iiCSB LIBRARY Cor$r HviJ 4 t //*. 4T^VX^ I JACKANAPES. DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT. THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE. BY JULIANA HORATIA EWING, AUTHOR OF "SIX TO SIXTEEN," " JAN OF THE WINDMILL," ETC. WITH A SKETCH OF HER LIFE BY HER SISTER, HORA TIA K. P. GA TTY. BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1896. Snfbtrsttj JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. JULIANA HORATIA EWING AND HER BOOKS. ALL hearts grew warmer in the presence 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. En ffttnumam 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 " 1 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 pillar 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 ; 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 sister 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 " 1 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 rilled 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, e*/ery 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. 16 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 off." 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 IX 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." 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! 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 white, 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 the 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 iges ; 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 hymn, 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, 2O 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, j udiciously 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 GREXOSIDE. 21 Aftei 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 'lome 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 1 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 Dora." 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 " 1 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 pur time in Fredericton. We called \t 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," a 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 kno\v, 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 iheir feelings. Another beast friend whom Julie had in New Brunswick was the bear of the 2 ad 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." 58 Reprinted in " Lob Lie-by-the-Fire, and other Tales." A FAVORITE DOG. 2$ 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 Queens 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 Evvings 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 Trouv, 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 1 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." Trouv6 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^ " 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-the-Fire, and other Tales." THE LITTLE LADIES. 2/ exhibited at the Royal Society of Painters in Water-colors (1875), where it attracted Mr. Raskin'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, whose 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 Xurse 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. Ruskiii's A'otes on sonu- , 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 rnprn. 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. CATTY, 1873. jURING 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. Andre's 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 VIT.E. 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 >n 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 McAlister 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 so 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, LITERAR\ 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 ? ;,8 THE MAN IN GRAY. THE ELLEREE.' 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 2 * Bodach Glas," the Man in Gray, appears to a Highland family with the gift of second-sight, presaging death. THEORY OF FAIRY LITERATURE. 39 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 ;ill 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 " fair}' 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 iier 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, and, like 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," 1 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 :\.rs. Ewing's hut, that I might have the pleasure of making ins 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 theit 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 livsd 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 " 1 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's 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 t\vo 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. " 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 she 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 Buddkea 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 50 " 1) \\DF.LIOX 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 : "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. ' 5! 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. She 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.' '' 5.? " DANDELION CLOCKS. 3 ' 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 aud light of things ; But is sti 1 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 VAVGHAN. JXE 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," wh^- Dennis, the rollicking Irish hero, unintentionally raises him&cii 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. crythrocarpum. 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,. .ny 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." 56 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 there is 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" * ("Aunt Judy's Magazine," 187 7) 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 her 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 sweet 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 sether ; " . . . 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. Andr. "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 her hearth to temper her joy in the comfort thereof, Ut migra- tnnis 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 that 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 jcke 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. Delations. 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 twc 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." 6 1 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 (1ENTLEMAX 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 Aklershot 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. 1). 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, Re.spice Jincm, " 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. 05 and make a most accurate copy of it. Mr. Galloway's friend- ship, and that of some other people whom she first met at Bowclon, 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 walis 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 of 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 uphol- sterer ; and for this reason she would not have liked to limit 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 of 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 the 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, she gave " 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 Htns," 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 sams 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 to 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, acuslila ? 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-hanclkerchers 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 lamed 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'll 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 heart v, and that it would be almost a duty to share the contents of my leather bag witli 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 owlcl 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 ? " " \VE AND THE WORLD." 67 " 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 consay'ing me face. 'What will it be?' says he, setting down the mug 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 rr, ? round in his arms. ' Ochone ! ' sa\s 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! 5 ' 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 " \\Y.' 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 VII., where an. entertainment is being held on board ship, and Dennis and Alister are called upon in turn to amuse the company with a song. Dennis gets through his ordeal well ; he has a beautiful voice, which makes him independent of the accompaniment of a fiddle (the only musical instrument on board), and Julie describes his simpatico rendering of " Bendemeer's Stream " from the way in which she loved to hear one of our brothers sing it. He had learned it by ear oh 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 lie 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 " WE AND THE WORLD." 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 his knees, I could see them shaking, and pitied him none the ess that I was doubtful as to what might not be before me. Dennis had to make two or three false starts before poor Alister rould 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 sac 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 >ve did accordingly : but as Alister and Dennis were rolling r's jike the rattle of musketry on the word turn, Alister did turn, and stopped suddenly short. The captain had come up unobserved. 7o "WE A:*r> THE WORLD." " Go on ! " said he, waving us back to our places. By this time the solo had become a chorus. Beautifulh 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 maip- tain that we all felt" the sentiment with our whole hearts, tlr I doubt if any but Alister and the captain knew and sang the precise words : Wha for Scotland's king and law Freedom's sword will strongly draw, Freeman stand, or freeman la' ? 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 fi We," such as the vivid account of Bermuda and the waterspout in Chapter XI., and that of the fire at Demerara in Chapter XII., 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 Fulibrd. 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, 11 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 ! // '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 wai.t this fact to be specially noticed in connection with the next contribu- tions that she wrote for the Magazine. In February, 1879, tne 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 : "JACKANAF1 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, and then made the acquaint- ance of Mr. Randolph Caldecott, for whose illustrations to Washington Irving's " Bracebridge Hall." and " Old Christ- inas " she had an unbounded admiration, as well as for his Toy Books. This introduction led us to ask him, when I .]