The World’s Greatest Books Vol 5 (page 6)

Cost his father a farthing he would not. So he started forth into the wide world with nothing but his wits and his science, an anatomical professor to a new college in some South American republic. Unfortunately, when he got there, he found that the annual revolution had just taken place, and that the party who had founded the college had all been shot. Whereat he whistled, and started off again, no man knew whither.

“Having got round half the world, daddy,” he wrote home, “it’s hard if I don’t get round the other half.”

With which he vanished into infinite space, and was only heard of by occasional letters dated from the Rocky Mountains, the Spanish West Indies, Otaheite, Singapore, the Falkland Islands, and all manner of unexpected places, sending home valuable notes, zoological and botanical.

At last when full four years were passed and gone since Tom started for South America, he descended from the box of the day-mail at Whitbury, with a serene and healthful countenance, shouldered his carpet-bag, and started for his father’s house.

He walked in, and hung up his hat in the hall, just as if he had come in from a walk. Not finding the old man, he went into Mark Armsworth’s, frightening out of her wits a pale, ugly girl of seventeen, whom he discovered to be his old playfellow, Mary. However, she soon recovered her equanimity, and longed to throw her arms round his neck as of old, and was only restrained by the thought that she was grown a great girl now. She called her father, and all the household, and after a while the old doctor came home, and the fatted calf was killed, and all made merry over the return of this altogether unrepentant prodigal son.

Tom Thurnall stayed a month at home, and then went to America, whence he wrote home in about six months. Then came a long silence, and then a letter from California; and then letters more regularly from Australia. Sickened with California life, he had crossed the Pacific once more, and was hard at work in the diggings, doctoring and gold-finding by turns.

“A rolling stone gathers no moss,” said his father.

“He has the pluck of a hound, and the cunning of a fox,” said Mark, “and he’ll be a credit to you yet.”

So the years slipped on till the autumn of 1853. And then Tom, at the diggings at Ballarat, got a letter from Mary Armsworth.

“Your father is quite well in health, but his eyes have grown much worse, and the doctors are afraid that he has little chance of recovering the sight, at least of the left eye. And something has happened to the railroad in which he had invested so much, and he has given up the old house. He wants you to come home; but my father has entreated him to let you stay. You know, while we are here, he is safe.”

Tom walked away slowly into the forest. He felt that the crisis of his life was come.

“I’ll stay here and work,” he said to himself finally, “till I make a hit or luck runs dry, and then home and settle; and, meanwhile, I’ll go down to Melbourne tomorrow, and send the dear old dad two hundred pounds.”

And there sprang up in him at once the intensest yearning after his father and the haunts of his boyhood, and the wildest dread that he should never see them.

_II.–The Wreck_

Half the village of Aberalva is collected on the long sloping point of a cliff. Sailors wrapped in pilot-cloth, oil-skinned coast guardsmen, women with their gowns turned over their heads, while every moment some fresh comer stumbles down the slope and asks, “Where’s the wreck?” A shift of wind, a drift of cloud, and the moon flashes out a moment.

“There she is, sir,” says Brown, the head-boatman to the coastguard lieutenant.

Some three hundred yards out at sea lies a long, curved, black line, amid the white, wild leaping hills of water. A murmur from the crowd.

“A Liverpool clipper, by the lines of her.”

“God help the poor passengers, then!” sobs a woman. “They’re past our help.”

A quarter of an hour passes.

“God have mercy!” shouts Brown. “She’s going!”

The black curve coils up, and then all melts away into the white seething waste.

The coastguard lieutenant settles down in his macintoshes, knowing that his duty is not to leave as long as there is a chance of saving–not a life, for that was past all hope, but a chest of clothes or a stick of timber.

And with the coastguardsmen many sailors stayed. Old Captain Willis stays because Grace Harvey, the village schoolmistress, is there, sitting upon a flat slope of rock, a little apart from the rest, with her face resting on her hands, gazing intently out into the wild waste.

“She’s not one of us,” says old Willis. “There’s no saying what’s going on there in her. Maybe she’s praying; maybe she sees more than we do, over the sea there.”

“Look at her now! What’s she after?” Brown replies.

The girl had raised her head, and was pointing toward the sea. Then she sprang to her feet with a scream.

“A man! A man! Save him!”

As she spoke a huge wave rolled in, and out of it struggled, on hands and knees, a human figure. He looked wildly up and around, and lay clinging with outstretched arms over the edge of the rock.

“Save him!” she shrieked again, as twenty men rushed forward–and stopped short. The man was fully thirty yards from them, but between them and him stretched a long, ghastly crack, some ten feet wide, with seething cauldrons within.

Ere they could nerve themselves for action, the wave had come, half-burying the wretched mariner, and tearing across the chasm.

The schoolmistress took one long look, and as the wave retired, rushed after it to the very brink of the chasm, and flung herself on her knees.

“The wave has carried him across the crack, and she’s got him!” screamed old Willis. And he sprang upon her, and caught her round the waist.

“Now, if you be men!” shouted he, as the rest hurried down.

“Now, if you be men; before the next wave comes!” shouted big Jan, the fisherman. “Hands together, and make a line!” And he took a grip with one hand of the old man’s waistband, and held out the other for who would to seize.

Strong hand after hand was clasped, and strong knee after knee dropped almost to the rock, to meet the coming rush of water.

It came, and surged over the man and the girl, and up to old Willis’s throat, and round the knees of Jan and his neighbour; and then followed the returning out-draught, and every limb quivered under the strain; but when the cataract had disappeared, the chain was still unbroken.

“Saved!” and a cheer broke from all lips save those of the girl herself–she was as senseless as he whom she had saved.

Gently they lifted each, and laid them on the rock; and presently the schoolmistress was safe in bed at her mother’s house. And the man, weak, but alive, had been carried triumphantly up to the door of Dr. Heale, which having been kicked open, the sailors insisted on carrying him right upstairs, and depositing him on the best spare bed, saying, “If you won’t come to your patients, doctor, your patients shall come to you.”

The man grumbled when he awoke next morning at being thrown ashore with nothing in the world but an old jersey and a bag of tobacco, two hundred miles short of the port where he hoped to land with L1,500 in his pocket.

To Dr. Heale, and to the Rev. Frank Headley, the curate, who called upon him, he mentioned that his name was Tom Thurnall, F.R.C.S.

Later in the day Tom met the coastguard lieutenant and old Captain Willis on the shore, and the latter introduced him to “Miss Harvey, the young person who saved your life last night.”

Tom was struck by the beauty of the girl at once, but after thanking her, said gently, “I wish to tell you something which I do not want publicly talked of, but in which you may help me. I had nearly L1,500 about me when I came ashore last night, sewed in a belt round my waist. It is gone.”

Grace turned pale, and her lips quivered. She turned to her mother and Captain Willis.

“Belt! Mother! Uncle! What is this? The gentleman has lost a belt!”

“Dear me! A belt! Well, child, that’s not much to grieve over, when the Lord has spared his life,” said her mother, somewhat testily.

Grace declared the money should be found, and Tom vowed to himself he would stay in that little Cornish village of Aberalva until he had recovered it.

So after writing to some old friends at St. Mumpsimus’s Hospital to send him down some new drugs, and to his father, he settled down as Dr. Heale’s assistant; and Dr. Heale being addicted to brandy and water, there was plenty of room for assistance.

_III.–The Cholera_

Tom Thurnall had made up his mind in June 1854, that the cholera ought to visit Aberalva in the course of the summer, and, of course, tried his best to persuade people to get ready for their ugly visitor; but in vain. The collective ignorance, pride, laziness, and superstition of the little town showed a terrible front to the newcomer.

“Does he think we was all fools afore he came here?”

That was the rallying cry of the enemy, and sanitary reform was thrust out of sight.

But Lord Minchampstead, who owned the neighbouring estates of Pentremochyn, on Mark Armsworth’s advice, got Tom to make a report on the sanitary state of his cottages, and then acted on the information.

Frank Headley backed up Tom in his sanitary crusade, the coastguard lieutenant proved an unexpected ally, and Grace Harvey promised that she would do all she could.

Tom wrote up to London and detailed the condition of the place to the General Board of Health, and the Board returned, for answer, that, as soon as cholera broke out in Aberalva, they would send down an inspector.

Then in August it came, and Tom Beer, the fisherman, and one of the finest fellows in the town, was dead after two hours’ illness.

Up and down the town the foul fiend sported, now here, now there, fleshing his teeth on every kind of prey. He has taken old Beer’s second son, and now clutches at the old man himself; then across the street to Jan Beer, his eldest; but he is driven out from both houses by chloride of lime, and the colony of the Beers has peace awhile. The drunken cobbler dies, of course; but spotless cleanliness and sobriety do not save the mother of seven children, who has been soaking her brick floor daily with water from a poisoned well, defiling where she meant to clean. Youth does not save the buxom lass who has been filling herself with unripe fruit.

And yet sots and fools escape where wise men fall; weakly women, living amid all wretchedness, nurse, unharmed, strong men who have breathed fresh air all day.

Headley and Grace and old Willis, and last, but not least, Tom Thurnall, these and three or four brave women, organised themselves into a band, and commenced at once a visitation from house to house, saving thereby many a life. But within eight-and-forty hours it was as much as they could do to attend to the acute cases.

Grace often longed to die, but knew that she should not die till she had found Tom’s belt, and was content to wait.

Tom just thought nothing about death and danger at all, but, always cheerful, always busy, yet never in a hurry, went up and down, seemingly ubiquitous. Sleep he got when he could, and food as often as he could; into the sea he leapt, morning and night, and came out fresher every time; the only person in the town who seemed to grow healthier, and actually happier, as the work went on, in that fearful week.

The battle is over at last, and Tom is in London at the end of September, ready to go to war as medical officer to the Turks. The news of Alma has just arrived.

