ was born on Christmas day. 
 Peace to all ! 
 
 R. A. GATTY, 1873. 
 
 FRING 1871 my sister published the first of her 
 "Verses for Children," "The Little Master to 
 his Big Dog ; " she did not put her name to it in 
 "Aunt Judy's Magazine," but afterwards included it in one of 
 her shilling Verse Books. Two series of these books, con- 
 sisting of six volumes each, have now been published, and a 
 third series is in the press, which will be called " Poems of 
 
A-MUMMING WE WILL GO ! 29 
 
 Child Life and Country Life ; " though Julie had some diffi- 
 culty in making up her mind to use the term " poem," be- 
 cause she did not think her irregular verses were worthy to 
 bear the title. 
 
 She saw Mr. Andrews original sketches for five of the last 
 six volumes, and liked the illustrations to " The Poet and the 
 Brook," " Convalescence," and "The Mill Stream " best. 
 
 To the volume of "Aunt Judy's .Magazine" for 1872 she 
 gave her first "soldier" story, "The Peace Egg," and in 
 this she began to sing those praises of military life and 
 courtesies which she afterwards more fully showed forth in 
 "Jackanapes," "The Story of a Short Life," and the opening 
 chapters of " Six to Sixteen." The chief incident of the 
 story, however, consisted in the Captain's children uncon- 
 sciously bringing peace and good-will into the family by per- 
 forming the old Christmas play or Mystery of " The Peace 
 Egg." This play we had been accustomed to see acted in 
 Yorkshire, and to act ourselves when we were young: I 
 recollect how proud we were on one occasion, when our dis- 
 guises were so complete, that a neighboring farmer's wife, at 
 whose door we went to act, drove us as ignominiously away, 
 as the Housekeeper did the children in the story. Darkie, 
 who "slipped in last like a black shadow," and Pax, who 
 jumped on to Mamma's lap, " where, sitting facing the com- 
 pany, he opened his black mouth and yawned, with ludi- 
 crous inappropriateness," are life-like portraits of two favorite 
 dogs. 
 
 The tale was a very popular one, and many children wrote 
 to ask where they could buy copies of the play in order to 
 act it themselves. These inquiries led Julie to compile a 
 fresh arrangement of it, for she knew that in its original form 
 it was rather too roughly worded to be fit for nursery use ; 
 
30 LIVE FOR A CENTURY, 
 
 so in" Aunt Judy's Magazine" (January, 1884) she published 
 an adaptation of "The Peace Egg, a Christmas Mumming 
 Play," together with some interesting information about 
 the various versions of it which exist in different parts o* 
 England. 
 
 She contributed " Six to Sixteen " as a serial to the Maga- 
 zine in 1872, and it was illustrated by Mrs. Allingham. When 
 it was published as a book, the dedication to Miss Eleanor 
 Lloyd told that many of the theories on the up-bringing of 
 girls, which the story contained, were the result of the some- 
 what desultory, if intellectual, home education which we had 
 received from our mother. This education Miss Lloyd had, 
 to a great extent, shared during the happy visits she paid 
 us ; when she entered into our interests with the zest of a 
 sister, and in more than one point outstripped us in follow- 
 ing the pursuits for which mother gave us a taste. Julie 
 never really either went to school or had a governess, though 
 for a brief period she was under the kind care of some ladies 
 at Brighton, but they were relations, and she went to them 
 more for the benefit of sea breezes than lessons. She cer- 
 tainly chiefly educated herself by the " thorough " way in 
 which she pursued the various tastes she had inherited, and 
 into which she was guided by our mother. Then she never 
 thought she had learned enough, but throughout her whole 
 life was constantly improving and adding to her knowledge. 
 She owed to mother's teaching the first principles of drawing. 
 and I have often seen her refer for rules on perspective to 
 " My Childhood in Art," a story in which these rules were 
 fully laid down ; but mother had no eye for color, and not 
 much for figure drawing. Her own best works were etchings 
 on copper of trees and landscapes, whereas Julie's artistic 
 talent lay more in colors and human forms. The only real 
 
BUT EVER BE LEARNING. 31 
 
 lessons in sketching she ever had were a few from Mr. Paul 
 Naftel, years after she was married. 
 
 One of her favorite methods for practising drawing was 
 to devote herself to thoroughly studying the sketches of some 
 one master, in order to try and unravel the special principles 
 on which he had worked, and then to copy his drawings. 
 She pursued this plan with some of Chinnery's curious and 
 effective water-color sketches, which were lent to her by 
 friends, and she found it a very useful one. She made cop- 
 ies from De Wint, Turner, and others, in the same way, and 
 certainly the labor she threw into her work enabled her to 
 produce almost fac-similes of the originals. She was greatly 
 interested one day by hearing a lady, who ranks as the best 
 living English writer of her sex, say that when she was young 
 she had practised the art of writing, in just the same way that 
 Julie pursued that of drawing, namely, by devoting herself 
 to reading the works of one writer at a time, until her brain 
 was so saturated with his style that she could write exactly 
 like him, and then passing on to an equally careful study of 
 some other author. 
 
 The life-like details of the " cholera season," in the second 
 chapter of " Six to Sixteen," were drawn from facts that 
 Major Ewing told his wife of a similar season which he had 
 passed through in China, and during which he had lost several 
 friends ; but the touching episode of Margery's birthday pres- 
 ent, and Mr. Abercrombie's efforts to console her, were 
 purely imaginary. 
 
 Several of the " Old-fashioned Fairy Tales " which Julie 
 wrote during this (1872) and previous years in "Aunt Judy's 
 Magazine " were on Scotch topics, and she owed the striking 
 accuracy of her local coloring and dialect, as well as her 
 keen intuition of Scotch character, to visits that she paid to 
 
32 A STORY OF THE PLAINS. 
 
 Major Ewing's relatives in the North, and also to reading 
 such typical books as " Mansie Wauch, the Tailor of Dal- 
 keith," a story which she greatly admired. She liked to study 
 national types of character, and when she wrote " We and 
 the World," one of its chief features was meant to be the 
 contrast drawn between the English, Scotch, and Irish heroes ; 
 thanks to her wide sympathy she was as keenly able to ap- 
 preciate the rugged virtues of the dour Scotch race, as the 
 more quick and graceful beauties of the Irish mind. 
 
 The Autumn Military Manoeuvres in 1872 were held near 
 Salisbury Plain, and Major Ewing was so much fascinated by 
 the quaint old town of Amesbury, where he was quartered, 
 that he took my sister afterwards to visit the place. The 
 result of this was that her " Miller's Thumb " came out as a 
 serial in "Aunt Judy's Magazine" during 1873. All the scen- 
 ery is drawn from the neighborhood of Amesbury, and the 
 Wiltshire dialect she acquired by the aid of a friend, who 
 procured copies for her of " Wiltshire Tales " and " A Glos- 
 sary of Wiltshire Words and Phrases," both by J. Y. Aker- 
 man, F. S. A. She gleaned her practical knowledge of life 
 in a windmill, and a " Miller's Thumb," from an old man 
 who used to visit her hut in the South Camp, Aldershot, 
 having fallen from being a Miller with a genuine Thumb to 
 the less exalted position of hawking muffins in winter and 
 " Sally Lunns " in summer ! Mrs. Allingham illustrated the 
 story; two of her best designs were Jan and his Nurse 
 Boy sitting on the plain watching the crows fly, and Jan's 
 first effort at drawing on his slate. It was published as a 
 book in 1876, and dedicated to our eldest sister, and the 
 title was then altered to "Jan of the Windmill, a Story of the 
 Plains." 
 
 Three poems of Julie's came out in the volume of " Aunt 
 

 MORS JANUA VITJE. 33 
 
 Judy's Magazine " for 1873, " The Willow Man," " Ran away 
 to Sea/' and " A Friend in the Garden ; " her name was not 
 given to the last, but it is a pleasant little rhyme about a toad. 
 She also wrote during this year " Among the Merrows, " a 
 fantastic account of a visit she paid to the Aquarium at the 
 Crystal Palace. 
 
 In October, 1873, our mother died, and my sister contrib- 
 uted a short memoir of her to the November number of 
 " Aunt Judy's Magazine." To the December number she 
 gave " Madam Liberality." * 
 
 For two years after mother's death Julie shared the work 
 of editing the Magazine with me, and then she gave it up, 
 as we were not living together, and so found the plan rather 
 inconvenient ; also the task of reading manuscripts and writing 
 business letters wasted time which she could spend better 
 on her own stories. 
 
 At the end of the year 1873 she brought out a book, " Lob 
 Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales," consisting of five stories, 
 three of which " Timothy's Shoes," "Benjy in Beastland," 
 and " The Peace Egg " had already been published in 
 " Aunt Judy's Magazine," while " Old Father Christmas " had 
 appeared in " Little Folks ; " but the first tale of " Lob " was 
 specially written for the volume. 
 
 The character of McAHster in this story is a Scotchman of 
 the Scotch, an uncle of Major Ewing, who always showed a 
 most kind and helpful interest in my sister's literary work. 
 
 He died a few weeks before she did, much to her sorrow. 
 The incident which makes the tale specially appropriate to 
 so true and unobtrusive a philanthropist as Mr. McCombie 
 was, is the Highlander's burning anxiety to rescue John 
 Broom from his vagrant career. 
 
 1 Reprinted in " A Great Emergency, and other Tales." 
 3 
 
34 LARGE HUMAN SYMPATHIES. 
 
 " Lob " contains some of Julie's brightest flashes of humor, 
 and ends happily, but in it, as in many of her tales, " the 
 ' dusky strand of death " appears, inwoven with, and thereby 
 heightening, the joys of love and life. It is a curious fact 
 that, though her power of describing death-bed scenes was 
 6O vivid, I believe she never saw any one die ; and I will 
 venture to say that her description of McAlister's last hours 
 surpasses in truth and power the end of Leonard's " Short 
 Life ; " the extinction of the line of " Old Standards " in 
 Daddy Darwin ; the unseen call that led Jan's Schoolmaster 
 away ; and will even bear comparison with Jackanapes' de- 
 parture through the grave to that " other side " where " the 
 Trumpets sounded for him." 
 
 Death-beds are not the only things which Julie had the 
 power of picturing out of her inner consciousness apart from 
 actual experience. She was much amused by the pertinacity 
 with which unknown correspondents occasionally inquired 
 after her " little ones," unable to give her the credit of de- 
 scribing and understanding children unless she possessed 
 some of her own. There is a graceful touch at the end of 
 " Lob," which seems to me one of the most delicate evi- 
 dences of her universal sympathy with all sorts and conditions 
 of men and women ! It is similar in character to the 
 passage I alluded to in "Timothy's Shoes," where they 
 clatter away for the last time, into silence. 
 
 " Even after the sobering influences of middle age had touched 
 him, and a wife and children bound him with the quiet ties of 
 home, he had (at long intervals) his ' restless times,' when his 
 good ' missis ' would bring out a little store laid by in one of 
 the children's socks, and would bid him * Be off, and get a 
 breath of the sea air,' but on condition that the sock went with 
 him as his purse. John Broom always looked ashamed to go, 
 
LITERARY LABORS. 35 
 
 but he came back the better, and his wife was quite easy in his 
 absence with that confidence in her knowledge of ' the master,' 
 which is so mysterious to the unmarried. 
 
 "'The sock '11 bring him home,' said Mrs. Broom, and home 
 he came, and never could say what he had been doing." 
 
 In 1874 Julie wrote "A Great Emergency" 1 as a serial 
 for the Magazine and took great pains to corroborate the 
 accuracy of her descriptions of barge life for it. I remember 
 our inspecting a barge on the canal at Aldershot, with a 
 friend who understood all its details, and we arranged to go 
 on an expedition in it to gain further experience, but were 
 somehow prevented. The allusions to Dartmouth arose from 
 our visit there, of which I have already spoken, and which 
 took place while she was writing the tale; and her knowl- 
 edge of the intricacies of the Great Eastern Railway between 
 Fenchurch Street Station and North Woolwich came from 
 the experience she gained when we went on expeditions to 
 Victoria Docks, where one of our brothers was doing paro- 
 chial work under Canon Boyd. 
 
 During 1874 five of her "Verses for Children " came out 
 in the Magazine, two of which, " Our Garden," and " Three 
 Little Nest-Birds," were written to fit old German woodcuts. 
 These two, and " The Doll's Wash," and "The Blue Bells on 
 the Lea," have since been republished. " The Doll's Lul- 
 laby " has not yet reappeared. She wrote an article on 
 "May-Day, Old Style and New Style," in 1874, and also 
 contributed fifty-two brief " Tales of the Khoja," which she 
 adapted from the Turkish by the aid of a literal translation of 
 them given in Barker's " Reading- Book of the Turkish Lan- 
 
 1 " A Great Emergency, and other Tales." 
 
36 WHICH IS WHICH? 
 
 guage," and by the help of Major Ewing, who possessed 
 some knowledge of the Turkish language and customs, and 
 assisted her in polishing the stories. They are thoroughly 
 Eastern in character, and full of dry wit. 
 
 I must here digress to speak of some other work that my 
 sister did during the time she lived in Aldershot. Both she 
 and Major Ewing took great interest in the amateur concerts 
 and private musical performances that took place in the 
 camp, and the V. C. in " The Story of a Short Life," with a 
 fine tenor voice, and a " fastidious choice in the words of the 
 songs he sang," is a shadow of these past days. The want 
 that many composers felt of good words for setting to music, 
 led Julie to try to write some, and eventually, in 1874, a book 
 of " Songs for Music, by Four Friends," was published ; the 
 contents were written by my sister and two of her brothers, 
 and the Rev. G. J. Chester. This book became a standing 
 joke among them, because one of the reviewers said it con- 
 tained " songs by four writers, one of whom was a poet," and 
 he did not specify the one by name. Whatever his opinion 
 may have been, there are two "poems " of my sister's in the 
 volume which deserve to be noticed here ; they are very dif- 
 ferent in type, one of them was written to suit a sweet singer 
 with a tenor voice, and the other a powerful and effective 
 baritone. The former was gracefully set to music by my 
 brother Alfred Scott Gatty, and spoiled by his publisher, who 
 insisted on " adapting " it to his own ideas of the public 
 taste. The latter was set too well by Mr. J. F. Duggan to 
 have any chance of becoming " popular," if the publisher's 
 gauge of taste was a true one. 
 
FOR LOVE OF LONG AGO. 37 
 
 HOW MANY YEARS AGO? 
 