( kanapes " 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 Magazir-e, 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. K. and R. C. until they had stretched the paper cover on boards, and colored the Union Jack which adorns it. Xo 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 grtat 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 clear 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, ns 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 embrvo gal- lant, with his clear blue eyes and mop of yellow curls, is placed vis-a-7'is 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, mo/e 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 he 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 ore soon f ^the-' < s Birthday Review " does A.\ 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 1884, 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 sistei 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 lished to flower thoroughly, but she enjoyed them by 86 " LETTERS FROM A LITTLE GARDEN." 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 sistersj 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 nm prepared to say that I want my flowers quite ns much fnr 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 ihtended 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 of Gerarde's " Herbal," given to her by Miss Sargant : " LITTLE MOTHERS' MEETINGS." 89 " Hicracimn hortense latifoliicm, sine Pilosella tnaior, 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 wlien a child. She always had been what is termed old-fashioned, and the older she grew, the better lie: old-fashionedness became her, so that at last her friends woul sav 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, " 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 work in 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. EWING'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 iMay 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 day's march nearer home." For the text of another week she had " Be strong and of a good 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 a 1 ! 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 l XTIL 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 ha.s 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 Tre'nch, 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 tLEE A WAV. "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, tliis beame Will guide him In." 97 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, Between 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 ZEITLICH. 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 slowly, 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 has 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. DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT, A Country Tale by BOSTON ROBERTS BROTHERS 1896 PREAMBLE. SUMMER'S afternoon. Early in the summer, and late in the afternoon ; with odors and colors deepening, and shadows lengthening, tow- ards evening. Two gaffers gossiping, seated side by side upon a Yorkshire wall. A wall of sandstone of many colors, glowing redder and yel- lower as the sun goes down ; well cushioned with moss and lichen, and deep set in rank grass on this side, where the path runs, and in blue hyacinths on that side, where the wood is, and where on the gray and still naked branches of young oaks sit divers crows, not less solemn than the gaffers, and also gossiping. One gaffer in work-day clothes, not unpicturesque of form and hue. Gray, home-knit stockings, and coat and knee-breeches of corduroy, which takes tints from Time and Weather as harmoniously as wooden palings do ; so that field laborers (like some insects) 6 _ DARBY AND JOAN. seem to absorb or mimic the colors of the vegetation round them and of their native soil. That is, on work-days. Sunday-best is a different matter, and in this the other gaffer was clothed. He was dressed like the crows above him,y?/ excepted: the reason for which was, that he vvas only a visitor, a revisitor to the home of his youth, and wore his Sunday (and funeral) suit to mark the holiday. Continuing the path, a stone pack-horse track, leading past a hedge snow-white with may, and down into a little wood, from the depths of which one could hear a brook babbling. Then up across the sunny field beyond, and yet up over another field to where the brow of the hill is crowned by old farm- buildings standing against the sky. Down this stone path a young man going whistling home to tea. Then staying to bend a swarthy face to the white may to smell it, and then plucking a huge branch on which the blossom lies like a heavy fall of snow, and throwing that aside for a better, and tearing off another and yet another, with the prodigal recklessness of a pauper; and so, whistling, on into the wood with his arms full. Down the sunny field, as he goes up it, a woman coming to meet him with her arms full. Filled by a child with a may- white frock, and hair shining with the warm colors of the sandstone. A young woman, having a fair forehead visible a long way off, and buxom cheeks, and steadfast eyes. When they meet he kisses her, and she pulls his dark hair and smooths GAFFERS GOSSIPING. 7 her own, and cuffs him in country fashion. Then they change burdens, and she takes the may into her apron (stooping to pick up fallen bits), and the child sits on the man's shoulder, and cuffs and lugs its father as the mother did, and is chidden by her and kissed by him. And all the babbling of their chiding and crowing and laughter comes across the babbling of the brook to the ears of the old gaffers gossiping on the wall. Gaffer I. spits out an over-munched stalk of meadow soft-grass, and speaks : " D' ye see yon chap? " Gaffer II. takes up his hat and wipes it round with a spotted handkerchief (for your Sunday hat is a heating thing for work-day wear) and puts it on, and makes reply: " Aye. But he beats me. And see thee ! he 's t' first that 's beat me yet. Why, lad ! I Ve met young chaps to-day I could ha' sworn to for mates of mine forty year back if I had n't ha' been i' t' churchyard spelling over their fathers' tumstuns ! " " Aye. There 's a many old standards gone home o' lately." " What do they call him ? " " T' young chap?" "Aye." " They call him Darwin." " Dar win ? I should know a Darwin. They 're old standards, is Darwins. What's he to Daddy Darwin of t' Dovecot yonder?" 8 GAFFERS GOSSIPING. " He owns t' Dovecot. Did ye see t' lass?" "Aye. Shoo 's his missus, I reckon? " " Aye." " What did they call her? " " Phoebe Shaw they called her. And if she 'd been my lass but that 's nother here nor there, and he 's got t' Dovecot." " Shaw? They're old standards, is Shaws. Phcebe? They called her mother Phcebe. Phcebe Johnson. She were a dainty lass ! My father were very fond of Phcebe Johnson. He said she allus put him i' mind of our orchard on drying days; pink and white apple-blossom and clean clothes. And yon 's her daughter? Where d' ye say t' young chap come from? He don't look like hereabouts." " He don't come from hereabouts. And yet he do come from hereabouts, as one may say. Look ye here. He come from t' wukhus. That's the short and the long of it." " The workhouse ?" " Aye." Stupefaction. The crows chattering wildly over- head. " And he owns Darwin's Dovecot? " " He owns Darwin's Dovecot." " And how i' t' name o' all things did that come about?" "Why, I '11 tell thee. It was i' this fashion." Not without reason does the wary writer put gossip THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT. 9 in the mouths of gaffers rather than of gammers. Male gossips love scandal as dearly as female gossips do, and they bring to it the stronger relish and ener- gies of their sex. But these were country gaffers, whose speech like shadows grows lengthy in the leisurely hours of eventide. The gentle reader shall have the tale in plain narration. NOTE. It will be plain to the reader that the birds here described are Rooks (corvus frugilegits). I have allowed myself to speak of them by their generic or family name of Crow, this being a common country practice. The genus corvus, or Crow, includes the Raven, the Carrion Crow, the Hooded Crow, the Jackdaw, and the Rook. SCENE I. NE Saturday night (some eighteen years earlier than the date of this gaffer - gossiping) the parson's daughter sat in her own room before the open drawer of a bandy-legged black oak table, balancing her bags. The bags were money-bags, and the mat- ter shall be made clear at once. In this parish, as in others, progress and the multiplication of weapons with which civilization and the powers of goodness push their conquests over brutality and the powers of evil, had added to the original duties of the parish priest, a multifarious and all but impracticable variety of offices ; which, in ordi- nary and laic conditions, would have been performed by several more or less salaried clerks, bankers, ac- countants, secretaries, librarians, club-committees, teachers, lecturers, discount-for-ready-money dealers in clothing, boots, blankets, and coal, domestic-ser- BAG-KEEPING v. BOOK-KEEPING. II vant agencies, caterers for the public amusement, and preservers of the public peace. The country parson (no less than statesmen and princes, than men of science and of letters) is respon- sible for a great deal of his work that is really done by the help-mate woman. This explains why five out of the young lady's money-bags bore the follow- ing inscriptions in marking-ink : " Savings bank," "Clothing club," "Library," "Magazines and hymn- books," " Three-halfpenny club ; " and only three bore reference to private funds, as " House-money," " Allowance," " Charity." It was the bag bearing this last and greatest name which the parson's daughter now seized and emptied into her lap. A ten-shilling piece, some small silver, and two-pence halfpenny jingled together, and roused a silver-haired, tawny-pawed terrier, who left the hearthrug and came to smell what was the matter. His mistress's right hand absently caressing quieted his feelings ; and with the left she held the ten-shilling piece between finger and thumb, and gazed thoughtfully at the other bags as they squatted in a helpless row, with twine-tied mouths hanging on all sides. It was only after anxious consultation with an account-book that the half sovereign was ex- changed for silver ; thanks to the clothing-club bag, which looked leaner for the accommodation. In the three-halfpenny bag (which bulged with pence) some silver was further solved into copper, and the charity bag was handsomely distended before the 12 SATURDAY NIGHT. whole lot was consigned once more to the table- drawer. Any one accustomed to book-keeping must smile at this bag-keeping of accounts ; but the parson's daughter could never " bring her mind " to keeping the funds apart on paper, and mixing the actual cash. Indeed, she could never have brought her conscience to it. Unless she had taken the tenth for " charity " from her dress and pocket-money in coin, and put it then and there into the charity bag, this self-imposed rule of the duty of almsgiving would not have been performed to her soul's peace. The problem which had been exercising her mind that Saturday night was how to spend what was left of her benevolent fund in a treat for the children of the neighboring workhouse. The fund was low, and this had decided the matter. The following Wednes- day would be her twenty-first birthday. If the chil- dren came to tea with her, the foundation of the entertainment would, in the natural course of things, be laid in the Vicarage kitchen. The charity bag would provide the extras of the feast, nuts, toys, and the like. When the parson's daughter locked the drawer of the bandy-legged table, she did so with the vigor of one who has made up her mind, and set about the rest of her Saturday night's duties without further delay. She put out her Sunday clothes, and her Bible and Prayer-book, and class-book and pencil, on the oak SATURDAY NIGHT. 