But he pays a visit to Whitbury first, and there Lord Minchampstead sees him, and his lordship expresses satisfaction at the way Tom conducted the business at Pentremochyn, and offers him a post of queen’s messenger in the Crimea, which Tom accepts with profuse thanks.

Before Tom left for the East old Mark Armsworth took him aside, and said, “What do you think of the man who marries my daughter?”

“I should think,” quoth Tom, wondering who the happy man could be, “that he would be lucky in possessing such a heart.”

“Then be as good as your word, and take her yourself. I’ve watched you, and you’ll make her a good husband.”

Tom was too astonished and puzzled to reply. He had never thought that he had found such favour in his old playfellow Mary Armsworth’s eyes.

It was a terrible temptation. He knew the plain English of L50,000, and Mark Armsworth’s daughter, a good house, a good consulting practice, and, above all, his father to live with him.

And then rose up before his imagination the steadfast eyes of Grace Harvey, and seemed to look through and through his inmost soul, as through a home which belonged of right to her, and where no other woman must dwell, or could dwell; for she was there and he knew it; and knew that, even if he never married till his dying day, he should sell his soul by marrying anyone but her.

So Tom told old Mark it was impossible, because he was in love with another woman. And then just as he was packing up next morning came a note from Mark Armsworth and a cheque for L500, “To Thomas Thurnall, Esq., for behaving like a gentleman.” And Tom went Eastward Ho!–two years ago.

_IV.–Christmas Eve_

It was in September, after Tom had left, that Grace found the missing belt. Her mother had hidden it in a cave on the shore, and Grace, following her there, came upon the hiding-place. The shock of detection brought out the disease against which Mrs. Harvey had taken so many precautions, and within two days the unhappy woman was dead.

Grace sold all her mother’s effects, paid off all creditors, and with a few pounds left, vanished from Aberalva. She had written at once to Tom at Whitbury, telling him that his belt and money were safe, but had received no answer; and now she went to Whitbury herself, only to arrive a week after Tom had gone. Mark Armsworth and Mary kept her for a night, and she left Tom’s money with the old banker, retaining the belt and then set out Eastward Ho! too, to nurse the wounded in the war; and, if possible, to find Tom and clear her name of all suspicion.

How Grace Harvey worked at Scutari and at Balaclava, there is no need to tell. Why mark her out from the rest, when all did more than nobly? In due time she went home to England–home, but not to Aberalva.

She presented herself one day at Mark Armsworth’s house in Whitbury, and begged him to obtain her a place as servant to old Dr. Thurnall. And by the help of Mark, and Mary, Grace Harvey took up her abode in the old man’s house; and ere a month was past she was to him a daughter.

Mary loved her–wanted to call her sister; but Grace drew back lovingly, but humbly, from all advances; for she had divined Mary’s secret with the quick eye of a woman. She saw how Mary grew daily paler, sadder. Be it so; Mary had a right to him, and she had none.

* * * * *

And where was Tom Thurnall all the while? No man could tell.

Mark inquired; Lord Minchampstead inquired; great personages inquired; but all in vain. A few knew, and told Lord Minchampstead, who told Mark, in confidence, that he had been heard of last in the Circassian Mountains about Christmas 1854; but since then all was blank.

The old man never seemed to regret him; and never mentioned his name after a while. None knew it was because he and Grace never talked of anything else. So they had lived, and so they had waited.

And now it is the blessed Christmas Eve; the light is failing fast; when down the High Street comes Mark’s portly bulk. The next minute he has entered the old doctor’s house, and is full of the afternoon’s run, for he has been out fox-hunting.

The old doctor is confident to-day that his son will return, and Grace reassures him.

“Yes, he is coming soon to us,” she half whispers, leaning over the old man’s chair. “Or else we are soon going to him. It may mean that, sir. Perhaps it is better that it should.”

“It matters little, child, if he be near, as near he is.”

And sure enough while Mark is telling of the good run he has had, Tom’s fresh voice is heard. Yes! There he was in bodily flesh and blood; thin, sallow, bearded to the eyes, dressed in ragged sailor’s clothes.

Grace uttered a long, soft, half laughing cry, full of the delicious agony of sudden relief; and then slipped from the room past the unheeding Tom, who had no eyes but for his father. Straight up to the old man he went, took both his hands, and spoke in the old, cheerful voice.

“Well, my dear old daddy! I’m afraid I’ve made you very anxious; but it was not my fault; and I knew you would be certain I should come at last, eh?”

“My son! my son!” murmured the old man. “You won’t go away again, dear boy? I’m getting old and forgetful; and I don’t think I could bear it again, you see.”

“Never again, as long as I live, daddy.”

Mark Armsworth burst out blubbering like a great boy.

“I said so! I always said so! The devil could not kill him and God wouldn’t.”

“Tom,” said his father presently, “you have not spoken to Grace yet. She is my daughter now, Tom, and has been these twelve months past.”

“If she is not, she will be soon,” said Tom, quietly. With that he walked straight out of the room to find Grace in the passage.

And Grace lay silent in his arms.

* * * * *

Water-Babies

Charles Kingsley wrote “The Water-Babies, a Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby,” under romantic circumstances. Reminded in 1862 of a promise he had made that “Rose, Maurice, and Mary have got their books, the baby must have his,” Kingsley produced the story about little Tom, which forms the first chapter in “The Water-Babies,” a fairy tale occupying a nook of its own in the literature of fantasy for children. After running serially through “Macmillan’s Magazine,” the “Water-Babies” was published in book form in 1863, dedicated “To my youngest son, and to all other good little boys.” Mrs. Kingsley, in the life of her husband says “that it was perhaps the last book that he wrote with any real ease.” The story, with its irresponsible and whimsical humour, throws an altogether delightful light upon the character of Charles Kingsley–clergyman, lecturer, historian, and social reformer.

_I.–“I Must be Clean!”_

Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, and his name was Tom. He lived in a great town in the North Country where there were plenty of chimneys to sweep and plenty of money for Tom to earn, and his drunken master to spend. He could not read nor write, and did not care to do either; and he never washed himself, for there was no water up the court where he lived. Chimney-sweeping and hunger and beatings, he took all for the way of the world, and when his master let him have a pull at the leavings of his beer Tom was the jolliest boy in the whole town.

One day, Tom’s master, Mr. Grimes, was sent for to sweep all the chimneys at Sir John Harthover’s mansion, Harthover Place.

At four in the morning they passed through the silent town together and along the peaceful country roads to Sir John’s, Mr. Grimes riding the donkey in front and Tom and the brushes walking behind. On the way they came up with an old Irishwoman, limping slowly along and carrying a heavy bundle. She walked along with Tom and asked him many questions about himself, and seemed very sad when he told her that he knew no prayers to say. She told him that she lived far away by the sea; and, how the sea rolled and roared on winter nights and lay still in the bright summer days, for the children to bathe and play in it; and many a story more till Tom longed to go and see the sea and bathe in it likewise.

When, at length, they came to a spring, Grimes got off his donkey, to refresh himself by dipping his head in the water. Because Tom followed his example, his master immediately thrashed him.

“Are you not ashamed of yourself, Thomas Grimes?” said the Irishwoman.

Grimes looked up, startled at her knowing his name; but he answered: “No, nor never was yet,” and went on beating Tom.

“True for you. If you ever had been ashamed of yourself, you would have gone into Vendale long ago.”

“What do you know about Vendale?” shouted Grimes; but he left off beating Tom.

“I know about Vendale and about you, too, and if you strike that boy again I can tell you what I know.”

Grimes seemed quite cowed and got on his donkey without another word.

“Stop!” said the Irishwoman. “I have one more word for you both, for you will see me again. Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be. Remember.”

She turned away into a meadow and disappeared. And Tom and Grimes went on their way. When they came to Harthover Place, the housekeeper turned them into a grand room all covered up in sheets of brown paper. Up the chimney went Tom with a kick from his master.

How many chimneys Tom swept I cannot say; but he swept so many that he got tired, and puzzled too, for they ran into one another so that he fairly lost his way in them. At last he came down. But it was the wrong chimney, and he found himself in a room the like of which he had never seen before. The room was all dressed in white: white window-curtains, white bed-curtains, white furniture, and white walls. There was a washhand-stand, with ewers and basins, and soap and brushes and towels; and a large bath full of clean water. What a heap of things–all for washing!

And then he happened to look towards the bed, and there lay the most beautiful little girl Tom had ever seen. He wondered whether all people were as white as she when they were washed. Thinking of this, he tried to rub some of the soot from his own wrist, and thought, perhaps, he might look better himself if he were clean.

And looking round, he suddenly saw a little ugly black figure with bleared eyes and grinning teeth. And behold, it was himself reflected in the mirror. With tears of shame and anger at the contrast he turned to sneak up the chimney and hide. But in his haste he upset the fire-irons.

Up jumped the little white lady with a scream; in rushed her nurse and made a dash at Tom. But out of the window went he and down a tree and away through the garden and the park into the wood beyond, with the gardener, the groom, the dairymaid, Grimes, the steward, the keeper, Sir John, and the Irishwoman all in hot pursuit.

Through the wood rushed Tom until he came to a wall, where his quick wits enabled him to evade his pursuers–except the Irishwoman, who followed him all the way, although he never knew.

At length he stood on a limestone rock which overhung a valley a thousand feet below, and down there he could see a little stream winding in and out, and by the stream a cottage. It was a dangerous descent, but down went Tom without a moment’s hesitation; sick and giddy, on he went until at last he dropped on the grass and lay there unconscious. But after a time he roused himself and stumbled on to the cottage.

The old dame of the cottage took pity on him and laid him on a bed of sweet hay. But Tom could not rest, and think of the little white lady, he found his way to the river murmuring. “I must be clean! I must be clean!”