 How many years ago, love, 
 Since you came courting me ? 
 Through oak-tree wood and o'er the lea, 
 With rosy cheeks and waistcoat gay, 
 And mostly not a word to say, 
 How many years ago, love, 
 How many years ago ? 
 
 How many years ago, love, 
 Since you to father spoke ? 
 Between your lips a sprig of oak : 
 You were not one with much to say, 
 But mother spoke for you that day, 
 How many years ago, love, 
 How many years ago ? 
 
 So many years ago, love, 
 
 That soon our time must come 
 
 To leave our girl without a home. 
 
 She 's like her mother, love, you 've said : 
 
 At her age I had long been wed, 
 
 How many years ago, love, 
 
 How many years ago ? 
 
 For love of long ago, love, 
 
 If John has aught to say, 
 
 When he comes up to us to-day 
 
 (A likely lad, though short of tongue), 
 
 Remember, husband, we were young, 
 
 How many years ago, love, 
 
 How many years ago ? 
 
38 THE MAN IN GRAY. 
 
 THE ELLEREE. 1 
 
 A SONG OF SECOND SIGHT. 
 
 Elleree ! O Elleree ! 
 Seeing what none else may see, 
 Dost thou see the man in gray ? 
 Dost thou hear the night hounds bay ? 
 
 Elleree ! O Elleree ! 
 Seventh son of seventh son, 
 All thy thread of life is spun, 
 Thy little race is nearly run, 
 
 And death awaits for thee. 
 
 Elleree ! O Elleree ! 
 Coronach shall wail for thee ; 
 Get thee shrived and get thee blest, 
 Get thee ready for thy rest, 
 
 Elleree ! O Elleree ! 
 That thou owest quickly give, 
 What thou ownest thou must leave, 
 And those thou lovest best shall grieve, 
 
 But all in vain for thee. 
 
 " Bodach Glas ! " 2 the chieftain said, 
 " All my debts but one are paid, 
 All I love have long been dead, 
 All my hopes on Heaven are stayed, 
 
 Death to me can bring no dole ; " 
 Thus the Elleree replied ; 
 But with the ebbing of the tide 
 As sinks the setting sun he died ; 
 
 May Christ receive his soul ! 
 
 1 * Elleree " is the name of one who has the gift of second-sight 
 3 -Bodach Glas," the Man in Gray, appears to a Highland family 
 with the gift of second-sight, presaging death. 
 
THEORY OF FAIRY LITERATURE. 3Q 
 
 During 1875 Julie was again aided by her husband in the 
 work that she did for " Aunt Judy's Magazine." " Cousin 
 Peregrine's three Wonder Stories " (i) " The Chinese Jug- 
 glers and the Englishman's Hand ; " (2) "The Waves of the 
 Great South Sea ; " and (3) " Jack of Pera " were a combi- 
 nation of his facts and her wording. She added only one 
 more to her " Old-fashioned Fairy Tales," " Good Luck is 
 Better than Gold," but it is one of her most finished bits of 
 art, and she placed it first, when the tales came out in a vol- 
 ume. The Preface to this book is well worth the study of 
 those who are interested in the composition of Fairy litera- 
 ture. Julie began by explaining that though the title of the 
 book might lead people to think it consisted of " old fairy 
 tales told afresh," yet they were all new, " except for the use 
 of common ' properties ' of Fairy Drama, . . . and were 
 written in conformity to certain theories respecting stories of 
 this kind : " 
 
 " First, that there are ideas and types, occurring in the myths 
 of all countries, which are common properties, to use which does 
 not lay the teller of fairy tales open to the charge of plagiarism. 
 Such as the idea of the weak outwitting the strong ; the failure 
 of man to choose wisely when he may have his wish ; or the 
 desire of sprites to exchange their careless and unfettered exist- 
 ence for the pains and penalties of humanity, if they may thereby 
 share in the hopes of the human soul. 
 
 "Secondly, that in these household stories (the models for 
 which were originally oral tradition), the thing to be most 
 avoided is a discursive or descriptive style of writing. Brevity 
 and epigram must ever be the soul of their wit, and they should 
 be written as tales that are told." 
 
 After this Julie touched on some of the reasons for which 
 grown-up readers occasionally object to tales of the imagination 
 
40 VIVID DELINEATIONS. 
 
 as food for young minds, and very ably proved that " fairy 
 tales have positive uses in education, which no cramming 
 of facts and no merely domestic fiction can serve ; " but 
 her defence is too long to be quoted here. 
 
 She also wrote (in 1875) an article on "Little Woods," 
 and a domestic story called " A very Ill-tempered Family." 1 
 
 This is most powerfully written, and has been ardently 
 admired by many people who found help from the lessons 
 it taught ; for my own part, I prefer the tales in which Julie 
 left her lessons to be inferred, rather than those where she 
 laid them down in anything approaching to a didactic fashion. 
 I think, too, that the very vividness of the children she drew 
 made me feel about them what is said of the little girl in 
 the nursery rhyme, that " when she was nice she was very, 
 very nice, but when she was nasty she was horrid" Julie's 
 " horrid '* children give me real pain to read about, and I 
 know I shrink for this reason from " A Sweet Little Dear," 
 in spite of the caustic fun of the verses, and also from Selina 
 in " A Bad Habit ; " but this, of course, is a matter of 
 personal taste only. 
 
 The incident of Isobel's reciting the Te Deum is a touch- 
 ing one, because the habit of repeating it by heart, especially 
 in bed at night, was one which Julie herself had practised 
 from the days of childhood, when, I believe, it was used to 
 drive away the terrors of darkness. The last day on which 
 she expressed any expectation of recovering from her final 
 illness was one on which she said, " I think I must be getting 
 better, for I Ve repeated the Te Deum all through, and since 
 I Ve been ill I Ve only been able to say a few sentences at 
 once." This was certainly the last time that she recited the 
 great hymn of praise before she joined the throng of those 
 1 Reprinted in " A Great Emergency, and other Tales." 
 
"TOOTS AND BOOTS." 41 
 
 who sing it day and night before the throne of God. The 
 German print of the Crucifixion, on which Isobel saw the 
 light of the setting sun fall, is one which has hung over my 
 sister's drawing-room fireplace in every home of wood or 
 stone which she has had for many years past. 
 
 The Child Verse, "A Hero to his Hobby-horse," came 
 out in the Magazine volume for 1875, an d, ^ e many of the 
 other verses, it was written to fit a picture. 
 
 One of the happiest inspirations from pictures, however, 
 appeared in the following volume (1876), the story of "Toots 
 and Boots," * but though the picture of the ideal Toots was 
 cast like a shadow before him, the actual Toots, name and 
 all complete, had a real existence, and his word-portrait was 
 taken from life. He belonged to the mess of the Royal 
 Engineers in the South Camp, Aldershot, and was as digni- 
 fied as if he held the office of President. I shall never for- 
 get one occasion on which he was invited to luncheon at 
 Mrs. Ewing's hut, that I might have the pleasure of making 
 his acquaintance ; he had to be unwillingly carried across the 
 lines in the arms of an obliging subaltern, but directly he 
 arrived, without waiting for the first course even, he strug- 
 gled out of the officer's embrace and galloped back to his 
 own mess-table, tail erect and thick with rage at the indignity 
 he had undergone. 
 
 " Father Hedgehog and his Friends," 2 in this same vol- 
 ume (1876), was also written to some excellent German 
 woodcuts ; and it, too, is a wonderfully brilliant sketch of 
 animal life ; perhaps the human beings in the tale are scarcely 
 done justice to. We feel as if Sybil and Basil, and the Gypsy 
 
 1 Reprinted in " Brothers of Pity, and other Tales of Beasts and 
 Men." 
 
 2 Ibid. 
 
42 EXPERIENTIA DOCET. 
 
 Mother and Christian had scarcely room to breathe in the 
 few pages that they are crowded into ; there is certainly too 
 much " subject " here for the size of the canvas ; but 
 Father Hedgehog takes up little space, and every syllable 
 about him is as keenly pointed as the spines on his back. 
 The method by which he silenced awkward questions from 
 any of his family is truly delightful : 
 
 " ; Will the donkey be cooked when he is fat ? * asked my 
 mother. 
 
 " * I smell valerian,' said my father, on which she put out her 
 nose, and he ran at it with his prickles. He always did this 
 when he was annoyed with any of his family ; and though we 
 knew what was coming, we are all so fond of valerian, we could 
 never resist the temptation to sniff, just on the chance of there 
 being some about." 
 
 Then, the following season, we find the Hedgehog Son 
 grown into a parent, and with the " little hoard of maxims " 
 he had inherited, checking the too-inquiring minds of his 
 offspring : 
 
 " ' What is a louis d'or?' cried three of my children ; and 'what 
 is brandy ? ' asked the other four. 
 
 " ' I smell valerian,' said I ; on which they poked out their 
 seven noses, and I ran at them with my spines, for a father 
 who is not an Encyclopaedia on all fours must adopt some method 
 of checking the inquisitiveness of the young." 
 
 One more quotation must be made from the end of the 
 story, where Father Hedgehog gives a list of the fates that 
 befell his children : 
 
 " Number one came to a sad end. What on the face of the 
 wood made him think of pheasants' eggs I cannot conceive. 
 I 'm sure I never said anything about them ! It was while he 
 Was scrambling along the edge of the covert, that he met the 
 
TRUTH IS GOD'S DAUGHTER. 43 
 
 Fox, and very properly rolled himself into a ball. The Fox's 
 nose was as long as his own, and he rolled my poor son over 
 and over with it, till he rolled him into the stream. The young 
 urchins swim like fishes, but just as he was scrambling to shore, 
 the Fox caught him by the waistcoat and killed him. I do hate 
 slyness ! " 
 
 It seems scarcely conceivable that any one can sympathize 
 sufficiently with a hedgehog as to place himself in the latter's 
 position, and share its paternal anxieties ; but I think Julie 
 was able to do so, or, at any rate, her translations of the 
 hedgepig's whines were so ben trovati, they may well stand 
 until some better interpreter of the languages of the brute 
 creation rises up among us. 
 
 I must here venture to remark that the chief and lasting 
 value of whatever both my sister and my mother wrote about 
 animals, or any other objects in Nature, lies in the fact that 
 they invariably took the utmost pains to verify whatever state- 
 ments they made relating to those objects. Spiritual laws 
 can only be drawn from the natural world when they are 
 based on truth. 
 
 Julie spared no trouble in trying to ascertain whether 
 hedgehogs do or do not eat pheasants' eggs ; she consulted 
 " The Field," and books on sport, and her sporting friends, 
 and when she found it was a disputed point, she determined 
 to give the hedgepig the benefit of the doubt. Then the taste 
 for valerian, and the fox's method of capture, were drawn 
 from facts, and the gruesome details as to who ate who in 
 the Glass Pond were equally well founded. 
 
 This (1876) volume of the Magazine is rich in contribu- 
 tions from Julie, the reason being that she was stronger in 
 health while she liv^d at Aldershot than during any other 
 period of her life. The sweet dry air of " the Highwayman's 
 
44 DEATH OF A PET DOG. 
 
 Heath " bared though it was of heather ! suited her so 
 well, she could sleep with her hut windows open, and go out 
 into her garden at any hour of the evening without fear of 
 harm. She liked to stroll out and listen to " Retreat " being 
 sounded at sundown, especially when it was the turn of some 
 regiment with pipes to perform the duty ; they sounded so 
 shrill and weird, coming from the distant hill through the 
 growing darkness. 
 
 We held a curious function one hot July evening during 
 Retreat, when, the Fates being propitious, it was the turn of 
 the 42d Highlanders to play. My sister had taken compas- 
 sion on a stray collie puppy a few weeks before, and adopted 
 him ; he was very soft-coated and fascinating in his ways, de- 
 spite his gawky legs, and promised to grow into a credit to 
 his race. But it seemed he was too finely bred to survive 
 the ravages of distemper, for, though he was tenderly nursed, 
 he died. A wreath of flowers was hung round his neck, and> 
 as he lay on his bier, Julie made a sketch of him, with the 
 inscription, "The little Colley, Eheu ! Taken in, June 14. 
 In spite of care, died July i. Speravimus meliora" Major 
 Ewing, wearing a broad Scotch bonnet, dug a grave in the 
 garden, and, as we had no " dinner bell " to muffle, we 
 waited till the pipers broke forth at sundown with an appro- 
 priate air, and then lowered the little Scotch dog into his 
 resting-place. 
 
 During her residence at Aldershot Julie wrote three of her 
 longest books, " A Flat- Iron for a Farthing," " Six to Six- 
 teen," and "Jan of the Windmill," besides all the shorter 
 tales and verses that she contributed to the Magazine be- 
 tween 1870 and 1877. The two short tales which seem to 
 me her very best came out in 1876, namely, " Our Field " J 
 1 Reprinted in " A Great Emergency, and other Tales." 
 
"OUR FIELD." 45 
 
 (about which I have already spoken) and " The Blind Man 
 and the Talking Dog." Both the stories were written to fit 
 some old German woodcuts, but they are perfectly different 
 in style ; " Our Field " is told in the language and from the 
 fresh heart of a child ; while " The Blind Man " is such a 
 picture of life from cradle to grave aye, and stretching for- 
 ward into the world beyond as could only have come forth 
 from the experiences of age. But though this be so, the 
 lesson shown of how the Boy's story foreshadows the Man'r 
 history, is one which cannot be learned too early. 
 
 Julie never pictured a dearer dog than the Peronet whom 
 she originated from the fat stumpy-tailed puppy who is seen 
 playing with the children in the woodcut to " Our Field : " 
 
 " People sometimes asked us what kind of a dog he was, but 
 we never knew, except that he was the nicest possible kind. . . . 
 Peronet was as fond of the Field as we were. What he liked 
 were the little birds. At least, I don't know that he liked them, 
 but they were what he chiefly attended to. I think he knew 
 that it was our field, and thought he was the watch-dog of it ; 
 and whenever a bird settled down anywhere, he barked at it, 
 and then it flew away, and he ran barking after it till he lost 
 it ; by that time another had settled down, and then Peronet 
 flew at him, all up and down the hedge. He never caught a 
 bird, and never would let one sit down, if he could see it." 
 
 Then what a vista is opened by the light that is " left out " 
 in the concluding words : 
 
 " I know that Our Field does not exactly belong to us. I 
 wonder whom it does belong to ? Richard says he believes it 
 belongs to the gentleman who lives at the big red house among 
 the trees. But he must be wrong ; for we see that gentleman 
 at church every Sunday, but we never saw him in Our Field. 
 