13 chest at the foot of the bed. She brushed and combed the silver-haired terrier, who looked abjectly depressed whilst this was doing, and preposterously proud when it was done. She washed her own hair, and studied her Sunday-school lesson for the morrow whilst it was drying. She spread a colored quilt at the foot of her white one, for the terrier to sleep on a slur which he always deeply resented. Then she went to bed, and slept as one ought to sleep on Saturday night, who is bound to be at the Sunday School by 9.15 on the following morning, with a clear mind on the Rudiments of the Faith, the history of the Prophet Elisha, and the destination of each of the parish magazines. SCENE II. wv< ATHERLESS mother, less homeless ! A little workhouse boy, with a swarthy face and tidily-cropped black hair, as short and thick as the fur of a mole, was grubbing, not quite so cleverly as a mole, in the work- house garden. He had been set to weed, but the weeding was very irregularly performed, for his eyes and heart were in the clouds, as he could see them over the big boundary wall. For there now dark against the white, now white against the gray some Air Tumbler pigeons were turning summersaults on their homeward way, at such short and regular intervals that they seemed to be tying knots in their lines of flight. GOD'S POOR AND THE DEVIL'S POOR. 15 It was too much ! The small gardener shamelessly abandoned his duties, and, curving his dirty paws on each side of his mouth, threw his whole soul into shouting words of encouragement to the distant birds. " That's a good un ! On with thee ! Over ye go ! Oo ooray ! " It was this last prolonged cheer which drowned the sound of footsteps on the path behind him, so that if he had been a tumbler pigeon himself he could not have jumped more nimbly when a man's hand fell upon his shoulder. Up went his arms to shield his ears from a well-merited cuffing; but Fate was kindei to him than he deserved. It was only an old man (prematurely aged with drink and consequent pov- erty), whose faded eyes seemed to rekindle as he also gazed after the pigeons, and spoke as one who knows. " Yon 's Daddy Darwin's Tumblers." This old pauper had only lately come into " the House" (the house that never was a home!), and the boy clung eagerly to his flannel sleeve, and plied him thick and fast with questions about the world without the workhouse walls, and about the happy owner of those yet happier creatures who were free not only on the earth, but in the skies. The poor old pauper was quite as willing to talk as the boy was to listen. It restored some of that self- respect which we lose under the consequences of our follies to be able to say that Daddy Darwin and he IO ONE FROM PROVIDENCE, T' OTHER 1-KOM VICE. had been mates together, and had had pigeon-fancying in common " many a long year afore " he came into the House. And so these two made friendship over such mat- ters as will bring man and boy together to the end of time. And the old pauper waxed eloquent on the feats of Homing Birds and Tumblers, and on the points of Almonds and Barbs, Fantails and Pouters ; sprinkling his narrative also with high-sounding and heterogeneous titles, such as Dragons and Archan- gels, Blue Owls and Black Priests, Jacobines, English Horsemen and Trumpeters. And through much boasting of the high stakes he had had on this and that pigeon-match then, and not a few bitter com- plaints of the harsh hospitality of the House he " had come to " now, it never seemed to occur to him to connect the two, or to warn the lad who hung upon his lips that one cannot eat his cake with the rash appetites of youth, and yet hope to have it for the support and nourishment of his old age. The longest story the old man told was of a " bit of a trip " he had made to Liverpool, to see some Antwerp Carriers flown from thence to Ghent, and he fixed the date of this by remembering that his twin sons were born in his absence, and that though their birthday was the very day of the race, his " missus turned stoopid," as women (he warned the boy) are apt to do, and refused to have them christened by uncommon names connected with the fancy. All the same, he bet the lads would have been nicknamed the CASTLES IX THE AIR. I/ Antwerp Carriers, and known as such to the day of their death, if this had not come so soon and so sud- denly, of croup ; when (as it oddly chanced) he was off on another " bit of a holiday " to fly some pigeons of his own in Lincolnshire. This tale had not come to an end when a voice of authority called for " Jack March," who rubbed his mole-like head and went ruefully off, muttering that he should " catch it now." " Sure enough ! sure enough ! " chuckled the un- amiable old pauper. But again Fate was kinder to the lad than his friend. His negligent weeding passed unnoticed, because he was wanted in a hurry to join the other children in the school-room. The parson's daughter had come, the children were about to sing to her, and Jack's voice could not be dispensed with. He " cleaned himself" with alacrity, and taking his place in the circle of boys standing with their hands behind their backs, he lifted up a voice worthy of a cathedral choir, whilst varying the monotony of sacred song by secretly snatching at the tail of the terrier as it went snuffing round the legs of the group. And in this feat he proved as much superior to the rest of the boys (who also tried it) as he excelled them in the art of singing. Later on he learnt that the young lady had come to invite them all to have tea with her on her bi-th- day. Later still he found the old pauper once more, and questioned him closely about the village an** the I& CASTLES IN THE AIR. Vicarage, and as to which of the parishioners kept pigeons, and where. And when he went to his straw bed that night, and his black head throbbed with visions and high hopes, these were not entirely of the honor of drinking tea with a pretty young lady, and how one should behave himself in such abashing circumstances. He did not even dream principally of the possibility of getting hold of that silver-haired, tawny-pawed dog by the tail under freer conditions than those of this after- noon, though that was a refreshing thought. CASTLES IN THE AIR. 19 What kept him long awake was thinking of this. From the top of an old walnut-tree at the top of a field at the back of the Vicarage, you could see a hill, and on the top of the hill some farm buildings. And it was here (so the old pauper had told him) that those pretty pigeons lived, who, though free to play about among the clouds, yet condescended to make an earthly home in Daddy Darwin's Dovecot SCENE III. |WO and two, girls and boys the young lady's guests marched down to the Vicarage. The school - mistress was anxious that each should carry his and her tin mug, so as to give as little trouble as possible ; but this was resolutely declined, much to the chil- dren's satisfaction, who ^had their walk with free hands, and their tea out of teacups and saucers like anybody else. It was a fine day, and all went well. The children enjoyed themselves, and behaved admirably into the bargain. There was only one suspicion of miscon- duct, and the matter was so far from clear that the parson's daughter hushed it up, and, so to speak, dis- missed the case. The children were playing at some game in which Jack March was supposed to excel, but when they came to look for him he could nowhere be found. At last he was discovered, high up among the branches of an old walnut-tree at the top of the field, and though his hands were unstained and his pockets THERE'S KINSHIP IN TROUBLE. 21 empty, the gardener, who had been the first to spy him, now loudly denounced him as an ungrateful young thief. Jack, with swollen eyes and cheeks be- smirched with angry tears, was vehemently declaring that he had only climbed the tree to " have a look at Master Darwin's pigeons," and had not picked so much as a leaf, let alone a walnut ; and the gardener, " shaking the truth out of him " by the collar of his fustian jacket, was preaching loudly on the sin of adding falsehood to theft, when the parson's daughter came up, and, in the end, acquitted poor Jack, and gave him leave to amuse himself as he pleased. It did not please Jack to play with his comrades just then. He felt sulky and aggrieved. He would have liked to play with the terrier who had stood by him in his troubles, and barked at the gardener; but that little friend now trotted after his mistress, who had gone to choir-practice. Jack wandered about among the shrubberies. By-and-by he heard sounds of music, and led by these he came to a gate in a wall, dividing the Vicar- age garden from the churchyard. Jack loved music, and the organ and the voices drew him on till he reached the church porch ; but there he was startled by a voice that was not only not the voice of song, but was the utterance of a moan so doleful that it seemed the outpouring of all his own lonely, and out- cast, and injured feelings in one comprehensive howl. It was the voice of the silver-haired terrier. He was sitting in the porch, his nose up, his ears down, 22 A CHOIR PRACTICE. his eyes shut, his mouth open, bewailing in bitterness of spirit the second and greater crook of his lot. To what purpose were all the caresses and care and indulgence of his mistress, the daily walks, the weekly washings and combings, the constant com- panionship, when she betrayed her abiding sense of his inferiority, first, by not letting him sleep on the white quilt, and secondly, by never allowing him to go to church? Jack shared the terrier's mood. What were tea and plum-cake to him, when his pauper-breeding was so stamped upon him that the gardener was free to say "A nice tale too ! What's thou to do wi' doves, and thou a work'us lad?" and to take for granted that he would thieve and lie if he got the chance? His disabilities were not the dog's, however. The parish church was his as well as another's, and he crept inside and leaned against one of the stone pil- lars, as if it were a big, calm friend. Far away, under the transept, a group of boys and men held their music near to their faces in the waning light. Among them towered the burly choir-master, baton in hand. The parson's daughter was at the organ. Well accustomed to produce his voice to good purpose, the choir-master's words were clearly to be heard throughout the building, and it was on the subject of articulation and emphasis, and the like, that he was speaking ; now and then throwing in an extra aspirate in the energy of that enthusiasm with- out which teaching is not worth the name. MUSIC HATH CHARMS. 