The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX. No. 1006, by Various.

ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.

By JESSIE MANSERGH (Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey), Author of “Sisters Three,” etc.

AT THE CROSS ROADS.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Arthur kept his word, and tried manfully not to let his own disappointment interfere with the enjoyment of Christmas Day. The party at the vicarage was smaller than usual, for Rob and Oswald had both gone home for the festive season, and he knew well that the knowledge that “Arthur was coming” had seemed the best guarantee of a merry day to those who were left behind. Peggy too—poor little Peg, with her bandaged hands and tiny white face—it would never do to grieve her by being depressed and gloomy!

“Begone, dull care!” cried Arthur to himself then, when he awoke on Christmas morning, and promptly wrapping himself in his dressing-gown, he sallied out on to the landing, where he burst into the strains of “Christians, awake!” with such vigorous brush-and-comb accompaniment on the panels of the doors as startled the household out of their dreams.

“Miserable boy! I was having such a lovely nap! I’ll never forgive you!” cried Mrs. Asplin’s voice in sleepy wrath.

“Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!” shouted the girls, and Peggy’s clear pipe joined in last of all. “And many of them! Come in! Come in! I was lying awake and longing to see you!”

{434}

Arthur put his ruffled head round the door and beamed at the little figure in the bed, as if he had never known a trouble in his life.

“What a wicked story! I heard you snore. Merry Christmas, Peg, and a Happy New Year! And don’t you go for to do it again never no more! It’s a jolly morning. I’ll take you out for a toddle in the garden when we come home from church, if you are a good girl. Will you have your present now, or wait till you get it? It begins with a B. I love my love with a B., because she’s a——”

“Oh, Arthur!” interrupted Peggy regretfully. “I haven’t half such a nice present for you as I expected. You see I couldn’t work anything, and I couldn’t get out to the shops, and I hadn’t nearly as much money as I expected either. If Bob and I had won that prize, I should have had ten pounds; but the stupid editors have put off announcing the result week after week. They say there were so many competitors; but that’s no consolation, for it makes our chance less. I do hope it may be out next week. But, at any rate, I didn’t get my ten pounds in time, and there I was, you see, with little money and practically no hands, a—er—a most painful contingency, which I hope it may never be your lot to experience. You must take the will for the deed.”

“Oh, I will!” agreed Arthur promptly. “I’ll take the will now, and you can follow up with the deed as soon as you get the cash. But no more journeys up to London, my dear, if you love me, and don’t use such big words before seven o’clock in the morning, or you’ll choke. It’s bad for little girls to exert themselves so much. Now I’m going to skate about in the bath for a bit, and tumble into my clothes, and then I’ll come back and give you a lift downstairs. You are coming down for breakfast, I suppose?”

“Rather! On Christmas morning! I should just think I was!” cried Peggy emphatically, and Arthur went off to the bath-room, calling in at Max’s room en route to squeeze a sponge full of water over that young gentleman’s head and pull the clothes off the bed by way of giving emphasis to his “Get up, you lazy beggar! It’s the day after to-morrow, and the plum pudding is waiting!”

Peggy was the only one of the young folks who did not go to church that morning; but she was left in charge of the decoration for the dinner-table, and when this was finished, there was so much to think about that the time passed all too quickly.

Last year she and Arthur had spent Christmas with their mother; now both parents were away in India, and everything was strange and altered. As Peggy sat gazing into the heart of the big gloomy fire, it seemed to her that the year that was passing away would end a complete epoch in her brother’s experiences and her own, and that from this hour a new chapter would begin. She herself had come back from the door of death, and had life given, as it were, afresh into her hands. Arthur’s longed-for career had been checked at its commencement, and all his plans laid waste. Even the life in the vicarage would henceforth take new conditions, for Rob and Oswald would go up to Oxford at the beginning of the term, and their place be filled by new pupils. There was something solemnising in the consciousness of change which filled the air. One could never tell what might be the next development. Nothing was too unexpected to happen—since Arthur’s success had ended in failure, and she herself had received Rosalind’s vows of love and friendship.

“Good things have happened as well as bad,” acknowledged Peggy honestly, “but how I do hate changes! The new pupils may be the nicest boys that were ever born, but no one will ever be like Rob to me, and I’d rather Arthur had been a soldier than anything in the wide world. I wish one could go on being young for ever and ever. It’s when you grow old that all these troubles and changes come upon you.” And Peggy sighed and wagged her head, oppressed with the weight of fifteen years.

It was a relief to hear the clatter of horses’ hoofs, and the sound of voices in the hall, which proved that the church-goers had returned home. Mr. and Mrs. Asplin had been driven home from church by Lord and Lady Darcy, and the next moment they were in the room, greeting Peggy with demonstrative affection.

“We couldn’t go home without coming to see you, dear,” said Lady Darcy fondly. “Rosalind is walking with the rest, and will be here in a few minutes. A merry Christmas to you, darling, and many, many of them. I’ve brought you a little present which I hope you will like. It’s a bangle bracelet—quite a simple one that you can wear every day—and you must think of me sometimes when you put it on.”

She touched the spring of a morocco case as she spoke, and there on the satin lining lay a band of gold, dependent from which hung the sweetest little locket in the world—heart-shaped, studded with pearls, and guarding a ring of hair beneath the glass shield.

Lady Darcy pointed to it in silence—her eyes filling with tears, as they invariably did at any reference to Rosalind’s accident, and Peggy’s cheeks flushed with pleasure.

“I can’t thank you! I really can’t,” she said. “It is too lovely. You couldn’t possibly have given me anything I liked better. I have a predilection for jewellery, and the little locket is too sweet, dangling on that chain! I do love to have something that waggles!” She held up her arm as she spoke, shaking the locket to and fro with a childlike enjoyment, while the two ladies watched her with tender amusement. Lord Darcy had not spoken since his first greeting, but now he came forward, and linking his arm in Peggy’s led her to the further end of the room.

“I have no present for you, my dear—I could not think of one that was good enough—but yesterday I really think I hit on something that would please you. Robert told us how keenly you were feeling your brother’s disappointment, and that he was undecided what to try next. Now, I believe I can help him there. I have influence in the Foreign Office, and can insure him an opening when he is ready for it, if your father agrees that it is desirable. Would that please you, Peggy? If I can help your brother, will it go some little way towards paying the debt I owe you?”

“Oh—h!” cried Peggy rapturously. “Oh!” She clasped Lord Darcy’s hands in her own and gazed at him with dilated eyes. “Can you do it? Will you do it? There is nothing in all the world I should like so much. Help Arthur—give him a good chance—and I shall bless you for ever and ever! I could never thank you enough——”

“Well, well, I will write to your father and see what he has to say. I can promise the lad a start at least, and after that his future will be in his own hands, where I think we may safely leave it. Master Arthur is one of the fortunate beings who has an ‘open sesame’ to all hearts. Mr. Asplin assures me that he is as good at work as at play; I have not seen that side of his character, but he has always left a most pleasing impression on my mind, most pleasing.” The old lord smiled to himself, and his eyes took a dreamy expression as if he were recalling to memory the handsome face and strong manly presence of the young fellow of whom he was speaking. “He has been a favourite at our house for some years now, and I shall be glad to do him a service, but remember, Peggy, that when I propose this help, it is in the first instance at least, for your sake, not his. I tell you this because I think it will give you pleasure to feel that you have been the means of helping your brother. Talk it over with him some time when you are alone together, and then he can come up and see me. To-day we must leave business alone. Here they come! I thought they would not be long after us——”

Even as he spoke voices sounded from the hall, there was a clatter of feet over the tiled flooring, and Mellicent dashed into the room.

“P—P—P—Postman!” she stammered breathlessly. “He is coming! Round the corner! Heaps of letters! Piles of parcels! A hand-cart, and a boy to help him! Here in five minutes! Oh! oh! oh!” She went rushing back to the door, and Rosalind came forward, looking almost her old beautiful self, with her cheeks flushed by the cold air, and the fur collar of her jacket turned up so as to hide the scarred cheek.

“Merry Christmas, Rosalind! How—how nice you look!” cried Peggy, looking up and down the dainty figure with more pleasure in the sight than she could have believed possible a few weeks before. After being accustomed for four long weeks to gaze at those perfectly cut features, Esther’s long chin and Mellicent’s retroussé nose had been quite a trial to her artistic sensibilities on her return to the vicarage.{435} It was like having a masterpiece taken down from the walls and replaced by an inferior engraving. She gave a sigh of satisfaction as she looked once more at Rosalind’s face.

“Mewwy Chwistmas, Peggy! I’ve missed you fwightfully. I’ve not been to church, but I dwove down to meet the others, and come to see you. I had to see you on Chwistmas Day. I’ve had lovely pwesents and there are more to come. Mother has given you the bwacelet, I see. Is it what you like?”

“My dear, I love it! I’m fearfully addicted to jewellery. I had to put it on at once, and it looks quite elegant on top of the bandages! I’m inexpressibly obliged. I’ve got heaps of things—books, scent, glove-box, writing-case, a big box coming from India, and—don’t tell her—an apron from Mellicent! The most awful thing. I can’t think where she found it. Yellow cloth with dog roses worked in filoselle! Imagine me in a yellow apron with spotty roses around the brim!”

“He! He! I can’t! I weally can’t. It’s too widiculous!” protested Rosalind. “She sent me a twine bag made of netted cotton. It’s awfully useful if you use twine, but I never do. Don’t say I said so. Who got the night-dwess bag with the two shades of blue that didn’t match?”

“Esther! You should have seen her face!” whispered Peggy roguishly, and the girls went into peals of laughter which brought Robert hurrying across the room to join them.

“Now then, Rosalind; when you have quite done, I should like to speak to Peggy. The compliments of the season to you, Mariquita; I hope I see you well.”

Peggy pursed up her lips and looked him up and down with her dancing hazel eyes.

“Most noble sir, the heavens rain blessings on you—oh, my goodness, there’s the postman!” she cried all in one breath, and the partners darted forward side by side towards the front door, where the old postman was already standing, beaming all over his weatherbeaten face, as he began turning out the letters and calling out the names on the envelopes.

“Asplin, Asplin, Saville, Asplin, Saville, Saville, Miss Peggy Saville, Miss Mellercent Asplin, Miss Saville, Miss M. Saville, Miss Peggy Saville.”

So the list ran on with such a constant repetition of the same name that Max exclaimed in disgust, “Who is this Miss Peggy Saville that we hear so much about? She’s a greedy thing whoever she may be,” and Mellicent whined out, “I wish I had been at a boarding school! I wish my relatives lived abroad. There will be none left for me by the time she has finished.” Then Arthur thrust forward his mischievous face and put in a stern inquiry—

“Forbes! I say, where’s that registered letter? That letter with the hundred pound note. Don’t say you haven’t got it, for I know better. Hand it over now, without any more bother.”

The old postman gave a chuckle of amusement, for this was a standing joke renewed every Christmas that Arthur had spent at the Vicarage.

“’Tasn’t come ter-day, Muster Saville. Missed the post. ’Twill be coming ter-morrer morning certain!”

“Forbes!” croaked Arthur solemnly. “Reflect! You have a wife and children. This is a serious business. It’s ruin, Forbes, that’s what it is. R—u—i—n, my friend! Be advised by me, and give it up. The hundred pounds is not worth it, and besides I need it badly. Don’t deprive a man of his inheritance!”

“Bless yer rart, I’d bring it yer with pleasure rif I could! Nobody’d bring it quicker ran I would,” cried Forbes, for like everyone else he adored the handsome young fellow who was always ready with a joke and a kindly word. “It’s comin’ for the Noo Year, sir. You mark my words. There’s a deal of luck waitin’ for yer in the Noo Year!”

Arthur’s laugh ended in a sigh, but he thanked the old man for his good wishes, tipped him even more lavishly than usual, and followed his companions to the drawing-room to examine their treasures.

Parcels were put on one side to await more leisurely inspection, but cards and letters were opened at once, and Rob seated himself by Peggy’s side as she placed the pile of envelopes on a table in the corner.