46 "THE BLIND MAN." 
 
 "And I don't believe anybody could have such a field of their 
 very own, and never come to see it, from one end of summer to 
 the other." 
 
 It is almost impossible to quote portions of the " Blind 
 Man " without marring the whole. The story is so con- 
 densed, only four pages in length ; it is one of the most 
 striking examples of my sister's favorite rule in composition 
 (to which further allusion shall be made hereafter) , " never 
 use two words where one will do." But from these four 
 brief pages we learn as much as if four volumes had been 
 filled with descriptions of the characters of the Mayor's son 
 and Aldegunda; from her birthday on which the boy 
 grumbled because " she toddles as badly as she did yester- 
 day, though she 's a year older," and " Aldegunda sobbed 
 till she burst the strings of her hat, and the boy had to tie 
 them afresh " to the day of their wedding, when the Bride- 
 groom thinks he can take possession of the Blind Man's 
 Talking Dog, because the latter had promised to leave his 
 master and live with the hero, if ever he could claim to be 
 perfectly happy happier than him whom he regarded as 
 " a poor wretched old beggar in want of everything." 
 
 As they rode together in search of the Dog : 
 
 " Aldegunda thought to herself, We are so happy, and have 
 so much, that I do not like to take the Blind Man's dog from 
 him;' but she did not dare to say so. One if not two 
 must bear and forbear to be happy, even on one's wedding-day." 
 
 And, when they reached their journey's end, Lazarus was 
 no longer " the wretched one . . . miserable, poor, and 
 blind," but was numbered among the blessed dead, and 
 the Dog was by his grave : 
 
" THE KYRKEGRIM." 47 
 
 " ' Come and live with me, now your old master is gone,' said 
 the young man, stooping over the dog. But he made no reply. 
 
 " k I think he is dead, sir,' said the grave-digger. 
 
 " * I don't believe it,' said the young man, fretfully. ' He was 
 an Enchanted Dog, and he promised I should have him when 
 I could say what I am ready to say now. He should have kept 
 his promise.' 
 
 " But Aldegunda had taken the dog's cold head into her arms, 
 and her tears fell fast over it. 
 
 " You forget,' she said ; ' he only promised to come to you 
 when you were happy, if his old master was not happier still ; 
 and perhaps ' 
 
 " * I remember that you always disagree with me,' said the 
 young man, impatiently. ' You always did so. Tears on our 
 wedding-day, too ! I suppose the truth is, that no one is 
 happy.' 
 
 " Aldegunda made no answer, for it is not from those one loves 
 that he will willingly learn that with a selfish and imperious 
 temper happiness never dwells." 
 
 " The Blind Man " was inserted in the Magazine as an 
 " Old-fashioned Fairy Tale," and Julie wrote another this 
 year (1876) under the same heading, which was called 
 " I Won't." 
 
 She also wrote a delightfully funny legend, " The Kyrke- 
 grim turned Preacher," about a Norwegian Brownie, or Niss, 
 whose duty was " to keep the church clean, and to scatter 
 the marsh marigolds on the floor 'before service," but like 
 other church-sweepers his soul was troubled by seeing the 
 congregation neglect to listen to the preacher, and fall asleep 
 during his sermons. Then the Kyrkegrim, feeling sure that 
 he could make more impression on their hardened hearts 
 than the priest did, ascended from the floor to the pulpit, 
 and tried to set the world to rights ; but eventually he was 
 
48 HAPPY FANCIES. 
 
 glad to return to his broom, and leave " heavier responsibili- 
 ties in higher hands." 
 
 She contributed " Hints for Private Theatricals. In Let- 
 ters from Burnt Cork to Rouge Pot," which were probably 
 suggested by the private theatricals in which she was helping 
 at Aldershot; and she wrote four of her best "Verses for 
 Children," "Big Smith," "House-building and Repairs/' 
 " An Only Child's Tea- Party," and " Papa Poodle." 
 
 "The Adventures of an Elf" is a poem to some clever 
 silhouette pictures of Fedor Flinzer's, which she freely adapted 
 from the German. " The Snarling Princess " is a fairy tale 
 also adapted from the German ; but neither of these contri- 
 butions was so well worth the trouble of translation as a fine 
 dialogue from the French of Jean Mace" called " War and the 
 Dead," which Julie gave to the number of " Aunt Judy " for 
 October, 1866. "The Princes of Vegetation " (April, 1876) 
 is an article on palm-trees, to which family Linnaeus had 
 given this noble title. 
 
 The last contribution, in 1876, which remains to be men- 
 tioned is " Dandelion Clocks," a short tale; but it will need 
 rather a long introduction, as it opens out into a fresh trait 
 of my sister's character, namely, her love for flowers. 
 
 It need scarcely be said that ahe wrote as accurately about 
 them as about everything else ; and, in addition to this, she 
 enveloped them in such an atmosphere of sentiment as served 
 to give life and individuality to their inanimate forms. The 
 habit of weaving stories round them began in girlhood, when 
 she was devoted to reading Mr. J. G. Wood's graceful trans- 
 lation of Alphonse Karr's "Voyage autour de mon Jardin." 
 The book was given to her in 1856 by her father, and it ex- 
 ercised a strong influence upon her mind. What else made 
 the ungraceful Buddlsea lovely in her eyes ? I confess that 
 
"LETTER XL." 49 
 
 when she pointed out the shrub to me for the first time, in 
 Mr. Ellacombe's garden, it looked so like the " Plum-pudding 
 tree " in the " Willow pattern " and fell so far short of my 
 expectation of the plant over which the two florists had 
 squabbled, that I almost wished that I had not seen it. 
 Still I did not share their discomfiture so fully as to think " it 
 no longer good for anything but firewood ! " 
 
 Karr's fifty-eighth " Letter " nearly sufficed to enclose a 
 declaration of love in every bunch of " yellow roses " which 
 Julie tied together ; and to plant an " Incognito " for dis- 
 covery in every bed of tulips she looked at ; while her favor- 
 ite " Letter XL.," on the result produced by inhaling the odor 
 of bean flowers, embodies the spirit of the ideal existence 
 which she passed, as she walked through the fields of our 
 work-a-day world : 
 
 " The beans were in full blossom. But a truce to this cold- 
 hearted pleasantry. No, it is not a folly to be under the empire 
 of the most beautiful the most noble feelings ; it is no folly to 
 feel oneself great, strong, invincible ; it is not a folly to have a 
 good, honest, and generous heart ; it is no folly to be filled with 
 good faith ; it is not a folly to devote oneself for the good of 
 others ; it is not a folly to live thus out of real life. 
 
 " No, no ; that cold wisdom which pronounces so severe a judg- 
 ment upon all it cannot do ; that wisdom which owes its birth 
 to the death of so many great, noble, and sweet things ; that 
 wisdom which only comes with infirmities, and which decorates 
 them with such fine names ; which calls decay of the powers 
 of the stomach and loss of appetite sobriety; the cooling of 
 the heart and the stagnation of the blood a return to reason; 
 envious impotence a disdain for futile things, this wisdom 
 would be the greatest, the most melancholy of follies, if it 
 were not the commencement of the death of the heart and the 
 senses." 
 
50 . "DANDELION CLOCKS." 
 
 I do not, of course, mean to claim for Alphonse Karr a 
 solitary capability of drawing beautiful lessons from Nature, 
 but have instanced his power of finding a quaint mixture of 
 philosophy and deep romance in his garden, because it is 
 more in accordance with the current of my sister's mind, 
 than the gathering of such exquisite, but totally different 
 teaching, as Kingsley drew during the course of his limited 
 "Winter's Walk," or his strolls by "The Chalk Stream." 
 
 " Dandelion Clocks " resembles one of Karr's " Letters " 
 in containing the germs of a three-volumed romance, but 
 they are the germs only ; and the " proportions " of the 
 picture are consequently well preserved. Indeed, the tale 
 always reminds me of a series of peaceful scenes by Cuyp, 
 with low horizons, sleek cattle, and a glow in the sky beto- 
 kening the approach of sunset. First we have " Peter Paul 
 and his two sisters playing in the pastures " at blowing dan- 
 delion clocks : 
 
 X 
 
 "Rich, green, Dutch pastures, unbroken by hedge or wall, 
 which stretched like an emerald ocean to the horizon and 
 met the sky. The cows stood ankle-deep in it and chewed the 
 cud, the clouds sailed slowly over it to the sea, and on a dry 
 hillock sat mother, in her broad sun-hat, with one eye to the 
 cows, and one to the linen she was bleaching, thinking of her 
 farm." 
 
 The actual outlines of this scene may be traced in the Ger- 
 man woodcut to which the tale was written, but the coloring 
 is Julie's. The only disturbing element in this quiet picture 
 is Peter Paul's restless, inquiring heart. What wonder that 
 when his bulb-growing uncle fails to solve the riddle of life, 
 Peter Paul should go out into the wider world and try to find 
 a solution for himself? But the answers to our life problems 
 
"DANDELION CLOCKS." 51 
 
 full often are to be found within, for those who will look, and 
 so Peter Paul comes back after some years to find that, 
 
 " The elder sister was married and had two children. She 
 had grown up very pretty, a fair woman, with liquid misleading 
 eyes. They looked as if they were gazing into the far future, 
 but they did not see an inch beyond the farm. Anna was a very 
 plain copy of her in body; in mind she was the elder sister's 
 echo. They were very fond of each other, and the prettiest 
 thing about them was their faithful love for their mother, whose 
 memory was kept as green as pastures after rain." 
 
 Peter Paul's temperament, however, was not one that could 
 adapt itself to a stagnant existence ; so when his three weeks 
 on shore are ended, we see him on his way from the Home 
 Farm to join his ship : 
 
 "Leena walked far over the pastures with Peter Paul. Sh* 
 was very fond of him, and she had a woman's perception that 
 they would miss him more than he could miss them. 
 
 ** * I am very sorry you could not settle down with us,' she 
 said, and her eyes brimmed over. 
 
 " Peter Paul kissed the tears tenderly from her cheeks. 
 
 " ' Perhaps I shall when I am older, and have shaken off a few 
 more of my whims into the sea. I '11 come back yet, Leena, and 
 live very near to you, and grow tulips, and be as good an old 
 bachelor-uncle to your boy as Uncle Jacob is to me.' 
 
 " When they got to the hillock where mother used to sit, Peter 
 Paul took her once more into his arms. 
 
 " ' Good-by, good sister,' he said, ' I have been back in my 
 childhood again, and God knows that is both pleasant and 
 good for one.' 
 
 " * And it is funny that you should say so,' said Leena, smil- 
 ing through her tears ; 'for when we were children you were 
 never happy except in thinking of when you should be a man.' -* 1 
 
52 " DANDELIOH CLOCKS 1 * 
 
 And with this salutary home-thrust (which thoroughly 
 common-place minds have such a provoking faculty for 
 giving) Leena went back to her children and cattle. 
 
 Happy for the artistic temperament that can profit by 
 such rebuffs ! 
 
PART III. 
 
 YET, how few believe such doctrine springs 
 
 From a poor root, 
 Which all the winter sleeps here under foot, 
 
 And hath no wings 
 To raise it to the truth and light of things; 
 
 But is still trod 
 By ev'ry wand'ring clod. 
 
 O Thou, whose Spirit did at first inflame 
 
 And warm the dead, 
 And by a sacred incubation fed 
 
 With life this frame, 
 Which once had neither being, forme, nor name; 
 
 Grant I may so 
 Thy steps track here below, 
 
 That in these masques and shadows I may see 
 
 Thy sacred way ; 
 And by those hid ascents climb to that day 
 
 Which breaks from Thee, 
 Who art in all things, though invisibly ! 
 
 The Hidden Flower. HENRY VAUGHAN. 
 
 |NE of the causes which helped to develop my sis- 
 ter's interest in flowers was the sight of the fresh 
 ones that she met with on going to live in New 
 Brunswick after her marriage. Every strange face was a 
 subject for study, and she soon began to devote a note-book 
 to sketches of these new friends, naming them scientifically 
 from Professor Asa Gray's "Manual of the Botany of the 
 Northern United States," while Major Ewing added as many 
 of the Melicete names as he could glean from Peter, a 
 
54 THE MEANEST FLOWER CAN GIVE 
 
 member of the tribe, who had attached himself to the Ewings, 
 and used constantly to come about their house. Peter and 
 his wife lived in a small colony of the Melicete Indians, 
 which was established on the opposite side of the St. John 
 River to that on which the Reka Dom stood. Mrs. Peter 
 was the most skilful embroiderer in beads among her peo- 
 ple, and Peter himself the best canoe-builder. He made a 
 beautiful one for the Ewings, which they constantly used ; 
 and when they returned to England his regret at losing them 
 was wonderfully mitigated by the present which Major Ewing 
 gave him of an old gun ; he declared no gentleman had ever 
 thought of giving him such a thing before ! 
 
 Julie introduced several of the North American flowers 
 into her stories. The tabby-striped Arum, or Jack-in-the- 
 Pulpit (as it is called in Mr. Whittier's delightful collection 
 of child-poems), appears in " We and the World," whf" 
 Dennis, the rollicking Irish hero, unintentionally raises himsea 
 in the estimation of his sober-minded Scotch companion, 
 Alister, by betraying that he "can speak with other tongues," 
 from his ability to converse with a squaw in French on the 
 subject of the bunch of Arums he had gathered and was 
 holding in his hand. 
 
 This allusion was only a slight one, but Julie wrote a com- 
 plete story on one species of Trillium, having a special affec- 
 tion for the whole genus. Trilliums are among the North 
 American herbaceous plants which have lately become fash- 
 ionable, and easy to be bought in England ; but ere they 
 did so, Julie made some ineffectual attempts to transplant 
 tubers of them into English soil ; and the last letter she re- 
 ceived from Fredericton contained a packet of red Trillium 
 seeds, which came too late to be sown before she died. The 
 species which she immortalized in " The Blind Hermit and 
 
THOUGHTS TOO DEEP FOR TEARS. 55 
 
 the Trinity Flower," was T. erythrocarpum. The story is a 
 graceful legend of an old Hermit whose life was spent in 
 growing herbs for the healing of diseases ; and when he, in 
 his turn, was struck with blindness, he could not reconcile 
 himself to the loss of the occupation which alone seemed 
 to make him of use in the world. " They also serve who 
 only stand and wait," was a hard lesson to learn ; every day 
 he prayed for some Balm of Gilead to heal his ill, and restore 
 his sight, and the prayer was answered, though not in the 
 manner that he desired. First he was supplied with a serv- 
 ing-boy, who became eyes and feet to him, from gratitude 
 for cures which the Hermit had done to the lad himself; 
 and then a vision was granted to the old man, wherein he 
 saw a flower which would heal his blindness : 
 
 " And what was the Trinity Flower like, my Father ? " asked 
 the boy. 
 