And still he had not seen the Irishwoman; in front of him now, for she had stepped into the river just before Tom, and had changed into the most beautiful of fairies underneath the water. For she was, indeed, the Queen of the Water-Fairies, who were all waiting to receive her the moment she came back from the land-world.

Tom was so hot and longed so to be clean for once that he tumbled as quick as he could into the cool stream. And he had not been in it half a minute before he fell into the quietest, coolest sleep that ever he had in his life. The reason of his falling into such a delightful sleep is very simple. It was merely that the fairies took him. In fact, they turned him into a water-baby.

Meanwhile, of course, the chase after Tom had come to an end, although Sir John and his keepers made a second search the next day, for he felt sorry for the little sweep, and was afraid he might have fallen over some of the crags. They found the little fellow’s rags by the side of the stream, and they also discovered his body in the water, and buried it over in Vendale churchyard.

_II.–A Lonely, Mischievous Water-Baby_

Tom was very happy swimming about in the river, although he was now only about four inches long, with a set of external gills, just like those of an eft. There are land-babies, and why not water-babies? Some people tell us that water-babies are contrary to nature, but there are so many things in nature which we don’t expect to find that there may as well be water-babies as not.

He was still as mischievous as any land-baby, and made himself a perfect nuisance to the other creatures of the water, teasing them as they went about their work, until they were all afraid of him, and got out of his way, or crept into their shells; so that he had no one to speak to or to play with.

It was from a dragon-fly that he learned some valuable lessons in good conduct. For all his short sight the dragon-fly had noticed a great many interesting things in nature, about which Tom knew nothing, and of which he heard with wonder. One day he might have been eaten by an otter; but, behold, seven little terrier dogs rushed at the otter, and drove her off, much to Tom’s relief, though he did not guess that these were really water-fairies sent to protect him.

But before the otter had been headed off she had twitted Tom with being only an eft, and told him he would be eaten by the salmon when they came up from the sea–the great wide sea. Tom himself decided he would go down the stream, and discover what the great wide sea was like.

One night Tom noticed a curious light, and heard voices of men coming from the bank of the river.

Soon after a large salmon was speared. Then other men seemed to arrive; there were shouts and scufflings; and then a tremendous splash, and one of the men fell into the river close to Tom. He lay so still that Tom thought the water must have sent him to sleep as it had done him; so he screwed up courage to go and look at him. The moonlight lit up the man’s face, and Tom recognised his old master, Grimes. Suppose he should turn into a water-baby! But he lay quite still at the bottom of the pool, and never went poaching salmon any more.

Every creature in the stream seemed to be hurrying down to the sea, and Tom, being the only water-baby among all the squirming eels and the scores of different things, big and little, he had many strange adventures before he came to the sea. But great was his disappointment to find no water-babies there to play with, though he asked the sea-snails, and the hermit crabs, and the sun-fish, and the bass, and the porpoises. But though one fish told him that he had been helped the previous night by the water-babies, Tom could find no trace of them at all.

Now, one day it befell that on the rocks where Tom was sitting with a lobster there walked the little lady, Ellie, herself, and with her a very wise man, Professor Pttmllnsprts, who was a very great naturalist. He was showing her about one in ten thousand of all the beautiful and curious things that are to be seen among the rocks. Presently, as he groped with his net among the weeds he caught poor Tom.

“Dear me!” he cried, “what a large pink Holothurian. It has actually eyes. Why, it must be a Cephalopod!”

“It is a water-baby,” cried Ellie.

“Water-fiddlesticks, my dear!” said the professor sharply.

Now, Tom was in a most horrible fright, and between fright and rage he turned to bay and bit the professor’s finger.

“Oh! Eh!” cried he, and dropped Tom on to the seaweed, whence he was gone in a moment.

“But it was a water-baby!” cried Ellie. “Ah, it is gone!” And she jumped down off the rock. But she slipped and fell with her head on a sharp rock, and lay quite still.

The professor picked her up and took her home, and she was put to bed. But she would not waken at all, and after a week, one moonlight night the fairies came flying in at the window, and brought her a pair of wings. And she flew away, and nobody heard or saw anything of her for a long while.

_III.–In St. Brandon’s Fairy Isle_

After Tom slipped away into the water again, he could not help thinking of Ellie, and longed to have her to play with, for he had not succeeded in finding any other water-babies. But soon he had something else to think of. One day he helped a lobster caught in a lobster-pot to get free; and then, five minutes after, he came upon a real live water-baby, sitting on the white sand.

And it ran to Tom, and Tom ran to it, and they hugged and kissed each other for ever so long. At last Tom said. “Well, this is wonderful! I have seen things just like you again and again, but I thought you were shells or sea-creatures.”

Now, was not this very odd? So odd, indeed, that you will, no doubt, want to know how it happened, and why Tom could never find a water-baby till after he had got the lobster out of the pot. But if you will read this story nine times over, you will find out why. It is not good for little boys and girls to be told everything and never to be forced to make use of their own wits.

“Now,” said the baby, “come and help me plant this rock which got all its flowers knocked off in the last storm, or I shall not have finished before my brothers and sisters come, and it is now time to go home.”

So they worked away at the rock, and planted it, and smoothed the sand down round it, and capital fun they had till the tide began to turn. And then Tom heard all the other babies coming, laughing and singing and romping; and the noise they made was just like the noise of a ripple.

And in they came, dozens and dozens of them, and when they found that he was a new baby, they hugged and kissed him. And there was no one ever so happy as poor little Tom, and he gaily swam away with them to their home in the caves beneath St. Brandan’s fairy isle. But I wish Tom had given up all his naughty tricks. He would meddle with the creatures, frighten the crabs, and put stones in the anemones’ mouths to make them fancy dinner was coming.

The other children warned him, and said, “Take care what you are at, as Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid is coming on Friday.”

Early one Friday morning this tremendous lady came, indeed. Very ugly Tom thought her, with her green spectacles on a great hooked nose and a big birch rod under her arm. She looked at all the children, and seemed pleased with them, for she gave sea-cakes or sea-lollipops to them all.

At last Tom’s turn came, and she put something in his mouth, and lo! and behold, it was a cold, hard pebble.

“Who put pebbles in the sea-anemones’ mouths to make them fancy they had caught a good dinner? As you did to them, so I must do to you.”

Tom thought her very hard, but she showed him she had to do it because it was her work. She told him, too, that she was the ugliest fairy in the world, and would be until people learned to behave as they should, when she would grow as handsome as her sister, Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby, the loveliest fairy in the world.

Tom tried hard to be good on Saturday; he did not frighten one crab, nor put one pebble into a sea-anemone’s mouth.

Sunday came, and so did Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby. All the children danced round her, for she had the sweetest, merriest face Tom had ever seen.

“He’s the new water-baby,” they informed the fairy. “He never had any mother.”

“Then I will be his mother,” she said, and took him in her arms. And Tom looked up in her face, and loved her, and fell asleep for very love. When he awoke she was telling the children a story.

“Now,” she said to Tom, as she prepared to go, “will you be good, and torment no sea-beasts until I come again?”

Tom promised, and tormented no sea-beasts after that as long as he lived; and he is quite alive, I assure you, still.

_IV.–At the Other-End-of-Nowhere_

Being happy and comfortable does not always mean being good; and so it was with Tom. He had everything he could wish for in St. Brandan’s fairy isle. But now he had grown so fond of lollipops that he could think of nothing else, and longed to go to the cabinet where they were kept. At last he went to take just one; then he had one more, and another, and another, until they were all gone. And all the while Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid stood close behind him, though he neither heard nor saw her.

Tom was very surprised when she came again to see that she had just as many lollipops as before. He thought therefore that she could not know.

But he was very unhappy all that week, and long after it, too. And because his conscience had been pricking him inside, his outside grew horny and prickly as well, until he could bear it no longer, and told Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid all about it, and asked her to take away the prickles. But she told him only he could do that, that he must go to school, and she would fetch him a schoolmistress.

Soon she returned with the most beautiful little girl that was ever seen. Tom begged her to show him how to be good, and get rid of his prickles. So she began, and taught him every day except on Sunday, when she went away. In a short time all Tom’s prickles had disappeared. Then the little girl knew him, she said, for the little chimney-sweep who had come into the bedroom.

“And I know you,” said Tom; “you are the little white lady I saw in bed.” And then they began telling each other all their story. And then they set to work at their lessons again, and both liked them so well that they went on till seven full years were past and gone.

Tom began to be very curious to know where Ellie went on Sundays, and why he could not go, too.

“Those who go there,” said Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, “must first learn to go where they do not want to go, and to help someone they do not like.”

And Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby said the same. Tom was very unhappy now. He knew the fairy wanted him to go and help Grimes; he did not want to go, and was ashamed of himself for not going. But just when he was feeling most discontented Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid encouraged him until he was quite anxious to seek for Grimes.

“Mr. Grimes is now at the Other-end-of-Nowhere,” said the fairy. “To get there you must go to Shiny Wall, and through the White Gate which has never yet been opened. You will then be at Peacepool, where you will find Mother Carey, who will direct you to the Other-end-of-Nowhere.”

Tom immediately set out to find his way to Shiny Wall, asking the way of all the birds and beasts he met. He at length received help from the petrels, who are Mother Carey’s chickens, and so reached Shiny Wall. He was dismayed to find that there was no gate, but taking the birds’ advice, he dived underneath the wall, and went along the bottom of the sea for seven days and seven nights, until he arrived in Peacepool. There sat Mother Carey, a marble lady on a marble throne–motionless, restful, gazing down into the depths of the sea.

Following Mother Carey’s directions, Tom at length arrived at the Other-end-of-Nowhere, after meeting with many strange adventures. He had not long arrived in this strange land when he was overtaken by several policemen’s truncheons, one of which conducted him to the prison where Grimes was quartered. Here, on the roof, his head and shoulders just showing above the top of chimney No. 343, was poor Mr. Grimes, with a pipe that would not draw.