“We are partners, you know,” he reminded her, “so I think I am entitled to a share in these. What a lot of cards! Who on earth are the senders?”

“My godfathers, and my godmothers, and all my relations and friends. The girls at school, and some of the teachers. This fat one is from ‘Buns’—Miss Baker, the one whose Sunday hat I squashed. She used to say that I was sent to her as wholesome discipline to prevent her being too happy as a hard-worked teacher in a lady’s school, but she wept buckets full when I came away. I liked Buns! This is from Marjorie Riggs, my chum. She had a squint, but a most engaging disposition. This is from Kate Strong. Now if there is a girl in the world for whom I cherish an aversion, it is Katie Strong! She is what I call a specious pig, and why she wanted to send me a Christmas card I simply can’t imagine. We were on terms of undying hatred. This is from Miss Moss, the pupil teacher. She had chilblains, poor dear, and spoke through her dose. ‘You busn’t do it, Peggy, you really busn’t. It’s bost adoying!’ Then I did it again, you know, and she sniggered and tried to look cross. This is—I don’t know who this is from! It’s a man’s writing. It looks like a business letter—London postmark—and something printed in white on the seal. What is it? ‘The Pic-Pic-Piccadilly’—Robert!” Peggy’s voice grew shrill with excitement. “‘The Piccadilly Magazine.’”

“Wh—at!” Robert grabbed at the envelope, read the words himself and stared at her with sparkling eyes. “It is! It’s the prize, Mariquita! It must be. What else would they write about? Open it and see. Quick! Shall I do it for you?”

“Yes, yes,” cried Peggy breathlessly. She craned her head forward as Rob tore open the envelope and grasped his arm with both hands. Together they read the typewritten words, together they gasped and panted, and shrieked aloud in joy! “We’ve done it! We have! We’ve won the prize! Thirty pounds! Bravo Rob! Now you can buy your microscope!”—“Good old Mariquita, it’s all your doing. Don’t speak to us; we are literary people, far above ordinary commonplace creatures like you. Thir—ty pounds! made by our own honest toil. What do you think of that, I’d like to know?”

Each member of the audience thought something different, and said it amid a scene of wild excitement. The elders were pleased and proud, though not above improving the occasion by warnings against secret work, over anxiety, midnight journeys, etc. Mellicent exclaimed, “How jolly! Now you will be able to give presents for the New Year as well as Christmas,” and Arthur said, “Dear Peggums! I always loved you! I took the ‘will,’ you know, without any grumbling, and now you can follow up with the deed as quickly as ever you like!” Each one wanted to hold the precious document in his own hands, to read it with his own eyes, and it was handed round and round to be exclaimed over in accents of wonder and admiration, while Rob beamed, and Peggy tossed her pigtail over her shoulder, holding her little head at an angle of complacent satisfaction.

The moment of triumph was very sweet, all the sweeter because of the sorrows of the last few weeks. The partners forgot all the hard work, worry, and exhaustion, and remembered only the joy of success and hope fulfilled. Robert said little, in the way of thanks, preferring to wait until he could tell Peggy of his gratitude, without an audience to criticise his words, and when his mother began to speak of returning home, it was he who reminded Mrs. Asplin of the promise that the invalid should have her first walk on Christmas Day.

“Let us go on ahead and take her with us, until the carriage overtakes us. It will do her no harm. It’s bright and dry——”

“Oh, mater, yes! I told Peg I would take her out,” chimed in Arthur, starting from his seat by Rosalind’s side, and looking quite distressed because he had momentarily forgotten his promise. “Wrap her up well, and we’ll take care of her. The air will do her good.”

“I think it will, but you must not go far—not an inch beyond the cross roads. Come, Peggy, and I’ll dress you myself. I can’t trust you to put on enough wraps.” Mrs. Asplin whisked the girl out of the room, and wrapped her up to such an extent, that when she came downstairs again, she could only puff and gasp above her muffler, declare that she was choking, and fan herself with her muff. Choking or not, the eyes of the companions brightened as they looked at her, for the scarlet{436} tam-o’-shanter was set at a rakish angle on the dark little head, and Peggy the invalid seemed to have made way for the Peggy of old, with dimpling cheeks and the light of mischief in her eyes.

The moment that Mrs. Asplin stopped fumbling with her wraps, she was at the door, opening her mouth wide to drink in the fresh chill air, and Robert was at her side before anyone had a chance of superseding him.

“Umph! Isn’t it good! I’m stifling for a blow. My lungs are sore for want of exercise. I was longing—longing to get out. Robert, do you realise it? We have won the prize! Can you believe it? It is almost too good to be true. It’s the best present of all. Now you can buy your microscope, and get on with your work as you never could before!”

“Yes, and it’s all your doing, Mariquita. I could not have pulled it off without your help. If I make anything out of my studies it will be your doing too. I’ll put it down to you, and thank you for it all my life.”

“H—m! I don’t think I deserve so much praise, but I like it all the same. It’s very soothing,” said Peggy reflectively. “I’m very happy, and I needed something to cheer me up, for I felt as blue as indigo this morning. We seem to have come to the end of so many things, and I hate ends. There is this disappointment about Arthur which spoils all the old plans, and the break-up of our good times here together. I shall miss Oswald. He was a dear old dandy, and his ties were quite an excitement in life, but I simply can’t imagine what the house will be like without you, Rob!”

“I shall be here for some weeks every year, and I’ll run down for a day or two whenever I can. It won’t be good-bye altogether.”

“I know—I know! but you will never be one of us again, living in the house, joining in all our jokes. It will be quite a different thing. And you will grow up so quickly at Oxford, and be a man before we know where we are.”

“So will you—a woman at least. You are fifteen in January. At seventeen girls put their hair up, and wear long dresses. You will look older than I do, and give yourself as many airs as if you were fifty. I know what girls of seventeen are like. I’ve met lots of them, and they say ‘That boy!’ and toss their heads as if they were a dozen years older than fellows of their own age. I expect you will be as bad as the rest, but you needn’t try to snub me. I won’t stand it.”

“You won’t have a chance, for I sha’n’t be here. As soon as my education is finished I am going out to India to stay until father retires and we come home to settle. So after to-day——”

“After to-day—the deluge! Peggy, I didn’t tell you before, but I’m off to-morrow to stay in town until I go up to Oxford on the fourteenth. The pater wants to have me with him, so I sha’n’t see you again for some months. Of course I am glad to be in town for most things, but——”

“Yes, but!” repeated Peggy and turned a wan little face upon him. “Oh, Rob, it is changing quickly. I never thought it would be so soon as this. So it is good-bye! No wonder I felt so blue this morning. It is good-bye for ever to the old life. We shall meet again, oh yes! but it will be different. Some day when I’m old and grown up I will see in a newspaper the name of a distinguished naturalist and discoverer, and say, ‘I used to know him once. He was not at all proud. He used to pull my hair like any ordinary mortal. But he doesn’t recognise me now——’”

“Some day I shall enter a ball-room and see a little lady sitting by the door waving her hands in the air, and using words a mile long, and shall say to myself, ‘Do my eyes deceive me? Is it indeed the Peggy Pickle of the Past?’ and my host will say, ‘My good sir, that is the world-famous authoress Mariquita de Ponsonby Plantagenet Saville! Stevenson, I assure you, is not in it for flow of language, and she is so proud of herself that she won’t speak to anyone under a belted earl.’”

“That sounds nice!” said Peggy approvingly, “I should like that, but it wouldn’t be a ball, you silly boy, it would be a conversazione where all the clever and celebrated people of London were gathered together, ‘To have the honour of meeting Miss Saville.’ There would be quite a number of people whom we knew among the Lions. A very grand Lady Somebody or other, the beauty of the season—Rosalind of course—all sparkling with diamonds, and leaning on the arm of a distinguished-looking gentleman with orders on his breast. That’s Arthur. I’m determined that he shall have orders. It’s the only thing that could reconcile me to the loss of the Victoria Cross, and a dress coat is so uninteresting without trimmings! A fat lady would be sitting in a corner prattling about half-a-dozen subjects all in one moment—that’s Mellicent, and a tall, lean lady in spectacles would be imparting useful information to a dandy with an eyeglass stuck in one eye—that’s Esther and Oswald! Oh dear, I wonder—I wonder—I wonder! It’s like a story book, Rob, and we are at the end of the first volume. How much shall we have to do with each other in the second and third, and what is going to happen next—and how—and when?”

“We—we have to part, that’s the next thing,” said Rob sadly. “Here comes the carriage, and Arthur is shouting to us to stop. It’s good-bye, for the present, Mariquita; there’s no help for it!”

“At the cross roads!” said Peggy slowly, and her eye wandered to the signboard which marked the paths branching north, south, east, and west. She stopped short and stood gazing into the boy’s face, her eyes big and solemn, the wind blowing her hair into loose little curls beneath her scarlet cap, while her mind seized eagerly on the significance of the position. “At the cross roads, Rob, to go our different ways! Good-bye, good-bye! I hate to say it. You—you won’t forget, and like the horrid boys at college better than me, will you, Rob?”

Robert gave a short, strangled little laugh.

“I think—not! Cheer up, partner! We will meet again and have a better time together than we have had yet. The third volume is always more exciting than the first. I say we shall, and you know when I make up my mind to a thing, it has to be done!”

“Ah, but how?” sighed Peggy faintly. “But how?” Vague prophecies of the future were not much comfort to her in this moment of farewell. She wanted something more definite, but Rob had no time to enter into details. Even as she spoke the carriage drew up beside them, and while the occupants congratulated Peggy on having walked so far and so well, he could only grip her hand, and take his place in silence beside his sister.

Lady Darcy bent forward to smile farewell; Rosalind waved her hand, and there they were off again, driving swiftly homewards, while Peggy stood watching, a solitary figure upon the roadside.

Arthur and his companions hurried forward to join her, afraid lest she should be tired and overcome with grief by the parting with her friend and partner.

“Poor little Peg! She won’t like it a bit,” said Arthur. “She’s crying! I’m sure she is.”

“She is putting her handkerchief to her eyes,” said Mellicent. “Of course, she is crying!”

“We will give her an arm apiece, and take her straight back,” said Max anxiously, “It’s a shame to have left the poor little soul alone!”

They stared with troubled eyes at the little figure which stood with its back turned towards them, in an attitude of rigid stillness. There was something pathetic about that stillness, with just the flutter of the tell-tale handkerchief to hint at the quivering face that was hidden from view. The hearts of Peggy’s companions were very tender over her at that moment, but even as they planned words of comfort and cheer, she wheeled round suddenly and walked back to meet them.

It was an unusually mild morning for the season of the year, and the sun was shining from a cloudless sky. Its rays fell full upon Peggy’s face as she advanced; upon reddened eyes, trembling lips, and two large tears trickling down her cheeks. It was undeniable that she was crying, but she carried her head well back upon her shoulders, rather courting than avoiding observation, and as she drew nearer it became abundantly evident that Peggy had retired in honour of Mariquita, and that consolations had better be deferred to a more promising occasion.

“A most lacerating wind!” she said coolly. “It draws the moisture to my eyes. Quite piercingly cold I call it!” and even Mellicent had not the courage to contradict.

And here, dear readers, we leave Peggy Saville at a milestone of her life. In what direction the cross roads led the little company of friends, and what{437} windings of the path brought them once more together, remains still to be told. It was a strange journey, and in their travelling they met many friends with whom all young people are acquainted. The giant barred the way, and had to be overcome before the palace could be reached; the Good Spirit intervened at the right moment to prevent calamity, the prince and princess stepped forward and made life beautiful; for life is the most wonderful fairy tale that was ever written, and full of magic to those who have eyes to see it.

Farewell then to Peggy Pickle, but if it be the wish of those readers who have followed her varying fortunes so far, we may meet again with Mariquita Saville, in the glory of sweet and twenty, and learn from her the secret of the years.

THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

By ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object in Life,” etc.

CHAPTER II.

THE FIRST OF THE “SLAINS CASTLE.”