23 " That '11 not do. We must have it altogether dif- ferent. You two lads are singing like bumble-bees in a pitcher horder there, boys ! it's no laughing matter put down those papers and keep your eyes on me inflate the chest " (his own seemed to fill the field of vision) " and try and give forth those noble words as if you 'd an idea what they meant." No satire was intended or taken here, but the two boys, who were practising their duet in an anthem, laid down the music, and turned their eyes on their teacher. "I'll run through the recitative," he added, " and take your time from the stick. And mind that OH." The parson's daughter struck a chord, and then the burly choir-master spoke with the voice of melody, " My heart is disquieted within me. My heart my heart is disquieted within me. And the fear of death is fallen is fallen upon me." The terrier moaned without, and Jack thought no boy's voice could be worth listening to after that of the choir-master. But he was wrong. A few more notes from the organ, and then, as night-stillness in a wood is broken by the nightingale, so upon the silence of the church a boy-alto's voice broke forth in obedience to the choir-master's uplifted hand : " Then, I said I said " Jack gasped, but even as he strained his eyes to 24 REQUIEM ETERNAM DONA EIS ? see what such a singer could look like, with higher, clearer notes the soprano rose above him " Then I sa a id," and the duet began: " OH, that I had wings Oh, that I had wings like a dove ! " Soprano. "Then would I flee away." Alto.-- " Then would I flee away." Together. " And be at rest flee away and be at rest." The clear young voices soared and chased each other among the arches, as if on the very pinions for which they prayed. Then swept from their seats by an upward sweep of the choir-master's arms the chorus rose as birds rise, and carried on the strain. It was not a very fine composition, but this final chorus had the singular charm of fugue. And as the voices mourned like doves, " Oh, that I had wings ! " and pursued each other with the plaintive passage, " Then would I flee away then would I flee away ," Jack's ears knew no weariness of the repetition. It was strangely like watching the rising and falling of Daddy Danvin's pigeons, as they tossed themselves by turns upon their homeward flight. After the fashion of the piece and period, the cho- rus was repeated, and the singers rose to supreme effort. The choir-master's hands flashed hither and thither, controlling, inspiring, directing. He sang among the tenors. Jack's voice nearly choked him with longing to sing too. Could words of man go more deeply REQUIEM ETERNAM DONA EIS ! 25 home to a young heart caged within workhouse walls ? " Oh, that I had wings like a dove ! Then would I flee away " the choir-master's white hands were fluttering downwards in the dusk, and the chorus sank with them " flee away and be at rest ! " SCENE IV. ACK MARCH had a busy lit- tle brain, and his nature was not of the limp type that sits down with a grief. That most memorable tea - party had fired his soul with two dis- tinct ambitions. First, to be a choirboy; and, secondly, to dwell in Daddy Darwin's Dovecot. He turned the matter over in his mind, and patched together the following facts : The Board of Guardians meant to apprentice him, Jack, to some master, at the earliest opportunity. Daddy Darwin (so the old pauper told him) was a strange old man, who had come down in the world, and now lived quite alone, with not a soul to help him in the house or outside it. He was " not to say mazelin yet, but getting helpless, and uncommon mean." A nephew came one fine day and fetched away the old pauper, to his great delight. It was by their hands that Jack despatched a letter, which the DO WELL AND DOUBT NOT. 2 7 nephew stamped and posted for him, and which was duly delivered on the following morning to Mr. Dar- win of the Dovecot. The old man had no correspondents, and he looked long at the letter before he opened it. It did credit to the teaching of the workhouse school-mistress : " HONORED SIR, " They call me Jack March. I 'm a workhouse lad, but. Sir, I 'm a good one, and the Board means to 'prentice me next time. Sir, if you face the Board and take me out you shall never regret it. Though I says it as should n't I 'm a handy lad. I '11 clean a floor with any one, and am willing to work early and late, and at your time of life you 're not what you was, and them birds must take a deal of seeing to- I can see them from the garden when I 'm set to weed, and I never saw nought like them. Oh, Sir, I do beg and pray you let me mind your pig- eons. You'll be none the worse of a lad about the place, and I shall be happy all the days of my life. Sir, I 'm not unthank- ful, but, please GOD, I should like to have a home, and to be with them house doves. " From your humble servant hoping to be "JACK MARCH. " Mr. Darwin, Sir. I love them Tumblers as if they was my own." Daddy Darwin thought hard and thought long over that letter. He changed his mind fifty times a day. But Friday was the Board day, and when Friday came he "faced the Board." And the lit- tle workhouse lad went home to Daddy Darwin's Dovecot. PL, SCENE V. I HE bargain was oddly made, but it worked well. Whatever Jack's parentage may have been (and he was named after the stormy month in which he had been born), the blood that ran in his veins could not have been beggars' blood. There was no hopeless, shiftless, invincible idleness about him. He found work for himself when it was not given him to do, and he attached himself passionately and proudly to all the belongings of his new home. " Yon lad of yours seems handy enough, Daddy, for a vagrant, as one may say." Daddy Darwin was smoking over his garden wall, and Mrs. Shaw, from the neighboring farm, had paused in her walk for a chat. She was a notable housewife, and there was just a touch of envy in her sense of the improved appearance of the doorsteps 3O HAE YE GEAR, HAE YE NANE : and other visible points of the Dovecot. Daddy Darwin took his pipe out of his mouth to make way for the force of his reply : " Vagrant ! Nay, missus, yon 's no vagrant. He's fettling up all along. Jack 's the sort that if he finds a key he '11 look for the lock ; if ye give him a knife- blade he '11 fashion a heft. Why, a vagrant 's a chap that, if he 'd all your maester owns to-morrow, he 'd be on the tramp again afore t' year were out, and three years would n't repair t' mischief he 'd leave be- hind him. A vagrant's a chap that if ye lend him a thing he loses it; if ye give him a thing he abuses it" " That 's true enough, and there 's plenty servant- girls the same," put in Mrs. Shaw. " Maybe there be, ma'am maybe there be ; va- grants' children, I reckon. But yon little chap I got from t' House comes of folk that 's had stuff o' their own, and cared for it choose who they were." " Well, Daddy," said his neighbor, not without malice, " I '11 wish you a good evening. You Ve got a good bargain out of the parish, it seems." But Daddy Darwin only chuckled, and stirred up the ashes in the bowl of his pipe. "The same to you, ma'am the same to you. Ay ! he 's a good bargain a very good bargain is Jack March." It might be supposed from the foregoing dialogue that Daddy Darwin was a model householder, and the little workhouse boy the neatest creature breath- TINE HEART, AND A 'S GANE. 31 ing. But the gentle reader who may imagine this is much mistaken. Daddy Darwin's Dovecot was freehold, and when he inherited it from his father there was still attached to it a good bit of the land that had passed from father to son through more generations than the church registers were old enough to record. But the few remaining acres were so heavily mortgaged that they had to be sold. So that a bit of house property elsewhere, and the old homestead itself, were all that was left. And Daddy Darwin had never been the sort of man to retrieve his luck at home, or to seek it abroad. That he had inherited a somewhat higher and more refined nature than his neighbors had rather hindered than helped him to prosper. And he had been un- lucky in love. When what energies he had were in their prime, his father's death left him with such poor prospects that the old farmer to whose daughter he was betrothed broke off the match and married her elsewhere. His Alice was not long another man's wife. She died within a year from her wedding-day, and her husband married again within a year from her death. Her old lover was no better able to mend his broken heart than his broken fortunes. He only banished women from the Dovecot, and shut himself up from the coarse consolation of his neighbors. In this loneliness, eating a kindly heart out in bitterness of spirit, with all that he ought to have had 32 A RAGGED COLT MAY MAKE A GOOD HORSE. To plough and sow And reap and mow gone from him, and in the hands of strangers, the pigeons, for which the Dovecot had always been fa- mous, became the business and the pleasure of his life. But of late years his stock had dwindled, and he rarely went to pigeon-matches or competed in shows and races. A more miserable fancy rivalled his interest in pigeon fancying. His new hobby was hoarding; and money that, a few years back, he would have freely spent to improve his breed of Tumblers or back his Homing Birds he now added with stealthy pleasure to the store behind the secret panel of a fine old oak bedstead that had belonged to the Darwyn who owned Dovecot when the six- teenth century was at its latter end. In this bedstead Daddy slept lightly of late, as old men will, and he had horrid dreams, which old men need not have. The queer faces carved on the panels (one of which hid the money hole) used to frighten him when he was a child. They did not frighten him now by their grotesque ugliness, but when he looked at them, and knew which was which, he dreaded the dying out of twilight into dark, and dreamed of aged men living alone, who had been murdered for their savings. These growing fears had had no small share in de- ciding him to try Jack March; and to see the lad growing stronger, nimbler, and more devoted to his master's interests day by day, was a nightly comfort to the poor old hoarder in the bed-head. A RAGGED COLT MAY MAKE A GOOD HORSE. 33 As to his keen sense of Jack's industry and care- fulness, it was part of the incompleteness of Daddy Darwin's nature, and the ill-luck of his career, that he had a sensitive perception ot order and beauty, and a shrewd observation of ways of living and qualities of character, and yet had allowed his early troubles to blight him so completely that he never put forth an effort to rise above the ruin, of which he was at least as conscious as his neighbors. That Jack was not the neatest creature breathing, one look at him, as he stood with pigeons on his head and arms and shoulders, would have been enough to prove. As the first and readiest repudia- tion of his workhouse antecedents he had let his hair grow till it hung in the wildest elf-locks, and though the terms of his service with Daddy Darwin would not, in any case, have provided him with handsome clothes, such as he had were certainly not the better for any attention he bestowed upon them. As re- garded the Dovecot, however, Daddy Darwin had not done more than justice to his bargain. A strong and grateful attachment to his master, and a pas- sionate love for the pigeons he tended, kept Jack constantly busy in the service of both ; the old pigeon-fancier taught him the benefits of scrupulous cleanliness in the pigeon-cot, and Jack " stoned " the kitchen-floor and the doorsteps on his own responsibility. The time did come when he tidied up himself. 