 " It was about the size of Herb Paris, my son," replied the 
 Hermit. " But instead of being fourfold every way, it num- 
 bered the mystic Three. Every part was threefold. The leaves 
 were three, the petals three, the sepals three. The flower was 
 snow-white, but on each of the three parts it was stained with 
 crimson stripes, like white garments dyed in blood." 
 
 A root of this plant was sent to the Hermit by a heavenly 
 messenger, which the boy planted, and anxiously watched 
 the growth of, cheering his master with the hope, " Patience, 
 my Father, thou shalt see yet ! " 
 
 Meantime greater light was breaking in upon the Hermit's 
 soul than had been there before : 
 
 " My son, I repent me that I have not been patient under 
 affliction. Moreover, I have set thee an ill example, in that I 
 have murmured at that which God who knoweth best or* 
 dained for me." 
 
$6 A FLOWER LEGEND. 
 
 And, when the boy ofttimes repeated, " Thou shalt yet see," 
 the Hermit answered, "If God will. When God will. As God 
 will." 
 
 And at last, when the white bud opens, and the blood-like 
 stains are visible within, he who once was blind sees, but his 
 vision is opened on eternal day. 
 
 In "Aunt Judy's Magazine" for 1877 tnere & another 
 flower legend, but of an English plant, the Lily of the 
 Valley. Julie called the tale by the old-fashioned name of 
 the flower, " Ladders to Heaven." The scenery is pictured 
 from spots near her Yorkshire home, where she was accus- 
 tomed to seeing beautiful valleys blackened by smoke from 
 iron furnaces, and the woods beyond the church, where she 
 liked to ramble, filled with desolate heaps of black shale, the 
 refuse left round the mouths of disused coal and ironstone 
 pits. I remember how glad we were when we found the 
 woolly leaved yellow mullein growing on some of these dreary 
 places, and helping to cover up their nakedness. In later 
 years my sister heard with much pleasure that a mining 
 friend was doing what he could to repair the damages he 
 made on the beauty of the country, by planting over the 
 worked-out mines such trees and plants as would thrive in 
 the poor and useless shale, which was left as a covering to 
 once rich and valuable spots. 
 
 " Brothers of Pity " 1 (" Aunt Judy's Magazine," 1877) shows 
 a deep and minute insight into the feelings of a solitary child, 
 which one fancies Julie must have acquired by the process of 
 contrast with her own surroundings of seven brethren and 
 sisters. A similar power of perception was displayed in hej 
 verses on " An Only Child's Tea-party." 
 
 1 Brothers of Pity, and other Tales of Beasts and Men. 
 
"BROTHERS OF PITY.** 57 
 
 She remembered from experiences of our own childhood 
 what a favorite game " funerals " is with those whose " whole 
 vocation" is yet " endless imitation ; " and she had watched 
 the soldiers' children in camp play at it so often that she 
 knew it was not only the bright covering of the Union Jack 
 which made death lovely in their eyes. " Blind Baby " en- 
 joyed it for the sake of the music ; and even civilians' chil- 
 dren, who see the service devoid of sVeet sounds, and under 
 its blackest and most revolting aspect, still are strangely fas- 
 cinated thereby. Julie had heard about one of these, a lonely, 
 motherless boy, whose chief joy was to harness Granny to his 
 " hearse " and play at funeral processions round the drawing- 
 room, where his dead mother had once toddled in her turn. 
 
 The boy in " Brothers of Pity " is the principal character, 
 and the animals occupy minor positions. Cock-Robin only 
 appears as a corpse on the scene ; and Julie did not touch 
 much on bird pets in any of her tales, chiefly because she 
 never kept one, having too much sympathy with their powers 
 and cravings for flight to reconcile herself to putting them in 
 cages. The flight and recapture of the Cocky in " Lob " 
 were drawn from life, though the bird did not belong to her, 
 but her descriptions of how he stood on the window-sill 
 " scanning the summer sky with his fierce eyes, and flapping 
 himself in the breeze, . . . bowed his yellow crest, spread 
 his noble wings, and sailed out into the aether ; " . . . and 
 his " dreams of liberty in the tree-tops," all show the light in 
 which she viewed the practice of keeping birds in confine- 
 ment. Her verses on "Three Little Nest-Birds" and her 
 tale of the thrush in " An Idyl of the Wood " bear witness 
 to the same feeling. Major Ewing remembers how often 
 she used to wish, when passing bird-shops, that she could 
 " buy the whole collection and set them all free," a desire 
 
58 SKETCH OF A PET CAT. 
 
 which suggests a quaint vision of her in " Seven Dials," with 
 a mixed flock of macaws, canaries, parrots, and thrushes shriek- 
 ing and flying round her head ; but the wish was worthy o 
 her in what Mr. Howells called " woman's heaven-born igno- 
 rance of the insuperable difficulties of doing right." 
 
 In this (1877) volume of " Aunt Judy's Magazine "there is 
 a striking portrait of another kind of animal pet, the Kit 
 who is resolved to choose her own "cradle," and not to 
 sleep where she is told. It is needless to say that she gets 
 her own way, since, 
 
 " There 's a soft persistence about a cat 
 That even a little kitten can show." 
 
 She has, however, the grace to purr when she is pleased, 
 which all kits and cats have not : 
 
 " I 'm happy in ev'ry hair of my fur, 
 They may keep the hamper and hay themselves." 
 
 There are three other sets of verses in the volume, and all 
 of them were originally written to old woodcuts, but have 
 since been re-illustrated by Mr. Andre\ 
 
 " A Sweet Little Dear " is the personification of a selfish 
 girl, and " Master Fritz " of an equally selfish boy ; but his 
 sister Katerina is delicious by contrast, as she gives heed to 
 his schemes : 
 
 "And if you make nice feasts everyday for me and Nickel, 
 
 and never keep us waiting for our food, 
 And always do everything I want, and attend to everything 
 
 I say, I 'm sure I shall almost always be good. 
 And if I 'm naughty now and then, it'll most likely be your 
 
 fault : and if it is n't, you must n't mind ; 
 For even if I seem to be cross, you ought to know that I 
 
 mean to be kind." 
 
WHERE THOU ART MUST BE HOME. 59 
 
 An old-fashioned fairy tale, " The Magician turned Mis- 
 chief-maker," came out in 1877 ; and a short domestic tale 
 called " A Bad Habit ; " but Julie was unable to supply 
 any long contributions this year, as in April her seven-years' 
 home at Aldershot was broken up in consequence of Major 
 Ewing being ordered to Manchester, and her time was occu 
 pied by the labor and process of removing. 
 
 She took down the motto which she had hung over hex 
 hearth to temper her joy in the comfort thereof, Ut migra- 
 turus habita, and moved the scroll on to her next resting- 
 place. No one knew better than she the depth of Mrs. 
 Hemans's definition, " What is home, and where, 
 but with the loving?" and most truly can it be said tha> 
 wherever Julie went she carried "Home" with her; free- 
 dom, generosity, and loving welcome were always to be 
 found in her house, even if upholstery and carpets ran 
 short. It was a joke among some of her friends that 
 though rose-colored curtains and bevelled-edged looking- 
 glasses could be counted upon in their bed-rooms, such 
 commonplace necessities as soap mig.it be forgotten, and 
 the glasses be fastened in artistic corners of the rooms, 
 rather than in such lights as were best adapted for shav- 
 ing by. 
 
 Julie followed the course of the new lines in which her lot 
 was cast most cheerfully, but the " mighty heart " could not 
 really support the " little body ; " and the fatigue of packing, 
 combined with the effects of the relaxing climate of Bowdon, 
 near Manchester, where she went to live, acted sadly upon 
 her constitution. She was able, however, after settling in the 
 North, to pay more frequent visits to Ecclesfield than before ; 
 and the next work that she did for " Aunt Ju V s Magazine " 
 bears evidences of the renewal of Yorkshire as. ociations. 
 
6O " WE AND THE WORLD." 
 
 This story, " We and the World," was specially intended 
 for boys, and the "law of contrast " in it was meant to be 
 drawn between the career which Cripple Charlie spent at 
 home, and those of the three lads who went out into " the 
 World " together. Then, too, she wished, as I mentioned 
 before, to contrast the national types of character in the Eng- 
 lish, Scotch, and Irish heroes, and to show the good con- 
 tained in each of them. But the tale seemed to have been 
 begun under an unlucky star. The first half, which came 
 out in the first six numbers of the Magazine for 1878, is ex- 
 cellent as a matter of art ; and as pictures of north-country 
 life and scenery nothing can be better than Walnut-tree Farm 
 and Academy, the Miser's funeral, and the Bee-master's 
 visit to his hives on the moors, combined with attendance 
 at church on a hot Sunday afternoon in August (it need 
 scarcely be said that the church is a real one). But, good 
 though all this is, it is too long and " out of proportion," 
 when one reflects how much of the plot was left to be un- 
 ravelled in the other half of the tale. " The World " could 
 not properly be squeezed into a space only equal in size to 
 that which had been devoted to " Home." If Julie had 
 been in better health, she would have foreseen the dilemma 
 into which she was falling, but she did not, and in the autumn 
 of 1878 she had to lay the tale aside, for Major Ewing was 
 sent to be stationed at York. " We " was put by until the 
 following volume ; but for this (1878) one she wrote two 
 other short contributions, " The Yellow Fly ; a Tale with a 
 Sting in It," and " So-so." 
 
 To those who do not read between the lines, "So-so" 
 sounds (as he felt) "very soft and pleasant," but to me the 
 tale is in Julie's saddest strain, because of the suspicion of 
 hopelessness that pervades it, a spirit which I do not trace 
 
" SO-SO." 6l 
 
 in any of her other writings. So-so was only the widow's 
 house-dog, but he represents the sadly large class of those 
 who are " neither hot nor cold," and whom Dante saw as 
 
 " the melancholy souls of those 
 
 Who lived withouten infamy or praise, 
 
 Commingled are they with that caitiff choir 
 Of angels, who have not rebellious been, 
 Nor faithful were to God, but were for self. 
 
 The heavens expelled them, not to be less fair ; 
 Nor them the nethermore abyss receives, 
 For glory none the damned would have from them. 
 
 These have no longer any hope of death ; 
 
 And this blind life of theirs is so debased, 
 
 They envious are of every other fate. 
 No fame of them the world permits to be, 
 
 Misericord and Justice both disdain them. 
 
 Let us not speak of them, but look and pass." 
 
 " Be sure, my child," said the widow to her little daughter, 
 that you always do just as you are told." 
 " Very well, mother." 
 
 " Or at any rate do what will do just as well," said the small 
 house-dog, as he lay blinking at the fire. 
 
 " For the future, my child," said the widow, " I hope you 
 will always do just as you are told, whatever So-so may say." 
 
 " I will, mother," said little Joan. (And she did.) But the 
 house-dog sat and blinked. He dared not speak, he was in 
 disgrace. 
 
 " I do not feel quite sure about So-so. Wild dogs often 
 amend their ways far on this side of the gallows, and the faith- 
 ful sometimes fall ; but when any one begins by being only so-so, 
 he is very apt to be so-so to the end. So-sos so seldom 
 change." 
 
62 "A GENTLEMAN OF THE ROAD." 
 
 Before turning from the record of my sister's life at Man. 
 Chester, I must mention a circumstance which gave her very 
 great pleasure there. In the summer of 1875 she and I went 
 up from Aldershot to see the Exhibition of Water-colors by 
 the Royal Society of Painters, and she was completely fasci- 
 nated by a picture of Mr. J. D. Watson's, called " A Gentle- 
 man of the Road." It represented a horseman at daybreak, 
 allowing his horse to drink from a stream, while he sat half- 
 turned in the saddle to look back at a gallows which was 
 visible on the horizon against the beams of rising light. The 
 subject may sound very sensational, but it was not that as- 
 pect of it which charmed my sister ; she found beauty as well 
 as romance in it, and after we returned to camp in the evening 
 she became so restless and engrossed by what she had seen, 
 that she got up during the night, and planned out the head- 
 ings of a story on the picture, adding characteristically a 
 moral or " soul " to the subject by a quotation from Thomas 
 a Kempis, Rtspicc finem, " In all things remember the end" 
 
 This " mapped-out " story, I am sorry to say, remains un- 
 finished. The manuscript went through many vicissitudes, 
 was inadvertently torn up and thrown into the waste-paper 
 basket, whence it was rescued and the pieces carefully en- 
 closed in an envelope ready for mending ; but afterwards lost 
 again for many months in a box that was sent abroad, and 
 now it must ever remain among the unwritten. 
 
 This incident will, however, serve to show what a strong 
 impression the picture had made upon Julie's mind, so it will 
 readily be imagined how intensely delighted she was when 
 she unexpectedly made the acquaintance, at Manchester, of 
 Mr. Galloway, who proved to have bought Mr. Watson's work, 
 and he was actually kind enough to lend the treasure to her 
 for a considerable time, so that she could study it thoroughly 
 
HOUSE DECORATIONS. 63 
 
 and make a most accurate copy of it. Mr. Galloway's friend- 
 ship, and that of some other people whom she first met at 
 Bowdon, were the brightest spots in Julie's existence during 
 this period. 
 
 In September, 1878, the Ewings removed to Fulford, near 
 York, and, on their arrival, Julie at once devoted herself to 
 adorning her new home. We were very much amused by 
 the incredulous amazement betrayed on the stolid face of an 
 elderly workman, to whom it was explained that he was re- 
 quired to distemper the walls of the drawing-room with a sole 
 color, instead of covering them with a paper, after the man- 
 ner of all the other drawing-rooms he had ever had to do 
 with. But he was too polite to express his difference of taste 
 by more than looks ; and some days after the room was 
 finished, with etchings duly hung on velvet in the panels oi 
 the door, the sole-colored walls well covered with pictures, 
 whence they stood out undistracted by gold and flowery 
 paper patterns, the distemperer called, and asked if he 
 might be allowed, as a favor, to see the result of Mrs. Ewing's 
 arrangements. I forget if he expressed anything by words, 
 as he stood in the middle of the room twisting his hat in his 
 fingers, but we had learned to read his face, and Julie was 
 fully satisfied with the fresh expression of amazement mixed 
 with admiration which she saw there. 
 