“I am all curiosity to hear your secret, Charlie,” pleaded his wife.

“Well, as I tell you, it is your secret which has given any meaning to mine,” he said. “It is as if I picked up an odd-shaped bit of wood, which seemed a mere chip, but presently you came in with a puzzle, all fitted, save for one vacant place, and lo, my chip exactly fills it!”

He had taken up the bulky pocket-book which lay on the sofa beside him. He searched through its contents, selected one letter, and handed it to Lucy.

“Read it,” he said, “and tell me what you think.”

Lucy instinctively looked first at the envelope. The post-mark was “Peterhead”; the handwriting was strong and manly.

“Why, it is from your old acquaintance Captain Grant!” she said.

Charlie nodded.

“Read what he says,” he repeated.

It was not a long letter. The Captain, who was an old schoolfellow of Charlie’s, had heard of his illness and wrote to inquire how he was.

“It is my belief, my boy,” he said, “that all the medicine you want is a good draught of salt air taken straight off the top of the ocean waves. You can’t get it quite right on the best of shores. What a pity you can’t come with me in my fine ship the Slains Castle. We are going straight to New Zealand, and then perhaps we shall trade a little among some of the smaller islands; but the Slains Castle is a fast goer, and unless the winds are very dead against us, we shall be home well within a year. That’s the sort of thing that would really do you good, and not a petty little voyage on a passenger steamer, where you smell more of the engines and the cook-room than of the briny. Can’t you make up your mind and come with me? Health before income, old man! If you were by yourself, I’d press the idea; but, as there is the little wife, I suppose I mustn’t. For there is no room to offer to her on the ship.”

“I shall write and tell him that just because there is a little wife, he must press the idea!” cried Lucy, with shining eyes. “Why, a whole year on the open sea—you, who love it so much and are never sea-sick—it would make a new man of you!” And then her brave heart quailed secretly at the thought of the long absence, and the long silences which lay within it, and she added kindly, “But might you not find it a rough life, Charlie, and lonesome?”

Charlie laughed kindly.

“I can trust Grant’s ideas of comfort,” he said; “they are quite up to wholesome point, and I want nothing more. He is good company too, and so are sailors generally. I could not bear the thought of any very long journey in a big passenger steamer with strange men, possibly gamblers or drunkards, sharing one’s cabin, the social tone set by the smoking-room and the bar, and possibility of the truly awful solitude of living among two or three hundred people with not one of whom I might have a single idea in common! No, dear little Lucy, if I am to have a really long voyage, give me a sailing vessel, when I can secure such advantage as sailing with Alick Grant.”

“But suppose you should be ill?” suggested Lucy in a low voice. “There would be no doctor.”

“Suppose I should be ill!” answered Charlie cheerfully. “Grant would see that I was properly taken care of. All that could be done in my case, he knows how to do.”

Mr. Challoner paused.

“Even so,” he went on; “it would be better for you to think of me as lying quietly in my berth, looked after by an old friend, and an object of genuine interest to all his men, than as I should be on a passenger steamer, with an over-driven steward and stewardess running in and out, dancing going on overhead, and sounds of comic songs coming from the saloon. No, I should not like to run risks of serious illness on a big passenger steamer,” he decided.

He did not remind Lucy—but she remembered, though she kept silence—that in the one lengthy ocean voyage he had ever enjoyed—a business trip to and from New York—a passenger had met a frightful death by accident in the steamer’s saloon, and two days afterwards a flippant “charade” had been enacted, with every circumstance of levity, on the very spot.

“What did you think, Charlie, when you first got that letter?” asked his wife. “Did you wish you could go?”

Her husband shook his head.

“We do not wish for what we believe to be absolutely impossible,” he said. “As I say, I never gave it another thought till you brought out your plans this afternoon. I did not tell you a word about it, because I thought the suggestion would only worry you, when it could not be carried out.”

“But you see now that it could be done,” said Lucy bravely.

“There is another thing too,” Charlie went on; “to go in this way will cost far less than to go in any other. From what Grant has told me about other voyages, I know he takes a passenger in this way at about what one may call boarding rates, say a hundred pounds for the whole year. Now, on a steamer{438} one could only be away about three months at most for that sum, and unless one took the return journey at once, one would also have hotel and travelling expenses. If I go with Grant, Lucy, I need not take more than one hundred and a few odd pounds with me, and I can leave you all the rest of our little hoard. So thriftily as you will manage, I believe you need not trouble about earning, and yet we sha’n’t be penniless when I get home.”

Lucy answered in nervous haste.

“Oh, but I must do all I can. It will help to pass the time; it will help me to bear your being away.”

Charlie put out his hand towards her.

“Little woman,” he said, “is this going to cost you too much in this way? What is the good of making any effort to save me which is to kill you? And perhaps I don’t need any such saving after all. Why should I go?”

Lucy rallied herself.

“Of course it will be very terrible to miss you,” she said, feeling instinctively that if the part she was playing was to be accepted, she must not overdo it. “The days will be very long without you to wait for and to talk with. I shall need all I can get to occupy me. But as for not being able to bear it, Charlie, I suppose I am made of the same stuff as other women. Plenty of them have to bear the same—and worse. Captain Grant’s wife herself has to bear it, and from her photographs she does not look as if it wore her to fiddlestrings.”

“She is used to it,” said Charlie, with a man’s easy way of “seeing a difference.”

“Certainly. I daresay she felt it worse the first time,” assented Lucy. “On the other hand, it is always going on. Almost as soon as one absence ends another begins. Now, I shall know that mine is one supreme effort, and then—reunion!”

“I wish Captain Grant’s wife were nearer at hand—in London instead of in Peterhead,” said Charlie. “It would seem cheery for you wives to be together at home, while we husbands were together on the ocean.”

“Well, perhaps she will come up and spend a month with me,” remarked Lucy. “If she comes in the Institute’s holidays, I should be at leisure to show her the sights, if she has not seen them all already. It would be great fun to have her here.” (Long afterwards Lucy remembered that little speech.)

“One thing is, if I go, I am not leaving you lonely, Luce,” mused Charlie. “There’s Florence and Brand not very far off.”

Lucy said nothing. Her husband looked up with the brightness born of a sudden thought.

“How would you like it if they invited you to stay with them while I was away?” he asked. “Hugh could play with his little cousin, and I’m sure Pollie could make herself useful, seeing what hot water they’re always in with their servants. This house would cost little shut up, and you could keep an eye on it, or even get it let as it stands for a few months out of the twelve.”

“No, Charlie,” said Lucy. There was an almost fierce decision in her voice. “No, I can bear to miss you, if I am in my own place, our place, and can be by myself when I choose, and am doing all I can to serve our future. I could not bear to sit down at dinner-parties, and to have to dress of an evening, and to talk small talk in the drawing-room. The Brands mean to be kind of course,” she added hastily; “but they like to have crowds of people about, and I don’t. Florence had thirty-five callers at her last weekly ‘afternoon’; while I’m one of those who think that ‘a world in purchase of one friend to gain.’ No, Charlie, don’t try to take care of me in these ways. Trust me with myself. I know what is good for me. There are some matters men never quite understand.”

“Well, if you are to take your own ways, you must be careful that they succeed,” said her husband. “One comfort is, you have Pollie, and can trust and depend on her. Those cheeks of yours are thin and pale. I must find round roses on them when I come back—if I go! Oh, Lucy, why did you make these plans, and why did Alick Grant write that letter? We should have gone on so happily as we are, and I should have picked up strength gradually. Why has this come into our heads?”

“I think because it is the will of God that you should go,” answered Lucy with sweet reverence. “I thought so all the while when it was only my own plans, which were working out so well. I think so more than ever now, Charlie, when I find that all the time you, as it were, were holding the other end of the same stick.”

“Shall we put the matter to one more test?” said Charlie. “Shall I write to Grant asking when he sails and if he will take me for the year at one hundred pounds, telling him that if he can, and if I can be ready by his date, I will entertain the idea.”

“You can be ready by any date if Dr. Ivery thinks you are strong enough,” said Lucy, “and we could afford more than one hundred. If this is the path of Providence, Charlie, ought we to be turned aside by these things?”

“Such a letter will not bind me either way,” returned her husband, “it is purely tentative; and yet if the date and the terms prove suitable, the leading will seem the clearer. I will write at once, and until we get Grant’s answer, we will not say a word on the matter to anybody.”

The epistle was soon written, and Lucy herself hurried on her bonnet and ran with it to the post, lest Pollie should not be quick enough to catch the night mail for the north.

“I feel sure you are to go,” said Lucy. And as two or three days passed by without an answer, she hung upon her husband’s presence as those do who count the running down sands of a dear joy. She could soothe herself only by doing something for Charlie, though it was only pathetic little preparations for the possible departure. Of course there was no use thinking of “outfit” until that departure was definitely decided. But there were “thin places” to be darned in the fine, carefully-kept underclothing, and all the three guineas she had got for her sketch, went to procure little supplementary comforts and conveniences which would be certainly useful whether Charlie went away or remained at home.

It was indeed a waiting time, and waiting times invariably try nerves and spirits, even though so strong a self-control be set upon these, that they may not tamper with temper or will. Lucy Challoner never dared to be idle for a moment. She felt that she must hold herself with a strong hand. When it seemed to her that Pollie was rather self-absorbed, less interested in her work, and indeed almost negligent, Lucy set it all down to her own imagination, fevered by restrained excitement.

In the course of that waiting time, Florence Brand put in an appearance at the little verandahed house. She came in the afternoon, and Charlie was asleep. For this Lucy was secretly thankful, being always unable to realise that Florence did not irritate Charlie—who was a woman and not his own sister—as she often did herself—a woman and a sister! Pollie was so slow to admit the visitor, or the visitor was so impatient, that the door-bell was rung twice, the second time with such vigour that Lucy feared her husband would be startled from his slumbers, and flew to open the door herself.

“What! You have to do this yourself, now, do you?” cried Mrs. Brand before she had crossed the threshold. “How’s Charlie? Getting all right, I suppose, or we should have heard. I had a fine time at the seaside, it would have done me worlds of good to have stayed there another week. But I saw so many high-class autumn sales being advertised, and I’ve so many things to buy, that I thought I’d best come straight back. If you’re busy, I sha’n’t interrupt you. I can only stay five minutes. I did not mean to call when I left home, but since I’ve been out, I’ve heard something that I’m determined you shall hear at once. Prepare for a shock!”

Lucy’s face grew so white that it startled even Mrs. Brand.

“Dear me, child,” she said, “it is not really anything; nineteen people out of twenty would not mind a bit, though they might be angry. But I know it will startle your confiding trustfulness. Your treasure Pollie is on the eve of giving you notice because she is going to be married!”

Lucy Challoner sat down. She felt her strength gone from her. In another moment she rallied, remembering that she had to hold the fort of domestic serenity for Charlie’s sake, and that she must not yet reveal to Florence the full force of the blow she had given her.

“How did you hear this?” she asked.

“I heard it at your Italian warehouse,” Florence answered. “You know Jem has an idea that they keep better curry powder than anybody else. So this afternoon I looked in there with an order, and to pay a little account. That took me to the desk, where the{439} girl-clerk sits. She has often seen you and me together, and of course she had heard of Charlie’s illness. So says she, ‘I hope Mr. Challoner is better, ma’am?’ ‘Oh, dear, yes,’ I replied, ‘I daresay he is nearly as well as he will ever be. He will always be delicate.’ ‘I’m so sorry, ma’am,’ she said. ‘It’s so sad for Mrs. Challoner and the dear little boy, and what a pity it is she should be troubled about a new servant at such a time.’ ‘A new servant!’ I cried in amaze. ‘Oh, perhaps I should not have spoken,’ said she. ‘Hasn’t her maid given notice yet? I know she has arranged to be married at Christmas.’”

“There may be some mistake,” observed Lucy. “But thank you for telling me. I only wish Pollie had told me herself. I did not know even that she had a sweetheart.”

Mrs. Brand laughed.