3 SCENE VI. ADDY DARWIN had made the first breach in his solitary life of his own free will but it was fated to widen. The parson's daughter soon heard that he had got a lad from the work- house, the very boy who sang so well and had climbed the walnut-tree to look at Daddy Darwin's pigeons. The most obvious parish ques- tions at once presented themselves to the young lady's mind. "Had the boy been christened? Did he go to Church and Sunday-school? Did he say his prayers and know his Catechism? Had he a Sunday suit? Would he do for the choir? " Then, supposing (a not uncommon case) that the boy had been christened, said he said his prayers, knew his Catechism, and was ready for school, church, SOFT WORDS ARE HARD ARGUMENTS. 35 and choir, but had not got a Sunday suit a fresh series of riddles propounded themselves to her busy brain. Would her father yield up his every-day coat and take his Sunday one into week-day wear? Could the charity bag do better than pay the tailor's widow for adapting this old coat to the new chorister's back, taking it in at the seams, turning it wrong- side out, and getting new sleeves out of the old tails? Could she herself spare the boots which the village cobbler had just resoled for her somewhat clumsily and would the "allowance" bag bear this strain? Might she hope to coax an old pair of trousers out of her cousin, who was spending his Long Vacation at the Vicarage, and who never reckoned very closely with his allowance, and kept no charity bag at all? Lastly, would " that old curmudgeon at the Dovecot" let his little farm-boy go to church and school and choir? " I must go and persuade him," said the young lady. What she said, and what (at the time) Daddy Dar- win said, Jack never knew. He was at high sport with the terrier round the big sweetbrier bush, when he saw his old master splitting the seams of his weather- beaten coat in the haste with which he plucked crim- son clove carnations, as if they had been dandelions, and presented them, not ungracefully, to the parson's daughter. Jack knew why she had come, and strained his ears to catch his own name. But Daddy Darwin was promising pipings of the cloves. 36 SOFT WORDS ARE HARD ARGUMENTS. " They are such dear old-fashioned things," said ;Ie, burying her nose in the bunch. " We 're old-fashioned altogether, here, Miss," said Daddy Darwin, looking wistfully at the tumble-down house behind them. " You 're very pretty here," said she, looking also, and thinking what a sketch it would make, if she could keep on friendly terms with this old recluse, and get leave to sit in the garden. Then her con- science smiting her for selfishness, she turned her big eyes on him and put out her small hand. " I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Darwin, very much obliged to you indeed. And I hope that Jack will do credit to your kindness. And thank you so much for the cloves," she added, hastily changing a subject which had cost some argument, and which she did not wish to have re6pened. Daddy Darwin had thoughts of reopening it. He was slowly getting his ideas together to say that the lad should see how he got along with the school before trying the choir, when he found' the young lady's hand in his, and had to take care not to hurt it, whilst she rained thanks on him for the flowers. "You're freely welcome, Miss," was what he did say after all In the evening, however, he was very moody, but Jack was dying of curiosity, and at last could contain himself no longer. "What did Miss Jenny want, Daddy? " he asked. The old man looked very grim. OF ALL TAME BEASTS, I HATE A SLUT. 37 " First to mak a fool of me, and i' t' second place to mak a fool of thee," was his reply. And he added with pettish emphasis, " They're all alike, gentle and simple. Lad, lad ! If ye 'd have any peace of your life never let a woman's foot across your threshold. Steek t' door of your house if ye own one and t' door o' your heart if ye own one and then ye '11 never rue. Look at this coat ! " And the old man went grumpily to bed, and dreamed that Miss Jenny had put her little foot over his threshold, and that he had shown her the secret panel, and let her take away his savings. And Jack went to bed, and dreamed that he went to school, and showed himself to Phoebe Shaw in his Sunday suit. This dainty little damsel had long been making havoc in Jack's heart. The attraction must have been one of contrast, for whereas Jack was black and grubby, and had only week-day clothes which were ragged at that Phoebe was fair, and exquisitely clean, and quite terribly tidy. Her mother was the neatest woman in the parish. It was she \vho was wont to say to her trembling handmaid, " I hope I can black a grate without blacking myself." But little Phoebe promised so far to outdo her mother, that it seemed doubtful if she could " black herself" if she tried. Only the bloom of childhood could have resisted the polishing effects of yellow soap, as Phoebe's brow and cheeks did resist it. Her shining hair was compressed into a plait that would have 38 PHCEBE'S POSY. done credit to a rope- maker. Her pinafores were speckless, and as to her white Whitsun frock Jack could think of nothing the least like Phoebe in that, except a snowy fantail strutting about the dovecot roof; and, to say the truth, the likeness was most remarkable. It has been shown that Jack March had a mind to be master of his fate, and he did' succeed in making friends with little Phcebe Shaw. This was before Miss Jenny's visit, but the incident shall be recorded here. Early on Sunday mornings it was Jack's custom to hide his work-day garb in an angle of the ivy-covered wall of the Dovecot garden, only letting his head appear over the top, from whence he watched to see Phoebe pass on her way to Sunday-school, and to bewilder himself with the sight of her starched frock, and her airs with her Bible and Prayer-book, and class card, and clean pocket-handkerchief. Now, amongst the rest of her Sunday parapher- nalia, Phcebe always carried a posy, made up with herbs and some strong-smelling flowers. Country- women take mint and southernwood to a long hot service, as fine ladies take smelling-bottles (for it is a pleasant delusion with some writers, that the weaker sex is a strong sex in the working classes). And though Phoebe did not suffer from " fainty feels " like her mother, she and her little playmates took posies to Sunday-school, and refreshed their nerves in the steam of question and answer, and hair-oil and cor- duroy, with all the airs of their elders. PHCEBE'S POSY. 39 One day she lost her posy on her way to school, and her loss was Jack's opportunity. He had been waiting half-an-hour among the ivy, when he saw her just below him, fuzzling round and round like a kitten chasing its tail. He sprang to the top of the wall. " Have ye lost something? " he gasped. " My posy," said poor Phoebe, lifting her sweet eyes, which were full of tears. A second spring brought Jack into the dust at her feet, where he searched most faithfully, and was wandering along the path by which she had come, when she called him back. "Never mind," said she. "They'll most likely be dusty by now." Jack was not used to think the worse of anything for a coating of dust ; but he paused, trying to solve the perpetual problem of his situation, and find out what the little maid really wanted. "Twas only Old Man and marygolds," said she. "They're common enough." A light illumined Jack's understanding. " We Ve Old Man i' plenty ; wait, and I '11 get thee a fresh posy." And he began to reclimb the wall. But Phcebe drew nearer. She stroked down her frock, and spoke mincingly but confidentially. " My mother says Daddy Darwin has red bergamot i' his garden. We Ve none i' ours. My mother always says there 's nothing like red bergamot to take to church. She says it's a deal more refreshing than Old Man, and not so common. My mother says 40 RED AS A ROSE IS SHE. she's always meaning to ask Daddy Darwin to let us have a root to set; but she doesn't oftens see him, and when she does she does n't think on. But she always says there 's nothing Tike red bergamot ; and my Aunt Nancy, she says the same." "Red is it?" cried Jack. " You wait there, love." And before Phoebe could say him nay, he was over the wall and back again with his arms full. "Is it any o' this lot?" he inquired, dropping a small haycock of flowers at her feet. " Don't ye know one from t' other? " asked Phoebe, with round eyes of reproach. And spreading her clean kerchief on the grass she laid her Bible and Prayer-book and class card on it, and set vigorously and nattily to work, picking one flower and another from the fragrant confusion, nipping the stalks to even lengths, rejecting withered leaves, and instruct- ing Jack as she proceeded. "I suppose ye know a rose? That's a double velvet. 1 They dry sweeter than lavender for linen. These dark red things is pheasants' eyes ; but, dear, dear, what a lad ! ye Ve dragged it up by the roots ! And eh ! what will Master Darwin say when he misses these pink hollyhocks? And only in bud, too! There 's red bergamot ; 2 smell it ! " It had barely touched Jack's willing nose when it was hastily withdrawn. Phoebe had caught sight of 1 Double Velvet, an old summer rose, not common now. It is de- scribed by Parkinson. 2 Red Bergamot, or T winnower. Monarda Didyma RED AS A ROSE IS SHE. Polly and Susan Smith coming to school, and crying that she should be late and must run, the little maid picked up her paraphernalia (not forgetting the red bergamot), and fled down the lane. And Jack, with equal haste, snatched up the tell-tale heap of flowers and threw them into a disused pigsty, where it was unlikely that Daddy Darwin would go to look for his poor pink hollyhocks. SCENE VII. PRIL was a busy month in the Dove- cot. Young birds were chipping the egg, parent birds were feeding their young or relieving each other on the nest, and Jack and his master were constantly occupied and excited One night Daddy Darwin went to bed ; but, though he was tired, he did not sleep long. He had sold a couple of handsome but quarrelsome pigeons to advantage, and had added their price to the hoard in the bed-head. This had renewed his old fears, for the store was becoming very valuable ; and he won- dered if it had really escaped Jack's quick observa- tion, or whether the boy knew about it, and, perhaps, talked about it. As he lay and worried himself he fancied he heard sounds without the sound of foot- steps and of voices. Then his heart beat till he could hear nothing else ; then he could undoubtedly hear nothing at all ; then he certainly heard something which probably was rats. And so he lay in a cold THE DAY HAS EYES: THE NIGHT HAS EARS. 43 sweat, and pulled the rug over his face, and made up his mind to give the money to the parson, for the poor, if he was spared till daylight. He was spared till daylight, and had recovered himself, and settled to leave the money where it was, when Jack rushed in from the pigeon-house with a face of dire dismay. He made one or two futile efforts to speak, and then unconsciously used the words Shakespeare has put into the mouth of Mac- duff, " All my pretty 'uns ! " and so burst into tears. And when the old man made his way to the pigeon- house, followed