He thought Tom had simply come to laugh at him until he assured him that he had only come to help. Suddenly Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid appeared. She reminded Grimes that he was only suffering now what he had inflicted on Tom. She told him, too, how his mother had gone to heaven, and would no more weep for him. Gradually Grimes’s heart softened, and when Tom described her kindness to him at Vendale, Grimes wept. Then his tears did for him what his mother’s could not do, for as they fell they washed the soot off his face and his clothes, and loosened the mortar from the bricks of the chimney.

“Will you obey me if I give you a chance?” said Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid.

“As you please, ma’am. For I’m beat, and that’s the truth,” said he.

“Be it so, then–you may come out. But remember, disobey me again, and into a worse place still you will go.”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am, but I never disobeyed you that I know of. I never set eyes upon you until I came to these ugly quarters.”

“Never saw me? Who said ‘Those that will be foul, foul they will be’?”

Grimes looked up, and Tom looked up, too; for the voice was that of the Irishwoman who met them the day they went out together to Harthover. She ordered Grimes to march off in the custody of the truncheon, who was to see that he devoted himself to the considerable task of sweeping out the crater of Etna.

Tom went back to St. Brandan’s Isle, and there found Ellie–grown into a beautiful woman. And he looked at her, and she looked at him; and they liked the employment so much that they stood and looked for seven years more, and neither spoke nor stirred.

At last they heard the fairy say, “Attention, children! Are you never going to look at me again?”

They looked, and both of them cried out at once: “You are our dear Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby! No, you are good Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid; but you are grown quite beautiful now.”

“To you,” she said. “But look again.”

“You are Mother Carey,” said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice. For he had found out something which made him very happy, and yet frightened him more than all that he had ever seen.

And when they looked again she was neither of them, and yet all of them at once.

“My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there.”

And her eyes flashed, for one moment, clear, white, blazing light; but the children could not read her name, for they were dazzled, and hid their faces in their hands.

“Not yet, young things, not yet,” said she, smiling. And then she turned to Ellie.

“You may take him home with you on Sundays, Ellie. He has won his spurs in the great battle, and become fit to be a man; because he has done the thing he did not like.”

* * * * *

Westward Ho!

“Westward Ho!” was published in 1855, and, on the whole, may be accepted as the most popular of all Charles Kingsley’s novels. It is a story full of the life and stir of Elizabethan England, and its heroes and heroines are the stout-hearted Devonshire people whom Kingsley knew and loved so well. Like most historical romances, “Westward Ho!” must not be accepted as history, in spite of the fact that its author was Regius Professor of History at Cambridge. Kingsley’s whole-hearted and entirely creditable patriotism and his intense devotion to the established Church of England prevented his doing justice to Spain or looking with sympathy on Roman Catholicism. (See Newman, Vol. XIII.) Kingsley never could refrain from preaching his own convictions, and while this often interfered with the art of the novelist, it gave a note of sincerity to all his work, and warmth and colour to his style.

_I.–How Amyas Came Home the First Time_

One bright summer’s afternoon in the year 1575 a tall and fair boy came lingering along Bideford Quay, in his scholar’s gown, with satchel and slate in hand, watching wistfully the shipping and the sailors, till, just after he had passed the bottom of the High Street, he came to a group of sailors listening earnestly to someone who stood in the midst. The boy, all alive for any sea news, must needs go up to them, and so came in for the following speech, delivered in a loud, bold voice, with a strong Devonshire accent.

“I tell you, as I, John Oxenham, am a gentleman, I saw it with these eyes, and so did Salvation Yeo there; and we measured the heap, seventy foot long, ten foot broad, and twelve foot high, of silver bars, and each bar between a thirty and forty pound weight. Come along! Who lists? Who lists? Who’ll make his fortune?”

“Who’ll list?” cried a tall, gaunt man, whom the other had called Salvation Yeo. “Now’s your time! We’ve got forty men to Plymouth now, ready to sail the minute we get back; and we want a dozen out of you Bideford men, and just a boy or two, and then we’m off and away, and make our fortunes or go to heaven.”

Then the gaunt man pulled from under his arm a great white buffalo horn, covered with rough etchings of land and sea.

The horn was passed from hand to hand, and the schoolboy got a nearer sight of the marvel. To his astonished gaze displayed themselves cities and harbours, plate ships of Spain, and islands with apes and palm-trees, and here and there over-written: “Here is gold,” and again, “Much gold and silver.” The boy turned it round and round, anxious to possess this wonderful horn. And Oxenham asked him why he was so keen after it.

“Because,” said he, looking up boldly, “I want to go to sea. I want to see the Indies. I want to fight the Spaniards.” And the lad, having hurried out his say, dropped his head.

“And you shall,” cried Oxenham. “Whose son are you, my gallant fellow?”

“Mr. Leigh’s, of Burrough Court.”

“Bless his soul! I know him as well as I do the Eddystone. Tell your father John Oxenham will come and keep him company.”

The boy, Amyas Leigh, took his way homewards, and that night John Oxenham dined at Burrough Court; but failed to get Mr. Leigh’s leave to take young Amyas with him, nor did Sir Richard Grenville, the boy’s godfather, who was also at dinner, help him with his suit.

But somewhat more than a twelvemonth later, Mr. Leigh, going down on business to Exeter Assizes, caught–as was too common in those days–the gaol-fever from the prisoners, sickened in the very court, and died within a week.

“You must be my father now, sir,” said young Amyas firmly to Sir Richard Grenville, on the day after the funeral.

And shortly afterwards, Amyas having broken his slate on the head of Vindex Brimblecombe, Sir Richard thought it well to go up to Burrough. And, after much talk and many tears, matters were so concluded that Amyas Leigh found himself riding joyfully towards Plymouth, and being handed over to Captain Drake, vanished for three years from the good town of Bideford.

And now he is returned in triumph, and the observed of all observers.

The bells of Bideford church cannot help breaking forth into a jocund peal. Bideford streets are a very flower-garden of all the colours, swarming with seamen and burghers and burghers’ wives and daughters, all in their holiday attire. Garlands are hung across the streets and tapestries from every window. Every stable is crammed with horses, and Sir Richard Grenville’s house is like a very tavern. Along the little churchyard streams all the gentle blood of North Devon, and on into the church, where all are placed according to their degrees, not without shovings and whisperings from one high-born matron and another. At last there is a silence, and a looking toward the door, and then distant music which comes braying and screaming up to the very church doors. Why are all eyes fixed on those four weather-beaten mariners, decked out with knots and ribbons by loving hands? And yet more on that gigantic figure who walks before them, a beardless boy, and yet with the frame and stature of a Hercules, towering, like Saul of old, a head and shoulders above all the congregation? And why, as the five fall on their knees before the altar rails, are all eyes turned to the pew where Mrs. Leigh, of Burrough, has hid her face between her hands, and her hood rustles and shakes to her joyful sobs? Because there was fellow-feeling of old in country and in town. And these are Devon men, and men of Bideford; and they, the first of all English mariners, have sailed round the world with Francis Drake, and are come to give God thanks.

_II.–The Brotherhood of the Rose_

It was during the three years of Amyas’s absence that Rose Salterne, the motherless daughter of that honest merchant, the Mayor of Bideford, had grown into so beautiful a girl of eighteen that half North Devon was mad about the “Rose of Torridge,” as she was called. There was not a young gallant for ten miles round who would not have gone to Jerusalem to win her, and not a week passed but some nosegay or languishing sonnet was conveyed into the Rose’s chamber, all of which she stowed away with the simplicity of a country girl.

Frank Leigh, Amyas’s elder brother, who had won himself honour at home and abroad, and was the friend of Sir Philip Sidney and in favour at the court of Queen Elizabeth, fell as deeply in love with the Rose when he came home to rejoice over the return of Amyas as any young squire of the county.

When the time came for him to set off again for London and for Amyas to join the queen’s forces in Ireland, where war was now raging, Frank and Amyas concocted a scheme which was put into effect the next day–first by the innkeeper of the Ship Tavern, who began, under Amyas’s orders, a bustle of roasting and boiling; and next by Amyas himself, who invited as many of his old schoolfellows as Frank had pointed out to him to a merry supper; by which crafty scheme in came each of Rose Salteme’s gentle admirers and found himself seated at the table with six rivals.

When the cloth was drawn, and sack and sugar became the order of the day, and the queen’s health had been duly drunk with all the honours, Frank rose.

“And now, gentlemen, let me give you a health which none of you, I dare say, will refuse to drink with heart and soul as well as with lips–the health of one whom beauty and virtue have so ennobled that in their light the shadow of lowly birth is unseen–the health of ‘The Rose of Torridge,’ and a double health to that worthy gentleman, whosoever he may be, whom she is fated to honour with her love.”

Whereupon young Will Cary, of Clovelly Court, calls out, “Join hands all round, and swear eternal friendship, as brothers of the sacred order of the–of what, Frank Leigh?”

“The Rose!” said Frank, quietly.

And somehow or other, whether it was Frank’s chivalrous speech, or Cary’s fun, or Amyas’s good wine, or the nobleness which lies in every young lad’s heart, the whole party shook hands all round, and vowed on the hilt of Amyas’s sword to stand by each other and by their lady-love, and neither grudge nor grumble, let her dance with, flirt with, or marry with whom she would; and, in order that the honour of their peerless dame and the brotherhood which was named after her might be spread through all lands, they would go home, and ask their fathers’ leave to go abroad wheresoever there were “good wars.”

Then Amyas, hearing a sneeze, made a dash at the arras behind him, and, finding a doorway there, speedily returned, dragging out Mr. John Brimblecombe, the stout, dark-skinned son of the schoolmaster.

Jack Brimblecombe, now one-and-twenty and a bachelor of Oxford, was in person exceedingly like a pig; but he was a pig of self-helpful and serene spirit, always, while watching for the best, contented with the worst, and therefore fattening fast while other pigs’ ribs stare through their skins.