 One theory which she held strongly about the decoration 
 of houses was, that the contents ought to represent the asso- 
 ciations of the inmates, rather than the skill of their uphoi- 
 sterer ; and for this reason she would not have liked to hmir 
 any of her rooms to one special period, such as Queen Anne's, 
 unless she had possessed an old house, built at some date to 
 which a special kind of furniture belonged. She contrived 
 to make her home at York a very pretty one ; but it was o* 
 
64 CANE VECCHIO NON BAIA INDARNO. 
 
 short duration, for in March, 1879, Major Ewing was de- 
 spatched to Malta, and Julie had to begin to pack her Lares 
 and Penates once more. 
 
 It may, perhaps, be wondered that she was allowed to 
 spend her time and strength on the labor of packing, which 
 a professional worker would have done far better, but it is 
 easier to see the mistakes of others than to rectify our own. 
 There were many difficulties to be encountered, not the least 
 of these being Julie's own strong will, and bad though it was, 
 in one sense, for her to be physically over-tired, it was better 
 than letting her be mentally so ; and to an active brain like 
 hers " change of occupation " is the only possible form of 
 " rest." Professional packers and road and rail cars represent 
 money, and Julie's skill in packing both securely and eco- 
 nomically was undeniably great. This is not surprising if we 
 hold, as an old friend does, that ladies would make far better 
 housemaids than uneducated women do, because they would 
 throw their brains as well as muscles into their work. Julie 
 did throw her brains into everything, big or little, that she 
 undertook ; and one of her best and dearest friends whose 
 belief in my sister's powers and " mission " as a writer were 
 so strong that she almost grudged even the time " wasted " 
 on sketching, which might have been given to penning more 
 stories for the age which boasts Gordon as its hero ; and 
 who, being with Julie at her death, could not believe till the 
 very end came that she would be taken, while so much 
 seemed to remain for her to do here confessed to me 
 afterwards she had learned to see that Julie's habit of expend- 
 ing her strength on trifles arose from an effort of nature to 
 balance the vigor of her mind, which was so much greater 
 than that of her body. 
 
 During me six months that my sister resided in York she 
 
" FLAPS." 65 
 
 wrote a few contributions for "Aunt Judy's Magazine." To 
 the number of January, 1879, sne S ave " Flaps," a sequel to 
 " The Hens of Hencastle." 
 
 The latter story was not written by her, but was a free 
 adaptation which Colonel Yeatman-Biggs made from the 
 German of Victor Bliithgen. Julie had been greatly amused 
 by the tale, but, finding that it ended in a vague and unsat- 
 isfactory way, she could not be contented, so took up her 
 pen and wrote a finale, her chief' aim being to provide a 
 happy ending for the old farm-dog, Flaps himself, after whom 
 she named her sequel. The writing is so exactly similar to 
 that of " The Hens," that the two portions can scarcely be 
 identified as belonging to different writers. Julie used often 
 to reproach me for indulging in what John Wesley called 
 " the lust of finishing," but in matters concerning her own 
 art she was as great an offender on this score as any one else. 
 Her inability to leave the farm-yard question undecided re- 
 minds me of the way in which Dr. Hullah's pupils at the Char- 
 terhouse used to tease him when they were finishing their 
 music-lessons, by ending off the piece they had practised on 
 the chord of the dominant seventh, and then banging, boy- 
 like, out of the room, but waiting outside to listen to the Doc- 
 tor as he quickly advanced to the piano, while the notes were 
 still vibrating, and gently resolved the chord into the tonic. 
 
 Julie gave a set of verses on " Canada Home " to the 
 sam? number as " Flaps," and to the March (1879) number 
 she gave some other verses on " Garden Lore." In April, 
 the second part of " We and the World " began to appear, 
 and a fresh character was introduced, who is one of the most 
 important and touching features of the tale. Biddy Macart- 
 ney is a real old Irish melody in herself, with her body tied 
 to a coffee-barrow in the Liverpool docks, and her mind 
 
 5 
 
66 " WE AND THE WORLD." 
 
 ever wandering in search of the son who had run away aj 
 sea. Jack, the English hero, comes across Biddy in the 
 docks just before he starts as a stowaway for America, and 
 his stiff, crude replies to her voluble outpourings are essen- 
 tially British and boy-like : 
 
 "You hope Micky '11 come back, I suppose ?" 
 
 " Why would n't I, acushla ? Sure, it was by reason o' that I 
 got bothered with the washin' after me poor boy left me, from 
 my mind being continually in the docks instead of with the 
 clothes. And there I would be at the end of the week, with 
 the captain's jerseys gone to old Miss Harding, and his wash- 
 ing no corricter than hers, though he 'd more good-nature in him 
 over the accidents, and iron-moulds on the table-cloths, and 
 pocket-handkerchers missin', and me ruined intirely with mak- 
 ing them good, and no thanks for it, till a good-natured sowl of 
 a foreigner that kept a pie-shop larned me to make the coffee, 
 and lint me the money to buy a barra, and he says, ' Go as con- 
 vanient to the ships as ye can, mother : it '11 ease your mind. 
 My own heart/ says he, laying his hand to it, 'knows what it is 
 to have my body here, and the whole sowl of me far away.'" 
 
 " Did you pay him back ? " I asked. I spoke without thinking, 
 and still less did I mean to be rude ; but it had suddenly struck 
 me that I was young and hearty, and that it would be almost a 
 duty to share the contents of my leather bag with this poor old 
 woman, if there were no chance of her being able to repay the 
 generous foreigner. 
 
 "Did I pay him back?" she screamed. "Would I be the 
 black-hearted thief to him that was kind to me ? Sorra bit nor sup 
 but dry bread and water passed me lips till he had his own again, 
 and the heart's blessings of owld Biddy Macartney along with it." 
 
 I made my peace with old Biddy as well as I could, and turned 
 the conversation back to her son. 
 
 " So you live in the docks with your coffee-barrow, mother, thai 
 you may be sure not to miss Micky when he comes ashore ? " 
 
"WE AND THE WORLD." 6/ 
 
 " I do, darlin'. Fourteen years all but three days ! He '11 be 
 gone fifteen if we all live till Wednesday week." 
 
 "Fifteen? But, mother, if he were like me when he went, he 
 can't be very like me now. He must be a middle-aged man. 
 Do you think you 'd know him ? " 
 
 This question was more unfortunate than the other, and 
 produced such howling and weeping, and beating of Biddy's 
 knees as she rocked herself among the beans, that I should 
 have thought every soul in the docks would have crowded 
 round us. But no one took any notice, and by degrees I calmed 
 her, chiefly by the assertion, " He '11 know you, mother, any 
 how." 
 
 "He will so, God bless him!" said she. "And haven't I 
 gone over it all in me own mind, often and often, when I 'd see 
 the vessels feelin' their way home through the darkness, and the 
 coffee staymin' enough to cheer your heart wid the smell of it, 
 and the least taste in life of something betther in the stone bottle 
 under me petticoats. And then the big ship would be coming in 
 with her lights at the head of her, and myself would be sitting 
 alone with me patience, God helping me, and one and another 
 strange face going by. And then he comes along, cold may be, 
 and smells the coffee. ' Bedad, but that 's a fine smell with it,' 
 says he, for Micky was mighty particular in his aitin' and 
 drinkin'. ' I '11 take a dhrop of that,' says he, not noticing me 
 particular, and if ever I 'd the saycret of a good cup he gets it, 
 me consayling me face. * What will it be ? ' says he, setting 
 down the mug. 4 What would it be, Micky, from your mother?' 
 says I, and I lifts me head. Arrah, but then there 's the heart's 
 deiight between us. * Mother ! ' says he. * Micky ! ' says 1 . 
 And he lifts his foot and kicks over the barra, and dances m i 
 round in his arms. ' Ochone ! ' says the spictators ; * there 's 
 the fine coffee that's running into the dock.' * Let it run,' says 
 I, in the joy of me heart, ' and you after it, and the barra on the 
 top of ye, now Micky me son 's come home ! ' " 
 
 " Wonderfully jolly ! ' ? said I. "And it must be pleasant 
 even to think of it." 
 
68 "WE AND THE WORLD." 
 
 There is another new character in the second part of " We/' 1 
 who is also a fine picture, Alister the blue-eyed Scotch 
 lad, with his respect for "book learning," and his powers of 
 self-denial and endurance ; but Julie certainly had a weak- 
 ness for the Irish nation, and the tender grace with which 
 she touches Dennis O'Moore and Biddy shines conspicuously 
 throughout the story. In one scene, however, I think she 
 brings up her Scotch hero neck-and-neck, if not ahead of 
 her favorite Irishman. 
 
 This is in Chapter VIL, where an entertainment is being 
 Held on board ship, and Dennis and Alister are called upon 
 i turn to amuse the company with a song. Dennis gets 
 hrough his ordeal well; he has a beautiful voice, which 
 nakes him independent of the accompaniment of a fiddle 
 the only musical instrument on board), and Julie describes 
 &is simpatico rendering of " Bendemeer's Stream " from the 
 vay in which she loved to hear one of our brothers sing it. 
 He had learned it by ear on board ship from a fellow-pas- 
 senger, and she was never tired of listening to the melody. 
 When this same brother came to visit her while she was ill at 
 Bath, and sang to her as she lay in bed, "Bendemeer's 
 Stream " was the one strain she asked for, and the last she 
 heard. 
 
 Dennis O'Moore's performance met with warm applause, 
 and then the boatswain, who had a grudge against Alister, 
 because the Scotch captain treated his countryman with leni- 
 ency, taunted the shy and taciturn lad to " contribute to the 
 general entertainment." 
 
 I was very sorry for Alister, and so was Dennis, I am sure, 
 for he did his best to encourage him. 
 
 " Sing ' God Save the Queen,' and I '11 keep well after ye with 
 the fiddle," he suggested. But Alister shook his head. "I 
 
69 
 
 know one or two Scotch tunes," Dennis added, and he began to 
 sketch out an air or two with his fingers on the strings. 
 
 Presently Alister stopped him. "Yon's the Land o' the 
 Leal ? " 
 
 " It is," said Dennis. 
 
 " Play it a bit quicker, man, and I'll try ' Scots, wha hae.' " 
 
 Dennis quickened at once, and Alister stood forward. He 
 neither fidgeted nor complained of feeling shy, but, as my eyes 
 (I was squatted cross-legged on the deck) were at the level of 
 nis knees, I could see them shaking, and pitied him none the 
 ess that I was doubtful as to what might not be before me. 
 Oennis had to make two or three false starts before poor Alister 
 :ould get a note out of his throat ; but when he had fairly broken 
 he ice with the word "Scots!" he faltered no more. The 
 ooatswain was cheated a second time of his malice. Alister 
 jould not sing in the least like Dennis, but he had a strong 
 nanly voice, and it had a ring that stirred one's blood, as he 
 :lenched his hands and rolled his r's to the rugged appeal: 
 
 Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
 Scots, wham Bruce has aften led; 
 Welcome to your gory bed, 
 Or to victory ! 
 
 Applause did n't seem to steady his legs in the least, and he 
 lever moved his eyes from the sea, and his face only grew 
 vhiter by the time he drove all the blood to my heart with 
 
 Wha will be a traitor knave? 
 Wha can fill a coward's grave ? 
 Wha sae base as be a slave ? 
 Let him turn and flee ! 
 
 " God forbid ! " cried Dennis, impetuously. " Sing that verse 
 igain, me boy, and give us a chance to sing with ye ! " which 
 vve did accordingly ; but as Alister and Dennis were rolling r's 
 like the rattle of musketry on the word turn, Alister did turn, and 
 stopped suddenly short. The captain ha.d come up unobserved- 
 
/O " WE AUD THE WORLD." 
 
 " Go on ! " said he, waving us back to our places. 
 
 By this time the solo had become a chorus. Beautifully un- 
 conscious, for the most part, that the song was by way of stirring 
 Scot against Saxon, its deeper patriotism had seized upon us all. 
 Englishmen, Scotchmen, and sons of Erin, we all shouted at the 
 top of our voices, Sambo's fiddle not being silent. And I main- 
 tain that we all felt the sentiment with our whole hearts, though 
 I doubt if any but Alister and the captain knew and sang the 
 precise words : 
 
 Wha for Scotland's king and law v 
 Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
 Freeman stand, or freeman fa' ? 
 Let him on wi* me ! 
 
 The description of Alister's song, as well as that of Dennis, 
 was to some extent drawn from life, Julie having been accus- 
 tomed to hear "Scots, wha hae " rendered by a Scot with 
 more soul than voice, who always " moved the hearts of the 
 people as one man " by his patriotic fire. 
 
 My sister was greatly aided by two friends in her descrip- 
 tions of the scenery in " We," such as the vivid account of 
 Bermuda and the waterspout in Chapter XL, and that of the 
 fire at Demerara in Chapter XIL, and she owed to the same 
 kind helpers also the accuracy of her nautical phrases and 
 her Irish dialect. Certainly this second part of the tale is 
 full of interest, but I cannot help wishing that the materials 
 had been made into two books instead of one. There are 
 more than enough characters and incidents to have developed 
 into a couple of tales. 
 
 Julie has often said how strange it seemed to her, when 
 people who had a ready pen for writing consulted her as to 
 what they should write about ! She suffered so much from 
 over-abundance of ideas which she had not the physical 
 strength to put on paper. 
 
A STUDY FROM LIFE. 71 
 
 Even when she was very ill, and unable to use her hands 
 at all, the sight of a lot of good German woodcuts, which 
 were sent to me at Bath, suggested so many fresh ideas to 
 her brain, that she only longed to be able to seize her pen 
 and write tales to the pictures. 
 
 Before we turn finally away from the subject of her liking 
 for Irish people, I must mention a little adventure which 
 happened to her at Fulford. 
 