by poor Jack, he found that the eggs were cold and the callow young shivering in deserted nests, and that every bird was gone. And then he remembered the robbers, and was maddened by the thought that whilst he lay expecting thieves to break in and steal his money he had let them get safely off with his whole stock of pigeons. Daddy Darwin had never taken up arms against his troubles, and this one crushed him. The fame and beauty of -his house-doves were all that was left of prosperity about the place, and now there was nothing left nothing ! Below this dreary thought lay a far more bitter one, which he dared not confide to Jack. He had heard the robbers ; he might have frightened them away ; he might at least have given the lad a chance to save his pets, and not a care had crossed his mind except for the safety of his own old bones, and of those miserable savings in the bed-head, which he was enduring so much to scrape togethei 44 JACK TAKES TIME BY THE FORELOCK. (oh satire!) for a distant connection whom he had never seen. He crept back to the kitchen, and dropped in a heap upon the settle, and muttered to himself. Then his thoughts wandered. Supposing the pigeons were gone for good, would he ever make up his mind to take that money out of the money- hole, and buy a fresh stock? He knew he never would, and shrank into a meaner heap upon the settle as he said so to himself. He did not like to look his faithful lad in the face. Jack looked him in the face, and, finding no help there, acted pretty promptly behind his back. He roused the parish constable, and fetched that func- tionary to the Dovecot before he had had bite or sup to break his fast. He spread a meal for him and Daddy, and borrowed the 'Shaws' light cart whilst they were eating it. The Shaws were good, farmer- folk, they sympathized most fully ; and Jack was glad of a few words of pity from Phoebe. She said she had watched the pretty pets " many a score of times," which comforted more than one of- Jack's heart- strings. Phoebe's mother paid respect to his sense and promptitude. He had acted exactly as she would have done. " Daddy was right enough about yon lad," she admitted. " He 's not one to let the grass grow under his feet." And she gave him a good breakfast whilst the horse was being " put to." It pleased her that Jack jumped up and left half a delicious cold tea-cake WHITHER GOEST GRIEF? 45 behind him when the cart-wheels grated outside. Mrs. Shaw sent Phoebe to put the cake in his pocket, and the " Maester" helped Jack in and took the reins. He said he would " see Daddy Darwin through it," and added the weight of his opinion to that of the constable, that the pigeons had been taken to " a beastly low place " (as he put it) that had lately been set up for pigeon-shooting in the outskirts of the neighboring town. They paused no longer at the Dovecot than was needed to hustle Daddy Darwin on to the seat beside Master Shaw, and for Jack to fill his pockets with peas, and take his place beside the constable. He had certain ideas of his own oil the matter, which were not confused by the jog-trot of the light cart, which did give a final jumble to poor Daddy Darwin's faculties. No wonder they were jumbled ! The terrors of the night past, the shock of the morning, the com- pleteness of the loss, the piteous sight in the pigeon- house, remorseful shame, and then after all these years, during which he had not gone half a mile from his own hearthstone to be set up for all the world to see, on the front seat of a market-cart, back to back with the parish constable, and jogged off as if miles were nothing, and crowded streets were nothing, and the Beaulieu Gardens were nothing; Master Shaw talking away as easily as if they were sitting in two arm-chairs, and making no more of " stepping into " a lawyer's office, and " going on " to the Town 46 GRIEF IS WHERE I AM WONT. Hall, than if he were talking of stepping up to his own bedchamber or going out into the garden ! That day passed like a dream, and Daddy Darwin remembered what happened in it as one remembers visions of the night. He had a vision (a very unpleasing vision) of the proprietor of the Beaulieu Gardens, a big greasy man, with sinister eyes very close together, and a hook nose, and a heavy watch-chain, and a bullying voice. He browbeat the constable very soon, and even bullied Master Shaw into silence. No help was to be had from him in his loud indignation at being sup- posed to traffic with thieves. When he turned the tables by talking af slander, loss of time, and com- pensation, Daddy Darwin smelt money, and trem- blingly whispered to Master Shaw to apologize and get out of it. " They 're gone for good," he almost sobbed ; " gone for good, like all t' rest ! And I '11 not be long after "em." But even as he spoke he heard a sound which made him lift up his head. It was Jack's call at feeding- time to the pigeons at the Dovecot. And quick following on this most musical and most familiar sound there came another. The old man put both his lean hands behind his ears to be sure that he heard it aright the sound of wings the wings of a dove ! The other men heard it and ran in. Whilst they were wrangling, Jack had slipped past them, and had made his way into a wired enclosure in front of the AN EASY FOOL IS A KNAVE'S TOOL. 47 pigeon-house. And there they found him, with all the captive pigeons coming to his call ; flying, flut- tering, strutting, nestling from head to foot of him, he scattering peas like hail. He was the first to speak, and not a choke in his voice. His iron temperament was at white heat, and, as he afterwards said, he " cared 'no more for yon dirty chap wi' the big nose, nor if he were a ratten l in a hayloft!" " These is ours," he said shortly. " I "11 count 'em over, and see if they're right. There was only one young 'un that could fly. A white 'un." ("It's here," interpolated Master Shaw.) " I '11 pack 'em i' yon," and Jack turned his thumb to a heap of hampers in a corner. " T' carrier can leave t' bas- kets at t' toll-bar next Saturday, and ye may send your lad for 'em, if ye keep one." The proprietor of the Beaulieu Gardens was not a man easily abashed, but most of the pigeons were packed before he had fairly resumed his previous powers of speech. Then, as Master Shaw said, he talked " on the other side of his mouth." Most willing was he to help to bring to justice the scoundrels who had deceived him and robbed Mr. Darwin, but he feared they would be difficult to trace. His own feeling was that of wishing for pleasantness among neighbors. The pigeons had been found at the Gar- dens. That was enough. He would be glad to settle the business out of court. 1 Anglice Rat 48 PUNISHMENT IS LAME, BUT IT COMES. Daddy Darwin heard the chink of the dirty man's money, and would have compounded the matter then and there. But not so the parish constable, who saw himself famous ; and not so Jack, who turned eyes of smouldering fire on Master Shaw. " Maester Shaw ! you '11 not let them chaps get off? Daddy 's mazelin vvi' trouble, sir, but I reckon you '11 see to it." " If it costs t' worth of the pigeons ten times over, I'll see to it, my lad," was Master Shaw's reply. And the parish constable rose even to a vein of satire as he avenged himself of the man who had slighted his office. "Settle it out of court? Ay! I dare say. And send t' same chaps to fetch 'em away again t' night after. Nay bear a hand with this hamper, Maester Shaw, if you please if it's all t' same to you, Mr. Proprietor, I think we shall have to trouble you to step up to t' Town Hall by-and-by, and see if we can't get shut of them mistaking friends o' yours for three month any way." If that day was a trying one to Daddy Darwin, the night that followed it was far worse. The thieves were known to the police, and the case was down to come on at the Town Hall the following morning; but meanwhile the constable thought fit to keep the pigeons under his own charge in the village lock-up. Jack refused to be parted from his birds, and re- mained with them, leaving Daddy Darwin alone in the Dovecot. He dared not go to bed, and it was not a pleasant night that he spent,- dozing with weari- DADDY DARWIN AND THE LAWYER. 49 ness, and starting up with fright, in an arm-chair facing the money-hole. Some things that he had been nervous about he got quite used to, however. He bore himself with sufficient dignity in the publicity of the Town Hall, where a great sensation was created by the pigeons being let loose without, and coming to Jack's call. Some of them fed from the boy's lips, and he was the hero of the hour, to Daddy Darwin's delight. Then the lawyer and the lawyer's office proved genial and comfortable to him. He liked civil ways and smooth speech, and understood them far better than Master Shaw's brevity and uncouthness. The lawyer chatted kindly and intelligently ; he gave Daddy Darwin wine and biscuit, and talked of the long standing of the Darwin family and its vicissi- tudes; he even took down some fat yellow books, and showed the old man how many curious laws had been made from time to time for the special protec- tion of pigeons in dovecots. Very ancient statutes making the killing of a house-dove felony. Then I James I. c. 29, awarded, three months' imprisonment " without bail or mainprise " to any person who should " shoot at, kill, or destroy with any gun. crossbow, stonebow, or longbow, any house-dove or pigeon; " but allowed an alternative fine of twenty shillings to be paid to the churchwardens of the par- ish for the benefit of the poor. Daddy Darwin hoped there was no such alternative in this case, and it proved that by 2 Geo. III. c. 29, the twenty-shilling 50 AN OLD MAN'S STAFF RAPS ON DEATH'S DOOR. fine was transferred to the owner of birds ; at which point another client called, and the polite lawyer left Daddy to study the laws by himself. It was when Jack was helping Master Shaw to put the horse into the cart, after the trial was over, that the farmer said to him, " I don't want to put you about, my lad, but I 'm afraid you won't keep your master long. T old gentleman 's breaking up, mark my words ! Constable and me was going into the George for a glass, and Master Darwin left us and went back to the office. I says, 'What are ye going back to t' lawyer for? ' and he says, 'I don't mind telling you, Master Shaw, but it 's to make my will.' And off he goes. Now, there 's only two more things between that and death, Jack March ! And one 's the parson, and t' other 's the doctor." SCENE VIII. ITTLE Phoebe Shaw coming out of the day- school, and picking her way home to tea, was startled by folk running past her, and by a sound of cheering from the far end of the village, which grad- ually increased in volume, and was caught up by the bystanders as they ran. When Phoebe heard that it was " Constable, and Master Shaw, and Daddy Dar- win and his lad, coming home, and the pigeons along wi' 'em," she felt inclined to run too ; but a fit of shy- ness came over her, and she demurely decided to wait by the school-gate till they came her way. They did not come. They stopped. What were they doing ? Another bystander explained, "They 're shaking hands wi' Daddy, and I reckon they 're making him put up t* birds here, to see 'em go home to t' Dovecot " Phoebe ran as if for her