He had lingered in the passage, hovering around the fragrant smell; and, once there he could not help hearing what passed inside, till Rose Salterne’s name fell on his ear. And now behold him brought in red-handed to judgment, not without a kick or two from the wrathful foot of Amyas Leigh.

“What business have I here?” said Jack, making answer fiercely, amid much puffing and blowing. “As much as any of you. If you had asked me in I would have come. You laugh at me because I’m a poor parson’s son, and you fine gentlemen. God made us both, I reckon. I tell you I’ve loved her these three years as well as e’er a one of you, I have. Make me one of your brotherhood, and see if I do not dare to suffer as much as any of you! Let me but be your chaplain, and pray for your luck when you’re at the wars. If I do stay at home in a country curacy, ’tis not much that you need be jealous of me with her, I reckon.”

So, presently, after a certain mock ceremonial of initiation, Jack Brimblecombe was declared, on the word of Frank Leigh, admitted to the brotherhood, and was sent home with a pint of good red Alicant wine in him, while the rest had a right merry evening. After which they all departed–Amyas and Cary to Ireland, Frank to the court again. And so the Brotherhood of the Rose was scattered, and Mistress Salterne was left alone with her looking-glass.

_III.–The Good Ship Rose_

When Amyas was in Ireland he made captive a certain Spanish grandee, Don Guzman, and sent him to Sir Richard Grenville to be held at ransom. And then, the Irish being for the time subdued, Amyas sailed with Sir Humphrey Gilbert on that ill-fated voyage to Newfoundland, and returned in rags, landing at Plymouth, where he learnt news of Bideford.

Mrs. Hawkins, wife of John Hawkins the port admiral, gave him supper, and then told him that the Spanish prisoner had “gone off, the villain.”

“Without paying his ransom?”

“I can’t say that, but there’s a poor, innocent young maid gone off with him, one Salterne’s daughter.”

“Rose Salterne, the mayor’s daughter, the Rose of Torridge?”

“That’s her. Bless your dear soul, what ails you?”

Amyas had dropped back in his seat as if he had been shot; but he recovered himself, and next morning started for Bideford.

The story was true. Don Guzman had been made governor of La Guayra, in the West Indies, and his ransom had been paid. But he had fallen in love with the Rose, and the girl, driven, some said, by the over-harshness of her father, who loved his daughter and knew not how to manage her, had willingly escaped with him.

Amyas called on Salterne, and the old burgher besought him to go in pursuit of the Spaniard, and promised he would spend any money that was needed to fit out a ship to avenge his child. And Amyas heard that honest John Brimblecombe, now a parson, mindful of his oath to the brotherhood, was longing to seek the Rose, though it might be in the jaws of death. Will Cary, too, was for a voyage to the Indies to cut the throat of Don Guzman.

Then Mrs. Leigh and Frank, her first-born, getting permission to leave the court, both consented to the voyage, and Frank would go too. Old Salterne grumbled at any man save himself spending a penny on the voyage, and forced on the adventurers a good ship of two hundred tons burden, and five hundred pounds towards fitting her out; Mrs. Leigh worked day and night at clothes and comforts of every kind; Amyas gave his time and his brains. Cary went about beating up recruits; while John Brimblecombe preached a fierce crusade against the Spaniards, and Frank grew more and more proud of his brother.

Old Salvation Yeo, who was now in Bideford, again brought twenty good men from Plymouth who had sailed with Drake.

And now November 15, 1583, has come, and the tall ship Rose, with a hundred men on board, and food in abundance, has dropped down from Bideford Quay to Appledore Pool. She is well-fitted with cannon and muskets and swords, and all agreed so well-appointed a ship had never sailed “out over Bar.”

Mrs. Leigh went to the rocky knoll outside the churchyard wall and watched the ship glide out between the yellow dunes, and lessen slowly hour by hour into the boundless west, till her hull sank below the dim horizon, and her white sails faded away into the grey Atlantic mist.

And the good ship Rose went westward ho! and came in due time to La Guayra in the Indies, the highest cliff on earth, some seven thousand feet of rock parted from the sea by a narrow strip of bright green lowland. Amyas and his company are at last in full sight of the spot in quest of which they have sailed four thousand miles of sea. Beyond the town, two or three hundred feet up the steep mountain side, is a large white house, with a royal flag of Spain flaunting before it. That must be the governor’s house; that must be the abode of the Rose of Torridge. There are ships of war in the landing-place.

Amyas’s plan was to wait till midnight, attack the town on the west, plunder the government storehouses, and then fight their way back to their boats. To reach the governor’s house seemed impossible with the small force at their disposal.

But Frank would not have their going away without doing the very thing for which they came.

“I will go up to that house, Amyas, and speak with her!” he said.

Then Amyas, Cary, and Brimblecombe drew lots as to which of them should accompany him, and the lot fell upon Amyas Leigh.

At midnight Amyas went on deck, and asked for six volunteers. Whosoever would come should have double prize money.

“Why six only, captain?” said an old seaman. “Give the word, and any and all of us will go up with you, sack the house, and bring off the treasure and the lady before two hours are out!”

“No, no, my brave lads! As for treasure, it is sure to have been put all safe into the forts; and, as for the lady, God forbid that we should force her a step without her own will.”

The boat with Frank, Amyas, and the six seamen reached the pebble beach. There seemed no difficulty about finding the path to the house, so bright was the moon. Leaving the men with the boat, they started up the beach, with their swords only.

“She may expect us,” whispered Frank. “She may have seen our ship, and some secret sympathy will draw her down towards the sea to-night.”

They found the path, which wound in zig-zags up the steep, rocky slope, easily. It ended at a wicket-gate, and they found the gate was open when they tried it.

“What is your plan?” said Amyas.

“I have none. I go where I am called–love’s willing victim.”

Amyas was at his wits’ end. A light was burning in a window on the upper story; twenty black figures lay sleeping on the terrace.

Frank saw the shadow of the Rose against the window. She came down, and he made a wild appeal to her.

“Your conscience! Your religion–“

“No, never! I can face the chance of death, but not the loss of my husband. Go! For God’s sake leave me!”

Frank turned, and Amyas dragged him down the hill. Both were too proud to run, but the whole gang of negroes were in pursuit, and stones were flying.

They were not twenty-five yards from the boat, when the storm burst and a volley of great quartz pebbles whistled round their heads. Frank is struck, and Amyas takes him over his shoulders and plunges wildly on towards the beach.

“Men, to the rescue!” Amyas shouts. “Fire, men! Give it the black villains!”

The arquebuses crackled from the boat in front, but, balls are answering from behind. The governor’s guard have turned out, followed them to the beach, and are firing over the negroes’ heads.

Amyas is up to his knees in water, battered with stones, blinded with blood; but Frank is still in his arms. Another heavy blow–confused mass of negroes and English, foam and pebbles–a confused roar of shouts, shots, curses, and he recollects no more.

He is lying in the stern-sheets of the boat, stiff and weak. Two men only are left of the six, and Frank is not in the boat. With weary work they made the ship, and as, the alarm being now given, it was hardly safe to remain where they were, it was agreed to weigh anchor. Amyas had no hope that Frank might still be alive. So ended that fatal venture of mistaken chivalry.

_IV.–Amyas Comes Home for the Third Time_

More than three years have passed since the Rose sailed out from Bideford, and never a word has reached England of what has befallen the ship and her company.

Many have been the adventures of Amyas and the men who have followed him. Treasure they have got in South America, and old Salvation Yeo has found a young girl whom he had lost twelve years before, grown up wild among the Indians. Ayacanora she is called, and she is white, for her father was an Englishman and her mother Spanish, for all her savage ways; and will not be separated from her discoverers, but insists on going with them to England. And Amyas has learnt that his brother Frank was burnt by order of the Inquisition, and with him Rose, and that Don Guzman had resigned the governorship of La Guayra.

Amyas swore a dreadful oath before all his men when he was told of the death of Frank and Rose, that as long as he had eyes to see a Spaniard and hands to hew him down he would give no quarter to that accursed nation, and that he would avenge all the innocent blood shed by them.

And now it is February, 1587, and Mrs. Leigh, grown grey and feeble in step, is pacing up and down the terrace walk at Burrough. A flash is seen in the fast darkening twilight, and then comes the thunder of a gun at sea. Twenty minutes later, and a ship has turned up the Bideford river, and a cheer goes up from her crew.

Yes, Amyas has come, and with him Will Cary and the honest parson, Jack Brimblecombe, and the good seamen of Devon; and Ayacanora, who knelt down obedient before Mrs. Leigh because she had seen Amyas kneel, and whom Mrs. Leigh took by the hand and led to Bur-rough Court.

William Salterne would take none of his share of the treasure which was brought home, and which he had a just claim to.

“The treasure is yours, sir,” he said to Amyas. “I have enough, and more than enough. And if I have a claim in law for aught, which I know not, neither shall ever ask–why, if you are not too proud, accept that claim as a plain burgher’s thank-offering to you, sir, for a great and a noble love which you and your brother have shown to one who, though I say it to my shame, was not worthy thereof.”

That night old Salterne was found dead, kneeling by his daughter’s bed. His will lay by him. Any money due to him as owner of the Rose, and a new barque of 300 tons burden, he had bequeathed to Captain Amyas Leigh, on condition that he should re-christen that barque the Vengeance, and with her sail once more against the Spaniard.

In the summer of 1588 comes the great Armada, and Captain Leigh has the Vengeance fitted out for war, and is in the English Channel. He has found out that Don Guzman is on board the Santa Catherina, and is set on taking his revenge.

For twelve months past this hatred of Don Guzman has been eating out his heart, and now the hour has struck. But the Armada melts away in the storms of the North Sea, and Captain Leigh has pursued the Santa Catherina round the Orkneys and down to Lundy Island. And there, on the rock called the Shutter, the Santa Catherina strikes, and then vanishes for ever and ever.