“She may not have known that herself very long,” she said. “These girls are generally of an opinion that ‘happy’s the wooing that’s not long undoing.’ When do her wages fall due?”

“The day after to-morrow,” said Lucy drearily.

“This is only the first of October,” commented Mrs. Brand. “If she gives you notice now, she will be away by the first of November. I should not wonder if she doesn’t give you notice for another month. Well, you’ve had her more than seven years, so you may think yourself lucky. The worst of it is that a change comes harder in such a case than when one is always changing as I am. I must be going now, Lucy. And don’t you fret. I’ll help you to look for another girl. I rather enjoy the fun. But I sympathise with you, my dear, for I didn’t like the task once, but practice makes perfect, and now I expect nothing and am never disappointed.”

She was gone, Lucy closing the hall door softly behind her that Charlie might not be roused. She wanted to make herself more accustomed to this new aspect of life, ere the tinkle of his little handbell should summon her to his side.

The first thing was to question Pollie. “There may be some mistake,” Lucy repeated to herself. Yet she felt a secret conviction that there was none.

She did not ring the bell and “summon Pollie to her presence.” She had the thoughtful woman’s habit of seldom ringing the bell to claim the attendance of the solitary servant. She went towards the head of the kitchen stairs and lingered there a moment. She heard Pollie walk across the kitchen, and then the rattle of some tin vessels. She made up her mind to go down and face the worst at once.

Somehow the kitchen did not look quite so pleasant as usual. It was clean and fairly tidy, but the things last used were not cleared away, and the dresser lacked the glass with a few flowers which generally adorned it. Pollie was busy at the fire-place. She looked over her shoulder at her mistress, but did not turn round, and went on with what she was doing.

She was a comely personable girl with a good head and a trim figure. Perhaps there was a little hardness about her mouth, or it might be that she was setting her teeth in face of what was coming.

“Pollie,” said the mistress very gently, “I have just been told that you are thinking of leaving us and getting married?”

Pollie did not answer quickly. She went on doing something with great energy.

“Well, ma’am, yes,” she said; “it is so.”

“And when is it to be, Pollie?” asked Mrs. Challoner.

“I’m to be married at Christmas,” Pollie answered with great firmness.

“Then I am to take your notice at once?” said Mrs. Challoner.

“Well, ma’am, yes. I’d like to leave on the 1st of November. I’ve things to do. But if you would like me to stay a week or two longer, I’d be willing to oblige you.”

Mrs. Challoner reflected for a moment. It is well-nigh impossible to accept a favour from one who has suddenly cut us down to the bare legal rights of our position.

“No, Pollie, thank you,” she said; “you can go at the time that suits you best.”

“Thank you, m’m,” said Pollie, still rubbing vigorously.

Mrs. Challoner did not feel as if she could drop the matter right off here. It did not seem even fair to this girl, who had been with her and had worked faithfully for her for seven years, not to let her know exactly what feelings her present course had evoked.

“Pollie,” she began very gently, “is not all this rather sudden?”

“Well, ma’am, you’ve got your proper notice, and I’ve said I’d not stand on giving you a week or two extra. What more can I do?” said Pollie.

“That is quite true, Pollie. But look at it in this light—if you had only been with me for two or three months, you would be obliged to do as much as you are doing now. Don’t you think something else comes into the matter when people have been together for years and have grown to rely on each other and to feel as if each other would be always there, unless they knew that something was coming to part them?”

“I was not to know that you mightn’t get rid of me any day, ma’am,” said Pollie. “It seems like as if there might be changes.”

“Pollie, do you really think I would not at once have told you of any possible change which, if it occurred, might interfere with you?” asked Mrs. Challoner. “Legal notices are necessary between everybody, strangers or friends; but full and timely warning beforehand is surely due from those who have been long associated. Don’t you feel you would have had this if change had threatened from my side?”

“I don’t know, m’m,” said Pollie rather sullenly. “Ladies don’t always think of those things. Girls have to look after themselves.”

“But I am certain you would have felt hurt,” said Mrs. Challoner. “If not, you can have never had much regard for me or confidence in me.”

Pollie began to cry.

“I ain’t leaving you to go to another place, m’m,” she said. “I’d never have done that. I’ve been tempted, though you’ve never heard of it. ‘Wages isn’t everything,’ I’ve always answered. But this is different.”

“Of course it is, Pollie,” Mrs. Challoner responded patiently. “But I am the more taken by surprise because I never dreamed you had a lover. I hope you are not doing anything rashly, Pollie.”

“Oh, he hasn’t been any lover; but I’ve known him long enough!” gasped Pollie. “I didn’t know as he thought anything about me. Only when I said to him I thought there would be changes an’ I’d never take another London service, he ups and speaks out, thinking, I suppose, that I’d go away and he’d lose me altogether. And at Christmas he gets a week’s holiday, and that’s why we’ll be married then and go down to Leeds to see his mother. ‘We’ll get it over,’ says he, ‘and do the courtin’ afterwards.’ I’m sure there’s been none yet,” Pollie added with a dash of feminine scorn.

“Well, Pollie, you know I am sorry to part from you, and it is sadder still when we have just been through so much anxiety together. But I hope you’ll be happy. I wish you had told me about it yourself. It is hard to hear such things from other people.”

“Other people might mind their own business, m’m,” said Pollie, with some spirit. “There’s some people who are a deal too busy with their tongues.”

“But they only told the truth,” Mrs. Challoner suggested.

“If they hadn’t had no truth to tell, they’d have had a say about something or ’nother, I guess!” cried Pollie, heaping up negatives in her flurry.

“Well, Pollie,” said her mistress, “all I have now to ask is that you will not mention your leaving to your master—at least, at present. You can understand that we must keep all worry from him while he is regaining strength. In a day or two I will tell you my special reason for asking this silence.”

“‘He’ ought to be very good to me to be taking me from a place where I’ve been treated like as I’ve been here,” reflected Pollie when Mrs. Challoner had left the kitchen. “And here I’d have been for years, maybe—and maybe for ever—and certain never in no such hurry would I have jumped at any journeyman tailor, if it hadn’t been for that Mrs. Brand a-shaking of her head and saying I must be prepared for changes—and them soon too—she feared the master wasn’t for long, and it was a good thing the mistress had their house to turn to. And when a woman’s getting nigh thirty and changes begins to—to be talked about, it comes as a sort of Godsend when she’s asked to change her name! But how I’ll get along without Master Hugh, it beats me to know!”

That night Lucy Challoner never closed her eyes.

(To be continued.)

SHEILA.

A STORY FOR GIRLS.

By EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN, Author of “Greyfriars,” “Half-a-dozen Sisters,” etc.

CHAPTER I.

BROTHER AND SISTER.

call it cruel of them to separate us! They might at least have let us be together!” cried Sheila, with tears in her voice, if not in her eyes.

“Well, but we shall not be very far apart. We can see each other most days, and you will have a nice home with Uncle and Aunt Cossart—more what you have been used to—a big country house. Uncle Tom lives in the town to be near the works; but he says it is an easy walk to get out to Cossart Place.”

Sheila gave a rather scornful toss to her handsome head.

“Cossart Place! I hate that pretentious way of calling one’s house by one’s own name! Oscar, aren’t these relations of ours rather vulgar, purse-proud people? Papa must have had some reason for keeping us away from them all these years.”

Oscar was silent for a few moments, and then he said slowly—

“You know, Sheila, our father was rather a proud man. He thought a good deal of birth and family, and of being one of the Cholmondeleys of Warwickshire. He married our beautiful mother for love; but he took her right away from her family—he told me so himself as he lay dying—and she never saw any of them again. She had only quite a small fortune then. The Cossarts have got rich since her marriage. But our father’s property has been dwindling and dwindling, and he has dipped again and again into capital, and everything is mortgaged up to the hilt, as Mr. Dart calls it. Sheila, I am afraid there will be very little left for us except the little fortune of our mother’s, which was settled upon her and her children.”

Sheila understood very little of business, and Oscar not much more; but he had received confidences from their dying father, and had had interviews with the family lawyer, so that he was better acquainted with the prospect before them than the sister.

“Father thought at the last that he had made a mistake in holding aloof from the Cossarts. He wrote both to Uncle Cossart and Uncle Tom, and they are our guardians. I think they mean to be kind to us, though they could not at once get away to be here for the funeral. But Uncle Tom will come almost at once to look into things; and he is going to give me a berth at the works. He says that in his letter.”

“I call that the horridest thing of all!” flashed out Sheila. “You to be stuck down at a desk or something, in some chemical works, or whatever it is! Why can’t they let you finish your course at Oxford? Mother’s money would be lots for that!”

“Oh, yes; but then what would be the good?” asked Oscar gravely. “No, Sheila, I have seen too much of what Oxford does for poor men, to want to finish my three years there. I’ve no great gifts. I should only take an ordinary degree. I should have no chance of fellowship or tutorship there, and I’ve no gift for teaching. It’s much better really to go into business young, where one has a chance of pushing one’s way. Lots of fellows would give their ears for my chances at our uncles’ works. As I can’t be a country gentleman like our father, and be master of the dear old place, I’d sooner go right away and start fair at something altogether different.”

Sheila heaved a deep sigh as her eyes travelled from her brother’s grave face, out through the open window and across the familiar landscape of wood and water.

It was a lovely February day—one of those days which come as a foretaste of summer, when the sun shines with power, and all the air is full of scents of spring, and one forgets that winter is not yet gone, and begins to welcome the promise of the year.

“I never thought we should have to leave the dear old home. Is it certain that it must go, Oscar? Surely father could not have meant to leave things so bad for us?”

“Father was not fond of business,” said Oscar slowly. “He did not go into things carefully enough. The property was burdened when he came into it, and, you know, land has been going down ever since. We will not blame him, Sheila; other people have had losses too. Mr. Dart says that hundreds and thousands of people have been placed just as we are these last years. Indeed, we are better off than many; for there is that little fortune of our mother’s—five thousand pounds well invested—which brings us in a little income, and there may be something left from the estate when things are wound up, though it won’t be much, I can see. And we have the Cossarts, who will give us a home each. I think it is rather fine of them to come forward to help us, seeing how their sister was kept quite away from them after her marriage.”

Sheila looked up with a little quick,{441} eager glance in her big grey eyes—those Irish eyes, which, like her name, she had inherited from her grandmother—her father’s mother—who had been a notable beauty in her day. Sheila was not a beauty; but she had an attractive face, and a winning and appealing manner. She had always been the pet and the darling of the house, and she seemed to claim affection and notice as a natural right.

“Couldn’t we live together, Oscar, just you and I together, in some dear little cottage, on our mother’s money? I would keep the house nice, and grow flowers in the garden; and you could find something to do; and we would be so happy in our little home.”

She put her hand upon his, and he stroked it and smiled; but he shook his head too.

“It sounds nice, Sheila; but it wouldn’t really be practicable. You don’t know anything about the worries of small means, and I should get no opening if I refused Uncle Tom’s offer. Besides, you see, we have no choice at present. We are both minors; I sha’n’t be of age for a year, and you are only eighteen. Our uncles are our guardians, and we have to do what they settle for us. Mr. Dart says that what they have suggested is the kindest thing possible. Some day, I hope, if you don’t marry, we shall be able to have a home of our own together. But for the next few years we must make up our minds to let other people settle things for us, and be grateful to them for taking the burden and worry off our shoulders.”

Oscar could be thankful for this. He had seen just enough of life in his year at Oxford, and in the examination, under the lawyer’s direction, into his father’s involved affairs, to be aware that its battle could be a very hard and strenuous matter, and that his father had been carried away by the tide of misfortune instead of seeking to stem it. He could almost feel thankful that he was not called upon to fight any arduous up-hill battle—that things had gone so far that nothing would avail but a clean sweep. Oscar loved his home—loved it almost as well as Sheila did. If he could have lived peacefully and prosperously there, as his fathers had apparently done before him, he would have asked nothing better, and would have sought to do his duty to those about and beneath him. But he had an elastic and hopeful temperament, and he did not dislike the prospect of a complete change in his manner of life. He had a turn for electrical engineering, and his uncle had said something about an electrical branch in the works of Cossart & Sons. Congenial employment might be found for him, he thought. He had been through much sorrow of heart and worry of mind during the past weeks since his father’s death; but now he was beginning to see his way out of the tangle, and to look forward hopefully to what lay beyond.