 There is one parish in York where a great number of Irish 
 peasants live, and many of the women used to pass Julie's 
 windows daily, going out to work in the fields at Fulford. 
 She liked to watch them trudging by, with large baskets 
 perched picturesquely on the tops of their heads ; but in 
 the town the " Irishers " are not viewed with equal favor by 
 the inhabitants. One afternoon Julie was out sketching in a 
 field, and came across one of these poor Irish women. My 
 sister's mind at the time was full of Biddy Macartney, and 
 she could not resist the opportunity of having a chat with 
 this suggestive " study " for the character. She found an ex- 
 cuse for addressing the old woman about some cattle who 
 seemed restless in the field, but quickly discovered, to her 
 amusement, that when she alluded to Ireland, her companion, 
 in the broadest brogue, stoutly denied having any connection 
 with the country. No doubt she thought Julie's prejudices 
 would be similar to those of her town neighbors, but in a 
 short time some allusion was inadvertently made to " me fa- 
 ther's farm in Kerry," and the truth leaked out. After this they 
 became more confidential; and when Julie admired some 
 quaint silver rings on her companion's finger, the old woman 
 was most anxious to give her one, and was only restrained by 
 coming to the decision that she would give her a recipe for 
 " real Irish whiskey " instead. She began with " You must 
 
72 FAITHFUL WARRIORS. 
 
 take some barley and put it in a poke " but after this 
 Julie heard no more, for she was distracted by the cattle, who 
 had advanced unpleasantly near ; the Irish woman, however, 
 continued her instructions to the end, waving her arms to keep 
 the beasts off, which she so far succeeded in doing, that 
 Julie caught the last sentence, 
 
 " And then ye must bury it in a bog." 
 
 "Is that to give it a peaty flavor?" asked my sister, 
 innocently. 
 
 " Oh, no, me dear ! it 's because of the exciseman." 
 
 When they parted, the old woman's original reserve en- 
 tirely gave way, and she cried, " Good luck to ye ! and go to 
 Ireland!" 
 
 Julie remained in England for some months after Major 
 Ewing started for Malta, as he was despatched on very short 
 notice, and she had to pack up their goods ; also as she 
 was not strong it was decided that she should avoid going 
 out for the hot summer weather, and wait for the healthier 
 autumn season. Her time, therefore, was now chiefly spent 
 among civilian friends and relations, and I waht this fact to 
 be specially noticed in connection with the next contribu- 
 tions that she wrote for the Magazine. 
 
 In February, 1879, the terrible news had come of the 
 Isandlwana massacre, and this was followed in June by that 
 of the Prince Imperial's death. My sister was, of course, 
 deeply engrossed in the war tidings, as many of her friends 
 went out to South Africa some to return no more. In July 
 she contributed "A Soldier's Children " to " Aunt Judy," and 
 of all her Child Verses this must be reckoned the best, every 
 line from first to last breathing how strong her sympathies 
 still were for military men and things, though she was no 
 longer living among them ; 
 
"JACKANAPES." 73 
 
 " Our home used to be in the dear old camp, with lots of 
 bands, and trumpets, and bugles, and dead-marches, and 
 three times a day there was a gun, 
 
 "But now we live in View Villa, at the top of the village, 
 and it is n't nearly such fun." 
 
 The humor and pathos in the lines are so closely mixed ? 
 it is very difficult to read them aloud without tears ; but they 
 have been recited as Julie was much pleased to know by 
 the "old Father" of the "Queer Fellows," to whom the 
 verses were dedicated, when he was on a troop-ship going 
 abroad for active service, and they were received with warm 
 approbation by his hearers. He read them on other occa- 
 sions, also in public, with equal success. 
 
 The crowning military work, however, which Julie did this 
 year was "Jackanapes." This she wrote for the October 
 number of " Aunt Judy ; " and here let me state that I believe 
 if she had still been living at Aldershot, surrounded by the 
 atmosphere of military sympathies and views of honor, the 
 tale would never have been written. It was not aimed, as 
 some people supposed, personally at the man who was with 
 the Prince Imperial when he met his death. Julie would 
 never have sat in judgment on him, even before he, too, 
 joined the rank of those dead, about whom no evil may be 
 spoken. It was hearing this same man's conduct discussed 
 by civilians from the standard of honor which is unhappily 
 so different in civil and military circles, and more especially 
 the discussion of it among " business men," where the rule 
 of "each man for himself" is invariable, which drove Julie 
 into uttering the protest of "Jackanapes." I believe what 
 she longed to show forth was how the life of an army as 
 of any other body depends on whether the individuality of 
 its members is dead; a paradox which may perhaps be hard 
 
74 " JACKANAPES." 
 
 to understand, save in the light of His teaching, who said 
 that the saving of a man's life lay in his readiness to lose it. 
 The merging of selfish interests into a common cause is what 
 makes it strong ; and it is from Satan alone we get the axiom, 
 ' Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his 
 life." Of "Jackanapes" itself I need not speak. It has 
 made Julie's name famous, and deservedly so, for it not only 
 contains her highest teaching, but is her best piece of literary 
 art. 
 
 There are a few facts connected with the story which, I 
 think, will be interesting to some of its admirers. My sister 
 was in London in June, 1879, an< ^ tnen ma de the acquaint- 
 ance of Mr. Randolph Caldecott, for whose illustrations to 
 Washington Irving's " Bracebridge Hall," and " Old Christ- 
 mas " she had an unbounded admiration, as well as for his 
 Toy Books. This introduction led us to ask him, when 
 "Jackanapes " was still simmering in Julie's brain, if he would 
 supply a colored illustration for it. But as the tale was only 
 written a very short time before it appeared, and as the illus- 
 tration was wanted early, because colors take long to print, 
 Julie could not send the story to be read, but asked Mr. 
 Caldecott to draw her a picture to fit one of the scenes in it. 
 The one she suggested was a " fair-haired boy on a red-haired 
 pony," having noticed the artistic effect produced by this 
 combination in one of her own nephews, a skilful seven-year- 
 old rider who was accustomed to follow the hounds. 
 
 This colored illustration was given in " Aunt Judy's Maga- 
 zine " with the tale, but when it was republished as a book, in 
 1883, the scene was reproduced on a smaller scale in black 
 and white only. 
 
 " Jackanapes " was much praised when it came out in the 
 Magazine, but it was not until it had been re-issued as a 
 
LITERARY COMPOSITION. 75 
 
 book that it became really well known. Even then its suc- 
 cess -was within a hair's-breadth of failing. The first copies 
 were brought out in dull stone-colored paper covers, and 
 that powerful vehicle " the Trade," unable to believe that a 
 jewel could be concealed in so plain a casket, refused the 
 work of J. H. E. and R. C. until they had stretched the paper 
 cover on boards, and colored the Union Jack which adorns 
 it. No doubt " the Trade " understands its fickle child " the 
 Public " better than either authors or artists do, and knows 
 by experience that it requires tempting with what is pretty to 
 look at, before it will taste. Certainly, if praise from the 
 public were the chief aim that writers, or any other workers, 
 strove after, their lives for the most part would consist of 
 disappointment only, so seldom is " success " granted while 
 the power to enjoy it is present. They alone whose aims are 
 pointed above earthly praise can stand unmoved amid ne- 
 glect or blame, filled with that peace of a good conscience 
 which the world can neither give nor take away. 
 
 I have spoken of " Jackanapes " as being my sister's best 
 literary work, and will, therefore, here introduce some valuable 
 notes which she communicated to my youngest brother on 
 her method of working, as I feel sure they will be interesting, 
 and may be useful to other authors : 
 
 " Some years ago I had several conversations with my sister, 
 Mrs. Ewing, on the subject of literary composition, with special 
 reference to that art as it ought to be employed in works of fic- 
 tion, such as she herself produced. I, fortunately, at the time 
 made a few notes of her remarks, and which may now be of inter- 
 est, as elucidating in some measure the manner of construction 
 employed in the works which she has bequeathed to the world. 
 Referring generally to the subject of construction, she told me 
 that she had been greatly indebted for her own education in such 
 
76 LAWS OF PRINCIPALITY, 
 
 matters to the latter part of the third Letter in Mr. Ruskin's 
 
 * Elements of Drawing,' where the first principles of this great 
 question are touched upon, in their application to music, poetry, 
 and painting. It is unnecessary to reproduce here the masterly 
 analyses of the laws of Principality, Repetition, Continuity, 
 Contrast, Harmony, etc., which are to be found in Mr. Ruskin's 
 work. It is sufficient only to note that Mrs. Ewing felt keenly 
 that they were equally essential to the art of writing as to that 
 of painting ; and she held that the great mass of English fiction 
 does not fail to interest us so much for lack of stories to be told, 
 as from the want of an artistic way of telling them. She re- 
 marked that the English writers are strangely behind the French 
 in this particular, and that, however feeble the incidents in a 
 French work of fiction often are, the constructive power is com- 
 monly of a high order. 
 
 " It may be of interest to consider for a moment how the laws 
 of construction just spoken of can be traced in one of Mrs. 
 Ewing's stories. For example, in the story of 'Jackanapes ' the 
 law of Principality is very clearly demonstrated. * Jackanapes ' 
 is the one important figure. The doting aunt, the weak-kneed 
 but faithful Tony Johnson, the irascible general, the punctilious 
 postman, the loyal boy-trumpeter, the silent major, and the ever- 
 dear, faithful, loving Lollo, all and each of them conspire with 
 one consent to reflect forth the glory and beauty of the noble, 
 generous, recklessly brave, and gently tender spirit of the hero 
 
 * Jackanapes.' What aunt could fail to dote on such a boy? 
 What friend could resist making a hero of such an inspiring ex- 
 ample ? What old general could be proof against the brave., 
 dashing gallantry of such a lad ? What old soldier could help 
 but be proud of such a cadet ? What village lad save himself 
 from the irresistible influence of leaving his father's plough 
 and following Jackanapes to the field of honor ? What brother- 
 officer, however seared with sorrow, and made taciturn by trial, 
 could hold that dying hand, and not weep for him who begged 
 for the grace of Christ and the love of God as he passed away ? 
 
REPETITION, AND CONTRAST. 77 
 
 And Lollo, the faithful Lollo, who does not feel that all the sun- 
 light which pours upon his ruddy coat is reflected from the joy 
 of that dear boy's first gallop upon his back? 
 
 " This is indeed a very striking example of the law of Princi- 
 pality. All these life-like figures group around Jackanapes in 
 subordinate positions, and in all they say, and do, and feel, they 
 conspire to increase his pre-eminence. 
 
 " The law of Repetition may also be very clearly traced in the 
 same story. Again and again is the village green introduced to 
 the imagination. It is a picture of eternal peace and quietness, 
 amid the tragedies of our ever-changing life which are enacted 
 around it. Mr. Ruskin remarks that Turner chiefly used the 
 law of Repetition in his pictures where he wished to obtain an 
 expression of repose. In general,' he says, ' throughout Na- 
 ture, reflection and repetition are peaceful things.' 
 
 " Another law which is very forcibly introduced into 'Jacka- 
 napes ' is the law of Contrast. The peace of Nature upon the 
 village green, as I have just remarked, is sharply contrasted with 
 the changes and chances in the human life around it. The 
 idiotic gabblings of the goose are compared with the cowardly 
 doctrines of the peace-at-any-price politician. The embryo gal- 
 lant, with his clear blue eyes and mop of yellow curls, is placed 
 vis-a-vis with the wounded hero of many battles, the victim of 
 a glass eye and an artificial toilet. That 'yellow thing,' the 
 captain's child, starts in pursuit of the ' other yellow thing,' the 
 young gosling. 
 
 " These points will be of interest to those who care to make 
 themselves acquainted with the work of Mr. Ruskin, already re- 
 ferred to, and who try to see how the principles there laid down 
 were, more or less, applied by Mrs. Ewing in her books. 
 
 " Among her general axioms for the construction of stories 
 may be mentioned the following. She thought it was best to 
 fix first the entire plot of the whole story, as this helps the 
 writer to determine the relative value of persons, places, inci- 
 dents, etc., in the general idea. She considered, also, that at 
 
78 CONSTRUCTION OF STORIES. 
 
 this stage the whole dramatis persona should be settled upon 
 and arranged into classes, those for the foreground, those for the 
 middle distance, and those for the background. Another of 
 her axioms was that no single word of conversation should 
 ever be introduced which did not plainly (i) either develop 
 the character speaking, or (2) forward the plot. She thought 
 it well, too, to have a clear understanding of the amount to 
 be ultimately written, and determine how much for each chap- 
 ter, and, indeed, for each phrase in the chapter. 
 
 " With regard to the introduction of passion into stories, she 
 remarked that it was most necessary, but that human feelings 
 are elastic, and are soon 0wr-strained, and that this kind of 
 ammunition should be sparingly fired, with intervals of refresh- 
 ment. 
 
 " She was very careful to recommend the study of types of 
 sentences and idioms, which give force and beauty, from the 
 placing and repetition of words, etc. One of the most important 
 doctrines she held, and in an extraordinary manner carried out, 
 was, that if a writer could express himself clearly in one word 
 he was not to use two." 
 
PART IV. 
 
 I SHALL know by the gleam and glitter 
 
 Of the golden chain you wear, 
 By your heart's calm strength in loving, 
 
 Of the fire they have had to bear. 
 Beat on, true heart, forever ! 
 
 Shine bright, strong golden chain ! 
 And bless the cleansing fire, 
 
 And the furnace of living pain ! 
 
 ADELAIDE A. PROCTER. 
 
 )WARDS the end of October, 1879, Julie started 
 for Malta, to join Major Ewing, but she became so 
 very ill while travelling through France that her 
 youngest sister, and her friend, Mrs. R. H. Jelf (from whose 
 house in Folkestone she had started on her journey), followed 
 her to Paris, and brought her back to England as soon as she 
 could be moved. 
 
 Julie now consulted Sir William Jenner about her health, 
 and, seeing the disastrous effect that travelling had upon her, 
 he totally forbade her to start again for several months, until 
 she had recovered some strength and was better able to bear 
 fatigue. This verdict was a heavy blow to my sister, and the 
 next four years were ones of great trial and discomfort to her. 
 A constant succession of disappointed hopes and frustrated 
 plans, which were difficult even for Madam Liberality to 
 bear! 
 