“Shame!” cried Amyas, hurling his sword far into the sea, “to lose my right, when it was in my very grasp!”

A crack which rent the sky, a bright world of flame, and then a blank of utter darkness. The great proud sea captain has been struck blind by the flash of lightning.

* * * * *

Once more Amyas Leigh has come home. His work is over, his hatred dead. And Ayacanora will comfort him.

“Amyas, my son,” said Mrs. Leigh, “fear not to take her to your heart, for it is your mother who has laid her there!”

“It is true, after all,” said Amyas to himself. “What God has joined together, man cannot put asunder.”

* * * * *

HENRY KINGSLEY

Geoffry Hamlyn

Henry Kingsley, younger brother of Charles Kingsley, was born at Barnack, Northamptonshire, England, Jan. 2, 1830. Leaving Worcester College, Oxford, in 1853, he, with a number of fellow-students, emigrated to the Australian goldfields. After some five years of unremunerative toil he returned to England, poor in pocket, but possessing sufficient knowledge of life to justify his adoption of a literary career. His first attempt, and perhaps his most successful, was “The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn,” published in 1859, which was based largely on his own experiences in Australia. From that time until his death on May 24, 1876, some nineteen stories flowed in quick succession from his pen, none of them, however, reaching the high standard of his first two–“Geoffry Hamlyn” and “Ravenshoe.” In 1869 Kingsley became editor of the Edinburgh “Daily Review,” and on the outbreak of the Franco-German War represented that paper at the front. He was present at the battle of Sedan, and was the first Englishman to enter the town afterwards.

_I.–In a Devonshire Village_

The twilight of a winter’s evening was fast falling into night, and old John Thornton sat dozing by the fire. His face looked worn and aged, and anyone might see the old man was unhappy.

What could there be to vex him? Not poverty, at all events, for not a year ago a relation had left him L5,000, and a like sum to his daughter, Mary. And his sister–a quiet, good old maid–had come to live with him, so that now he was comfortably off, and had with him the only two relations he cared about to make his old age happy. His daughter Mary–a beautiful girl, merry, impetuous, and thoughtless–was standing at the window.

The white gate swings on its hinges, and a tall man comes, with rapid, eager steps, up the walk. The maid, bringing in candles, announces: “Mr. George Hawker!”

As the light fell on him, any man or woman might have exclaimed instantly, and with justice, “What a handsome fellow!” Handsome he was, without doubt, and yet the more you looked at him the less you liked him. The thin lips, the everlasting smile, the quick, suspicious glance were fearfully repulsive. He was the only son of a small farmer in one of the outlying hamlets of Drumston. His mother had died when he was very young, and he had had little education, and strange stories were in circulation about that lonely farmhouse, not much to the credit of father or son; which stories John Thornton must, in his position of clergyman, have heard somewhat of; so that one need hardly wonder at his uneasiness when he saw him enter.

For Mary Thornton adored him. The rest of the village disliked and mistrusted him; but she, with a strange perversity, loved him with her whole heart and soul. After a few words, the lovers were whispering in the window.

Presently the gate goes again, and another footfall is heard approaching.

That is James Stockbridge. I should know that step in a thousand. As he entered the parlour, John’s face grew bright, and he held out his hand to him; but he got rather a cool reception from the pair at the window.

Old John and he were as father and son, and sat there before the cheerful blaze smoking their pipes.

“How are your Southdowns looking, Jim?” says the vicar. “How is Scapegrace Hamlyn?”

“He is very well, sir. He and I are thinking of selling up and going to New South Wales.”

The vicar was “knocked all of a heap” at Jim’s announcement; but, recovering a little, said, “You hear him? He is going to sell his estate–250 acres of the best land in Devon–and go and live among the convicts. And who is going with him? Hamlyn, the wise! Oh, dear me! And what is he going for?”

That was a question apparently hard to answer. Yet I think the real cause was standing there, with a look of unbounded astonishment upon her pretty face.

“Going to leave us, James!” she cried. “Why, whatever shall I do without you?”

“Yes, Miss Mary,” said James huskily. “I think I may say we’ve settled to go. Hamlyn has got a letter from a cousin of his, who is making a fortune; and besides, I’ve got tired of the old place somehow lately.”

Time went on, and May was well advanced. That had at last reached the vicar’s ears which had driven him to risk a quarrel with his daughter and forbid George Hawker the house.

George went home one evening and found Madge, the gipsy woman who had brought him up, sitting before the kitchen fire.

“Well, old woman, where’s the old man?”

“Away at Colyton fair,” she answered.

“I hope he’ll have the sense to stay there to-night He’ll fall off his horse, coming home drunk one night, and be found dead in a ditch.”

“Good thing for you if he was.”

“Maybe,” said George; “but I’d be sorry for him, too.”

“He’s been a good father to you, George, and I like you for speaking up for him. He’s an awful old rascal, my boy, but you’ll be a worse if you live.”

“Now stop that, Madge! I want your help, old girl.”

“Ay, and you’ll get it, my pretty boy. Bend over the fire, and whisper in my ear, lad.”

“Madge, old girl,” he whispered, “I’ve wrote the old man’s name where I oughtn’t to have done.”

“What, again!” she answered. “Three times! For God’s sake, George, mind what you’re at! Why, you must be mad! What’s this last?”

“Why, the five hundred. I only did it twice.”

“You mustn’t do it again, George. He likes you best of anything next his money, and sometimes I think he wouldn’t spare you if he knew he’d been robbed. You might make yourself safe for any storm if you liked.”

“How?”

“Marry that little doll Thornton, and get her money.”

“Well,” said George, “I am pushing that on. The old man won’t come round, and I want her to go off with me; but she can’t get up her courage yet.”

But in a few days Mary had consented. They had left the village at midnight, and were married in London. Within a year George Hawker had spent all his wife’s money, and had told her to her face he was tired of her. He fell from bad to worse, and finally becoming the ally of a coiner, was arrested and transported for life.

Mary Hawker, with a baby, tramped her way home to the village she had left.

_II.–A General Exodus_

The vicar had only slowly recovered from the fit in which he had fallen on the morning of Mary’s departure, to find himself hopelessly paralytic. When Mary’s letter, written just after her marriage, came, it was a great relief. They had kept from him all knowledge of George Hawker’s forgery, which had been communicated to them by Major Buckley, old John Thornton’s very good friend and near neighbour.

But George’ Hawker burnt the loving letters they wrote in reply, and Mary remained under the impression that they had cast her off. So when, one bright Sunday morning, old Miss Thornton found a poor woman sitting on the doorstep, Mary rose, prepared to ask forgiveness. Her aunt rushed forward wildly, and hugged her to her honest heart.

When they were quieted, Miss Thornton went up to tell the vicar. The poor old man was far gone beyond feeling joy or grief to any great extent. Mary, looking in, saw he was so altered she hardly knew him.

The good news soon got up to Major Buckley’s, and he was seen striding up the path, leading the pony carrying his wife and child. While they were still busy welcoming Mary came a ring at the door. Who but her cousin, Tom Troubridge? Who else was there to raise her four good feet from the floor and call her his darling little sister?

This was her welcome home–to the home she had dreaded to come to, where she had meant to come only as a penitent, to leave her child and go forth to die.

After dinner, Mrs. Buckley told Mary all the news, how her husband had heard from Stockbridge, how he and Hamlyn were so flourishing, and had written such an account of the country that Major Buckley, half persuaded before, had now made up his mind to go there himself, and Tom Troubridge was much inclined to go too. Mary was sad to think of losing them all so soon, but Mrs. Buckley pointed out her father’s state gently to her, and asked her to think what she would do when he was gone. Miss Thornton said she had made up her mind to go wherever Mary went, if it were to the other end of the earth.

Scarcely more than a week had passed when another messenger came to old John Thornton, and one so peremptory that he rose and followed it in the dead of night.

It was two months yet before the major intended to sail, and long before they had passed Mary and Miss Thornton had determined to cast in their lot with the others, and cross the sea towards a more hopeful land.

_III.–The New World_

A new heaven, and a new earth. All creation is new and strange. The trees, the graceful shrubs, the bright-coloured flowers, ay, the very grass itself, are of species unknown in Europe, while flaming lories and brilliant paroquets fly whistling through the gloomy forest, and overhead countless cockatoos wheel and scream in noisy joy, as we may see the gulls do in England.

We are in Australia, three hundred and fifty miles south of Sydney, on the great watershed which divides the Belloury from the Maryburnong.

As the sun was going down, James Stockbridge and I, Geoffry Hamlyn, reined up our horses and gazed down the long gully at our feet. For five days we had been passing from run to run, making inquiries about some cattle we had lost, and were now fifty long miles from home.

At this time Stockbridge and I had been settled in our new home about two years, and were beginning to get comfortable and settled. We had had but little trouble with the blacks, and having taken possession of a fine piece of country, were flourishing and well-to-do. I dismounted to set right some strap or other, and stood looking at the prospect, glad to ease my legs for a time, cramped with many hours’ riding.

Stockbridge sat immovable and silent as a statue, and I saw that his heart travelled farther than his eye could reach.

“Jim,” said I, “I wonder what is going on at Drumston now?”

“I wonder,” he said softly.

“Jim,” I began again, “do you ever think of poor little Mary now?”

“Yes, old boy, I do,” he replied. “I was thinking of her then–I am always thinking of her. I wonder if she married that fellow Hawker?”

“I fear there’s but little doubt of it,” I said. “Try to forget her, James; you’ll make all your life unhappy if you don’t.”

He laughed.

“That’s all very well, Jeff, but it’s easier said than done. Do you hear that? There are cattle down the gully!”

There was some noise in the air beside the evening rustle of the south wind among the tree-tops. Now it sounded like a far-off hubbub of waters, now swelled up harmonious, like the booming of cathedral bells across some rich old English valley on a still summer’s afternoon.