BROTHER AND SISTER.

Sheila’s thoughts had also gone off on a private expedition. But, after a short pause, she spoke with great decision.

“I shall never marry, Oscar. Marrying makes people stupid. I know that, because all the girls who go and get married are quite spoiled directly. It begins as soon as they are engaged. Besides, most of them go away, and one forgets about them. I shall be an old maid, and keep your house for you. It will be something to look forward to whilst I am living with Uncle Cossart. Why can’t I go to Uncle Tom’s with you? It would be so much more amusing.”

{442}

“Well, they seem to have it all arranged for us, and we can’t exactly ask them to alter. But we’ll see all about it when Uncle Tom comes. He’ll tell us everything.”

Mr. Thomas Cossart was the younger of the brothers who now were the heads of a thriving business in one of the eastern counties. Their father had begun from small means; but prudence, upright dealing, and industry, combined with shrewdness and skill, had worked up the business to something very considerable. He had died a wealthy man, but his daughter had not succeeded to any farther portion of his wealth. The old Cossart had been hurt and offended at the way in which his child had been separated from her own people through Mr. Cholmondeley’s pride. He had made no complaint, but he had felt it keenly. The sons took it more quietly. They were busy men, and possibly the knowledge that what would have been their sister’s portion had fallen to their share, disposed them to take the matter with equanimity. They used to write and send presents at Christmas, just to show there was no ill-feeling, and as long as Mrs. Cholmondeley lived she had always done the same. When it was told to the Cossart brothers that Mr. Cholmondeley had died rather suddenly, leaving his affairs in a very involved state, and asking their help and guardianship for his two children, the response had been prompt and kindly.

“I shall come as soon as I can possibly arrange to be away from the works,” Mr. Tom Cossart had written. “My brother is laid up with the gout and is unable to move, and I cannot be present at the funeral as I have too many important engagements to fulfil. But I shall come immediately afterwards and do my best to assist in the winding up of affairs.”

He had written also to his nephew, stating briefly that there would be a home for them with their relatives and a place for him in the works. Now they were waiting with some excitement of mind for the arrival of the unknown uncle, in whose hands their future seemed to lie.

“I hope he will be nice and kind!” cried Sheila, as she paced the big hall with excited steps. “I want to like him if I can; but what shall we do if he is harsh and unkind, or”—here she lowered her voice and added, as if half afraid of her own imaginings—“if he is dreadfully common and vulgar?”

“He is our mother’s brother,” said Oscar gravely. “We must try always to remember that.”

“Yes, but mother had been sent away to a good school, and father saw her and fell in love with her when she was on a visit just after she left. She had scarcely lived at home at all. I don’t think that is any proof. Oscar, shall I have to kiss him when he comes?”

“I think you had better, Sheila. He is our uncle. I think he will expect it.”

Sheila made a little grimace; but she had been petted all her life, and kissing came easily to her.

“I wonder why girls are expected to kiss everybody and be kissed? Boys get off. It isn’t quite fair. But I’ll try to be as good as I can.”

Sheila was trying to keep a brave face, though her heart was heavy to-night. The coming of Uncle Tom seemed to emphasise the fact that the father’s place was for ever empty; that it was a stranger who must in future rule their lives for them—at any rate, for the next year or two. The blank in the house was keenly felt at all times, although perhaps a little less keenly than it would have been had Mr. Cholmondeley not been much of a recluse during the latter years of his life. It seemed so strange that a visitor should be arriving, and that there should be only the son and daughter to welcome him.

Sheila choked back a sob more than once, as she stood listening for the crunch of wheels upon the gravel, which would herald the approach of the carriage.

It was like the beginning of the end. When once Uncle Tom had arrived, the old home would not seem like their own any longer. The guardian would be there to look after and arrange everything; and before very long they would have to leave—never to return.

As that thought come into Sheila’s mind, she ceased her excited pacing and came and stood beside the glowing hearth, her eyes full of unshed tears as she gazed into the heart of the fire.

Oscar saw the tears and came and put his arm about her. He knew very well the nature of the thoughts within her.

“Sheila,” he said softly, “we must try to be brave and good. We know that God will take care of us as much in one place as another.”

She nodded her head, and a great drop fell glistening down. She pulled Oscar’s hand more closely round her.

“I don’t think things are as real to me as they are to you, Oscar. I like to be taken care of by somebody I can see. Papa always did, and now he is gone, and they are going to take you away from me too.”

“I shall be quite near, Sheila; we shall always be meeting.”

“It isn’t like being in the same house.”

“You will have Uncle and Aunt Cossart, and I think there will be some cousins too. I know Uncle Tom has children; I’m not quite so sure about Uncle Cossart.”

“Perhaps I sha’n’t like them. I don’t like everybody,” began Sheila; but then she caught herself up quickly and added, “But I am going to try and be good, Oscar, I really am. Perhaps I’ve been too happy all this time—made too much of. It may be good for me to have some snubbing now. I’ll try not to mind very much—to take it patiently—like the early Christians, you know. When I was little I used to think it might be rather nice to be persecuted.”

Oscar smiled a little, and over Sheila’s face there glimmered a flickering smile, as though she were half amused at her own fancies. The firelight played over her face and form as she stood in its rosy glow. She was a little over the average height, and was growing graceful and maidenly, though a year or two back she had been rather a hoyden in appearance, with long limbs and a good many angles, and a mane of wavy brown hair tumbling over her shoulders. Now the long plain black dress, a little open at neck and wrists—for it was close upon dinner-time—seemed to give grace and dignity to the figure, and to heighten the clearness of the girl’s complexion. The plentiful brown hair was coiled about the head. The big grey eyes were arched over by brows of the same dusky tint, and the features of the face were well cut, though not quite regular, and very mobile in their play of expression. It was the constantly varying expression which gave to Sheila’s face its chief charm. It was like an April morning—always changing from gay to grave and from grave to gay. Gaiety certainly predominated in the play of lips and eyes; but there were many stormy or appealing or wistful expressions flitting constantly over the face. Sheila was accustomed to get her own way with everybody about her; and her big appealing eyes were answerable for a good deal of the spoiling she received.

Oscar was slight and tall, well-featured and very gentlemanly in appearance, with a quiet, attractive face and a very bright smile, which was, however, much more rare than Sheila’s. They were not much alike; but that seemed only to strengthen the bond between them.

“Hark!” cried Oscar quickly. “I hear the carriage!”

Sheila turned a little pale, and took a step or two forward.

“It is Uncle Tom!” she said; and the next minute the butler had thrown open the door and a figure well wrapped up for the wintry journey was seen entering the hall.

Mr. Thomas Cossart had come!

(To be continued.)

FROM LONDON TO DAMASCUS.

PART IV.

GOING ON PILGRIMAGE.

“Still onward winds the dreary way;

I with it.”

“A glorious morning!” was our remark as we met at breakfast on March 28th. “Just the day for a pilgrimage to Mar Saba.”

The hour was early, but long before we had risen the shouts of Ameen and a muleteer mingling with the tramp of horses announced the arrival of part of our escort.

The Arab is a restless as well as a vociferating person, and cannot comprehend why the average Saxon goes to bed regularly at night, sleeps till morning, and keeps awake all day. For himself, well, the hour of repose and the nature of his couch are matters of perfect{443} indifference. He takes his dog sleep like Sairey Gamp imbibed her spirits—“when so dispoged.”

If you tell him your wish is to start at eight in the morning, behold, he is knocking at your door before sunrise, and imploring you to make haste. He is convinced in his own mind that the intervening hours will be spent in the absurdities of washing and dressing. If you remonstrate, he shrugs his shoulders, and you may presently hear him confiding to his friend, that “the English are a strange people. True, Allah made them, but He alone can understand them!”

We were very punctual on this particular morning, and at seven o’clock had mounted our rough little horses, whose wonderful necklaces and charms formed no small part of their equipment.

The muleteer highly entertained us. He was a round-faced, scantily-clothed youth, whose evident pride in his cattle was manifest as he pointed to their decorations. He greeted us with broad grins and “Bon jour!” These words being the only scrap of a foreign tongue he had picked up, they were employed in season and out of season. Whenever one of our party looked pleased, or nodded kindly to him, he would stiffen himself, beam on her, and, with a fine air, roll out the salutation, “Bon jour!”

Our cavalcade now formed up, and we started off in high spirits, prepared for any adventure that might fall to our lot. Ameen, of course, led the van, his black horse gorgeously dressed in trappings of “barbaric splendour,” and he seated on a wondrous saddle, his purple silk shawl or kaffieh tied round his head and falling behind in graceful folds over the voluminous abbah, or cloak. The pair were imposing-looking objects in dignified contrast to the ludicrous figures of “Bon Jour” and his beast, who followed next in the procession.

His horse was a fearful and wonderful creature, carefully guarded against the influence of the evil eye by fantastic festoons of blue beads and shells which depended from his neck and mane and tail. Stacked upon his back were cooking pots, luncheon baskets, sunshades, wraps, and other gear, flanked by bursting saddle-bags. In the midst of these articles sat “Bon Jour,” complacently ambling on in the jog-trot style peculiar to his tribe, his brown legs dangling down, his leathern belt decorated with

“A bottle on each side

To keep his balance true.”

We brought up the rear demurely enough, trying to get our mettlesome steeds under control, with the help of “Bon Jour,” who, turning round and facing us, would yell in Arabic one moment to them, and the next encourage us with—

“Nods and becks, and wreathèd smiles,”

and the inevitable salutation in the French tongue, looking for all the world like a travelling showman on parade!

The first part of our journey lay along the Bethlehem road, which was fairly good, but has, I understand, been vastly improved for the German Emperor’s visit. On either side were smiling plains and grey olive groves, dressed in the lovely fresh hues of spring. Carpets of delicate flowers were spread on the roadside—for there are no hedges in Palestine—the air was soft and pleasant and everything took its colouring from the joyous morning.

The tomb of Rachel claimed our attention for a moment. We were quite familiar with its appearance from the many illustrations we had seen, so that the simple dome-like structure on the wayside seemed an old friend. Pious Jews, Christians, and Moslems offer their prayers at its shrine, and apparently derive equal benefit from their devotions.

A little beyond, on the slope of a hill, the pretty village of Beit Jala gleamed and glittered in the sunlight. The city of Kish, the father of King Saul, originally stood there. Was it to that hill, I wonder, the young, handsome Saul, after his election as King of Israel, returned when he “went home to Gibeah, and with him a band of men whose hearts God had touched”?

An element of discord was not wanting as we rode through the peaceful valleys. Overhead wheeled a great vulture, hungrily waiting to swoop down on some dead carcase—a camel or a donkey perhaps—and devour its prey. On a crag close by sat a majestic eagle, his piercing eyes boldly fixed on the sun. The solitary bird seemed a fitting type of the departed glory of Israel.

It was pleasant further on to notice signs of human life. Shepherds were tending their flocks and playing on “David’s” pipes—a terrible instrument, by the way, giving forth horrible sounds suggestive of Highland bagpipes in the hands and mouth of a beginner—shepherd-boys were hurling stones from a primitive sling (knitted in worsted) with marvellous skill and true aim at an imaginary Goliath.

In contrast to these pastoral amusements, the solemn Moslem, with his shoes carefully removed, his face towards Mecca, performed his religious duties on the roadside, going through his prayers and prostrations unmoved by the curious glances of strangers and pilgrims from other lands.

We were now nearing the birthplace of our Saviour, through which city we had to pass. On the east is a narrow valley called the Shepherds’ Plain. Even on this early spring morning it looked a bare treeless spot, with stony slopes shining white, and a few crumbling ruins. It was here, according to tradition, that the angelic messengers announced the glad tidings to the wondering shepherds and sang the magnificent “Gloria in Excelsis.”