 She hoped when her husband came home on leave at 
 Christmas, 1879, that she should be able to return with him, 
 
So i WILL HAVE HOPES THAT CANNOT FADE, 
 
 but she was still unfit to go ; and then she planned to follow 
 later with a sister, who should help her on the journey, and 
 be rewarded by visiting the island home of the Knights, but 
 this castle also fell to the ground. Meantime Julie was suffer- 
 ing great inconvenience from the fact that she had sent all 
 her possessions to Malta several months before, keeping only 
 some light luggage which she could take with her. Among 
 other things from which she was thus parted, was the last 
 chapter of " We and the World," which she had written (as 
 she often did the endings of her tales) when she was first 
 arranging the plot. This final scene was buried in a box of 
 books, and could not be found when wanted, so had to be 
 re-written ; and then my sister's ideas seem to have got into 
 a fresh channel, for she brought her heroes safely back to 
 their Yorkshire home, instead of dropping the curtain on 
 them after a gallant rescue in a Cornish mine, as she origi- 
 nally arranged. Julie hoped against hope, as time went on, 
 that she should become stronger, and able to follow her Lares 
 and Penates, so she would not have them sent back to her, 
 until a final end was put to her hopes by Major Ewing being 
 sent on from Malta to Ceylon, and in the climate of the lat- 
 ter place the doctors declared it would be impossible for her 
 to live. The goods, therefore, were now sent back to Eng- 
 land, and she consoled herself under the bitter trial of being 
 parted from her husband, and unable to share the enjoyment 
 of the new and wonderful scenes with which he was sur- 
 rounded, by thankfulness for his unusual ability as a vivid and 
 brilliant letter writer. She certainly practised both in days of 
 joy and sorrow the virtue of being Icetus sorte med, which she 
 afterwards so powerfully taught in her " Story of a Short Life." 
 I never knew her fail to find happiness wherever she was placed, 
 "nd good in whomever she came across. Whatever her cir- 
 
FOR FLOWERS THE VALLEY YIELDS. 8l 
 
 cumstances might be they always yielded to her causes for 
 thankfulness, and work to be done with a ready and hopeful 
 heart. That "lamp of zeal," about which Margery speaks 
 in " Six to Sixteen," was never extinguished in Julie, even 
 after youth and strength were no longer hers : 
 
 " Like most other conscientious girls, we had rules and regula- 
 tions of our own devising ; private codes, generally kept in cipher 
 for our own personal self-discipline, and laws common to us 
 both for the employment of our time in joint duties, lessons, 
 parish work, and so forth. 
 
 " I think we made rather too many rules, and that we re-made 
 them too often. I make fewer now, and easier ones, and let 
 them much more alone. I wonder if I really keep them better ? 
 But if not, may God, I pray Him, send me back the restless 
 zeal, the hunger and thirst after righteousness, which He gives 
 us in early youth ! It is so easy to become more thick-skinned 
 in conscience, more tolerant of evil, more hopeless of good, 
 more careful of one's own comfort and one's own property, 
 more self-satisfied in leaving high aims and great deeds to en- 
 thusiasts, and then to believe that one is growing older and 
 wiser. And yet those high examples, those good works, those 
 great triumphs over evil which single hands effect sometimes, 
 we are all grateful for, when they are done, whatever we may 
 have said of the doing. But we speak of saints and enthusiasts 
 for good, as if some special gifts were made to them in middle 
 age which are withheld from other men. Is it not rather that 
 some few souls keep alive the lamp of zeal and high desire 
 which God lights for most of us while life is young?" 
 
 In spite, however, of my sister's contentment with her lot, 
 and the kindness and hospitality shown to her at this time 
 by relations and friends, her position was far from comfort- 
 able ; and Madam Liberality's hospitable soul was sorely 
 tried by having no home to which she could welcome her 
 
 6 
 
82 OLD STANDARDS. 
 
 friends, while her fragile body battled against constantly 
 moving from one house to another when she was often unfit 
 to do anything except keep quiet and at rest. She was 
 not able to write much, and during 1880 only contributed 
 two poems to " Aunt Judy's Magazine," " Grandmother's 
 Spring," and "Touch Him if You Dare." 
 
 To the following volume (1881) she again was only able 
 to give two other poems, " Blue and Red : or, the Discon- 
 tented Lobster," and " The Mill Stream ; " but these are 
 both much longer than her usual " Verses for Children ; " 
 and, indeed, are better suited for older readers, though the 
 former was such a favorite with a three-year-old son of one 
 of our bishops that he used to repeat it by heart. 
 
 In November, 1881, " Aunt Judy's Magazine " passed into 
 the hands of a fresh publisher, and a new series was begun, 
 with a fresh outside cover which Mr. Caldecott designed for 
 it. Julie was anxious to help in starting the new series, and 
 she wrote " Daddy Darwin's Dovecote " for the opening 
 number. All the scenery of this is drawn from the neigh- 
 borhood of Ecclesfield, where she had lately been spending 
 a good deal of her time, and so refreshed her memory of its 
 local coloring. The story ranks equal to " Jackanapes n as a 
 work of literary art, though it is an idyl of peace instead of 
 war, and perhaps, therefore, appeals rather less deeply to 
 general sympathies; but I fully agree with a noted artist 
 friend, who, when writing to regret my sister's death, said, 
 " ' Jackanapes ' and ' Daddy Darwin ' I have never been 
 able to read without tears, and hope I never may." Daddy 
 had no actual existence, though his outward man may have 
 been drawn from types of a race of " old standards," which 
 is fast dying out. The incident of the theft and recovery of 
 the pigeons is a true one, and happened to a flock at the 
 
"THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE." 83 
 
 old Hall farm near our home, which also once possessed a 
 luxuriant garden, wherein Phoebe might have found all the 
 requisites for her Sunday posy. A " tea " for the workhouse 
 children used to be Madam Liberality's annual birthday 
 feast ; and the spot where the gaffers sat and watched the 
 " new graft " strolling home across the fields was so faithfully 
 described by Julie from her favorite Schroggs Wood, that s 
 when Mr. Caldecott reproduce'd it in his beautiful illustra- 
 tion, some friends who were well acquainted with the spot 
 believed that he had been to Ecclesfield to paint it. 
 
 Julie's health became somewhat better in 1882, and for 
 this volume she wrote as a serial tale " Lsetus Sorte Mea ; 
 or, the Story of a Short Life." This was not republished as 
 a book until four days before my sister's death, and it has 
 become so well known from appearing at this critical time 
 that I need say very little about it. A curious mistake, how- 
 ever, resulted from its being published then, which was that 
 most of the reviewers spoke of it as being the last work that 
 she wrote, and commented on the title as a singularly appro- 
 priate one, but those who had read the tale in the Magazine 
 were aware that it was written three years previously, and 
 that the second name was put before the first, as it was 
 feared the public would be perplexed by a Latin title. The 
 only part of the book that my sister added during her illness 
 was Leonard's fifth letter in Chapter X. This she dictated, 
 because she could not write. She had intended to give Saint 
 Martin's history when the story came out in the Magazine, 
 but was hindered by want of space, as her materials proved 
 larger than she expected. Many people admire Leonard's 
 story as much as " Jackanapes," but to me it is not quite 
 so highly finished from an artistic point of view. I think 
 it suffered a little from being written in detachments from 
 
84 PATIENCE IN SICKNESS. 
 
 month to month. It is, however almost hypercritical to 
 point out defects ; and the .circumstances of Leonard's life 
 are so much more within the range of common experiences 
 than those of "Jackanapes," it is probable that the lesson of 
 the Short Life during which a Victoria Cross was won by the 
 joyful endurance of inglorious suffering, may be more helpful 
 to general readers than that of the other brief career, in which 
 " Jackanapes," after " one crowded hour of glorious life," 
 earned his crown of victory. 
 
 On one of Julie's last days she expressed a fear to her 
 doctor that she was very impatient under her pain, and he 
 answered, " Indeed you are not ; I think you deserve a 
 Victoria Cross for the way in which you bear it." This 
 reply touched her very much, for she knew the speaker had 
 not read Leonard's story ; and we used to hide the proof- 
 sheets of it, for which she was choosing head-lines to the 
 pages, whenever her doctors came into the room, fearing 
 that they would disapprove of her doing any mental work. 
 
 In the volume of" Aunt Judy " for 1883 " A Happy Family " 
 appeared, but this had been originally written for an American 
 Magazine, in which a prize was offered for a tale not exceed- 
 ing nine hundred words in length. Julie did not gain the 
 prize, and her story was rather spoiled by having to be too 
 closely condensed. 
 
 She also wrote three poems for " Aunt Judy " in 1883, " The 
 Poet and the Brook," " Mother's Birthday Review," and 
 " Convalescence." The last one, and the tale of " Sun- 
 flowers and a Rushlight" (which came out in November, 
 1883), bear some traces of the deep sympathy she had 
 learned for ill-health through her own sufferings of the last 
 few years ; the same may, to some extent, be said of " The 
 Story of a Short Life." " Mother's Birthday Review " does 
 
AN EARTHLY PARADISE. 85 
 
 not come under this heading, though I well remember that 
 part, if not the whole of it, was written while Julie lay in 
 bed ; and I was despatched by her on messages in various 
 directions to ascertain what really became of Hampstead 
 Heath donkeys during the winter, and the name of the flower 
 that clothes some parts of the Heath with a sheet of white in 
 summer. 
 
 In May, 1883, Major Ewing returned home from Ceylon, 
 and was stationed at Taunton. This change brought back 
 much comfort and happiness into my sister's life. She once 
 more had a pretty home of her own, and not only a home but 
 a garden. When the Ewings took their house, and named 
 it Villa Ponente, from its aspect towards the setting sun, the 
 " garden " was a potato patch, with soil chiefly composed of 
 refuse left by the house builders ; but my sister soon began 
 to accumulate flowers in the borders, especially herbaceous 
 ones that were given to her by friends, or bought by her in 
 the market. Then, in 1 884, she wrote " Mary's Meadow," 
 as a serial for " Aunt Judy's Magazine," and the story was so 
 popular that it led to the establishment of a " Parkinson 
 Society for lovers of hardy flowers." Miss Alice Sargant 
 was the founder and secretary of this, and to her my sister 
 owed much of the enjoyment of her life at Taunton, for 
 the Society produced many friends by correspondence, with 
 whom she exchanged plants and books, and the "potato 
 patch " quickly turned into a well-stocked flower-garden. 
 
 Perhaps the friend who did most of all to beautify it was 
 the Rev. J. Going, who not only gave my sister many roses, 
 but planted them round the walls of her house himself, and 
 pruned them afterwards, calling himself her " head gardener." 
 She did not live long enough to see the roses sufficiently 
 established to flower thoroughly, but she enjoyed them by 
 
86 
 
 anticipation, and they served to keep her grave bright during 
 the summer that followed her death. 
 
 Next to roses I think the flowers that Julie had most of 
 were primulas of various kinds, owing to the interest that was 
 aroused in them by the incident in " Mary's Meadow " of 
 Christopher finding a Hose-in-hose cowslip growing wild in 
 the said " meadow." My sister was specially proud of a 
 Hose-in-hose cowslip which was sent to her by a little boy in 
 Ireland, who had determined one day with his brothers and 
 sisters, that they would set out and found an " Earthly Para- 
 dise " of their own, and he began by actually finding a Hose- 
 in-hose, so named it after "Christopher," and sent a bit of 
 the root to Mrs. Ewing. 
 
 The last literary work that she did was again on the sub- 
 ject of flowers. She began a series of " Letters from a Little 
 Garden" in the number of "Aunt Judy" for November, 
 1884, and these were continued until February, 1885. The 
 Letter for March was left unfinished, though it seemed, when 
 boxes of flowers arrived day by day during Julie's illness 
 from distant friends, as if they must almost have intuitively 
 known the purport of the opening injunction in her unpub- 
 lished epistle, enjoining liberality in the practice of cutting 
 flowers for decorative purposes. Her room for three months 
 was kept so continuously bright by the presence of these 
 creations of God which she loved so well : 
 
 DEAR LITTLE FRIEND, A garden of hardy flowers is pre- 
 eminently a garden for cut flowers. You must carefully count 
 this among its merits, because if a constant and undimmed blaze 
 outside were the one virtue of a flower-garden, upholders of the 
 bedding-out system would now and then have the advantage of 
 us. For my own part I am prepared to say that I want my 
 flowers quite as much for the house as the garden, and so I sus- 
 
POSTHUMOUS PUBLICATIONS. 87 
 
 pecc do most women. The gardener's point of view is not quite 
 the same. 
 
 Speaking of women, and recalling Mr. Charles Warner's 
 quaint idea of all his " Polly" was good for on the scene of his 
 conflicts with Nature, the " striped bug '' and the weed " Pusley," 
 namely, to sit on an inverted flower-pot and " consult " him 
 while he was hoeing, it is interesting to notice that some gen- 
 erations ago the garden was very emphatically included within 
 woman's " proper sphere," which was not, in those days, a wide 
 one. 
 
 The " Letters " were the last things that my sister wrote ; but 
 some brief papers which she contributed to "The Child's 
 Pictorial Magazine " were not published until after her 
 death. In the May number " Tiny's Tricks and Toby's 
 Tricks " came out, and in the numbers for June, July, and 
 August, 1885, there were three "Hoots" from "The Owl 
 in the Ivy Bush; or, the Children's Bird of Wisdom." 
 They are in the form of quaint letters of advice, and my 
 sister adopted the "Spectator's" method of writing as 
 an eye-witness in the first person, so far as was possible in 
 addressing a very youthful class of readers. She had a 
 strong admiration for many of both Steele's and Addison's 
 papers. 
 
 The list that I promised to give of Julie's published stories 
 is now completed ; and, if her works are to be valued by 
 their length, it may justly be said that she has not left a vast 
 amount of matter behind her ; but I think that those who 
 study her writings carefully, will feel that some of their great- 
 est worth lies in the wonderful condensation and high finish 
 that they display. No reviewer has made a more apt com- 
 parison than the American one in " Every Other Saturday," 
 
88 UNFINISHED WORK. 
 
 who spoke of " Jackanapes " as " an exquisite bit of finished 
 work, a Meissonier, in its way." 
 
 To other readers the chief value of the books will be in 
 the high purpose of their teaching, and the consciousness 
 that Julie held her talent as a direct gift from God, and never 
 used it otherwise than to His glory. She has penned noth- 
 ing for which she need fear reproach from her favorite old 
 proverb, " A wicked book is all the wickeder because it can 
 never repent." It is difficult for those who admire her writ- 
 ings to help regretting that her life was cut off before she had 
 accomplished more, but to still such regrets we cannot do 
 better than realize (as a kind friend remarked) " how much 
 she has been able to do, rather than what she has left 
 undone." The work which she did, in spite of her physi- 
 cal fragility, far exceeds what the majority of us perform 
 with stronger bodies and longer lives. This reflection has 
 comforted me, though I perhaps know more than others 
 how many subjects she had intended to write stories upon. 
 Some people have spoken as if her forte lay in writing about 
 soldiers only, but her success in this line was really due to 
 her having spent much time among them. I am sure her 
 imagination and sympathy were so strong, that whatever class 
 of men she was mixed with she could not help throwing her- 
 self into their interests, and weaving romances about them. 
 Whether such romances ever got on to paper was a matter 
 dependent on outward circumstances and the state of her 
 health. 
 