“I’ll tell you what I think it is, old Jeff; it’s some new chums going to cross the watershed, and look for new country to the south. Let us go down to meet them; they will come down by the river yonder.”

All doubt about what the newcomers were was solved before we reached the river; so we sat and watched the scene so venerable and ancient–the patriarchs moving into the desert, to find new pasture-ground.

First came the cattle lowing loudly, then horsemen, six or seven in number, and last, four drays came crawling up the pass.

Suddenly James dashed forward with a shout, and when I came up with him, wondering, I found myself shaking hands, talking and laughing, with Major Buckley and Tom Troubridge.

They told us all the news as we rode with them to the drays, where sat Mrs. Buckley,–a noble, happy matron, laughing at her son, as he toddled about busy gathering sticks for the fire. Beside her sat Mary, looking sad and worn, with her child on her lap, and poor old Miss Thornton, glancing uneasily round.

Mary sprang up, burst into hysterical weeping. I saw how his big heart yearned to comfort his old sweetheart in her distress, as he took the child of his rival to his bosom.

“Is nobody going to notice me or my boy, I wonder?” said Mrs. Buckley. “Come here immediately, Mr. Stockbridge, before we quarrel.”

Soon we were all restored to our equanimity, and laying plans for future meetings.

Next morning, with many hearty farewells, and having promised to spend Christmastide with them, I turned my horse homewards, and went my solitary way. Jim was going on with them to see them settled.

_IV.–Father and Son_

There is a long period of dull prosperity coming to our friends. Go on two years. See Baroona, the Buckley’s place, now. That hut where we spent the pleasant Christmas-day is degraded into the kitchen, for a new house is built–a long, low house, with deep, cool verandas all round, already festooned with passion flowers, and young grape-vines.

Mary and Miss Thornton had stayed with the Buckleys till good Cousin Tom had got a house ready for them–a charming house covered with creepers, and backed by huts, sheep-yards, and all the usual concomitants of a flourishing Australian sheep-station. This is Toonarbin, where Mary Hawker is living with her son Charles as happy and uninteresting an existence as ever fell to the lot of a handsome woman yet. The old dark days seem like a bad dream. She had heard of her husband’s re-conviction and life sentence–finally death, and George Hawker is as one who has never lived.

So sixteen years rolled peacefully away, until Tom Troubridge returned from a journey up country with news of a great gang of bushrangers being “out.” He had actually sat hob-nob with the captain in a public house, without knowing it. But his servant, William Lee, an ex-convict, knew him, and told them that the great Captain Tonan, with whose crimes the whole country was ringing, was George Hawker himself. Mary’s terrible fear that father and son might meet made her ill and delirious for weeks; Tom and his trusty servant kept watch, then heard from a passing cattle-dealer that the gang had been “utterly obliterated” by Captain Desborough, the chief of police–but the captain had escaped.

Things went on quietly for two months, and no one thought about bushrangers–but Mary, at her watch up at the lonely forest station– till one morning Lee’s body was found dead in his hut, with a pistol lying near with “G. Hawker” scratched upon it. A messenger was sent post haste to fetch Desborough and his troopers, who came, declared the country in a state of siege, and kept us all staying at Major Buckley’s.

We were sitting merrily over our wine one day, when hasty steps came through the house. The bushrangers had attacked a station not far off, killed the owner, and were now riding towards Captain Brentford’s, the major’s nearest neighbour and old friend. Captain Desborough rose with deadly wrath in his face. The laughing Irishman was gone, and a stern, gloomy man stood in his place. But the villains had done their work of destruction before we reached Garoopm, and gone off to the mountains.

“We shall have them in the morning,” said Desborough. “More particularly as they have in their drunken madness hampered themselves in the mountains.”

We started before daybreak; each man of us armed with swords and pistols, and every man knew the use of his weapons well.

As we entered the mouth of the glen to which we were bound, one of the most beautiful gullies I have ever seen, I turned to the man beside me. Conceive my horror at finding it was Charles Hawker! I said fiercely, “Get back, Charles! Go home! You don’t know what you’re doing, lad.”

He defied me. I was speaking to him again when there came a puff of smoke from the rocks overhead, and down I went, head over heels. A bullet grazed my thigh, and killed my horse; so that during the fight that followed, I was sitting on a rock very sick and very stupid.

“They’ve set a watch,” said Captain Desborough. “They’ll fight us now; they can’t help it, thank God!”

Then, under the beetling crags, the bushrangers turned like hunted wolves, and stood at bay. Now the fight became general and confused. All about among the ferns and flowers men fought, and fired, and cursed. Shots were cracking on all sides, and two riderless horses were galloping about neighing.

Desborough fought neither against small nor great, but only against one man–George Hawker. Him he had sworn he would bring home, alive or dead. He caught sight of his quarry, and instantly made towards him. As soon as Hawker saw he was recognised, he made to the left, trying to reach the only practicable way back to the mountains. They fired at one another without effect. As the ground got more open, Desborough was aware of one who came charging recklessly up alongside of him, and recognised Charley Hawker. He had had no hint of the relationship.

“Good lad,” he said; “come on. I must have that fellow before us. He’s the arch-devil of the lot. We must have him!”

“We’ll have him safe enough!” said Charles. “Push to the left, captain, and we shall get him among these fallen rocks.”

They pushed forwards, and soon succeeded in bringing him to bay. Alas, too well!

He reined up when he saw escape was impossible, and awaited their coming. Desborough’s horse received a bullet in the chest, and down went horse and man together. But Charles pushed on till within ten yards of the bushranger, and levelled his pistol to fire.

For an instant father and son glared on one another as the father made his aim more deadly. The bullet sped, and the poor boy tumbled from his saddle, clutching wildly at the grass and flowers–shot through the chest. Then, ere Desborough had disentangled himself from his fallen horse, George Hawker rode off laughing–out through the upper rock walls into the presence of the broad snow-line that rolled above his head in endless lofty tiers, and made for the broader valley which stretched beyond.

There was no pursuit, he thought. How could there be? Who knew of this route but he and his mates? No creature was stirring, but he must onwards–onwards, across the snow. Twilight, and then night, and still the snow but half passed. Strange ghosts and fancies crowd in upon him thick and fast.

Morning, and the pale ghosts have departed. He reached the gully where his refuge lay, utterly dispirited, just as the sun was setting. He turned a sharp angle round an abrupt cliff. He saw a horseman within ten yards of him–Captain Desborough, holding a pistol to his head! Hungry, cold, desperate, unarmed–his pistols had gone with his horse over a precipice–he threw up his arms, and was instantly chained fast to Desborough’s saddle, only to be loosed, he knew, by the gallows.

Without a word on either side they began their terrible journey. They had gone two or three miles before Hawker said: “That young fellow I shot when you were after me, is he dead?”

“By this time,” said Desborough. “He was dying as I came away.”

“Would you mind stopping for a moment, captain? Now tell me who was he?”

“Mr. Charles Hawker, son of Mrs. Hawker, of Toonarbin.”

Desborough told me his wild, despairing cry rang in his ears for years afterwards.

* * * * *

One wild, dreary day in spring, Major Buckley and I were admitted to the condemned cell in the gaol in Sydney. Before us was a kind of bed place. On it lay a man with his face buried in the pillow. I advanced towards him, but the governor held me back.

“My God, sir,” he said, “take care! Don’t, as you value your life, go within length of his chain.”

The handsome head was raised, and my eyes met George Hawker’s. I could not see the fierce, desperate villain who had kept our country-side in terror so long; I could only see the handsome, curly-headed boy who used to play with James Stockbridge and myself in Drumston churchyard! And, seeing him, and him only, I sat down beside him, and put my arm round his neck.

I don’t want to be instructed in my duty. My duty as a magistrate was to stand at the farther end of the cell, and give this hardened criminal a moral lecture. But I only hung there, with my arm round his neck, and said, “Oh, George, George!” like a fool.

He put his hands on my shoulders, and looked me in the face, and said, after a time, “What! Hamlyn? Old Jeff Hamlyn! Jeff, old boy, I’m to be hung to-morrow.”

“I know it,” I said. “And I came to ask if I could do anything for you.”

“Anything you like, old Jeff,” he said, with a laugh, “so long as you don’t get me reprieved. I’ve murdered my own son, Jeff. Do you know that?”

I answered, “Yes, I know that, George; but you did not know who he was.”

“He came at me to take my life,” said Hawker. “And I tell you, if I had guessed who he was, I’d have blown my brains out to save him from the crime of killing me.”

The major came forward, and held out his hand to George Hawker, and asked him to forgive him; he had been his enemy since they first met.

“Let me tell you, major, I feel more kind and hearty towards you and Hamlyn for coming to me like this than I’ve felt towards any man this twenty years. Time’s up, I see. I ain’t so much of a coward, am I, Jeff? Good-bye, old lad, good-bye!”

That was the last we saw of him; the next morning he was executed with four of his comrades.

* * * * *

After all this, we old folks taking up our residence at Baroona had agreed to make common house of it. We were very dull at first, but I remember many pleasant evenings, when we played whist; and Mary Hawker, in her widow’s weeds, sat sewing by the fireside contentedly enough.

But one evening next spring in stalked Tom Troubridge; and, in short, he took her off with him, and they were married. And I think I never saw a couple more sincerely attached than she and her husband.

* * * * *

Ravenshoe

“Ravenshoe” was Henry Kingsley’s second novel, and it was published in 1862, when its author was thirty-two years old. It will always rank with “Geoffry Hamlyn” as Henry Kingsley’s best work. These two books were their author’s favourites among his own novels, and Charles Ravenshoe was one of his two favourite characters. It has been said that “Ravenshoe” is “alive–the expression of a man who worked both with heart and brain,” and few would care to dispute that opinion. For study of character, wide charity of outlook, brilliant descriptive writing–as, for instance, in the charge at Balaclava, and real, not mawkish, pathos–as in the hopeless misery of Charles, invalided, with only eighteen shillings, out of the army–“Ravenshoe” will always deserve to be read. It is the work of a writer who was not ashamed to avow himself an “optimist.”