life. She loved beast and bird as well as Jack himself, and the fame of Daddy HOME. SWEET HOME! Darwin's doves was great. To see them put up by him to fly home after such an adventure was a sight not lightly to be foregone. The crowd had moved to a hillock in a neighboring field before she touched its outskirts. By that time it pretty well numbered the population of the village, from the oldest inhabi- HOME. SWEET HOME! 53 tant to the youngest that could run. Phoebe had her mother's courage and resource. Chirping out feebly but clearly, " I 'm Maester Shaw's little lass, will ye let me through? " she was passed from hand to hand, till her little fingers :ound ther/kselves in Jack's tight clasp, and he fairly lifted her to her father's side. She was just in time. Some of the birds had hung about Jack, nervous, or expecting peas; but the hesitation was past. Free in the sweet sunshine beating down the evening air with silver wings and their feathers like gold ignorant of cold eggs and callow young dead in deserted nests sped on their way by such a roar as rarely shook the Tillage in its body corporate they flew straight home to Daddy Darwin's Dovecot- SCENE IX. ADDY DAR- WIN lived a good many years after making his will, and the Dovecot prospered m his hands. It would be more just to say that it prospered in the hands of Jack March. By hook and by crook he increased the live stock about the place. Folk were kind to one who had set so excellent an example to other farm lads, though he lacked the primal virtue of belonging to the neighborhood. He bartered pigeons for fowls, and some one gave him a sitting of eggs to " see what he would make of 'em." Master Shaw gave him a little pig, with kind words and good LOVE IS THE PRICE OF LOVE. 55 counsel; and Jack cleaned out the disused pigstyes, which were never disused again. He scrubbed his pigs with soap and water as if they had been Chris- tians, and the admirable animals, regardless of the pork they were coming to, did him infinite credit, and brought him profit into the bargain, which he spent on ducks' eggs, and other additions to his farm- yard family. The Shaws were very kind to him ; and if Mrs. Shaw's secrets must be told, it was because Phoebe was so unchangeably and increasingly kind to him, that she sent the pretty maid (who had a knack of knowing her own mind about things) to service. Jack March was a handsome, stalwart youth now, of irreproachable conduct, and with qualities which Mrs. Shaw particularly prized ; but he was but a farm-lad, and no match for her daughter. Jack only saw his sweetheart once during several years. She had not been well, and was at home for the benefit of " native air." He walked over the hill with her as they returned from church, and lived on the remembrance of that walk for two or three years more. Phoebe had given him her Prayer-book to carry, and he had found a dead flower in it, and had been jealous. She had asked if he knew what it was, and he had replied fiercely that he did not, and was not sure that he cared to know. "Ye never did know much about flowers," said Phoebe, demurely; " it's red bergamot." " I love red bergamot," he whispered penitently. 56 THE THINGS OF THE SPIRIT. " And thou owes me a bit. I gave thee some once." And Phoebe had let him put the withered bits into his own hymn-book, which was more than he de- served. Jack was still in the choir, and taught in the Sun- day-school where he used to learn. The parson's daughter had had her way ; Daddy Darwin grumbled at first, but in the end he got a bottle-green Sunday- coat out of the oak-press that matched the bedstead, and put the house-key into his pocket, and went to church too. Now, for years past he had not failed IN THE NAME OF GOD: AMEN. 57 to take his place, week by week, in the pew that was traditionally appropriated to the use of the Darwins of Dovecot. In such an hour the sordid cares of the secret panel weighed less heavily on his soul, and the things that are not seen came nearer the house not made with hands, the treasures that rust and moth corrupt not, and which thieves do not break through to steal. Daddy Darwin died of old age. As his health failed, Jack nursed him with the tenderness of a woman ; and kind inquiries, and dainties which Jack could not have cooked, came in from many quarters where it pleased the old man to find that he was held in respect and remembrance. One afternoon, coming in from the farmyard, Jack found him sitting by the kitchen-table as he had left him, but with a dread look of change upon his face. At first he feared there had been " a stroke," but Daddy Darwin's mind was clear and his voice firmer than usual. " My lad," he said, " fetch me yon teapot out of the corner cupboard. T one \vi' a pole-house l painted on it, and some letters. Take care how ye shift it. It were t' merry feast-pot 2 at my christen- ing, and yon 's t' letters of my father's and mother's names. Take off t' lid. There 's two bits of paper in the inside." 1 -A pole-house is a small dovecot on the top of a pole. 2 " Merry feast-pot " is a name given to old pieces of ware, made Ja local potteries for local festivals. 58 DADDY, NOT MAESTER. Jack did as he was bid, and laid the papers (one small and yellow with age, the other bigger, and blue, and neatly written upon) at his master's right hand. " Read yon," said the old man, pushing the small one towards him. Jack took it up wondering. It was the letter he had written from the workhouse fifteen years before. That was all he could see. The past surged up too thickly before his eyes, and tossing it impetuously from him, he dropped on a chair by the table, and snatching Daddy Darwin's nands he held them to his face with tears. " GOD bless thee ! " he sobbed. " You 've been a good maester to me ! " " Daddy" wheezed the old man. " Daddy, not maester." And drawing his right hand away, he laid it solemnly on the young man's head. " GOD bless thee, and reward thee. What have I done i' my feck- less life to deserve a son? But if ever a lad earned a father and a home, thou hast earned 'em, Jack March." He moved his hand again and laid it trembling on the paper. " Every word i' this letter ye Ve made good. Every word, even to t' bit at the end. ' I love them Tumblers as if they were my own,' says you. Lift thee head, lad, and look at me. They are thy own ! . . . Yon blue paper 's my last will and testament, made many a year back by Mr. Brown, of Green Street, Solicitor, and a very nice gentleman too ; and THIS IS THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT. 59 witnessed by his clerks, two decent young chaps, and civil enough, but with too much watch-chain for their situation. Jack March, my son, I have left thee maester of Dovecot and all that I have. And there 's a bit of money in t' bed-head that '11 help thee to make a fair start, and to bury me decently atop of my father and mother. Ye may let Bill Sexton toll an hour-bell for me, for I 'm a old standard, if I never were good for much. Maybe I might ha' done better if things had happed in a different fashion ; but the Lord knows all. I 'd like a hymn at the grave, Jack, if the Vicar has no objections, and do thou sing if thee can. Don't fret, my son, thou 'st no cause. 'T was that sweet voice o' thine took me back again to public worship, and it 's not t' least of all I owe thee, Jack March. A poor reason, lad, for taking up with a neglected duty a poor reason but the Lord is a GOD of mercy, or there 'd be small chance for most on us. If Miss Jenny and her husband come to t' Vicarage this summer, say I left her my duty and an old man's blessing; and if she wants any roots out of t' garden, give 'em her, and give her yon old chest that stands in the back chamber. It belonged to an uncle of my mother's a Derby- shire man. They say her husband 's a rich gentle- man, and treats her very well. I reckon she may have what she 's a mind, new and polished, but she 's always for old lumber. They 're a whimsical lot, gentle and simple. And talking of women, Jack, I Ve a word to say, if I can fetch my breath to say it 6O DADDY DARWIN'S LAST ADVICE. Lad ! as sure as you 're maester of Dovecot, you '11 give it a missus. Now take heed to me. If ye fetch any woman home here but Phoebe Shaw, I '11 walk, and scare ye away from t' old place. I 'm willing for Phoebe, and I charge ye to tell the lass so hereafter. And tell her it's not because she 's fair too many on 'em are that; and not because she's thrifty and houseproud her mother 's that, and she 's no favor- ite of mine ; but because I Ve watched her whenever t' ould cat 's let her be at home, and it 's my belief that she loves ye, knowing "nought of this " (he laid his hand upon the will), " and that she '11 stick to ye, choose what her folk may say. Ay, ay, she's not one of t' sort that quits a falling house like rattens" Language fails to convey the bitterness which the old man put into these last two words. It exhausted him, and his mind wandered. When he had to some extent recovered himself he spoke again, but very feebly. " Tak' my duty to the Vicar, lad, Daddy Darwin's duty, and say he 's at t' last feather of the shuttle, and would be thankful for the Sacrament." The Parson had come and gone. Daddy Darwin did not care to lie down, he breathed with difficulty; so Jack made him easy in a big arm-chair, and raked up the fire with cinders, and took a chair on the other side of the hearth to watch with him. The old man slept comfortably, and at last, much wearied, the young man dozed also. LOVE'S NOT TIME'S FOOL. 61 He awoke because Daddy Darwin moved, but for a moment he thought he must be dreaming. So erect the old man stood, and with such delight in his wide-open eyes. They were looking over Jack's head. All that the lad had never seen upon his face seemed to have come back to it youth, hope, reso- lution, tenderness. His lips were trembling with the smile of acutest joy. Suddenly he stretched out his arms, and crying, " Alice ! " started forward and fell dead on the breast of his adopted son. fe?~ RAW ! Craw ! Craw ! The crows flapped slowly home, and the Gaffers moved ofl too. The sun was down, and " damps " are bad for " rheumatics." " It 's a strange tale," said Gaffer II., " but if all 's true ye tell me, there 's not too many like him." " That 's right enough," Gaffer I. admitted. " He 's 'been t" same all through, and ye should ha' seen the bury- ing he gave t' ould chap. He was rare and good to him by all accounts, and 62 THE EVENING BRINGS ALL HOME. never gainsaid him ought, except i' not lifting his voice as he should ha' done at t' grave. Jack sings a bass solo as well as any man i' t' place ; but he stood yonder, for all t' world like one of them crows, black o' visage, and black wi' funeral clothes, and choked with crying like a child i'stead of a man." " Well, well, t' ould chap were all he had, I reckon," said Gaffer II. " That's right enough; and for going backwards, as ye may say, and setting a wild graff on an old standard, yon will 's done well for DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT." THE END. THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE. " Do you know now when I am wheeling about in my chair, anJ playing with him and he look* at me wherever I go ; sometimes for a bit I forget about the King, and I fancy he is sorry for me, Vndf 'c b!