I am bound to say that my enthusiasm was not kindled by the sight of those holy fields. Indeed, my preconceived ideas received a rude shock—as they often did during our travels—and I came to the woeful conclusion that on the whole it was more pleasing to visit in imagination the sacred spots in Palestine than go on pilgrimage to the actual places.

Just as the sun pointed to nine o’clock, we were entering the straggling city of Bethlehem. We had, as in all Oriental towns, to pick our way carefully through the narrow undulating streets with their hillocks of rubbish and valleys of mud. We were occasionally jammed up against a wall to avoid too close contact with the strings of camels laden with stone for repairing the roads for the expected Imperial visit.

“Bon Jour” of course indulged in lively altercations with the camel drivers; he also unceremoniously pushed aside men, women, and children who happened to be in the line of route. Miss B. told us that a quantity of very bad language was freely dispensed on both sides, but it apparently bred no ill feeling, as we afterwards saw “Bon Jour” and one of the men, who had most violently assaulted him with words, walking amicably across the square.

One cannot fail to be greatly struck by the bright hopeful looks both of the city and its inhabitants, who, we were told, were all Christians. Indeed, it was plainly visible in the thriving aspect of the place and energy of the people, who were busily employed, that Moslem inertness had no stronghold here. The sound of the hammer, the whirr of the wheel, and the grating of the file fell pleasantly on the ear as the industrious workers fashioned the great pearl shells into beads, brooches, and beautifully carved ornaments.

The men and women of Bethlehem are much fairer in complexion than other natives of Syria. The girls are celebrated for their beauty, their large soft blue eyes and brown hair giving them a European look which is almost startling. Their lovely dress adds to their picturesqueness, and the tall cap, covered with gold and silver coins, which the married women wear, gives height to their graceful figures.

There was not much time on this occasion to make more than casual observations, for time was pressing. We rode into the great square and dismounted near the Church of the Nativity, which now stands inside the fortress Monastery of the Virgin.

While our guides took the horses to be watered, we wandered about the open cemetery, alternately “meditating among the tombs” of the brave Crusaders who lie buried there, and watching the animated scene in the portion of the square used as a market.

We laughed heartily at one unwary traveller who, having yielded weakly to the persuasive powers of an importunate shopman, was literally besieged by half-a-dozen others. The unfortunate object of these attentions looked simply desperate, the perspiration pouring from his face as his enemies pulled him this way, pushed him that, shouting and yelling in the Arabic tongue, and gesticulating menacingly with one hand while they held on to him with the other. He could not understand, poor fellow, a word they said, and evidently thought they were going to murder him. We saw him finally dragged into a shop by the two strongest, while the other four waited outside for their victim to emerge, when the attack would be resumed. We wondered whether his friends would come to the rescue!

The few remaining minutes at our disposal were spent in visiting the famous study of St. Jerome, a gloomy cell cut in the rock in the vaults of the Church. It was here the great Father spent so many years of his life in translating the Scriptures into the noble Vulgate. He was helped in his herculean task by Paula and her daughter Eustochia—learned Roman ladies—who followed Jerome to Bethlehem and founded a convent there over which he presided. Their tombs, with that of Eusebius, are in the vaults. The Grotto of the Nativity we left for another day.

We were joined in the square by a fine-looking Arab, with loins girded, and his bare feet thrust into red shoes. He saluted us gravely and with much dignity. Pointing to an ancient rifle (which was slung across his shoulders and was patched up in an original and striking manner, calculated to burst if by any chance it was loaded), he informed us that he had been appointed our escort across the wilderness and, further, that he would guard our lives and property as he would his own.

Miss B., who translated his remarks, told us not to be alarmed, for if by any chance we should be attacked by robbers, Mustapha would be two miles ahead of us, and we should run no danger of being killed by the explosion of his gun! This we felt was severe on our aristocratic-looking defender.

The horses and their attendants now came up, “Bon Jour’s” beast more grotesquely laden than before. We were soon in the saddle, and winding round the eastern corner of the Monastery, turned our backs on civilisation, and entered the dreary wilderness called in Scripture Jeshimon or Solitude.

For the next four or five hours we rode through this region, which in winter must be ghastly indeed. Even the glory of the spring flowers, which thinly covered its otherwise naked, soft, chalky slopes, failed to enliven it. Everything but the flowers was of one colour—the glaring ridges, the fantastic peaks, the sharp spurs, the rugged rocks, the narrow ravines{445} with their stony beds, the camels, the foxes, and the dogs all were a kind of tawny yellow.

BETHLEHEM. (From the painting by Paul Linke.)

We saw neither tree nor water. A few black tents of the Bedawîn formed a welcome relief from the blinding glare. Not a sound disturbed these solitudes, except the occasional bark of a dog in the tents below. Ameen told us that the people living in this region are distinct from other races, their dialect is different from that of other districts, their traditions, habits, and dress are those of an entirely different people.

Our brave little horses accomplished that fearfully hot journey in grand style; they carried us up those awful rocks and along the edges of precipitous steeps which filled our minds with horror.

Ameen and “Bon Jour” sang their monotonous Arabic songs in shrill keys, or dozed in their saddles. Mustapha untiringly walked on with his peculiar swinging gait, often lost to sight, but turning up again, bearing in his hands bouquets of exquisite flowers, which he offered to us with a grace of manner which added much to the pretty gift.

The heat grew more and more intense. Not a breath of wind gave relief. I can well believe one writer, who says, “There are probably few places in Asia where the sun beats down with as fierce a heat and irresistible power as in the desert of Judah.”

It was two o’clock before we dismounted and sat down under the shadow of a square tower known as the Ladies’ Tower and built on a knoll. A narrow fissure divides it from the Monastery of Mar Saba into which no woman is allowed to enter.

We were tired and hungry, but Ameen soon unstrapped the luncheon baskets and spread out on the rock the hard-boiled eggs, the sardines and other dainties for our meal. We fell to with much spirit, while Ameen and Mustapha went to the convent to boil water and make us refreshing tea.

Our first visitor was a yellow dog, thin and mangy, who snapped up hungrily the morsels of food we threw to him. Then a dozen or so dark heads belonging to young girls and boys popped up above the edge of the rock; these were followed by a couple of wild-looking men, from the Bedawîn encampment below. They all stared solemnly at us and smiled at our manner of eating, but they did not beg.

Presently a couple of Arab youths, smartly dressed (for they were servants to a party of travellers who were camping close by), made their appearance, and, perching themselves on a crag, gathered the ragged Bedawîn together, and held forth with great animation, the audience listening with open mouths.

Miss B. amused us by translating the address which excited so much interest. We were the subject of it.

“The Frangi ladies,” the Arab youth said, “are like men. They do things like men—they ride, they gallop, they run! They eat what they like. They go where they like—they never ask their husbands! All the Frangis are rich; they have flocks and goats and camels. They can buy the whole world if they like. They have seen the whole world, and they can speak the Arabic!”

This was the climax, the topstone of the pinnacle of virtues and accomplishments of this marvellous race of beings. The Bedawîn looked incredulous. Miss B. said a few words to the youth in Arabic, when the whole company raised a shout of delight exclaiming—

“See! Hark! She speaks our language like the Holy Prophet! Praised be Allah!”

The Convent of Mar Saba is built on the side of a precipice, four hundred feet high. It clings to the cliff, while its walls are supported by huge buttresses. It is brown, like everything else in the district. Deep silence surrounds it. There it stands, melancholy and alone, without a tree or shrub in sight. Every breeze is shut out by great crags. The sigh of the wind is never heard. Solitude and death seem to reign everywhere. We heard that the wretched inmates—monks exiled for crimes or small offences—become as fossilised as their surroundings.

It was in 480 A.D. St. Saba and St. Euthymius, following the general custom of ascetics, established the first nucleus of the present monastery.

There is a solitary palm growing high up on the side of the building, said to have been planted by the Saint, which sprang up bearing dates without stones on the same day.

There is also a cavern in the rock (into which we did not go) where the Saint lived with his lion, which at first had occupied the whole of the cave, but, finding the Saint refused to be ejected, he gave up the contest and contented himself with a cupboard three feet square, where he slept.

One traveller says that “the monks may scarcely read the valuable manuscripts in their library, yet they hide them carefully from the eyes of heretics. Within the walls they may neither smoke nor eat meat, yet raw spirits find their way past the porter, as we were able to prove. A more hopeless, purposeless, degraded life can scarcely be imagined than that of such hermits.”

Elizabeth and I, accompanied by Mustapha, descended into the Fire Valley, as the huge gorge is called, by which the waters of Jerusalem are carried down to the Dead Sea. It was dry now, and as we looked up at the stern frowning monastery and its solitary palm tree with its bright green leaves, our spirits were depressed, and we hastened on.

It was in that melancholy prison that St. Bernard conjured up the vision of beauty and happiness expressed in his hymn—

“Those eternal bowers

Man hath never trod,

Those unfading flowers

Round the throne of God,

Who may hope to gain them

After weary fight?

Who at length attain them

Clad in robes of white?

* * * * *

While we do our duty

Struggling through the tide,

Whisper Thou of beauty

On the other side.

What though sad the story

Of this life’s distress—

Oh, the future glory!

Oh, the loveliness!”

The monk St. Stephen, in the eighth century, lived here and wrote the famous Greek hymn, the well-known English version beginning with the touching verse—

“Art thou weary, art thou languid,

Art thou sore distrest?

Come to Me, saith One, and coming

Be at rest.”

The remainder of our party met us at an appointed spot, and almost in silence we rode home through the Kedron Gorge, arriving in Jerusalem just as darkness fell.

S. E. Bell.

“OUR HERO.”

A TALE OF THE FRANCO-ENGLISH WAR NINETY YEARS AGO.

By AGNES GIBERNE, Author of “Sun, Moon and Stars,” “The Girl at the Dower House,” etc.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

TWO MIGHTY MEN.

he message sent to Sir John Moore was that Lord Castlereagh, Secretary of State, desired to see him on the next day at 3 P.M., and that he would be required to leave town quickly afterwards. This was all, no hint of further particulars being given.

Prompt as ever, Moore made his arrangements, and ordered that a chaise should be in waiting one hour later to carry him—anywhere.

At three he appeared before Castlereagh, and was enlightened as to those arrangements which, a day or two later, Jack Keene indignantly related to the Bryce circle.

Sir John, with all his sweetness of disposition, had a fiery temper. And though he habitually held in that temper with so firm a curb that he could be described as “the most amiable man in the British Army,” yet there were times when it got the better of him. Those hazel eyes could flash with a scathing light, and those lips could pour forth vehement utterances. He was not to be lightly roused; but perhaps that which he could least patiently endure was the sense of being unjustly treated.

It may well be, too, that at this moment he was physically suffering from the severe strain of those most trying expeditions to Sicily and Sweden. He may have been still under something of reaction from that hard fight in the south of Italy, when his own “feelings” had had to be sternly repressed, for the sake of the young girl whom he loved. In a short letter written three or four days later from Portsmouth to his mother, a note of weariness may be detected, unwonted in Moore. But Rest lay ahead—not far off—though a fierce experience lay between.

One way or another, he did wax wrathful in this interview with Castlereagh; and his answer came promptly—

“My lord, a post-chaise is at my door, and upon leaving this I shall proceed to Portsmouth to join the troops. It may perhaps be my lot never to see your lordship again. I therefore{446} think it right to express to you my feelings of the unhandsome treatment I have received.”

“I am not sensible of what treatment you allude to,” interrupted the Secretary.

Sir John had no difficulty in explaining what he meant. Had he been an Ensign, he said, he could hardly have been treated with less ceremony. He had not even been told, till the last moment, how he was to be employed. Coming as he did from a chief command, if he were now to be placed in an inferior post, some explanation certainly was his due. Lord Castlereagh had told him that his conduct in the Swedish affair was approved of, but this did not look like approval.