_I.–Charles Loses His Brother and His Home_

In 1820 Densil lost both his father and mother, and found himself, at the age of thirty-seven, master of Ravenshoe–an estate worth L10,000 a year–and master of himself.

Densil was an only son. His father, Peter Ravenshoe, had married Alicia, daughter of Charles, Earl of Ascot.

The Ravenshoes, an old West of England family, were Catholics; but Densil’s second wife (his first wife died childless in 1816) was a Protestant, and made her husband promise that all her children, after her first born, should be brought up Protestant.

Mrs. Ravenshoe bore Densil two sons: Cuthbert, born 1826; Charles, born 1831.

On the night Charles was born his mother lay dying, and Densil swore to her he would keep the promise he had made. And to this vow he was faithful, in spite of the indignation of Father Mackworth, the resident Catholic priest at Ravenshoe.

The doctor insisted that a nurse was an immediate necessity, and James Horton, Densil’s devoted servant and head keeper, suggested his wife, Norah; a proposal that had the doctor’s immediate approval.

In due time Charles went to Eton and to Oxford, where he was rusticated for a term with his friend Lord Welter, Lord Ascot’s eldest son, and fell in love with Adelaide, a penniless young lady, who acted as companion to old Lady Ascot.

At Ravenshoe, Charles and Mackworth seldom met without a “sparring match,” for to the priest it was intolerable that this house should, in the event of Cuthbert dying childless, pass into Protestant hands.

On the other hand, it was natural that a considerable amount of familiarity, and a most sincere and hearty affection, should exist between Charles and his servant and foster-brother, William Horton. Till Charles went to Shrewsbury he had never had another playfellow, for his brother Cuthbert was reserved and bookish; and the friendship between the two had grown with age.

One other inmate of Ravenshoe must be mentioned–this was little Mary Corby, who was saved miraculously from the wreck of the Warren Hastings when Charles was about ten. She was the daughter of Captain Corby, and when the ship went down in fifteen fathoms of water, the mate, assisted by fishermen, and encouraged by Densil, managed to get the little girl to shore, and to Ravenshoe–for the house was not far from the cliffs.

In spite of Densil’s letters and inquiries, no friends came forward to claim little Mary, then a child of nine, and in three months she was considered as a permanent member of the household. And the night before Charles went to school he told her of his grand passion for Adelaide.

On the day of the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, when Charles rowed three in the winning boat, Densil Ravenshoe died, after two days’ illness. Old James Horton’s death occurred at the same time. Charles hurried home in time for the funeral, and when all was over a servant came up to him, and asked him would he see Mr. Ravenshoe in the library? Charles entered the library with William, who had also been sent for.

Charles went up silently and kissed his brother on the forehead. For a few minutes Cuthbert neither moved nor spoke, while Charles greeted Mackworth civilly. William stood at a little distance, looking uneasily from one to another.

Cuthbert broke the silence, and as he spoke Charles, by some instinct, laid his hand on William’s shoulder.

“I sent for you,” he said, “on business which must be gone through with, though I expect it will kill me. I should like to prepare you for what is to come, but the blow would be equally severe whether you expect it or not. You two who stand there were nursed at the same breast. That groom on whose shoulder you have your hand now is my real brother; you are no relation to me–you are the son of the faithful old servant whom we buried to-day with my father!”

Charles at once asked for proofs and witnesses, and Mackworth took up the tale.

“Your mother was Norah, James Horton’s wife. James Horton was Densil Ravenshoe’s half-brother, and the illegitimate son of Peter. She confessed to me the wicked fraud she practised, and has committed that confession to paper. I hold it. You have not a point of ground to stand on. You have been living in luxury and receiving an expensive education when you should have been cleaning out the stable.”

Charles’s heart died away within him.

“Cuthbert,” he said, “you are a gentleman. Is this true?”

“God knows how terribly true it is!” said Cuthbert quietly.

Father Mackworth handed the paper, signed by his mother, to him, and Charles read it. It was completely conclusive. William also read it, and turned pale.

Cuthbert spoke again in his quiet, passionless voice.

“My intention,” he said, “is to make a provision of L300 a year for this gentleman, whom till the last few days I believed to be my brother. Less than twenty-four hours ago, Charles, I offered Father Mackworth L10,000 for this paper, with a view to destroying it. You see what a poor weak rogue I am, and what a criminal I might become with a little temptation. Father Mackworth did his duty and refused me!”

“You acted like yourself, Cuthbert. Like one who would risk body and soul for one you loved. But it is time that this scene should end. I utterly refuse the assistance so nobly offered. I go forth alone into the world to make my own way, or to be forgotten. It only remains to say good-bye. I leave this house without a hard thought towards any one in it. I am at peace with all the world. Father Mackworth, I beg your forgiveness. I have often been rude and brutal to you. Good-bye!”

He shook hands with Mackworth, then with William, and lastly he went up to Cuthbert and kissed him on the cheek; and then walked out of the door into the hall.

“I am going to follow him, wherever he goes,” said William. “If he goes to the world’s end, I will be with him!”

_II.–Charles Loses Himself_

Charles fled from Ravenshoe for London in the middle of the night, determined that William should not follow him. But he could not bear to go out and seek fortune without seeing Adelaide. So he called at Ranford, Lord Ascot’s seat, only to learn that Adelaide had eloped with Lord Welter. The two were married when he afterwards saw them in London.

Charles had to tell his story to old Lady Ascot, and when he had gone she said to herself, “I will never keep another secret after this. It was for Alicia’s sake and for Peter’s that I did it, and now see what has become of me!”

In London, Charles Ravenshoe committed suicide deliberately. He did not hang himself or drown himself; he hired himself out as groom–being perfectly accomplished in everything relating to horses–to Lieutenant Hornby, of the 140th Hussars; and when the Crimean War broke out, enlisted, under the name of Simpson, as a trooper in Hornby’s regiment.

On October 25 Charles was at Balaclava. They went down hill, straight towards the guns, and almost at once the shot from them began to tell. Charles was in the second line, and the men in the front line began to fall terribly fast as they rode into the narrowing valley. It was impossible to keep line. Presently the batteries right and left opened on them, and those who were there engaged can give us very little idea of what followed in the next quarter of an hour. They were soon among the guns–the very guns that had annoyed them from the first–and Charles, and two or three others known to him, were hunting some Russian artillerymen round these guns for a minute or so.

He saw also at this time a friend of his–a cornet–on foot, and rode to his assistance. He caught a riderless horse, and the cornet mounted. Then the word was given to get back again, and as they turned their faces to get out of this terrible hell, poor Charles gave a short, sharp scream, and bent down in his saddle over his horse’s neck.

It was nothing. It was only as if one were to have twenty teeth pulled out at once. The pain was over in an instant. His left arm seemed nearly dead, but he could hold his reins in a way. He saw Hornby before him, and his own friends were beside him again, and there was a rally and a charge. At guns? No. At men this time–Russian hussars–right valiant fellows, too. He could do but little himself. He rode at a Russian, and unhorsed him; he remembers seeing the man go down. They beat them back, and then turned and rode–for it was time.

As the noise of the battle grew fainter behind them, he looked around to see who was riding beside him and holding him by the right arm. It was the little cornet. Charles wondered why he did so.

“You’re hard hit, Simpson,” said the cornet. “Never mind. Keep your saddle a little longer. We shall be all right directly.”

Charles looked down, and noticed that his left arm was hanging numbed by his side, and that a trooper was guiding his horse.

Soon they were among English faces, and English cheers rang out in welcome to their return, but it was nothing to him; he kept his eye, which was growing dim, on Hornby, and when he saw him fall off his saddle into the arms of a trooper, he dismounted, too, and staggered towards him.

The world seemed to go round and round, and he felt about him like a blind man. But he found Hornby somehow. Presently a doctor was bending over him.

Later, they found Hornby dead and cold, with his head on Charles’s lap. Charles had been struck by a ball in the bone of his arm, and the splinters were driven into the flesh, though the arm was not broken. It was a nasty business, said the doctors. All sorts of things might happen to him. Only one thing was certain, and that was that Charles Ravenshoe’s career in the army was over for ever.

At home they all believed him dead, for William had traced him to Varna, and there had been informed that his foster-brother had died of cholera. The change of name was partly responsible for this, for among the dead or living there was no signs of Charles Ravenshoe.

But he recovered, after a long spell in the hospital at Scutari, and after a time was sent home to Fort Pitt. But that mighty left arm, which had done such noble work when it belonged to No. 3 in the Oxford University Eight, was useless; and Charles Simpson, trooper of the 140th, was discharged from the army, and found himself on Christmas Eve in the street with eighteen shillings and ninepence in his pocket, wondering blindly what the end would be, but no more dreaming of begging from those who had known him formerly than of leaping off Waterloo Bridge.

_III.–The Last Eighteen Shillings_

Charles’s luck seemed certainly to have deserted him at last. He had got to spend his Christmas with eighteen shillings and a crippled left arm, and had nothing left to trust to but his little friend, the cornet, who had come home invalided, and was living with his mother in Hyde Park Gardens.

The cornet welcomed him with both hands, and, hearing from Charles of his plight, said, “Now, I know you are a gentleman, and I may offend you, but, if you are utterly hard up, take service with me. There!”

“I will do so with the deepest gratitude,” said Charles. “But I cannot ride, I fear. My left arm is gone.”

“Pish! Ride with your right. It’s a bargain.”

Then Charles went upstairs, and was introduced to the cornet’s mother.

He accepted his new position with dull carelessness. Life was getting