<- was the only place where I could set out of the sirrht of his eves." Fronti 'efiirct, . THE BY JULIANA HORATIA EWING, AUTHOR OF "JACKANAPES," "DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT," ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY GORDON BROWNE. BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1896. " 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 flattering ounappetites; no, by awakening the Heroic that slumbers in every heart." Carlytt. CHAPTER I. " Arma virumque cano." " Mail and the horseradish are most biting when grated." Jean Paul Richter, OST ing i annoy- ' 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 older 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 LtEtus 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. / 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 No\v, what do you want? " " Pencil and paper, please." "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 10 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 (colore'd rays from coats-of-arms in the upper panes falling on his fair hair with a fanciful effect of canonizing him fo*r 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 thjnk what possessed my father " "lam doing the inscription! I can print Old Eng- lish. What does L. diphthong AL. T. U. S. mean ? " said Leonard. " // 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 loungeji 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. " I 've THEN WOULD HE SING ACHIEVEMENTS HIGH 13 done it all now, and shant want to know anything more." " Sorte mea is Latin for My fate, or My lot in life. Latus sorte mea means Happy in my lot. It is our family motto. Now, if you ask anctJicr question, off 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 digested 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 gentlemanj 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 didn'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? 5 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 Ml'SKETOG*. \J "Je Je Jemima said, 'No, he's a' Orderly;' 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, nevermind: 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'll 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 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 nands behind his back, and his eyes tightly shut. " I am thinking very hard, Father. Please tell me again what our motto means." " ' Lcetus 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 1 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 air 20 THE LOT IS CAST, ETC. grou 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. " Is n'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. Scent I. " Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife I 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 a 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 thi^S Pilgrimage." Banyan's Fil^rini 's Progress. ND if we tic 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 '11 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 If / forget it, you need n't remember it ! " bygones. 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 /Y/ 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 does n'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 do\vn 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 me/i, 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 wasn'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 mu3t 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 ' L&tns sorte wea.' 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 i a stirring life they lead, That have such neighbors near." Marmion. H, Jemi ma! Jemima! I know you are very kind, and I do mean not to be impa- ti e nt; 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 ^-^- 1- .>Ji>.>;Ms<3&. 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 '11 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 latns for half a minute, to give that shopman just one toss ! But I believe go 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. 91 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 il 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 me; Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form." ohn, Act ii'. OXG 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 e nvelope 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 Camf, Askolt, td MY DEAR, DEAR MOTHER, *' 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 Mp 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. Wasn'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 co\ jrlet 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? 96 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 thej 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 were 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 ha 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.' 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 couldn't. It means Deputy- 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. Wasn'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 Icztus 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 clearest 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.' WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK, ETC. 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. 1 And he turned round to an officer I didn't know, and said, ' 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 SAIXT. 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 MartiH, 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 IO4 MARTIN YET BUT A CATECHUMEN I 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! 105 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. \Yell, 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 \vrapped 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 \vas 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 IO6 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. 1 07 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 lo 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, / 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. iv. 7. 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. no 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 DOCII NUR YORWARTS! Ill 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. 1 ' There was a pause. The V. C. 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 th<; 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 vent 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 sure 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 ! " "What's odd, my darling?" " Some one has wiped away all the tears from his eyes." " 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-VVar " hymn with a precision indicative of a resolution to have it sung in strict time, or know the reason why. J 114 IF THOU BFAR 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 tiniesl 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 mcrc^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. 115 1 Who best can drink His cup of woe Triumphant over pain, Who patient bears His cross below, He follows in His train." On each side of Leonard's bed, like guardian angels, 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-\Yar" 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! 117 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. He 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. those who were stationed there together. RUE to its character as an emblem of 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 UNWORLDLY \VISE. ' 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 120 'UNWORLDLY WISE. inherited from his father, who had inherited it from his country forefathers. He inherited equally 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 himscl . 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 MOTHLK" 122 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." MOKE PRECIOUS THAN RUBIES. 123 " 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 fane'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 that seems to be a thing per se" 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 tima 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- dcnald 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- 120 WHAT IS HOME, AND WHERE C 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 ma/ 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. 127 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. 129 cr 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 Kim 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, v/here 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: " Heetus Sorte THE END. ViRS. EWINC'S LAST BOOK. JACKANAPES. DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT. THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE, With a Sketch of Mrs. Swing's Life by her Sister, H. K. F. in sue volume, with Illustrations by RANDOLPH CALDECOTT and GOKDON- BROWNE. Price, 50 cents. ROBERTS BROTHERS. BOSTON. BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR OF " MISS TOOSEY'S MISSION" AND "LADDIE." MISS TOOSEY'S MISSION, AND LADDIE. By the author of " Miss Toosey's Mission." Both in one volume. 161110, 50 cents. They are two of the most finished and strengthening stories one may find, although he seek long amc.i? choice storiss. Exchange TIP CAT. A Story. i6mo. $1.00. It is not, as the name might indicate, the story of a cat, but of a young man who makes a brave effort to support his two little sisters. The children's little amusements and artless way ol relating them, and the brother's unselfish devo- tion, are both pathetic and amusing. Boston Traveller. OUR LITTLE ANN. i6mo. $1.00. It breathes a pure and wholesome spirit, and is treated in a wholly artistic and sympathetic manner. In every respect it is on; of the most charming of Decent fictions. Post, Boston. PEN. A Story. 161110. $1.00. "Pen" has the peculiar charm and pathos of the earlier books, with quite as much of interest. It is thoroughly wholesome and sweet in its tone, a book to put in the hands of all young people, or old ones either, for that matter. Living Church. LIL. A Story. i6mo. $1.00. One of those bright, sweet, and pure little tales of English domestic life. Both boys and girls will enjoy it. ZOE. A Story. i6mo. 60 cents. It tells of the power of a little life over the heart of a man made hard and bitter by the world's disappointments, which resulted in winning him back to kind and loving ways ROSE AND LAVENDER. A Story. i6mo. gi.oo. A simple story of English country life, but a story that breathes goodness as a rose does fragrance. PRIS. A Story. i6mo. 50 cents. Pris was a neglected girl, left motherless at fourteen, who thenceforth assumed the charge of her father's household, and gave her days and nights to unselfish and loving labor. It is a very sweet and pathetic story, filled with beaut ful thoughts. DEAR. A Story. With Frontispiece, by Jessie McDermott. 161110. Cloth. $1.00. BABY JOHN. A Story. i6mo. 50 cents. A story that will ho'd every reader from the nursery to the library. Budget. POMONA. i6mo. $1.00. FOR THE FOURTH TIME OF ASKING. i6mo. 50 cents. DON. A Story. i6mo. #1.00. MY HONEY. A Story. i6mo. $1.00. ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. ucse LIBRARY -5 HO 13