“His Majesty’s Ministers have a right to employ what officers they please,” Sir John went on, working off his warmth. “And had they on this occasion given the command to the youngest general in the Army, I should neither have felt nor expressed that the least injury was done to me. But I have a right, in common with all officers who have served zealously, to expect to be treated with attention, and when employment is offered, that some regard should be paid to my former services.”

“I am not aware, Sir John, of having given you just cause for complaint,” Castlereagh replied gravely; and he made few further remarks. Who would have imagined, looking on, that this cold-mannered Secretary would, not many months later, fight a duel in defence of the fair fame of the gallant General now before him?[1]

Moore had said his say, and no doubt felt relieved. Without delay he started post-haste for Portsmouth, pausing on the road for one night at his mother’s country home. Though he told her and his sister of the apparent slight which had been put upon him, as indeed he could not avoid doing, since all the world would know of it, he does not seem to have been depressed, but talked cheerily, and kept up their spirits all the evening.

The parting next day was, however, sadder than usual. Did any of them guess it to be the last? Some forebodings may well have suggested themselves to the mother’s heart, as she watched that manly figure pass away into the distance. He had been to her the most tender of sons; but on earth she would see him never again.

From Portsmouth he wrote to her—

“The treatment I have received gives me no longer uneasiness. The actions of others I am not responsible for; it is only my own, if they are unworthy, that can mortify me. I am going on the service of my country, and shall hope to acquit myself as becomes me of whatever part is allotted to me. God bless you, my dear mother! I shall write to you whilst I continue here, and hope for the time when I shall be allowed to pass the rest of my days quietly with you, my brothers, and Jane.”

Four or five days later, while still in Portsmouth, where he had pushed forward preparations, he resigned to Sir Harry Burrard the chief command of those troops which for so long had been in his own hands. He then wrote again to his mother—

“One word I have to say and no more. I have letters from London; all has been communicated to the King and the Duke of York, who have both approved of all I have said and done.... All is now ready the moment the wind is easterly. You may write when you think fit, as I shall leave directions about my letters.”

This was not the end of the matter. But before telling the rest, a few words about Roy are needful.

For Roy was entering on his first campaign.

He was full of delight at the prospect. During months past a passionate craving to be sent against the enemy had pervaded the English Army, and Roy was behind no one in this desire. Alike by inheritance and by early training, his instincts were all soldierly; and that was an age to call forth patriotism in the dullest nature. But Roy was by no means dull.

To be ordered, when barely eighteen, to the seat of war—to serve under Moore himself—this indeed was a fulfilment of Roy’s utmost longings.

“You’ll write to me sometimes, won’t you?” pleaded Molly, clinging tearfully to him, when he came to say good-bye. “And don’t be taken prisoner again.”

“Trust me for that!” laughed Roy. “I’ve had a taste already of French prisons. Take care of yourself, Molly; and don’t let Polly lose heart.”

“See, Roy, I have made this little case for you. It has paper and pen and pencil in it, and a tiny ink-bottle. And you can put it into such a little corner, or into your pocket. I want you to keep a journal of all that happens—ever so few words at a time. And perhaps you might send me a sheet now and then, when it is full.”

“All right. I don’t mind if I do. Not a bad notion, on the whole. You’re a good little sister. No man ever had a better.”

Roy arrived at Portsmouth while Sir John Moore was still there, and before he had given over the command to Burrard. It was always his way to see, and personally to influence, the young officers placed under his command, and though he was not to be at the head of affairs, he would still have control of his own Division. Moore did not leave nearly so much to unassisted Nature as a good many generals of the day were content to do. Roy, being aware of this, was not astonished to be early summoned to his presence, and punctually at the hour named he reached Sir John’s lodgings.

Others were there when he entered, but Roy saw little clearly besides this princely soldier, with whose fame for many a long year all Britain had been ringing, whose name on Ivor’s lips had been from Roy’s infancy the very embodiment of all that was noble and true.

Sir John stood at the upper end of the room, talking with his friend Colonel Anderson—a strangely attractive figure, alike dignified and winning, with a brow of regal breadth and power, searching luminous eyes, through which at times the whole spirit of the man seemed to shine, and well-cut sensitive lips, gentle in expression as any woman’s, while yet they could close like adamant. The young Ensign’s heartbeat tumultuously, under a rush of new sensations, and a fervour of devotion for such a leader as this sprang at once into being. In that moment Roy knew why Denham Ivor so loved Sir John, and why men could with very gladness die for him. Moore, gazing in his earnest fashion upon the boy, smiled at the look he saw. It was no new thing for him to be conscious of his own almost magical control over the hearts of others.

A few business-like questions were put, as to when Roy had joined his regiment, and the training he had since received. Presently Moore remarked—

“So you escaped from Bitche, I am told?”

“I was so fortunate, sir. With the help of a Frenchman.”

“Ha! How was that?”

“He was grateful, sir, to my father and wished to make a return. He had been taken in the Conscription some time before, and my father and Captain Ivor helped to pay for a substitute. It was for his old mother’s sake.”

This was a note which could not fail to appeal to the most loyal of sons, and Moore’s face showed quick response, though he only said, “Détenus?”

“Yes, sir. We were detained in 1803—my father and Captain Ivor. My mother stayed with them, and I could not get a passport. And later I was sent to Bitche.”

“Not Denham Ivor of the Guards! I remember—he was among the détenus.”

“Yes, sir. He was under you in the West Indies and in Egypt.”

“Of course. I know him well. How came he to linger so long in France?”

Roy explained briefly the small-pox complication, the General listening with still that intent gaze.

“Then Ivor is at Verdun still. Hard upon him! As gallant a young fellow as I ever had to do with. I would give something to have him with me now.”

Roy treasured up the words for Ivor’s future comfort.

“Ivor feels it terribly, sir!” he said.

“You have been much thrown with him!”

“Yes, sir. He has been the best friend to me that I ever could have.”

“I am glad to hear it. He is a friend worth having.” After a slight pause, the General remarked, “Napoleon made a blunder there for once. The absence of proper exchange falls at{447} least as heavily upon the French as upon ourselves. By-the-by, you know Captain Keene also. He spoke to me of you.”

“Yes, sir. We are connected.”

“Well, Baron, I shall expect a good deal from a friend of Ivor!”

“I will do my best, sir,” Roy answered. Then an interruption came, and Sir John smiled kindly again, as he turned away. Roy went out of the room, captivated, dazzled, wild to do or to dare aught in the world for the sake of Moore.[2]

The last letter written by Sir John to his mother from Portsmouth was dated in the end of July, and he reached the coast of Portugal on the 20th of August, or about three weeks after the arrival there of Wellesley. Moore was ordered to disembark the troops with him, and at once to join Wellesley’s force.

Three days before Moore could get to the spot, Sir Arthur Wellesley—future Duke of Wellington—gained a decisive victory over the French at Vimeira. Unfortunately he, like Sir John Moore, was at this moment superseded in command by Sir Harry Burrard, who arrived while the battle was being fought; and the pursuit of the flying foe, which should have ended in a complete rout, was timidly cut short. Next day Sir Harry Burrard was in his turn superseded by Sir Hew Dalrymple, whose management of affairs and hasty signing of an armistice raised at home a storm of indignation.

“It is a pity,” wrote Moore in his private journal with reference to Wellesley, “that when so much had been thrown into his hands, he had not been allowed to complete the work.” And to Sir Hew Dalrymple he spoke decidedly: “If hostilities recommence, Sir Arthur Wellesley has already done so much that I think it but fair he should have the command of whatever is brilliant in the finishing. I waive all pretensions as senior, for I consider this as his expedition. He ought to have the command of whatever is detached.”

But while Moore thus generously proposed to sacrifice his own claims on behalf of Wellesley, Sir Arthur was no less anxious that Moore’s great gifts should not be lost to his country. The conduct of these two grand men, each to the other, is a fair sight, beside the jealousies which sometimes blemish the bravest characters.

On the 17th of September Wellesley sent a frank soldierly letter to Moore, referring to the interview of the latter with “His Majesty’s Ministers,” and expressing a fear lest Moore’s action might stand in the way of his being raised to the supreme command. Would Sir John Moore be willing to discuss the question with him? “It appears to me,” he wrote, “to be quite impossible we can go on as we are now constituted. The Commander-in-Chief must be changed; and the Country and the Army naturally turn their eyes to you as their Commander.”

This disinterested letter took Moore by surprise. The two had of course met before, perhaps several times; but they had not been intimate, though each had appreciated the other. He at once replied cordially, and the next day the interview took place, Wellesley calling upon Moore on his way home.

The confidential talk which followed was a remarkable one. Two of the greatest men of their age met, each bent upon the good of his country—each willing to sacrifice for the good of the other what might be advantageous for himself. One by birth was Irish, one by birth was Scotch, but both were British—nay, English!—to the backbone. Sir Arthur Wellesley, in age only eight years the younger, was still at the opening of his grand career; Sir John Moore, after thirty years of hard service, was fast nearing the close of his. Sir John’s at this date was a worldwide fame. Sir Arthur, though he had made his mark by a successful campaign in India, was still not very famous beyond a certain circle. But Moore had noted his power.

They went into the matter calmly together—Wellesley’s strongly-outlined eagle face and large Roman nose contrasting with the refined beauty of Moore’s features. In force of character, however, in strength of will, in courage and patriotism, in freedom from all narrowness of party spirit, the two were alike. “Although I hold a high office under Government I am no party man,” Wellesley had declared in that memorable letter to Moore, received only the day before. With Wellesley, as with Moore, private interests went down before National interests, and Duty was a word utterly supreme through life.

Perhaps the main difference between the two lay in the fact that Wellesley lacked that peculiar “strain of sweetness,” that element of womanly tenderness, which made Moore to be so intensely beloved. His was a more homogeneously iron nature; but it was of finely-wrought iron.

The meeting between Lord Castlereagh and Moore, with Moore’s impetuous self-defence, was referred to. Sir John Moore gave full particulars of what had passed, adding frankly:

“I thought it needful to express what I felt under the circumstances. But, having done so, I have felt no more upon the subject.”

Wellesley demurred as to any such need. He feared much that, unless some explanation took place, Sir John’s heat on that occasion might stand in the road of his future usefulness to England. He was perfectly sure that there had been no unkind intentions on the part of the Ministers, since he had often heard them speak with high esteem of Moore. Lord Castlereagh was naturally of a “cautious” temperament, and there might have been some difficultly in giving the chief command to Sir John, until a formal explanation had taken place with the Swedish Court. Then Sir Arthur asked—might he be authorised to say to the Ministers that Sir John was sorry to have been under a misunderstanding, if indeed no slight had been meant by them; and that, having once for all spoken out what he felt, he had now forgotten the matter, and would think no more about it?

Moore could not at once agree to this proposal. “Not a word has reached me since I left England,” he observed, “from anybody connected with the Government. No opening having been made on their side, I hardly see how I can properly myself take the initiative. Of course, when I spoke to Lord Castlereagh as I did, I was quite aware of what the consequences might be. But to make a submission now, merely with a view to obtaining a higher post—that is out of the question!”

Sir Arthur was not convinced. His one thought, then as ever, was for England’s good. He knew what the loss of Moore’s services in any degree could not fail to be to England. It seemed to him that personal feelings, and what might be thought of any personal action, were entirely unimportant compared with the one great question of the Country’s need, and the one fact that Moore, beyond all other living men, could supply that need. He still earnestly urged his own view of what ought to be done.

Presently, in response to further arguments, Sir John partly yielded. He remarked that, if Sir Arthur were enough interested in the affair to care to mention this conversation to Lord Castlereagh, simply stating as a fact known to himself that Sir John had not the smallest feeling of ill-will to any man in the Ministry, he was welcome to do so.

“I spoke out my mind plainly,” repeated Moore, “and there, so far as I am concerned, the matter ended. But naturally, if any wrong impressions are held which might prevent my being made use of, I should wish to have such impressions removed. I should be grateful to any friend who would kindly set things right.”

Further than this Moore refused to budge; and Wellesley, though absolutely convinced that no slight whatever had been meant, had to promise that he would keep strictly to the terms dictated by Moore. He sailed next day for England.