 One of the unwritten stories which I most regret is " Grim 
 the Collier ; " this was to have been a romance of the Black 
 Country of coal-mines, in which she was born, and the title 
 was chosen from the description of a flower in a copy ol 
 Gerarde's " Herbal," given to her by Miss Sargant : 
 
" LITTLE MOTHERS' MEETINGS." 89 
 
 " Hieracium hortense latifolium, sine Pilosella maior, Golden 
 Mouseeare, or Grim the Colliar. The floures grow at the top 
 as it were in an vmbel, and are of the bignesse of the ordinary 
 Mouseeare, and of an orenge colour. The seeds are round, and 
 blackish, and are carried away with the downe by the wind. 
 The stalks and cups of the flours are all set thicke with a black- 
 ish downe, or hairinesse, as it were the dust of coles ; whence 
 the women who keepe it in gardens for novelties sake, have 
 named it Grim the Colliar." 
 
 I wish, too, that Julie could have written about sailors, as 
 well as soldiers, in the tale of " Little Mothers' Meetings," 
 which had been suggested to her mind by visits to Liverpool. 
 The sight of a baby patient in the Children's Hospital there, 
 who had been paralyzed and made speechless by fright, but 
 who took so strange a fancy to my sister's sympathetic face 
 that he held her hand and could scarcely be induced to re- 
 lease it, had affected her deeply. So did a visit that she paid 
 one Sunday to the Seamen's Orphanage, where she heard the 
 voices of hundreds of fatherless children ascending with one 
 accord in the words, " I will arise and go to my Father," 
 and realized the Love that watched over them. These scenes 
 were both to have been woven into the tale, and the " Little 
 Mothers" were boy nurses of baby brothers and sisters. 
 
 Another phase of sailor life on which Julie hoped to write 
 was the " Guild of Merchant Adventurers of Bristol." She 
 had visited their quaint Hall, and collected a good deal of 
 historical information and local coloring for the tale, and its 
 lesson would have been one on mercantile honor. 
 
 I hope I have kept my original promise, that while I was 
 making a list of Julie's writings, I would also supply an outline 
 biography of her life ; but now, if the children wish to learn 
 
90 FORTUNE AND MISFORTUNE. 
 
 something of her at its end, they shall be told in her own 
 words : 
 
 " Madam Liberality grew up into much the same sort of person 
 that she was when a child. She always had been what is 
 termed old-fashioned, and the older she grew, the better her 
 old-fashionedness became her, so that at last her friends would 
 say to her, 'Ah, if we all wore as well as you do, my dear! 
 You 've hardly changed at all since we remember you in short 
 petticoats.' So far as she did change, the change was for the 
 better. (It is to be hoped we do improve a little as we get 
 older.) She was still liberal and economical. She still planned 
 and hoped indefatigably. She was still tender-hearted in the 
 sense in which Gray speaks : 
 
 To each his sufferings : all are men 
 
 Condemned alike to groan. 
 
 The tender for another's pain. 
 
 The unfeeling for his own.' 
 
 " She still had a good deal of ill-health and ill-luck, and a good 
 deal of pleasure in spite of both. She was happy in the happi- 
 ness of others, and pleased by their praise. But she was less 
 headstrong and opinionated in her plans, and less fretful when 
 they failed. It is possible, after one has cut one's wisdom-teeth, 
 to cure oneself even of a good deal of vanity, and to learn to play 
 the second fiddle very gracefully ; and Madam Liberality did not 
 resist the lessons of life. 
 
 " God teaches us wisdom in divers ways. Why He suffers 
 some people to have so many troubles, and so little of what we 
 call pleasure in this world, we cannot in this world know. The 
 heaviest blows often fall on the weakest shoulders, and how 
 these endure and bear up under them is another of the things 
 which God knows better than we." 
 
 Julie did absolutely remain " the same " during the three 
 months of heavy suffering which, in God's mysterious love, 
 
BEGINNING OF THE END. 91 
 
 preceded her death. Perhaps it is well for us all to know 
 that she found, as others do, the intervals of exhausted relief 
 granted between attacks of pain were not times in which (had 
 it been needed) she could have changed her whole character, 
 and, what is called, u prepared to die." Our days of health 
 and strength are the ones in which this preparation must be 
 made ; but for those who live, as she did, with their whole 
 talents dedicated to God's service, death is only the gate of 
 life, the path from joyful w.ork m this world to greater 
 capacities and opportunities for it in the other. 
 
 I trust that what I have said about Julie's religious life will 
 not lead children to imagine that she was gloomy, and unable 
 to enjoy her existence on earth, for this was not the case. 
 No one appreciated and rejoiced in the pleasures and beau- 
 ties of the world more thoroughly than she did : no one could 
 be a wittier and brighter companion than she always was. 
 
 Early in February, 1885, she was found to be suffering 
 from a species of blood poisoning, and as no cause for this 
 could then be discovered, it was thought that change of air 
 might do her good, and she was taken from her home at 
 Taunton to lodgings at Bath. She had been three weeks in 
 bed before she started, and was obliged to return to it two 
 days after she arrived, and there to remain on her back ; but 
 this uncomfortable position did not alter her love for flowers 
 and animals. 
 
 The first of these tastes was abundantly gratified, as I men- 
 tioned before, by the quantities of blossoms which were sent 
 her from friends ; as well as by the weekly nosegay which 
 came from her own Little Garden, and made her realize 
 that the year was advancing from winter to spring, when 
 crocuses and daffodils were succeeded by primroses and 
 Anemones. 
 
92 MRS. SWING'S SENSE OF HUMOR. 
 
 Of living creatures she saw fewer. The only object she 
 could see through her window was a high wall covered with 
 ivy, in which a lot of sparrows and starlings were building 
 their nests. As the sunlight fell on the leaves, and the little 
 birds popped in and out, Julie enjoyed watching them at 
 work, and declared the wall looked like a fine Japanese 
 picture. She made us keep bread crumbs on the window- 
 sill, together with bits of cotton-wool and hair, so that the 
 birds might come and fetch supplies of food, and materials 
 for their nests. 
 
 Her appreciation of fun, too, remained keen as ever, and, 
 strange as it may seem, one of the very few books which she 
 liked to have read aloud was Mark Twain's " Adventures of 
 Huckleberry Finn ; " the dry humor of it, the natural way 
 in which everything is told from a boy's point of view, and 
 the vivid and beautiful descriptions of river scenery, all 
 charmed her. One of Twain's shorter tales, " Aurelia's Un- 
 fortunate Young Man," was also read to her, and made her 
 laugh so much, when she was nearly as helpless as the 
 "young man" himself, that we had to desist for fear of doing 
 her harm. Most truly may it be said that between each 
 paroxysm of pain " her little white face and undaunted spirit 
 bobbed up ... as ready and hopeful as ever." She was sel- 
 dom able, however, to concentrate her attention on solid 
 works, and for her religious exercises chiefly relied on what 
 was stored in her memory. 
 
 This faculty was always a strong one. She was catechised 
 in church with the village children when only four years old, 
 and when six, could repeat many poems from an old collec- 
 tion called " The Diadem," such as Mrs. Hemans's " Cross 
 in the Wilderness," and Dale's " Christian Virgin to her Apos- 
 tate Lover;" but she reminded me one day during her 
 
MADE PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERING. 93 
 
 illness of how little she understood what she was saying, in the 
 days when she fluently recited such lines to her nursery 
 audience. 
 
 She liked to repeat the alternate verses of the Psalms, when 
 the others were read to her ; and to the good things laid up 
 in her mind she owed much of the consolation that strength- 
 ened her in hours of trial. After one night of great suffering, 
 in which she had been repeating George Herbert's poem, 
 ' The Pulley," she said that the last verse had helped her to 
 /ealize what the hidden good might be which underlaid her 
 
 pain : 
 
 " Let him be rich and weary ; that, at least, 
 If goodness lead him not, yet weariness 
 May toss him to My breast." 
 
 During the earlier part of her illness, when every one ex- 
 pected that she would recover, she found it difficult to sub- 
 mit to the unaccountable sufferings which her highly strung 
 temperament felt so keenly; but after this special night of 
 physical and mental darkness, it seemed, as if light had bro- 
 ken upon her through the clouds, for she said she had, as it 
 were, looked her pain and weariness in the face, and seen 
 they were sent for some purpose ; and now that she had 
 done so, we should find that she would be "more patient 
 than before." We were told to take a sheet of paper, and 
 write out a calendar for a week with the text above, " In pa- 
 tience possess ye your souls." Then as each day went by 
 we were to strike it through with a pencil ; this we did, hop- 
 ing that the passing days were leading her nearer to recovery, 
 and not knowing that each was in reality "a okay's march 
 nearer home." 
 
 For the text of another week she had " Be strong and of 
 a tfood courage," as the words had been said by a kind friend 
 
94 MRS. EWING'S HUMILITY. 
 
 to cheer her just before undergoing the trial of an operation. 
 Later still, when nights of suffering were added to days of 
 pain, she chose, "The day is Thine, the night also is 
 Thine." 
 
 Of what may be termed external spiritual privileges she did 
 not have many, but she derived much comfort from an unex- 
 pected visitor. During nine years previously she had known 
 the Rev. Edward Thring as a correspondent, but they had 
 not met face to face, though they had tried on several occa- 
 sions to do so. Now, when their chances of meeting were 
 nearly gone, he came and gave great consolation by his unrav- 
 elling of the mystery of suffering, and its sanctifying power ; 
 as also by his interpretation that the life which we are meant 
 to lead under the dispensation of the Spirit who has been 
 given for our guidance into truth, is one which does not take 
 us out of the world, but keeps us from its evil, enabling us to 
 lead a heavenly existence on earth, and so to span over the 
 chasm which divides us from heaven. 
 
 Perhaps some of us may wonder that Julie should need 
 lessons of encouragement and comfort, who was so apt a 
 teacher herself; but however ready she may always have 
 been to hope for others, she was thoroughly humble-minded 
 about herself. On one day near the end, when she had re- 
 ceived some letter of warm praise about her writings, a friend 
 said in joke, " I wonder your head is not turned by such 
 things ; " and Julie replied, " I don't think praise really hurts 
 me, because, when I read my own writings over again, they 
 often seem to me such ' bosh ; ' and then, too, you know I 
 lead such a useless life, and there is so little I can do, it is a 
 great pleasure to know I may have done some good." 
 
 It pleased her to get a letter from Sir Evelyn Wood, writ- 
 ten from the Soudan, telling how he had cried over " Laetus ; " 
 
DEATH AND BURIAL. 95 
 
 and she was almost more gratified to get an anonymous expres- 
 sion from " One of the Oldest Natives of the Town of Alder- 
 shot " of his " warm and grateful sense of the charm of her 
 delightful references to a district much loved of its children, 
 and the emotion he felt in recognizing his birthplace so 
 tenderly alluded to." Julie certainly set no value on her 
 own actual manuscripts, for she almost invariably used them 
 up when they were returned from the printers, by writing on 
 the empty sides, and destroying them after they had thus 
 done double duty. She was quite amused by a relation who 
 begged for the sheets of " Jackanapes," and so rescued them 
 from the flames. 
 
 On the nth of May an increase of suffering made it ne- 
 cessary that my sister should undergo another operation, as 
 the one chance of prolonging her life. This ordeal she faced 
 with undaunted courage, thanking God that she was able to 
 take chloroform easily, and only praying He would end her 
 sufferings speedily, as He thought best, since she feared her 
 physical ability to bear them patiently was nearly worn out. 
 
 Her prayer was answered, when, two days later, free from 
 pain, she entered into rest. On the i6th of May she was 
 buried in her parish church-yard of Trull, near Taunton, in a 
 grave literally lined with moss and flowers ; and so many 
 floral wreaths and crosses were sent from all parts of Eng- 
 land, that when the grave was filled up they entirely covered 
 it, not a speck of soil could be seen ; her first sleep in mother 
 earth was beneath a coverlet of fragrant white blossoms. No 
 resting-place than this could be more fitting for her. The 
 church is deeply interesting from its antiquity and its fine 
 oak-screen and seats carved by monks of Glastonbury, while 
 the church-yard is an idyllically peaceful one, containing sev- 
 eral yew-trees ; under one of these, which overshadows Julie's 
 
96 UNTIL THE DAY BREAK, 
 
 grave, the remains of the parish stocks are to be seen, a 
 quaint mixture of objects, that recalls some of her own close 
 blendings of humor and pathos into one scene. Here, " for 
 a space, the tired body lies with feet towards the dawn," but I 
 must hope and believe that the active soul, now it is delivered 
 from the burden of the flesh, has realized that Gordon's anti- 
 cipations were right when he wrote : " The future world must 
 be much more amusing, more enticing, more to be desired 
 than this world, putting aside its absence of sorrow and 
 sin. The future world has been somehow painted to our 
 minds as a place of continuous praise, and, though we may 
 not say it, yet we cannot help feeling that, if thus, it would 
 prove monotonous. It cannot be thus. It must be a life of 
 activity, for happiness is dependent on activity : death is ces- 
 sation of movement ; life is all movement." 
 
 If Archbishop Trench, too, was right in saying, 
 
 " The tasks, the joys of earth, the same in heaven will be ; 
 Only the little brook has widened to a sea," 
 
 have we not cause to trust that Julie still ministers to the 
 good and happiness of the young and old whom she served 
 so well while she was seen among them? Let her, at any 
 rate, be to us one of those who shine as the stars to lead us 
 unto God : 
 
 " God's saints are shining lights : who stays 
 
 Here long must passe 
 O'er dark hills, swift streames, and steep ways 
 
 As smooth as glasse ; 
 But these all night, 
 
 Like Candles, shed 
 Their beams, and light 
 
 Us into bed. 
 
AND THE SHADOWS FLEE AWAY. 
 
 " They are, indeed, our pillar-fires, 
 
 Seen as we go ; 
 They are that Citie's shining spires 
 
 We travel to. 
 A sword-like gleame 
 
 Kept man for sin 
 First out, this beame 
 
 Will guide him In." 
 
 97 
 

APRS 
 JUN 
 
 JUN 
 
 ONE MONTH USE 
 
 PLEASE RETURN TO DESK 
 FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 EDUCATION-PSYCHOLOGY 
 LIBRARY 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-4209 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior 
 
 to due date. 
 
 ALL BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO RECALL 7 DAYS 
 AFTER DATE CHECKED OUT. 
 
 LD 21-10C 
 
 JUN 1 9 1973 
 
 
 
 
 JUL 1 1979 
 
 
 REC'D SEP 479- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 LD 21A-30m-5,'75 
 (S5877L) 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 

 U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 CDEDMIOILM