But before he could carry out his generous intentions, such action as he most wished for had already been taken. Dalrymple was recalled; Burrard was superseded: and Moore was appointed to the supreme command of twenty thousand men, to be used in the North of Spain, conjointly with the Spanish armies, to drive the French backward. Ten thousand men in addition were to be at once sent out to him. Had the Duke of York been allowed a free hand, Moore might have had the command of sixty thousand.

The news of his appointment was received by Sir John quietly, with no sign of exultation; and he at once bent all his energies to the difficult task{448} before him. It was a task far more difficult than anyone in England imagined. The Spaniards were to prove themselves utterly worthless as allies. Money for expenses was eked out in the reluctant style which in those days still characterised the British Government in all matters of warfare, no matter which party might be in power. Moore’s force consisted partly of raw recruits, and largely of officers who had never before seen active service. He had a march ahead of between five and six hundred miles, with every possible hindrance in the complete lack of any organised transport, and in the shape of stormy wintry weather. Yet within three weeks of his being placed in command, the headquarters of the Army removed from Lisbon!

He had been so strongly impressed during the interview described, with the lofty and disinterested character of the future Iron Duke, that it must have given him pleasure to receive from Wellesley a letter, relating what he had said to Castlereagh, as well as that nobleman’s hearty reply about Moore, and adding:

“I find that by the distribution I am placed under your command, than which nothing can be more satisfactory to me![3] I will go to Coruña immediately, where I hope to find you.”

Unfortunately Sir Arthur was kept in England for the military inquiry into late doings under Dalrymple; and Moore had not the help of his presence during the coming campaign.

(To be continued.)

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

MEDICAL.

Percy.—You could do no harm by putting a few drops of tincture of benzoin into the water in which you wash your face, but we much doubt whether it would do any good. You must attend to your digestion and always wear a veil when you go out. A little glycerine and rose water applied to the face may relieve the burning.

Enid.—Individuals differ greatly in the amount that they perspire. Some persons seem scarcely to perspire at all, while others get wet through from any trifling exertion. As a rule fat persons perspire more than thinner ones, and in them it is salutary, as it reduces their fat. Excessive sweating is often hereditary, as, indeed, it seems to be in your case. You may not attempt to check perspiration too much, for the sweat is an excretion by the skin from the blood—it is one of the methods by which the blood gets rid of its impurities. The best known, and one of the most satisfactory preparations for limiting the perspiration from the face and hands, is toilet vinegar. Persons who perspire profusely should wear woollen undergarments and change them frequently.

Giddy Girl.—Giddiness or vertigo is a symptom met with in very many complaints. In biliousness, acute indigestion and occasionally in chronic indigestion, giddiness is not uncommon. In certain diseases of the ears giddiness is usually present in a very aggravated form. It occasionally occurs from wax in the ears, and is not at all uncommon while the ears are being syringed. Then there is the vertigo associated with errors of sight—a common, but often overlooked variety. And there is the true brain vertigo—a common symptom of disease of the nervous system. In anæmia, and one or two diseases of the heart, giddiness is common—due to the brain not being sufficiently supplied with blood. Here you have the cause of vertigo in a nutshell. To tell which of them is causing your giddiness, with nothing whatever to guide us to a conclusion, is quite impossible.

Foolish.—The pseudonym you have chosen is very appropriate. You are exceedingly foolish to take drugs of which you know nothing; but it is worse than foolish, it is criminal. You look with horror upon a man who is a chronic drunkard. You consider it is a very great crime to drink more alcohol than is necessary; is it not an equally serious crime to take more drugs than are necessary? You object to this because alcohol deprives you of reason, whereas the drug you take does not. But you are wrong; the drug you are taking does interfere with the mind. It is worse than alcohol in many ways. To take a drug which is unnecessary is wrong; but the drug you take, cocaine, is one of the most fatal of all to take habitually. You are killing yourself by it. All persons who acquire the cocaine habit die from it, unless they stop their pernicious habit very soon. If you wish to save your life you must abandon your habit without delay. As we said before, to take cocaine is worse than to get drunk—it is more injurious to the body, more fatal to the mind, and more destructive to morality. But where did you get the cocaine? Chemists are forbidden to give poisons to silly girls.

Aged 50.—At your time of life club-foot cannot be cured by operation or otherwise. If the foot is more trouble than good, you can have it removed; there is nothing else that can be done.

Maid of Astolat.—Yes; by all means continue with the treatment. It often takes a long time to completely eradicate acne.

Curious.—It is an old superstition that you can cure warts by rubbing them with a potato, and then giving the potato to a pig to eat. Like most similar superstitions it does not bear investigation.

STUDY AND STUDIO.

“Jo March.”—1. Your fairy story is bright and pretty. You use the word “and” too often, and the closing scene about the giants and fairies reads as though it were hurried, in comparison with the rest of the little sketch. Were the flowers for the ladder unfading?—2. We think you might possibly succeed with fairy stories if you practised composition. What you have sent us is scarcely enough to show decided talent.

Cecilia—1. You ought to be guided by your teacher as to the number of hours you should practise daily. It is said that Paganini, when asked how long it would take to learn the violin, replied, “Twelve hours a day for twenty years.” On the other hand, we have heard on very illustrious authority that three hours taken in separate periods of practice is enough for anyone. One thing you may receive as certain—that when you get jaded and listless, practising ceases to be of use. So long as you can keep your attention alive and alert, practising will do you good. Let us urge you to persevere and be diligent. “The gods give nothing without labour unto mankind” is an old Greek saying, and though you may not always “like” practising, you will reap the reward in years to come if you apply yourself strenuously now.—2. For learning music by heart, your second suggestion is the best—to study it quite accurately, little by little. You may occasionally of course try to give a general reproduction of a piece, but that method alone would not make you play really well from memory.

Mrs. Walker, Litlington Rectory, Berwick, Sussex, kindly sends us the rules of various improvement societies, and offers to give information about them to any of our girl readers. They are the following:—Early Rising Society, Reading Society, Musical Society, Walking Society, Language Society, Plain Work Society, Knitting and Fancy Work Society. Surely the readers who consult us about societies will find something here to suit every need. We advise them to apply to the Hon. Secretary, Mrs. Walker, enclosing a stamped envelope.

Sympathetic.—The real name of “Claribel” was Charlotte Alington Barnard. She was born in 1830, and married in 1854. Her master was Mr. W. H. Holmes. She published a hundred ballads which have won extraordinary popularity. She died at Dover in 1869. This is all we know of her history. Possibly the sadder tone (to which you refer) of her later ballads may have been due to failing strength and health, as her death occurred quite in the prime of life.

Historian.—We find it difficult to answer your question about the Czar and the succession to the Russian throne without seeing the paragraph to which you refer, but certainly there is no Salic law in Russia. We cannot trace the letter you sent us six months ago. Questions can never be answered immediately, as we go to press long before you receive your magazine, but we endeavour to reply as quickly as possible.

INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE.

“Florence” has four would-be correspondents—(Miss) E. Randall, Hopeville, The Greenway, Uxbridge, Middlesex; H. Hughes, Downfield, Stroud, Gloucestershire; Amy Day, 70, Broomfield Street, Crisp Street, Poplar; and Mabel Brown, 24, Brigden Street, Brighton. If “Florence” would allow us to print her address here, it would expedite matters.

Miss Elsie Highton, Brigham, Keswick, Cumberland, would like to correspond with Miss Marguerite Rahier, or with another French lady.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Carillon.—We think we have answered your question before about carron oil, but as it may be out of print, we are glad to do so again. Carron oil is equal parts of olive oil and lime water well shaken together, and is employed as a remedy for burns. Some doctors add a very little laudanum to it. It was first employed at the Carron Ironworks, near Falkirk.

Enona.—1. A cartoon is a design drawn on strong paper in chalks or distemper, to be afterwards calked through, and transferred to the fresh plaster of a wall to be painted in fresco oil-colour or tapestry. The finest cartoons known are those executed by Raphael for Leo X. in 1515 and 1516 as patterns for tapestry. Each of them is about twelve feet high, is drawn with chalk on strong paper, and coloured in distemper by that master and his pupils. They were ten in number, but three have been lost. The seven you have seen at the South Kensington Museum were bought in Flanders by Rubens for our King Charles I., and we owe their preservation to Cromwell, who bought them from the King’s private collection for the country. They are thought to be the finest of Raphael’s works.—2. A cartouche is a different thing entirely, and you have mixed up the two perhaps from seeing both in the museums in London, where you have seen the latter applied to an elliptical oval on the ancient Egyptian monuments, and in papyri also, on which are hieroglyphic characters expressing the names and titles of Egyptian kings. In architecture a cartouche is a tablet for ornament or for an inscription, formed like a sheet of paper with its edges rolled up.

Dorothy.—If you be interested in the history and use of bells, you had better read North’s English Bells and Bell Lore, re-edited by the Rev. W. Beresford. The ancient “mote bell” was rung to assemble the people in cases of danger, or for public purposes, by command of Edward the Confessor. The “dole meadow bell” used to summon the parishioners to vestry meetings. The “storm bell” was appointed to “cause the fiends and wicked spirytes to cease of the movyng of the tempeste,” to which Bishop Latimer (martyr) made allusion in one of his sermons (published by the Parker Society). There was also the “common bell” and the “pancake bell” used at Shrovetide to summon people to confession. Besides these uses, certain bells were employed for the use of farming—calling the country-folk to seed-sowing, harvesting, and gleaning, and which were rung also on “Plough Monday.” The custom of ringing “joy bells” at coronations, royal birthdays, and weddings, is familiar to all, as well as the “passing bell” to announce a death, the tolling at funerals and executions, and the terror-inspiring “fire bell.” We cannot tell you more in our correspondence columns. Read the exhaustive work we have named on bell lore.

Eugenie.—The second Monday in July, 1940, will be the 8th. Wrinkles in the forehead are caused by raising the eyebrows, which draws the skin into lines and rolls. The only way to cure them is by leaving off making that special grimace, which makes you look not only both old and plain, but gives a silly and an unhappy expression.

Firenze.—Catafalco is an Italian word, meaning “a scaffold” or funeral canopy, and is applied to a temporary piece of woodwork decorated with painting and sculptures, representing a tomb, and employed in funeral solemnities. We have the word in French also, catafalque, which dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth century.

Paddy.—Jan. 13th, 1866, was a Saturday; Feb. 17th, 1864, was a Wednesday.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The famous duel between Castlereagh and Canning—those, unhappily, were still the days of duels in England—was supposed to have taken place because Canning had ousted Castlereagh from office. But on the authority of Lady Castlereagh, Sir W. Napier offered a different explanation. This was, that her husband might have been reinstated in office if only he would have agreed to “sacrifice the reputation of Sir John Moore.” Such a proposal was, as the stern old historian writes, “an insult well answered with a shot.”—Life of Sir Charles Napier, by Sir W. Napier.

[2] The Marquis of Londonderry, one of Moore’s later critics, wrote: “Perhaps the English army has produced some abler men than Sir John Moore; it has certainly produced many who, in point of military talent, were and are quite his equals; but it cannot, and perhaps never could, boast of one more beloved, not by his own personal friends alone, but by every individual that served under him.”

[3] This is the more remarkable an expression because, after the appointment of Sir Hew Dalrymple over his head in the end of August, Wellesley had written privately to Lord Castlereagh, expressing an earnest wish to leave Spain, for “I have been too successful with this army ever to serve with it in a subordinate situation with satisfaction to the person who shall command it, and, of course, not to myself.” To serve under Sir John Moore with that same army was plainly in his eyes a very different matter.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. XX. No. 1006, April 8, 1899

THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER

ABOUT PEGGY SAVILLE.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.

CHAPTER II.

HER KINGDOM OF DREAMS.

SHEILA.

CHAPTER I.

FROM LONDON TO DAMASCUS.

PART IV.

“OUR HERO.”

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

MEDICAL.

STUDY AND STUDIO.

INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE.

MISCELLANEOUS.

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE